Phi Beta Kappa Honors Krumwiede

“That’s what the effective teachers I had expected
me to do,” said Krumwiede, the G.S. Wortham Assistant
Professor of Architecture, who won the $2,000 Phi Beta Kappa
Teaching Prize for 2002. The award, given by the Rice chapter
of a national fraternity whose members were the top students
in their graduating class, is designed to recognize younger
faculty members.

Krumwiede joined the Rice faculty six years ago. He teaches
various graduate courses in architecture, and his favorite
is the first semester of the graduate core for students
with a nonarchitectural background.
“I get to work with students coming in with some preconceptions
but no strong biases about methodology and techniques,”
Krumwiede said. “It’s interesting to work with
people as they’re developing their skills and introduce
them to new ways of seeing the world. You can break down
their misconceptions about what architecture is and what
architects do.”

The students who are new to architecture have an extremely
high energy level, Krumwiede said. “They’re thirsty
to do and see as much as they can. If you offer them a lead,
they’ll come back with more than you ever expected.”

As a teacher, Krumwiede places a priority on constantly
challenging his students and setting the bar high. “The
good students will always step up and meet or exceed any
challenge you set up for them,” he said.

Krumwiede finds that the students challenge him as well.
“When you teach, you have to consistently articulate
what your ideas are about,” he said. “So I’m
constantly redefining what it means to be an architect and
trying to articulate my passions much more clearly.”

In his advanced option studios, Krumwiede prefers to challenge
the students with real issues that demand new architectural
thinking. “I work a lot in my own practice with nonprofit
groups who are traditionally underserved by architecture,”
he said. An affordable house Krumwiede designed for the
Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation will be built
this summer in Houston. “I find that by using similar
problems in the studio, students are compelled to engage
the world and invent new roles for architecture and for
themselves as architects.”

An alumnus of Southern California Institute of Architecture
(SCI-Arc) in Los Angeles, Krumwiede “stumbled”
into teaching when a colleague had to give up her position
at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and
recommended Krumwiede to the dean. “The rewards were
immediate,” Krumwiede said about his teaching appointment.

He prefers the more intimate setting at Rice to that of
SCI-Arc, which is three times the size of the Rice School
of Architecture. “Rice has one of the top architecture
programs in the country, and the caliber of students here
is incredible, both at the graduate and undergraduate level.
We have smaller numbers of students, which is great in terms
of how much time faculty can spend with them.”

Ken Andrews, a graduate student whom Krumwiede taught in
his first option studio course, remembers him as being incredibly
knowledgeable.