Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

Concrete is durable, inexpensive and ubiquitous. But is it sustainable? That question is being put to the test as students from the Sam Fox School Design & Visual Arts and the School of Engineering & Applied Science prepare for Solar Decathlon 2017.

Laser-cut skirts. 3D-printed shoes. A glittering top of sewn confetti. On Sunday, April 23, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will present its 88th Annual Fashion Design Show at Third Degree Glass Factory. The event will feature dozens of models wearing scores of outfits by six junior and eight senior fashion design students.

Celebrated painter Laylah Ali (MFA ’94) will receive the Dean’s Medal for outstanding contributions to the field of art from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. In all, seven outstanding alumni will be recognized during the school’s annual Awards for Distinction dinner April 6 for demonstrating creativity, innovation, leadership and vision in their respective fields.

Filmmaker Ericka Beckman (BFA ’74) and visual artist Ian Weaver (MFA ’08) are recipients of the inaugural Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Award.

Four renowned illustrators have donated artworks to the D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library, part of Washington University Libraries’ Special Collections, in honor of celebrated alumnus and illustrator Jack Unruh, who died last year.

Segregation is no accident. Nearly five decades after the Fair Housing Act of 1968, American cities remain racially, culturally, spatially and economically divided. In this Q&A, Catalina Freixas, assistant professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, discusses St. Louis, segregation and the hidden histories that shape our urban landscape.

While President Trump’s proposed $970 million budget cuts in the arts and humanities account for less than one-tenth of a percent of savings in the administration’s $1.1 trillion federal budget plan, the effect could gut culture and diminish quality of life across the United States if not the world, say experts at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Kemper Art Museum is accepting proposals for the spring 2018 Teaching Gallery. The gallery is an exhibit space dedicated to exhibiting works from the museum with ties to university curricula. Proposals are due by May 12.

Pedro Pitarch has won the 2016-17 James Harrison Steedman Memorial Fellowship in Architecture. The $50,000 grant, which supports international travel for research, is one of the largest such architecture awards in the United States. Pitarch, who was chosen from a field of 100 applicants, will use the grant to explore the intersection of public and private spaces in cities across Europe, Asia and the United States.

In the last year, dozens of books by university faculty and alumni hit the shelves. Here we share just a small selection of the noteworthy tomes that are making an impact on literature, research and best-seller lists.