Architecture University courses

In course titles, designates fall term, designates spring term, and designates summer. [Bracketed courses are not offered in 2016–2017.] The School reserves the right to change the prescribed course of study as necessary.

Design and Visualization

Sunil Bald and John Eberhart, Study Area Coordinators

This study area encompasses required studios, elective advanced studios, and courses that concentrate on design logic and skills and that support design thinking and representation.

For the M.Arch. I program, required courses in this study area include a core sequence of four design studios, the first-year building project, two advanced studios, a course in formal analysis (1018a), and a four-stage sequence of courses that deal specifically with visualization methodologies. The core studio sequence progresses from spatially abstract exercises to more complex programs that require integrative thinking at various scales and situated on sites of increased complexity, while integrating ecological, landscape, and tectonic demands. In all four stages of the visualization sequence, hand, digital, 2-D, and 3-D methods are explored. The first course (1001c) of this visualization sequence is a summer course required for entering students who have not had significant prior architectural training. The next three courses (1015a, 1016b, and 1017c)—in the fall, spring, and early summer of the first year—are required of all M.Arch. I students.

For the M.Arch. II program, required courses in this study area include a core design studio (1061a), three advanced studios, and a course in computation analysis and fabrication (1062a).

Technology and Practice

Michelle Addington and Kyoung Sun Moon, Study Area Coordinators

This study area explores fundamental theories and methods of building technologies and the relationships among these technologies, architectural design, and the larger natural environment. Courses examine materials, construction, structural systems, and the environmental technologies that provide healthy, productive, sustainable, and comfortable environments. This area also covers professional practice and examines the relationship between methods of construction, procurement, and management. Advanced courses investigate specific technical systems in greater detail, survey emerging methods and technologies, and explore the relationship between building technologies and architectural design in current practice and writings.

For the M.Arch. I program, requirements in this study area include six courses that survey common technical systems used in buildings and integrate the consideration of these technical systems into architectural design through a series of projects of increasing complexity. In addition, there is a required course on architectural practice.

History and Theory

Keller Easterling and Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Study Area Coordinators

This study area explores the relationship between design, history, and theory through a broad range of courses in which the analysis of buildings, cities, landscapes, and texts supports the articulation and criticism of fundamental concepts, methods, and issues. Historical and contemporary projects and writings are studied in context and as part of the theoretical discourse of architecture.