On Friday, November 14, the Hines College community gathered on campus to celebrate the College’s 80th anniversary in an unconventional way – with an un-gala. Designed to capture the energy and joy of a gala without the formality, the un-gala invited alumni, friends, faculty, staff, and students to reconnect while raising funds for emerging design technologies at the College.

With three new full-time faculty this academic year, the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design is deepening its expertise in historic preservation, design and urbanism, and user experience and user interaction design (UX/UI), advancing its mission to lead and innovate in these pivotal areas.

Take a seat — the winners of the annual SIT Furniture Design Awards include four industrial design students from the Hines College! Camila Campos, Mary Leath, and Diya Suresh Nair were part of associate professor and industrial design co-director Jeff Feng’s INDS 3500 studio. Rachel Feine (M.S. ’25) entered the competition independently, wanting to explore playful, modular design in furniture to foster imaginative play.