Welcome to the Department of Architecture

Simply stated at CPP ARC we prepare students to become architects. 

To do this we balance the aspirational with the pragmatic. We educate students understand the profession as it exists today and help them to imagine what it might become. Our disciplinary concerns are not about servicing conventional architectural practice but to give students the necessary grounding for them to advance the profession. In our lecture courses and studios we guide students to look to technique, to material and structural possibilities, to digital technology and fabrication, to the principles of sustainability, to the expressive potential of architectural representation, to research and precedents, and to the pragmatic constraints of construction in order to generate appropriate architectural responses to particular situations. Students are also asked to balance these disciplinary concerns with all manner of aesthetic and moral value judgments based on their own biases and those fostered by the faculty.

Having students understand the cultural and aesthetic biases that shape the “profession” as well as having them understand how “professional” knowledge has been constructed is central to being able to create progressive architecture. At CPP ARC students typically begin a design project by evaluating the constraints and opportunities of their design “project” (typically a building, but possibly something smaller, or less concrete, or more expansive). They then develop a formal and material response that is appropriate to the culture that the “project” is being designed to exist within. It is through our disciplinary focus and our emphasis on understanding the cultures we inhabit that we advocate for “architecture’s broader purpose, its public significance, its role in creating sustainable environments, and its provision of service to society.”

Life at CPP ARC

The department host a variety of events for students in collaboration with the student group AIAS. These include: quarterly exhibitions of student work, lecture series, the Neutra Prize, software and portfolio workshops, and an architecture job fair. For event information visit the news/lecture series section of this website.

The Department of Architecture at the College of Environmental Design has made the DesignIntelligence list of the Top 25 undergraduate and graduate architecture programs in the country for the fourth year in a row. The Department of Architecture’s excellence (and top ten status) was noted in several categories:

• Top 25 Undergraduate Programs in the United States: No. 19 Nationally
• Top 25 Graduate Programs in the United States: No. 24 Nationally
• Top 10 Interior Design Program in the United States: No. 10 Nationally
• Top Ten Program in Computer Application in the United States: No. 8 Nationally
• Top Ten Program in Construction methods and Materials in the United States: No. 5 Nationally
• Top Ten Program in Cross-Disciplinary Teamwork in the United States: No. 9 Nationally
• Top Ten Program in Sustainable Design Practices & Principles in the United States: No. 9 Nationally