Summer Design Camp! Big Orange and Big Design

UT Summer Design Camp

Our 2025 Summer Design Camp will be in person and offered to students from all over the region and nation!

We are excited to welcome campers to campus for a week of immersive design learning and exploration.  Hold this week in you’re interested in joining us!

JULY 13 – 19, 2025

Commuter Option // This includes camp tuition, programming fees, and all meals (breakfast, lunch & dinner).  Students will arrive on campus by 8 AM and depart after dinner around 6:30.  There may be additional programming that commuter campers are welcome to stay for (swimming, games, etc.).

Residential Option  // This includes camp tuition, programming fees, six nights university dorm accommodation in a 2-person/1 private bath suite, and all meals (breakfast, lunch & dinner).  Campers move in by 2 PM on Sunday, July 13 and depart by 2 PM on July 19, following wrap-up celebration bbq lunch. 

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What you will experience:

• Learn how to communicate information and ideas using foundational design principles including color, pattern, space, form and composition
• 2D and 3D analog and digital representation techniques.
• Design topics including theory, history, technology and professional practice.
• A glimpse into design education at the University of Tennessee!

Campers traveling from near and far will work with award-winning faculty and upperclassmen students who will help guide them through design exercises and projects.  We’ll explore Knoxville and get our hands dirty!  A kit of supplies will be provided to each camper upon their arrival to campus.  This kit will include materials and tools to make and create.

Curiosity is the sole prerequisite.

Come spend a week with us this summer in a UT design studio to learn about design and your place in it during our summer design camp for high school students. You’ll learn about architecture, interior architecture and graphic design and how they impact the world.

This camp is for creative, problem-solving, out-of-the-box thinkers. It’s a July design-immersion experience that offers motivated high school students an introduction to design and how design impacts the human experience.

You’ll also learn a lot about yourself and the world, and you’ll probably meet lifelong friends.

No Experience Needed

Previous architecture, interior architecture or design experience is not necessary.  If you’re a rising freshman, sophomore, junior or senior in high school and have an interest in design and how it impacts the world, this is your place.  Just bring your creativity and curiosity

What’s a typical week?

Camp days will be filled with a variety of design exploration in both the studios of our Art + Architecture building and in/around UT campus and downtown Knoxville. Throughout the week, you will be introduced to Architecture and Design faculty and be engaged in both digital and analog activities that challenge the way you think about design. We will be offering one-on-one guidance as you explore your kit of parts and use these components to make and create. We will share meals in our campus dining halls and fun evenings painting the rock, swimming in the Olympic size campus pool or kicking the soccer ball around on the recreation fields.