Regnier Named as USC Architecture Dean

Victor Regnier, associate professor of architecture and gerontology at USC, has been named interim dean of the USC School of Architecture for a one-year period effective July 1.

The search process for a full-time dean will resume in the fall, school officials said.

Regnier succeeds Robert Harris, who, after a sabbatical leave in the fall of 1992, will return to the USC faculty as a professor of architecture.

Regnier, who holds the only joint appointment between a school of architecture and a school of gerontology in the United States, conducts research oriented toward the social and behavioral impacts of design on older people, children and the homeless. He specializes in behaviorally based architectural programming and post-occupancy evaluation.

Regnier is the author of “Housing for the Aged: Design Directives and Policy Implications,” as well as other books dealing with community planning and the evaluation of environments for special populations.

He is finishing two books that chronicle and evaluate design aspects of housing experiences in the United States and northern Europe for mentally and physically frail older people. His European research was funded by several awards, including a 1991 Fulbright Senior Research Award.

At the School of Architecture, he teaches design and conducts a seminar dealing with programming, research methods and site analysis.

Regnier joined the USC faculty in 1983. Before that, he taught in the graduate program of design in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

This coming year, Regnier hopes to focus the School of Architecture’s efforts on the development of several new courses for non-majors and the creation of a continuing education program aimed at involving practicing professionals more directly in school activities.