[1][2] During the Great Depression, enrollment decreased and the school made changes to its alternating schedule of classes and cooperative education for male students.

[10][11][12] Students alternate between working as paid employees in design firms and attending classes, giving them experience that enables them to easily enter the workplace after graduation.

The Aronoff Center, which ties together the three older buildings and houses the college library, cafeteria, auditorium, art supply store, and photography lab, was designed by Peter Eisenman and opened in 1996.

[1] The three-story brick and stone building was designed by architect James E. Allen and contained a lecture room, art gallery and library.

The team was selected amongst five internationally known architects: Arthur Erikson, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, and James Steward Polshek.

[15] The architects had all been asked to lecture students, faculty and the public during the interview process for the audience to better understand challenges and potential solutions of the expansion and renovation project at the university.

While some of the faculty did not like the new design, Dean Jay Chatterjee in The Cincinnati Enquirer had the philosophy "that the building should be at the edge... We need something for the future and not repeat the past.

The soft blue, pink, grey, and green unparallel building has an 800-foot-long central concourse runs through it that expands and contracts both vertically and horizontally.

[19] Located in the university's main campus in Cincinnati, Ohio, DAAP is consistently ranked as one of the most prestigious design schools in the U.S. and the world.