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Architecture is great! It is a profession in which you can see tangible evidence of improving and shaping people’s lives. It is an almost magical process whereby we take graphite to paper (or perhaps in contemporary terms bits, bytes and pixels) and create palaces, cities and landscapes. Then, through another alchemical process, material such as stone, iron ore, silicon is turned into concrete, steel and glass and assembled into visions which can be occupied. It is both ethereal and real; both a personal expression as well as a political negotiation. The architect has to navigate the needs of the individual client, the expectations of society, and yet express a personal vision.

It is an interesting time to be an architect. The challenges of the profession for the next generation are centered on two issues: that of sustainability and that of information technology. The implications of new technologies both in the production and product of architecture being developed in these areas will have as much impact on the form of future buildings as the introduction of steel, reinforced concrete or even the arch.

The computer is no longer a new tool and the appropriateness of its presence in architecture and the design arts is no longer a question. However, this tool opens a vast new territory to exploration. Embedded within this tool are a new series of practices waiting to be explored. The computer affords us unprecedented ability to visualize our buildings before they are built. Computer drafting improves our work flow, permitting us to standardize and automate the process of iterative making. Not since the invention of perspective have we encountered a more powerful tool for visualization. In addition, the computer is already changing both the way we make and occupy our buildings. “Smart” technologies are in many systems and products. It is a component of new highly efficient buildings, controlling heating and cooling, the opening and closing of skins, admitting and repulsing light, sensing our presence through movement and body temperature.

For the first time in the history of mankind on earth, we are altering the climate. Global warming is a reality; we are seeing its effects today and can only imagine its effects in our lifetime. Our buildings are major contributors to this. We are at the brink of a change in our culture that promises to be as radical as that of industrialization. Industrialization was powered by fossil fuels, and this is ending. Sustainability is just beginning. We need to design our buildings to be zero energy consumers. We need to design our buildings as parts of ecosystems and as ecosystems themselves. Our buildings must radically transform over the coming decades. They need to become productive. We have to envision a future where ecosystems, not energy, do the work of cleaning our air and water, providing our food – and that these ecosystems are the buildings that we inhabit. We have to design the cities of tomorrow much like the cities of the past – places where people lived close to each other and moved under their own power. These are the challenges and the possibilities.

At the same time, some things remain constant. There is still the body in space, and the relationship of that body with other bodies and with the world. There is the unfashionable concept of the beautiful. At Mississippi State, we believe that students are not just being trained for the profession, but they are learning how to learn. We deliver the skills and knowledge base for competent problem solving, but beyond this we seek to develop questioning intellects, citizens of the nation and the world, capable of adapting to coming challenges and leading the practice of architecture for the coming century.