Read lining UHD9 renovation

For a University of Houston downtown (UHD) campus renovation, the school's administration asked us to convert the entire ninth floor of a 1929 cotton warehouse into executive administrative offices, including those of the president, vice president, provost, and human resources department. In response to this task, we posed two primary questions: How can we combine "high-end" and "low-end" materials to alter typical expectations of how a university administrative office should and should not appear? How can we challenge assumed differences between use and appearance, part and whole - and, ultimately, between student and administrator - to produce a space that suspends hierarchical preconceptions and produces a more open "etiquette" for dialogue?