Hyatt’s Creative Makes Crucial Gift to Hayes Hall Renewal
Longtime School of Architecture and Planning donors Gregory Hyatt and Hyatt’s All Things Creative have just reinforced their support with a new scholarship and a major gift to the Hayes Hall restoration and renovation.
Hyatt’s All Things Creative has been a go-to resource for generations of architectural students, providing architecture supply kits to freshmen and materials for faculty and special projects. Now the Buffalo business and longtime donor to the school is advancing the restoration and renewal of Hayes Hall, a UB icon and home to the school since 1975.
Hyatt’s gift to Hayes Hall is part of a major new line of support to the school by the 50-year-old family business. Hyatt’s has also reinforced its support of the Hyatt Design Awards, which for years have provided freshmen with cash awards for supplies. The newly created Gregory Hyatt Scholarship offers merit- and need-based tuition awards to three sophomores a year. These three gifts will be recognized, in part, through the naming of Hayes Hall’s first-floor student reception area and fourth-floor critique space.
Company President Gregory Hyatt has been personally involved with the School of Architecture and Planning since 1975. He says Hyatt’s philanthropy is based partly on supporting a portion of the company’s customer base — students — but far more on what he describes as a bedrock belief: investing in a resource that contributes so much to Buffalo. “If you care about Buffalo and believe in Buffalo, you need to support the School of Architecture and Planning. This school is an incredible and unusual asset for a community our size,” he says. “The school’s presence has clearly helped this city enormously.”
The style of education provided by the School of Architecture and Planning also uniquely prepares students for the profession today, a capacity to be enhanced by the state-of-the-art learning spaces in Hayes Hall, says Hyatt. “The school really trains people to solve problems at every scale, from holding two materials in your hand and figuring out how to join them to understanding society’s cultural aspirations for their built environment.”