Architectural Studies

Students are expected to have a well-developed liberal arts education as well as a fundamental understanding of the values of architectural design as a method for engaging the material and cultural aspects of place. In addition, students will have the ability to develop complex ideas and communicate in verbal, written and graphic forms.

Students will understand the historic evolution of architectural design against the context of culture and society at large, including pressing issues such as social equity, global citizenship, ecological resilience, and agency. They will be able to position themselves with regard to both the processes of design and civic society, politics, and ethics. They will have a respect for diversity and the relationship between human behavior and the physical environment. They will understand the fundamental role of the architect in society and their ethical responsibility to sustain and preserve the environment within which they construct.

Students will have developed skills of research, including: how to build an argument, construct a question, propose a research agenda, and conduct formal analysis to explore complex problems of various scales and complexities, as well as composition, theoretical perception, critical thinking and the qualitative assessment of design and its processes. This will be demonstrated through the integration of research and design, writing and craft, analysis and production. The design skills will demonstrate an understanding of distinct scales of operation including urban context evaluation, site design, building program development and concept design, building systems, constructability, and detail and material development.

Students will learn to value the activist potential of architecture and its allied fields, to think and act at various scales, and to be cognizant of their positionality in relationship to others. They will be able to analyze diverse communities and cultural phenomena and interpret the same in architectural terms. Finally students will be able to identify their own cultural patterns and put them into comparison with cultural patterns different from their own.