Professor Thomas Howe, Professor of Art and Art History and Chair of Art History, took all the students from his introductory architecture studio to visit several recently built houses in the Austin area which were outstanding examples of high quality design. The students’ major project for the semester is designing a house to a specific program on a real site, and the AIA tour regularly occurs when the students have finished their preliminary exercise and are beginning the process of starting their design. Howe requires the students to bring their sketchbooks and attempt to draw the plan and analyze the design geometry of the houses which they visit.