Architecture Program At SDSU

South Dakota State University continues to grow each year, and along with the student growth, there’s also more programs opening up for students.  

Department head, Brian Rex, started working at South Dakota State University last year.  That’s when the architect program on the campus opened up to students, after nearly ten years of planning.

“South Dakota being one of the last five states that doesn’t have an architect program decided, they need to get an architect program,” Department Head Brian Rex said.

Rex, who’s taught architecture for 15 years across the country, including universities such as Texas Tech, and the University of Nebraska Lincoln says that it’s a great experience to bring a new program to campus. 

“I’ve never been in a university without a school of architecture, and I had no idea what it would be like,” Rex said.

 Rex says that by the time the students currently enrolled in the program graduate and get their license to be architects, 75% of the current employed architects in the state, will be at retirement age.

With it continuing to grow each year as more incoming freshman enter the program, soon the department will be operating with a full class of students.

“When we’re running at full speed in less than five years from now, we’ll have about 225 students, we expect, 8 full-time faculty and then lots of instructors,” Rex said.

One of those instructors being Geoff Graff, who just joined the department this school year.

“This opportunity arose and the opportunity to be involved with a new school a new program, it’s a very rare and unique opportunity and I’ve been fortunate to get involved with that,” Instructor Geoff Graff said.

With those new instructors comes the need for more space.

“We’re going up for a new building which will be built in two to three years and that will be the back side of Solberg Hall,” Rex said.

Which will give this only architect department in the state of South Dakota, more room to grow.

Brian Rex has a lot of experience teaching Architecture in schools across the nation.  Hear more about his past experiences and what drove him to South Dakota State University.

Finally, Geoff Graff just moved here this year to be part of the growing program on campus.  Hear more about his background and what experience he has in Architecture.  

If you're interested in the architecture department, contact Brian Rex:  brian.rex@sdstate.edu  

You can also visit the architecture department:

 located in room 108 of the Intramural Building 
on the South Dakota State University campus.