Facilities
Recitation Hall
Mac Lab / Department Office / Design & Illustration / Recitation Gallery / Visual Communications
Visual Communications includes lecture/demonstration classrooms and undergraduate studio spaces for sophomores, juniors and seniors.
The Mac Lab, our computer lab, has 32 Apple Mac workstations, located in classroom and auxiliary work spaces, as well as the latest high-end software and hardware to meet our graphic and media needs.
Recitation Gallery exhibits contemporary work of artists and designers as well the Senior BFA exhibitions.
The architect for this historic building was the famous Frank Furness of Philadelphia. A renovation in 1963 attempted to hide the Victorian qualities of the building. The building recently underwent a major renovation. Listed on the National Register of Historic Sites.
The Studio Arts Building
Ceramics / Critique / Laser Cutter / Printmaking / Raven Press / Sculpture
The Studio Arts Building is a premier facility housing Ceramics, Printmaking, Sculpture, Raven Press and undergraduate and graduate studios and faulty offices.
The Sculpture area includes a woodshop and metal shop with state-of-the-art equipment.
Ceramics includes, an open studio, a large kiln room, a glaze room and clay room.
Printmaking includes dedicated spaces for etching, lithography, silkscreen and a digital lab with large format Epson printers and a laser cutter.
Raven Press, an experimental letterpress printing facility with an extensive collection of wood and lead type.
- Two student exhibition and critique spaces are available for all disciplines.
Taylor Hall
Lens Media / Taylor 022 / Painting
Taylor Hall houses Painting, Lens Media, and Foundations Design.
Painting includes two large classrooms as well as senior BFA painting studios.
Lens Media includes photo and video classroom and seminar spaces, a lighting studio, darkroom, and a large digital/electronic project space.
Taylor 022 is the experimental media and electronic arts lab.
Photo, video and other equipment is located in the lower level available for students to loan.
Recitation Annex
Built with funds made available through the Hatch Experiment Act, the Recitation Hall Annex was originally the laboratory of the Agricultural Experiment Station of Delaware College. The building currently houses graduate studios.
The recently renovated building was designed by Wilmington architect Lewis R. Springer. Listed on the National Register of Historic Sites.
Photography has expanded to encompass every context for the expression of ideas made through the lens, for the screen, and over time. The Lens Media studios support experimental and traditional work in photography, video, animation, and electronic art. The basement and first floor of Taylor Hall houses a black and white darkroom, lighting studio, sound recording room, equipment cage, individual project areas, and a flexible electronic project space for media arts, digital imaging, physical computing, analog electronics, and kinetic work.
One traditional black and white chemical-based lab, remodeled in 2010, has fifteen enlarging stations and supports investigations of traditional black and white processing, alternative and non-silver processes, and analog/digital combinations.
The electronics project space, conveniently located next to the darkroom, is equipped with computer stations (Macintosh and PC) with a full array of software dedicated to motion graphics, digital photography, sound editing, and non-linear digital video editing (Final Cut Pro, Adobe Creative Suite, Soundtrack Pro and open source software), a large format flatbed scanner, medium format printer, animation stands, professional audio/video viewing space, and electronic kits and workbenches for physical computing.
Our lighting studio is constructed with flexibility in mind and allows students to use natural light and/or controlled lighting situations. The prop room and dedicated equipment includes various paper and cloth backdrops, Arri Fresnel tungsten light kits, strobe lights, Smith Victor scoop lights, portable green screen, and basic gels and grip gear such as light stands, softboxes, diffusors, c-stands, and portable boom pole.
The equipment cage is the one-stop location for students to access all video and photo gear including Canon HV40 HDV Camcorders, Canon GL2 Camcorder, Canon XH-A1s HDV Camcorder, Panasonic AG-HMC-150, Fluid Head tripods, Poorboy SteadyCam, Digital Projectors, Headphones, 4 X 5 format camera kits, Holga Cameras, Digital SLRs and lenses, Smith Victor hot light kits, Lowel Light Kits, and Novatron Strobe Light Kits.
The recording room provides students an opportunity to experiment with recording sound effects, and voice over in a sound enhanced space with access to Zoom Digital Audio Recorders, Audio-Technica Lavaliere Microphones, RE50 Dynamic Omni-directional Microphones, and Rode Directional Condenser Microphones.
The Printmaking studios at the University of Delaware include spaces for traditional and digital processes for our students that reflect the area's emphasis on integration. The three adjacent workspaces include presses for etching, relief, and lithography, as welll as large-scale digital printers, and two exposure units for screen printing.
Beyond these facilities there is a separate studio for senior Art majors and spacious light-filled individual studios for graduate students.
Specific equipment includes:
- Etching/Litho studio: three relief/etching presses, two lithography presses, and a well-ventilated space for acid etching.
- Digital Printmaking: an Epson Stylus Pro 9900 inkjet printer, Epson Stylus Pro 9880 large format inkjet printer.
- Screen-printmaking: a variety of screens of different sizes, two exposure units, a separate room for photo emulsion, and a phogravure exposure unit.
The Sculpture Area makes use of a cross-disciplinary approach to creating and producing art. The design of this area is to provide dedicated students access to the tools, equipment and workspace needed to create exceptional three-dimensional artwork. Together with Ceramics and Printmaking, the Sculpture studios are situated in a fully modernized 20,000 square feet building.
The Sculpture studios are divided into three large work areas and three specialized spaces. The Metal studio has a 2-ton crane and forklift and is equipped with ARC, MIG and TIG welders, oxy/fuel and plasma torches, gear head mill, drill press and other standard stationary equipment.
