Graduate Programs

Master of Architecture I

Image Credit: Dave Hardy (2021-2022)
Image Credit: Dax Maxiglat (2021-2022)
Image Credit: Catherine Brizo, Joel Cardenas, Shyanne Sonnenberg (2021-2022)

The M Arch I program invests in the project as the vehicle of thought, learning, and change. First is a foundation year of skill-building, followed by two vertically integrated, comprehensive, year-long studies, each working closely with two or three faculty members. Other consultants collaborate and tutor at different times throughout the year.

Many students come into the program driven by questions they are seeking to address. Our project-focused format provides a place — a scaffold — to engage these questions within the context of an architectural studio and the discipline of a project. The time we give to these projects promotes a dialogue among professors and classmates, where the ambition is for all of us to learn to ask better questions.

The project covers the conventional areas of architecture — design, history, critical thinking, structure, material assembly, building science — and also allows for the professors’ interests and the students’ interest to commingle. Projects are substantial and cross-disciplinary because of the time we allocate to them — a rehearsal for the practice of architecture that so many of our students engage in upon graduation. New York City serves as our open library, our lab, our inspiration, our call to change, our call to keep up with change. The city invites us to participate, perhaps to lead, but mostly to contribute in the discussion of what our world is and how better we might live in it.

Spitzer School grad programs share a teaching, research, and design environment known as the unit system. Within year-long, team-taught, vertically integrated design units, upper-level students and professors work together to define questions and propose design solutions. Just like in the professions, students synthesize diverse skills and subject areas into their projects. Check out this year’s design units.

All undergraduate backgrounds are welcome in the M Arch I program; its prerequisites are one semester of both college-level precalculus and physics.

HOW TO APPLY

Accreditation

The Master of Architecture I program is accredited. See the NAAB section of this site for more information and links regarding accreditation.

STEM Designation

Both the M Arch I and MS Arch programs are listed within the U.S. government’s official STEM fields list and are therefore eligible for the STEM OPT extension for F-1 students. See the STEM OPT Hub for more information.

Total Program Credits: 108

Per-semester course load: 18 credits

First Year

Fall Term 1

ARCH 61001: Digital Techniques

ARCH 61100: Architecture Studio 1.1

The first in a sequence of four core design studios, this course introduces students to critical thinking, the fundamental principles of sustainable design, professional drawing conventions and model making techniques. The subject of domestic architecture is explored with special emphasis on the relationship between building and site in non-urban contexts. Through the investigation of landform and climate as well as the social dimensions of dwelling, students explore architecture as a negotiation between cultural and natural environments. All exercises are designed to develop the student’s abilities to translate spatial concepts into physical design proposals.Corequisites: ARCH 61001 Digital Techniques, ARCH 62301 Materials/Construction S

ARCH 61201: Survey of World Architecture 1

This is the first of a four-semester sequence that examines the physical forms of world architecture and related arts. It analyzes the built environment in response to place, politics, culture, and the people who use it. This semester students will study architecture from the Neolithic period to the 14th century in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Two lectures and an advanced seminar are required weekly.

ARCH 62301: Materials/Construction S

ARCH 73500: Site Design

Spring Term 2

ARCH 62001: Visual Studies

ARCH 62100: Architecture Studio 1.2

The second core studio builds upon the experience of the previous studio through a series of increasingly demanding design problems.Using Manhattan as a laboratory, students are introduced to the urban context and address a medium-scale institutional building with a nuanced and complex program. Through the rigorous study of building precedents and site visits, students address the role of architecture in the public realm.

Corequisites: ARCH 62001 Visual Studies, ARCH 61301 Materials/Construction L

ARCH 62201: Survey of World Architecture 2

This is the second of a four-semester sequence that examines the physical forms of world architecture and related arts. It analyzes the built environment in response to place, politics, culture, and the people who use it. This semester students will study architecture from the 15th to the 18th centuries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Two lectures and an advanced seminar are required weekly.

ARCH 61301: Materials/Construction L

ARCH 62401: Structures 1 - Introduction to Structures

Second Year

Fall Term 3

ARCH 73100 : Architecture Studio 1.3

The third core studio focuses on sustainable housing. In turn, the emergent scales and patterns of sustainable housing become the operative means to address and examine larger urban design concerns. Students work in teams and consider socio-economic factors, urban density and morphology in the design of housing solutions in complex and multi-layered urban contexts. Emphasis is placed on the research of urban and building precedents as well as on the use of environmental modeling and visualization tools to measure and integrate complex data into housing solutions.

Prerequisite: ARCH 62100 Studio 1.2

ARCH 73201 : Survey of World Architecture 3

This is the third of a four-semester sequence that examines the physical forms of world architecture and related arts. It analyzes the built environment in response to place, politics, culture, and the people who use it. This semester, students will study architecture in the 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. Two lectures and an advanced seminar are required weekly.

ARCH 71301 : Building Modeling

ARCH 00000 : Elective

Spring Term 4

ARCH 74100 : Architecture Studio 1.4

The fourth and final studio in the four-semester core sequence focuses on building systems integration, structural systems, and technical documentation. In this integrative design studio students develop a building from schematic design through design development, and finally through the construction documents phase. With an emphasis on energy efficiency, this studio provides students with an opportunity to synthesize the knowledge they have acquired in their core studies with respect to program preparation, sustainable design and building technology.
Prerequisite: ARCH 71301 Building Information Modeling
Corequisite: ARCH 73401 Structures 2

ARCH 74501 : Environmental Systems

This course will focus on the performance of buildings relative to environmental impact and operational response. Starting with the building’s skin, systems will be understood as being in contact and in manipulated exchange with the thermal, luminous and acoustic environment surrounding them, to serve the ambiance and comfort of the interior. Basic knowledge of exchange, distribution and regulation will be related to construction and mechanical systems. The goal is to integrate structural, mechanical and spatial requirements to make appropriate choices during the design phase, allowing students to understand the building as a holistic regulated environment.

ARCH 73401: Structures 2 – Design of Structural Elements

ARCH 85201 : Survey of World Architecture 4

This is the fourth in a four-semester sequence that examines the physical forms of world architecture and related arts. It analyzes the built environment in response to place, politics, culture, and the people who use it. This semester students will study architecture in the 20th and 21st centuries in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. Two lectures and an advanced seminar are required weekly.

Third Year

Fall Term 5

ARCH 85101 : Advanced Studio

Students explore a range of research-driven advanced studio options developed to engage topics within the expansive discipline of architecture, and reflective of the expertise and interests of the full design faculty. Studio project sizes, types and sites will vary, along with pedagogical methods. Course is taken two times in sequence to meet third-year M Arch program requirements.Prerequisites: ARCH 74501 Environmental Systems, ARCH 85201 Survey 4

Corequisite: ARCH 85200 Design Seminar

ARCH 85200 : Design Seminar

ARCH 85300 : Advanced Computing

ARCH 85600 : Professional Practice

This course introduces students to the professional practice of architecture with a special emphasis on the challenges facing architects that maintain a strong design emphasis. This course covers the general organization of the profession and its relation to client, community, and the construction industry; new management techniques, information organization and retrieval, project delivery, construction and construction documents, cost control, legal surety, contracts, and financial management.