The college is housed in a facility consisting of four buildings: Frederick H. and Eleanora C.U. Alms Memorial Hall (1952, known simply as Alms), DAA Addition (1956, now referred to as the DAAP Building on most signage in the complex), the Wolfson Center for Environmental Design (1972), and the newest addition, the Aronoff Center. The Aronoff Center, which ties together the three older buildings and houses the college library, cafeteria, auditorium, art supply store, and photography lab, was designed by
Peter Eisenman and opened in 1996.
Alms The Alms Memorial Hall opened on October 17, 1952 for the cost of $200,000 in memorial of Frederick H. and Eleanora C.U. Alms. It was located on a knoll in
Burnett Woods.
Aronoff Center In 1988,
Peter Eisenman was commissioned to design what would become the Aronoff Center along with Lorenz & Williams of Cincinnati. The team was selected amongst five internationally known architects:
Arthur Erikson,
Michael Graves,
Charles Gwathmey, and
James Steward Polshek. The project was anticipated to cost $20.8 million. The architects had all been asked to lecture students, faculty and the public during the interview process for the audience to better understand challenges and potential solutions of the expansion and renovation project at the university. Eisenman's planned addition united the existing buildings of DAAP, sloping down a hill and adding studios, a theater, library photography darkroom, and offices with an atrium between the old and new buildings. While some of the faculty did not like the new design, Dean Jay Chatterjee in
The Cincinnati Enquirer had the philosophy "that the building should be at the edge... We need something for the future and not repeat the past. If we don't do things at the edge of our profession, who will?" The
Stanley J. Aronoff Center opened in 1996 with wide acclaim, costing $35.3 million. The soft blue, pink, grey, and green unparallel building has an 800-foot-long central concourse that expands and contracts both vertically and horizontally. The concourse serves as circulation for the building, linking a central atrium with studios, auditoriums, a library, a cafeteria, and offices. The 140,000 SF building links with the old building doubling the size of the college. At its time of completion, the University was already recognized as "one of the most architecturally dynamic campuses in America" and the project – along with the
Wexner Center for the Arts and the
Greater Columbus Convention Center – helped solidify Eisenman's reputation as a leading architect and architectural theorist. ==Student groups==