By Heather Muh
LINCROFT – The architecture program at Brookdale Community College is celebrating its 25th anniversary during this academic year.
“We began the program using traditional hand-drafting tools and methods in 1990,” said professor Edward O’Neill, the head of Brookdale’s architecture program. “We made the significant transition to the digital world in 2001. We now have a full array of digital equipment including computers, scanners, large carriage plotters, a solid modeling machine, and a C&C Laser Cutter.”
Over the past 25 years, Brookdale Community College has grown significantly. The school offered 28 majors in 1989 and 106 majors as of last year. The college’s architecture program has grown right along with it.
According to O’Neill, the program began as a series of random course offerings at the college. In 1989 the state Department of Higher Education approved the development of the program and O’Neill was hired to head it.
“The program at Brookdale began in the technologies division of the college,” O’Neill said. “It was moved to the arts and communications division in 1998 at my urging so as to be in concert with the transfer destinations of our program’s graduates.”
Brookdale is one of five schools in New Jersey that offer programs in architecture. They are Princeton University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Mercer County Community College and Essex Community College. The school currently offers 10 courses in architecture that coincide with the first two-years of education required for a bachelor’s degree.
Brookdale’s program was created to provide students with the chance to pursue careers in architecture and building.
“The program was built upon the premise that access to an architectural education would be open to all, that the diversity of the student population would not only be accepted but celebrated, and that students would be taught to understand the impact of their work upon the everyday lives of members of the society at large,” O’Neill said.
Earning an associate’s degree architecture program at Brookdale means the graduates can transfer directly into the third year of study for five-year baccalaureate programs, O’Neill said.
Brookdale graduates who have completed their associate’s in architecture at BCC have gone on to earn their bachelor’s at schools, including Pratt Institute, Boston Architectural Center and New York Institute of Technology, among numerous others.
The school celebrated the 25th anniversary of the program with a special showcase in the Center for the Visual Arts building on the Lincroft campus earlier this month. Featured in the exhibition were some of the handmade model airplanes designed by professor emeritus James Merrigan, who helped found the program, along with 3D-printed designs, architectural plans and scaled models of projects designed by former students and faculty, including the Parker Family Health Center in Red Bank, designed by O’Neill.
