Lucas Boyd Section
Section drawing by Lucas Boyd (M.Arch ‘17)

The Master of Architecture I curriculum provides disciplined instruction in the fundamentals and contemporary state of architecture in a setting that ensures the flexibility and latitude necessary for students to develop their individual talents and skills.

The school believes that the educational experience of its program is enriched by students who have diverse educational backgrounds and, therefore, embraces students who in their undergraduate education have majored in a wide spectrum of disciplines, from architecture to any of the arts, sciences, or humanities. This program, leading to a degree of Master of Architecture (M.Arch.), is for students holding undergraduate liberal arts degrees, such as a B.A. or B.S., who seek their first professional architectural degree. It typically requires three years of full-time residency to complete the degree requirements.

Entering students, with a sound liberal arts background assumed, are required to follow a curriculum in which their creative, conceptual, analytical, and representational skills are developed through a rigorous and structured four-term core design studio sequence that embraces and integrates the multifaceted complexities of architectural design. Architectural design problems in the first-year fall term focus on the interrelationship of representation, space, and form. Spatial and form-making skills are further developed in the spring term with the integration of materiality, site, and inquiries into dwelling. The first year concludes with the Building Project, where students work with an institutional client to undertake the design of an affordable single or multi-family dwelling that is further developed until mid-June, and then realized over the summer. This provides a unique opportunity for carrying the design through the building process to realization. In the fall term of the second year, students explore the interplay of context, community, and architecture through a single term-long project: the design of a public building. The spring term of the second year is devoted to exploring the multi-layered systems that constitute the built environment through an urban design project, where design thinking can extend beyond a single building. In the fall and spring terms of the third year, students, through a lottery system, choose from a variety of advanced design studios, offered by a diversity of leading practitioners, educators, and theoreticians.

The design studios are supported, augmented, and expanded on through required and elective courses from the four area studies that compose the curriculum: design and visualization, technology and practice, history and theory, and urbanism and landscape. In addition, students are encouraged to take elective courses offered by other schools and departments.

Course of Study

In course titles, a designates fall term, b designates spring term, and c designates summer. The School reserves the right to change the prescribed course of study as necessary.

M.Arch I total requirement: 114 credits

Pre-First Year (Mid-Summer)

5090, Architectural Foundations* 0
5091, Fundamentals of Modeling and Fabrication* 0
Total 0

First Year (Fall)

5001, Architectural Design 9
6006, Structures I 3
7001, Architecture and Modernity: Theories & Projects 3
Visualization elective†† 3
Total 18

First Year (Spring)

5002, Architectural Design 2 9
6003, Building Project IL Research and Design 3
6007, Structures II 3
7002, Architecture and Modernity: Sites & Spaces 3
Total 18

First Year (Early Summer)

5092, Visualization and Computation† 3
6004, Building Project II† 3
Total 6

Second Year (Fall)

5003, Architectural Design 3 9
6005, Environmental Design 3
8001, Introduction to Urban Design 3
Elective‡ 3
Total 18

Second Year (Spring)

5004, Architectural Design 4 9
6002, Arch. Practice and Management 3
6008, Systems Integration 3
Elective‡ 3
Total 18

Third Year (Fall)

Advanced Design Studio 9
Elective‡ 3
Elective‡ 3
Elective‡ 3
Total 18**

Third Year (Spring)

Advanced Design Studio 9
Elective‡ 3
Elective‡ 3
Elective‡ 3
Total 18**

If an entering student can demonstrate competence and passing grades from an accredited school in the material covered in any of the program’s required support courses (except for ARCH 6002), that student may request a waiver of those courses. A waiver of any required course, however, does not reduce the number of course credits required to fulfill the program’s degree requirements. Support course waivers are granted by the Curriculum and Rules Committees based upon the recommendations of the course’s study area coordinators. Requests for a waiver must be submitted to one of the course’s study area coordinators within one week of the start of the first term of the student’s enrollment. A transcript, course syllabus, and a notebook or examples of work accomplished must be presented to the study area coordinators.

*This course is required for those students so designated by the Admissions Committee. Typically, this course will be required for students who do not have significant pre-architectural training. This five-week course begins mid-July and concludes mid-August.

†This course concludes in late June.

††Students are offered a selection of course options in the fall term of their first year that satisfy the first-term visualization requirement. Selection is made through a student-run lottery.

‡One elective must be a qualified Visualization elective (in addition to the required Visualization elective taken during the first year of study), one elective must be in the History and Theory study area and must require one or more research papers totaling at least 5,000 words, one elective must be in the Urbanism and Landscape study area, and one elective must be in the Technology and Practice study area. These required electives must be taken within the School of Architecture and may be taken in any term. Students may not substitute independent elective course work to fulfill these requirements.

Program Requirements

Summer Preparation Courses for Incoming M.Arch. I Students

In the six weeks before the beginning of the fall term, the school offers four summer preparation courses that are required of incoming M.Arch. I students.

  1. Architectural Foundations (ARCH 5090). This five-week course is offered at no charge for those newly admitted students who do not have significant pre-architectural training. This course is required only for those students who have been informed in their acceptance letter that they must take this course. Students required to take the summer session must satisfactorily pass this course before being admitted to the school’s first-year M.Arch I program in the fall. Classes are held each day, Monday through Friday. The average day is broken into morning and afternoon sessions. Students are expected to complete assignments outside of class.

  2. Summer Shops Techniques Course (ARCH 5091). This one-week course introduces incoming students to the school’s fabrication equipment and shops. The course stresses good and safe shop techniques. Students are not allowed to use the school’s shops unless they have satisfactorily completed this course.

