Caudill Rowlett Scott

Caudill Rowlett Scott (CRS) was an architecture firm founded in Houston, Texas, the United States in 1946. In 1983, J. E. Sirrine, an industrial engineering firm, merged with the company and the company's name was changed to CRSS, popularly known as CRS Sirrine. It divested itself in 1994.

The firm was started in 1946 by Texas A&M University professors William Wayne Caudill and John Miles Rowlett (1914–1978), first in Austin, Texas and soon after were located in College Station, Texas. In 1954, Thomas A. Bullock Sr. (1922 2007) became a partner. In the 1950s, with a "lean and clean" style. The schools, generally one story, had simple designs with classrooms on one side of a corridor, maximization of windows for lighting and ventilation, and shed, flat, or gabled roofs. In 1958, CRS moved their office to Houston from Bryan, Texas. They began designing hospitals and had designed school and university buildings in eight countries and 26 states by 1969. documented and promoted by William "Willie" Peña in Problem Seeking: An architectural programming primer in 1969 with a CRS programmer, John Focke. Its concepts were incorporated into the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) in 1973, and it has become a standard architecture textbook. It was listed on the American Stock Exchange in 1971. In 1983, J. E. Sirrine, an industrial engineering firm, became part of the company and the company's name was changed to CRSS, popularly known as CRS Sirrine. The Sirrine arm of the firm continued to pursue engineering work, much of it in the pulp and paper industry, while the architecture group continued to focus primarily on architecture related work. Eventually, the corporation also developed a core group which focused on businesses related to both architecture and industrial engineering. CRS Capital became involved in reinsurance for A/E related firms and became involved in development of power generation facilities. In 1994, a few years after the death of Scott, CRSS began divesting itself, selling off the architectural group to HOK of St. Louis and the Sirrine engineering division to Jacobs Engineering Group of Pasadena, California.

In 1972, CRS Architects received the Architecture Firm Award, the highest award of the American Institute of Architects. In 1975, the firm was given the prestigious Albert S. Bard Award for their design of the Salanter Akiba Riverdale Academy. In 2005, it was named "Firm of the Century" by Texas A&M University College of Architecture (in which the CRS Center is now housed).