Architecture & Community Design Major

Program Learning Outcomes

Students will:

• gain a historical foundation of architecture from pre-history to recent developments in the field, through a broad and inclusive approach to the range of social and economic factors affecting the design of world cities and buildings
• develop familiarity with social justice issues in under-served communities and developing regions of the world as well as more traditional perspectives on architectural history
• develop critical skills and methodologies of inquiry, analysis, conceptual development, and resolution and presentation of design ideas
• Learn to integrate aspects of site, program, space, structure and material to create designs for buildings, which also actively respond to the historical, cultural, social and political exigencies of time and place.
• develop analytical tools that give attention to the various historic and social forces that intersect to create the built environment
• gain a solid foundation in technical and conceptual design skills, enabling them to present their architectural ideas visually, verbally and in writing to clients, associates, and communities at the grass roots and municipal levels
• graduate with the knowledge and skills enabling them to facilitate positive change to built environments in the world

Major Requirements (48 Units)

Honors in Architecture and Community Design

The Honors in Architecture and Community Design thesis project is the pursuit of a topic of study over the students’ final two semesters to produce thoughtful, thorough and innovative solutions which can make true contributions to their field. The Honors thesis projects are likely to be in one of three categories:

1. experimental research to determine behavior of an innovative building material or technique
2. architectural/landscape/urban design to address a unique socio‐economic, environmental or cultural design problem
3. a critical written document synthesizing and exploring a theoretical or aesthetic condition arising from an environmental design problem

All projects address issues of social and/or environmental justice. Projects are formally presented at the end of the final semester and submitted to the Library’s Scholarly Repository.