  3. Summer Digital Media Orientation Course. This two-part course, which occurs during the same week as the Summer Shops Techniques Course, covers accessing the school’s servers, the use of the school’s equipment, and the school’s digital media policies and procedures. This course is required only for those M.Arch. I students who did not take Architectural Foundations (ARCH 5090); see paragraph 1 above.

  4. Arts Library Research Methods Session. This ninety-minute session covers various strategies to answer research questions pertaining to course curricula and topics by using tools such as the Yale University online catalog, architecture databases, image resources, print resources, and archival resources.

School Portfolio

In addition to the 114 satisfactorily completed course credits, a student must satisfactorily complete the portfolio requirement (as described under Academic Regulations in the chapter Life at the School of Architecture) in order to receive an M.Arch. degree. The portfolio requirement is administered and periodically reviewed by the Design Committee.

Academic Rules and Regulations

Procedures and restrictions for the M.Arch. I program can be found in the school’s Academic Rules and Regulations section of the School of Architecture Handbook. This handbook is available online at http://architecture.yale.edu/academics/school-handbook.

National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB)

Design and Visualization 20

5001
Fall 2025
Architectural Design I
Violette de la Selle, Can Vu Bui, Brennan Buck, Nicholas McDermott, Maria Rius Ruiz, Michael Szivos
5003
Fall 2025
Architectural Design 3
Stella Betts
5005
Fall 2025
Independent Design Research Studio I
Bimal Mendis
5007
Fall 2025
Advanced Design Studio
Janet Marie Smith, Alan Plattus, Matthew Rosen
5008
Fall 2025
Advanced Design Studio
Michael Young, Beom Jun Kim
5009
Fall 2025
Advanced Design Studio
Amin Taha, Regina Teng
5010
Fall 2025
Advanced Design Studio: THE KUELAP CONNECTION: The missing Link between the Amazon and the Andes in Peru
Sandra Barclay, Jean Pierre Crousse, Andrew Benner
5011
Fall 2025
Advanced Design Studio
Marlon Blackwell, Gavin Hogben
5012
Fall 2025
Advanced Design Studio
Caitlin Taylor
5013
Fall 2025
Advanced Design Studio
Patrick Bellew, Henry Squire, Timothy Newton
5100
Fall 2025
Animal Houses
Trattie Davies
5103
Fall 2025
Cartographies of Climate Change
Joyce Hsiang
5104
Fall 2025
Composition and Form
Peter de Bretteville, Emily Abruzzo
5105
Fall 2025
Drawing and Architectural Form
Victor Agran
5106
Fall 2025
Geometric Translations
Sunil Bald
5109
Fall 2025
Ink
Michelle Fornabai
5110
Fall 2025
Small Objects
Timothy Newton, Nathan Burnell, Joel Greenwood, Paul Shamble
5114
Fall 2025
The Plan
Brennan Buck
5115
Fall 2025
Virtual Futures
Beom Jun Kim
5116
Fall 2025
Ruins, Ruination & Reuse
Mark Foster Gage

Technology and Practice 10

6001
Fall 2025
Advanced Building Envelope Design
Anna Dyson
6005
Fall 2025
Environmental Design
Mae-ling Lokko
6006
Fall 2025
Structures I
Kyoung Sun Moon
6101
Fall 2025
Bad Buildings: Decarbonization Through Reuse, Retrofit and Proposition
Tess McNamara
6102
Fall 2025
Building Disasters: When Things Go Wrong
John D. Jacobson
6105
Fall 2025
Exploring New Values in Design Practice
Phillip Bernstein
6106
Fall 2025
Introduction to Architectural Robotics
Hakim Hasan
6108
Fall 2025
Regenerative Building Research
Alan Organschi
6111
Fall 2025
Technology and Design of Tall Buildings
Kyoung Sun Moon
6113
Fall 2025
The Mechanical Eye
Dana Karwas

History and Theory 14

7001
Fall 2025
Architecture and Modernity: Theories & Projects
David Sadighian
7104
Fall 2025
Capital Building: Histories of Design and Accumulation
David Sadighian
7105
Fall 2025
The Automatic Promise: Architecture’s Computer Dismembered
Francesca Hughes
7107
Fall 2025
Architecture Reconstructed
David Gissen
7108
Fall 2025
Domo Ludens: Modern Art and Architecture at Play
Surry Schlabs
7111
Fall 2025
Knowledge Sharing Spaces
Summer Sutton
7115
Fall 2025
Race and the Built Environment
Jordan H. Carver
7116
Fall 2025
Semiotics
Francesco Casetti
7121
Fall 2025
Urban Century: Theorizing Global Urbanism
Vyjayanthi Rao
7123
Fall 2025
Sensing Space: Architecture, Technology and Human Embodiment
Joel Sanders
7124
Fall 2025
Architecture and Disability
David Gissen
7126
Fall 2025
Destruction, Continuation and Creation: Architecture and Urbanism of Modern Japan
Yoko Kawai
7128
Fall 2025
An Atlas of Postmodernism
Mark Foster Gage
7129
Fall 2025
Extrastatecraft: Global Infrastructure to Planetary Solidarity
Keller Easterling

Urbanism and Landscape 5

8001
Fall 2025
Introduction to Urban Design
Elihu Rubin
8107
Fall 2025
History of Western European Landscape Architecture
Bryan Fuermann
8108
Fall 2025
Housing Connecticut: Developing Healthy and Sustainable Neighborhoods
Andrei Harwell, Kate Cooney, Anika Singh Lemar
8111
Fall 2025
Introduction to Planning and Development
Joseph B. Rose
8117
Fall 2025
Out of Date: Expired Patents and Unrealized Histories
Anthony Acciavatti