CRSS Architects

Caudill Rowlett Scott (CRS)

CRS building, called the "White House", in Houston, Texas
Former type	Architecture firm
Successor	CRSS or CRS-Sirrine
Founded	1946
Defunct	1994 (1994)
Headquarters	Houston, Texas, United States
Key people	William Wayne Caudill John Miles Rowlett Wallie Eugene Scott Willie Peña, Jr. Tom Bullock
Services	Architectural design, specializing in schools, commercial buildings, and skyscrapers

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. The partners were joined in 1948 by Wallie Eugene Scott, Jr. (1921–1989), who was Caudill's student.William Merriweather Peña, another student of Caudill's was hired in 1948. He was the first employee and in 1949, he was made a partner. He expressed that it would be best to keep the company name with the first three partners names rather than extending it with each new partner. In 1954, Thomas A. Bullock, Sr. (1922-2007) became a partner.

In the 1950s, they were known for building schools, 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 San Angelo, Texas, the Central High School was constructed with an open design, having 13 buildings on a campus. It was the first fully air-conditioned school in the country. Using the outdoors as an aesthetic, they designed a glass-walled and domed gymnasium in Brownsville, Texas for St. Josephs Academy. The editor of ArchitectureWeek stated that "they became known as masters of modern practice and construction management." 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.