The College of Design building opened 35 years ago in 1978 and combined the curricula of architecture, landscape architecture and interior design from other colleges into the newly formed College of Design.

The curricula of architecture was formerly in College of Engineering, landscape architecture was formerly in College of Agriculture, interior design and art and design were both formerly in College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

Now, the College of Design is one of only a half-dozen, comprehensive design schools in the nation mixing different disciplines under one roof.

The College of Design offers nine undergraduate majors: architecture, landscape architecture, art and design, biological/pre-medical illustration, community and regional planning, design (interdisciplinary), graphic design, industrial design and integrated studio arts.

The College of Design building was constructed in 1978, and additions to it were built in 1999. It took up 163.028 square-feet of space. The building is built with two, six-story, non-rectangular parallelograms connected at the top with smoke gray glass, creating an impressive skylight which runs the length of the building.

The shadows created by the framework of the skylight, changes the patterns across the walls of the building, depending on the location of the sun.

In August of 2009, the King Pavilion was added to the north side of the primary college building. The King Pavilion has a total of 23,735-square-feet and it is the first LEED Platinum-certified higher education building in Iowa by U.S. Green Building Council.

LEED is USGBC’s rating system for designing and constructing the greenest, most energy-efficient and high-performing buildings and Platinum is the highest rating given. King Pavilion is now the new home for all first-year students in Core Design Program and upper-level students in architecture, interior design and landscape architecture programs.