New buildings to open in time for fall semester

A place for architecture

After three years of planning and building, the new College of Architecture home is finished and will be ready for classes in the fall.

Gould Hall will house architecture, construction science, interior design, landscape architecture and regional and city planning, university spokesman Chris Shilling said.

Architecture professors moved in and got settled into the building during the summer, Shilling said.

Architecture students worked in the old Hobby Lobby building on Main Street while renovations to Gould Hall were in progress, according to Daily archives.

The new building was scheduled to open in January, but there were construction setbacks due to problems with asbestos, according to Daily archives.

The renovations to Gould Hall include a larger studio area for architecture students to work in, state of the art lecture facilities and a large gallery to showcase architecture projects, Shilling said.

“Because they expanded and added further lecture facilities and offices and other studios, it is bringing all the departments of the college of architecture under one roof,” Shilling said.

This includes the five divisions of the college, which are architecture, construction science, interior design, landscape architecture and regional and city planning, Shilling said.

The date for the Gould Hall dedication ceremony was not set at press time.

Social work's new home

OU’s School of Social Work will have its own building, and it will be open for classes in the fall.

Zarrow Hall, located at the corner of Brooks Street and Elm Avenue, has been under construction since March of 2010 but will be open for classes in the fall, said Donald Baker, School of Social Work director.

The school used to be located in Rhyne Hall, which was originally the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house, according to Daily archives.

The building is named after Henry Zarrow, an entrepreneur and philanthropist from Tulsa who contributed greatly to bettering issues of mental health and the homeless, Baker said.

Social work deals with working homeless and other needy members of Oklahoma, Baker said.

“Henry and Anne Zarrow’s philanthropic orientation is very compatible with the professional view of social work,” Baker said. “Henry Zarrow will be honored by the school’s board of visitors as the social work leader of Oklahoma.”

Zarrow Hall includes four first-floor-level classrooms, a community room and two clinical suites to be used for practical skills within social work, Baker said. The new hall also will house a computer lab that will be used by the arts and sciences department, she said.

The building will be officially dedicated the end of August.