The undergraduate professional program is five years in length and leads to the Bachelor of Architecture, a first professional degree accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB). The program is directed at a limited number of highly qualified students who are committed to the study of architecture. These students are admitted directly to the professional degree program (there are no later separate admission points), and begin studies in architecture in the first year.

Design   Students enroll in design studio each semester. The studios present a wide range of design issues, beginning with the development of the tools, skills, and judgments that underlie the production of architecture. Skills: The hand is as important as the computer in the representation of ideas. The ability to freely manipulate space, surface, structure, and texture is central to the reformation of architecture. Tools: Confidence in the technologies that form architecture is an essential support to creativity. Judgments: The projects of the school are premised on the continual evolution of architecture as a manifestation of the social, economic, political, and technological forces within the culture. All the design studios draw broadly on the exceptional range of urban and architectural contexts within reach of the campus from the historic towns in upstate New York to the great cities of the region - New York, Boston, Montreal, and Philadelphia.

The design studio brings together the many aspects of architecture. There are no singular, provable, or perfect answers to any of the problems presented. Students explore and develop their design proposals based on their growing knowledge of architecture and the emergence of their own ability. The early semester-long studios introduce students to the full range of issues, skills, and judgments encountered in design; they initiate and reinforce design as critical inquiry. The remaining studios focus on significant concerns in architecture. They are “vertical” in that they include students in different class years, and they present choices of project and faculty. Among these is the design development studio in which a prior project is subjected to detailed structural, mechanical, and construction materials considerations.

History and Theory   A required four-course sequence presents the diversity of architectural works and ideas relative to the contexts within which architecture emerges, and to key historical and theoretical issues in the field. Following this sequence, students may take additional advanced architectural history/theory electives as a part of their professional or free elective selections, and are required to take at least one history elective from the listing of professional electives.

Technology and Building Science   Technological issues are introduced from the beginning as essential to the conception and making of architecture. New technologies can be the generatives of form and inhabitable space. A series of required technology courses consider both qualitative and quantitative views of the technologies of building, including statics and strength of materials; basic structures and framing; design of wood, steel, and concrete structures; criteria for selecting building materials and systems; environmental controls, including heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing, and electrical systems; sensory environment, including the luminous, acoustical, and tactile environments; codes and contract documents. Integration of technological considerations is central to many of the studios with a focused emphasis on the integration of building technologies and the act of making in a required upper level design development studio.

Computing   Computer competency is central to the future of the professional practice of architecture. From the first year, students are able to expand their knowledge and skill through course work with key computing concepts and applications—in some cases integrated within the design studios—and through independent experimentation in the many computer labs at the School and Institute. Apart from well supported general purpose labs, the School is installing high-end multimedia environments within the many design studios. Students have access to the latest in 3-dimensional design software, virtual reality programming tools, and video and multimedia production hardware and software to investigate the value of these technologies to critical design practice. Students may experiment with immersive 3-D, VR collaboration, or video and animationbased investigations of architectural and urban form. The most advanced software from film production and VR-based manufacturing has been incorporated in an environment designed for digital collaboration.

Professional Electives   The School of Architecture offers many professional electives in such topics as architectural and urban history and theory, technology, computing, building economics, practice and management, architectural lighting and acoustics in architecture. Professional degree students must complete at least 16 credits from these offerings either building on a specific interest or sampling the breadth and diversity inherent in the field. A minimum of four of those credits must be from a designated list of history electives. In addition to regularly-offered electives (described here), the faculty offer a number of topics or experimental courses as professional electives. Example courses include, but are not limited to:

B. Arch. Project 1 and 2   The five year B.Arch. program of study concludes with an individually initiated, planned, and developed comprehensive project. Planning begins in the fourth year and is developed in an exchange of ideas with and a critique by a faculty adviser and review committee. This program begins with a short competition project in which all take part. It is followed by an integrated design research phase lasting the remainder of the first and throughout the second semester. Student proposals are developed in the context of published statements of interest from the faculty. The final project is an opportunity to bring together the students experiences to date. This may be approached as a synthesis of previous work, emphasizing application of gained knowledge at a level significantly beyond that already reached by the student. Alternatively, experiences to date may be used as a base from which to explore and to innovate. The final project is an opportunity to develop one’s point of view about architecture and its place in the world, to question conventions, habitual responses, and routine approaches to architectural design, and to investigate issues that the student sees as significant to architecture.