The Main studio has a 30 feet high ceiling and can be utilized for lager scale projects. There is also a paint spray booth in the space along with a 20" and 14" metal bandsaws, shear, slip roller, tubing roller, brake and bender. The Wood Studio is fully equipped with a planer, joiner, panel saw, miter saw, 5hp table saw, scroll saw, lathe and multiple sanders.
Other spaces include a plaster, plastics, and sandblasting room and a large combined studio space for undergraduates. Semi-private graduate studios are conveniently located just outside the studio spaces. in addition to this, there is a large outdoor work area, which is used for aluminum casting, storage and individual project fabrication.
The UD ceramics studios are sizeable and feature industry-standard air filtration systems throughout. Graduate students have large separate studios, and the main classrooms include adjoining home studio space for advanced undergradate students. There is a plaster room shared with the sculpture studios.
- Kiln room: 2 down-draft kilns with forced air burners (both 59 cu. ft.), 10 top-loading electric kilns (including one 16.5 cu. ft.), 2 test kilns, a selection of portable gas raku and salt kilns.
- Studio classroom: ample hand-building areas and accommodations for large-scale work, 18+ electric wheels, 2 slab rollers, pneumatic and manual extruders.
- Raw materials/clay-mixing room: raw material storage, 2 clay mixers, pugmill, and large-capacity scales.
- Glaze room: stainless workstables, 2 spray booths, ball mill, digital scale, and fully-stocked chemical closet.
The Studio Arts Building houses two large multi-use critique spaces that are available for classes as well as individual students to check out for use. Students may use the spaces for temporary installations, faculty use the spaces for group critiques. Taylor Hall and Recitation Hall also provide group critique spaces as well as installation space.
Raven Press is an experimental letterpress printing facility located on the second floor of the Studio Arts building near Old College (North) campus of the University of Delaware. The press is maintained by Art & Design Department professors Bill Deering and Ashley Pigford who advocate for the importance of typography and physical processes in the education of Visual Communications students.
Students are encouraged to use this press to experiment with typographic form and physical composition of the printed page as part of a Visual Communications curriculum that balances traditional and modern technologies. The physical nature of letterpress printing is a unique component of the Visual Communications Program at the University of Delaware and offers students a breadth of experience vastly different than most graphic design programs in the U.S.
The Visual Communications London Study Abroad program's close association with The Royal College of Art, University of the Arts, Alex Cooper, Rose Gridneff and Ian Mortimer instigated the creation of Raven Press. Visual Communications' faculty members have maintained strong ties to London's preeminent graphic designers including the late Alan Fletcher (founding member of Pentagram) who designed the Raven Press logo.
The press enjoys support from the University of Delaware Library, Mark Samuels Lasner, the English and Art Conservation departments and the Center for American Material Culture Studies. Through generous donations from all over the country, the press currently maintains a 20" X 30" R. Hoe Washington style hand press, a Vandercook 219, Universal 1, and Number 3, over 800 cases of metal type and 2500 individual pieces of wood type in a 200 square foot studio space.
Workshops and tours are available, please contact Bill Deering, bdeering@udel.edu or Ashley Pigford, design@udel.edu.
The Department of Art & Design has two resource spaces, one in Studio Arts and one in Recitation Hall. These spaces are available for students to do research, have discussions, and develop understanding of current design and artistic practice. Each space contains magazines, journals, and other current publications on a variety of issues regarding contemporary artists and designers, and each space has furniture and wall-space that can be organized for different types of research. Students may check out keys from the Equipment Cage to use the spaces.
The Recitation Gallery is located on the first floor of Recitation Hall located on North campus and is one of the University's oldest buildings. The gallery serves the Department of Art & Design as a rotating exhibition space and is primarily used for visiting artists, undergraduate and graduate students. The exhibition schedule provides contemporary exhibitions to a wide range of audiences.
The Art & Design Department main office is 104 Recitation Hall. The friendly staff are available to answer questions and solve problems.
Important
Building/Studio Access for Studio Arts, Taylor Hall, Recitation Hall - UNDERGRADUATES are not allowed in the buildings after the buildings are locked.
If UD offices are closed (e.g. for holidays and inclement weather), then the Art & Design department buildings are closed, too.
Studio Arts Building
Open building hours:
| Monday through Friday: | 6 am* - 12:30 am |
| Saturday and Sunday: |
10 am - 12:30 am |
Open Studio hours for each studio area (Ceramics, Sculpture, Printmaking, Computer workroom) will be posted outside each area. Open studio hours are based on Studio Monitors being scheduled and available.
* 6am is typical, but the buildings open during the week when the custodial staff unlocks them.
Taylor Hall / Equipment Cage / Studios
Open building hours:
| Monday through Friday | 6 am* - 12:30 am |
| Saturday and Sunday | 10 am - 12:30 am |
Taylor Hall Gallery:
Hours are posted outside the gallery.
Open studio hours (lens media):
Open Lab/Studio hours will be posted outside the Equipment Cage / General Darkroom Lab located on the ground floor. Lab/Studio hours will be based on Studio Monitors being scheduled and available.
Open studio hours (painting):
Open Lab/Studio spaces will be open during Open Building hours.
* 6am is typical, but the buildings open during the week when the custodial staff unlocks them.
Recitation Hall
Open building hours:
| Monday through Friday | 6 am* - 12:30 am |
| Saturday and Sunday | 10 am - 12:30 am |
Recitation Hall Gallery:
Hours are posted outside the gallery.
The computer lab, 203 Recitation is only open during posted hours. Open Lab/Studio spaces will be open during Open Building hours. Visual communication studio areas are only open to students holding keys, and only during open building hours.
* 6am is typical, but the buildings open during the week when the custodial staff unlocks them.
