Historic Canal Street spans from the River of shipping and French Quarter tourism, through Main Street retail architecture, then urban commercial strip, past mysterious cities of the dead', and finally to modernist, planned communities out along Lake Pontchartrain. Beginning with the first architecture courses taught in 1894, the Tulane faculty has involved itself with both preservation of our historic environment, and design of significant new forms responsive to contemporary values. Richardson Memorial is located on the oldest and most beautiful quadrangle on the Tulane campus, near New Orleans' prestigious St. Charles Avenue. The large old oaks in the quadrangle shade a patio between the building's second-level entrance terrace and the quad's spacious lawn and all three are favorite spots for gatherings ranging from the annual graduation ceremony and reception, to outdoor class sessions, to informal discussions and school events. Every student in the school is assigned a desk in one of these studios each semester.
Studios are accessible at all hours for design and other course work.
The School's administrative offices are located on the third floor of Richardson Memorial. The Mintz Computer Center houses computer assisted design- instruction within the School. The School of Architecture Computer Lab is both a Windows and a Macintosh environment. Auto CAD is a three-dimensional program with solid and vector modeling capabilities, Auto Desk 3D studio has modeling, rendering and animation capabilities. The Mintz Computer Center also supports applications such as word processing, spreadsheets and data base.