Other Course Work   Course work in the arts, sciences, humanities, and social sciences required to complete the Institute core requirements is structured to provide exposure and breadth to each of these areas. From an extensive list of course offerings, students are required to complete 8 credits in Math, 12 in Science, and 20 in Humanities and Social Sciences (see Institute core requirements for greater detail). In addition students have 16 credits of free electives, which can be used to further focus a concentrated area of study, pursue a minor or dual major, or as a means of further broadening exposure to a range of disciplines.

Degrees   Completion of this program results in the award of the professional Bachelor of Architecture degree, which requires 160 credit hours and is accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board.

B.Arch. Curriculum

1. Four credits of the H&SS core requirements are embedded within the Building and Thinking of Architecture sequence: ARCH-2110, and ARCH-2120.

2. The School of Architecture will require that an undergraduate student’s Institute writing requirement, assuming that this requirement has not been satisfied by other means, be fulfilled by Writing for Classroom and Career (WRIT-1110) or Rhetoric and Writing (WRIT-2110) as a pre- or co-requisite to Contemporary Design Approaches (CDA), ARCH-2130.

A student will formally have to take either WRIT-1110 or WRIT-2110 as a pre or CO-requisite to CDA. If they are able to be exempted from the writing requirement by other means, they will receive a exemption from WRIT-1110, completing the pre/CO-requisite

A student may be exempted from the writing requirement by the following means:
-scoring either a 4 or 5 on the AP English exams,
-scoring a least a 670 on the verbal portion of the SAT,
-receiving transfer credit for an approved college-level writing course taken elsewhere.

3. Four credits of the Institute core Science requirements are embedded within the technology sequence: ARCH-2320, ARCH-2340, ARCH-4700, and ARCH-4750.

4. In general, the recommended course is MATH-1520 Mathematical Methods in Management and Economics offered only in the spring.

5. Urban studio from a predetermined list of choices in one of Design 5 or Design 6 studio choices.

6. Taken in the same semester as Design Development studio.

GENERAL NOTES:

A. Studios are sequential with the exception of the Design Development studio, which may be taken any time after the completion of the Urban studio (Design 5 or 6) and before B.Arch. Final Project 1.

B. Technology courses: ARCH-2320 is sequential and prerequisite to ARCH-4700 and ARCH-2340 is sequential and prerequisite to ARCH-4750.

C. Physical Principles of Design, Design 1, and Design 2 are prerequisites to ARCH-2320 Structures and Construction Systems. Exception, non-architecture majors may take ARCH-2320 Structures and Construction Systems after the completion of Physical Principles of Design or its equivalent.

D. Design Studio 1, Architectural Design 1,2,3,4, the Urban Studio (Design 5 or 6); and ARCH-2320, ARCH-2340, ARCH-4700, ARCH-4750 are prerequisites to the Design Development studio. ARCH-4750 may be taken concurrently with the Design Development studio.

E. During the third and fourth year students must elect to take one Urban studio and one Design Development studio.

F. All Undergraduate students should develop a Plan of Study with their faculty adviser. The degree requires 160 credit hours.

Academic Policies   In addition to Institutewide academic regulations outlined earlier in this catalog, the following pertain to the professional program in architecture:

Advancement in Design   Students earning grades of D or lower in required design courses will be reviewed by the architecture faculty as part of its academic review process. A student earning a D or lower in any subsequent required design course must either repeat the course or take another course specified by the faculty before advancing to the next course in the design sequence. Students who fail to earn a grade of C or better in the repeated or specified course, or who earn a third grade of D or lower in design, may not continue in the design sequence.

Retention of Student Design Work   All drawings and models done by students as part of the instructional program are the property of the Institute until they have been released by the instructor. Certain works may be retained for academic purposes by the School of Architecture at its option.