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The Bachelor of Science in Architecture (B.S. Arch) program is a rigorous course of study centered on the design studio, where students work closely with faculty in their explorations of architectural design across a broad range of scales. Associated courses in visual representation, history, theory, technology, and professional practice inform and enrich students' responses to studio challenges. Student learning is enhanced by two semesters of cooperative work experience as well as study abroad options. All entering freshmen are admitted to the four-year B.S. Arch program. During the junior year, students focus their educational interests by choosing one of the three concentrations outlined below.
Undergraduate Concentrations in Architecture
The undergraduate program in Architecture offers three areas of concentration, which allow students to pursue a particular focus within their study of architecture. The core architectural education is equivalent across concentrations, and all achieve the same learning outcomes. All students are required to select a concentration at the end of their first semester in junior year.
Urbanism
This concentration explores architecture’s capacity for engaging urban systems and landscapes in the Anthropocene, economics and social justice, and the larger forces of history and culture operating on and through the built environment. It challenges students to explore the interplay between complex social, cultural, and ecological systems as a form of design research and empowers young professionals to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries and provide leadership in reshaping our cities.
Emerging Technologies
This concentration builds knowledge and skills in the technologies that are transforming the discipline and profession of architecture. It explores emergent design techniques, materials, construction methods, digital fabrication, computational software, and media of architecture. It offers students an understanding of the principles and applications of technologies that are central to shaping architectural modernity and the future of the built environment.
Adaptive Interventions
This concentration investigates architecture as it relates to design interventions, adaptations, and transformations of existing conditions, communities, and contexts. It explores how built architectural works engage complex social, political, economic, environmental, historical, and disciplinary forces—and how to re-engage those changing forces when adapting or intervening in an existing setting. If the most sustainable building is one that already exists, this concentration establishes strategies for capitalizing on our built fabric while imagining inventive ways to transform buildings and urban environments from past generations.
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The Bachelor of Science in Architecture is a four-year program that begins in the fall of the student’s first year and is intended to be completed in the spring semester of the fourth year. In their third year, students select one of three concentrations – Urbanism, Emerging Technologies, or Adaptive Interventions – as the focus of their advanced coursework during junior and senior years.
Visit the Course Catalog for information about program requirements.
For an overview of the year-by-year experience in the Bachelor of Science in Architecture program, see "What You'll Learn" below.
Architecture (Program) on Display
Each academic year, Architecture students develop skills that they build on in the following year, starting from drawing through group projects designed for the community.
What You'll Learn
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Year 1
You’ll establish a foundation for your Architecture program by taking Studio 01 & 02, which will instill core techniques of visualization and representation that you’ll use throughout the program. In the spring, you’ll take Architectural Media, which advances students' fundamental knowledge of various media and fabrication processes used to generate, manipulate, communicate, and produce architecture today.
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Year 2
Second year architecture students expand their knowledge with courses in history & theory, the materials that builders work with and best ways to utilize energy & resources in architecture. You’ll continue your work in Studio 03 & 04 that require students to apply more advanced concepts to solve real world problems.
In the summer, you’ll begin the first of two required co-ops.
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Year 3
You’ll continue in Studio 05 and take Structures 02, where you’ll learn the structural properties of major construction materials and learn to design beams, slabs, columns, and foundations in wood, steel, and concrete.
In the spring, you’ll go on your second required co-op to gain more hands-on industry experience.
Third-year students choose one of three concentrations in Urbanism, Emerging Technologies, or Adaptive Interventions. In the summer semester, you'll take your first concentration seminar, which surveys the history and theory of your chosen concentration.
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Year 4
You’ll continue work in your chosen concentration, which integrates into your studio projects. You’ll also have the opportunity to pursue electives in several different focus areas of architecture.