The University’s School of Architecture occupies several of a number of post war barracks on the campus that were turned into graduate student housing. Some remain dorms. Some serve the School of Architecture. These long, thin three story international style buildings were the work of Marilyn Manley, Florida’s first woman architect, and for this reason have enjoyed a certain regard at the school. They are well lit buildings affording occasionally beautiful views of the campus. They are well ventilated, being thinner than any modern buildings on campus. Nonetheless, they are inadequate and slightly mean as modern classrooms, and they are environmentally dated.

The city of Coral Gables abandoned part of Dickinson Drive in order to create a site for the school’s expansion. The Manley buildings are casually splayed about this part of campus, leaving irregular spaces, and no clear approach to the school. Four demonic  dorm towers  rise just beyond  the site,  to the southwest.

The University’s master plan calls for the elimination of most of the Manley dorm buildings in the long term, as it transitions to a more formal campus plan with a stronger relationship with U. S. Highway 1. The Manley buildings of the School of Architecture, however, will be preserved and updated in a second building phase.

The site plan organizes the school and the immediate vicinity around an octagonal lecture hall and a long thin gallery. The abandoned Dickinson Drive has been reconnected for limited campus traffic. An existing bus turnaround remains. The hall and its tower and lantern will command the north approach to the school, stealing most of the sting of the dorm towers. When the master plan is fully implemented the octagon and lantern will serve to draw people from the transit stop and new building initiatives along Highway 1 to the east, a relationship that currently remains unrealizable.