SCI-Arc’s M.Arch 1 is a three-year, seven-semester program leading to a Master of Architecture degree accredited by National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), allowing graduates to pursue architectural licensure for professional practice in the United States.
M.Arch 1
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Open to students who hold an undergraduate degree in any field of study, the M.Arch 1 program at SCI-Arc is where applied research and cross-disciplinary experience are synthesized into factors informing architectural production.
Heading titleAn Interdisciplinary Approach to Design Excellence
Central to the M.Arch 1 program’s philosophy is a firm commitment to design excellence, achieved through a comprehensive course of study that provides students with a solid intellectual base and understanding of the history, theory, technology, and professional practice of architecture.
Alongside an international design faculty, renowned across a wide breadth of fields, and a distinguished group of critics and theorists, students challenge conventional ways of learning and attain the knowledge to shape our contemporary environment.
Heading titleRefining an Aesthetic Language
The M.Arch 1 program is designed to enable students to cultivate a point of view and personal aesthetic. The curriculum begins with a four-semester core sequence of design studios and seminar courses through which students develop a framework for engaging the discipline of architecture and a strong foundation for critical inquiry and experimentation.
Students continue on to two semesters of Vertical Studios which match small, combined groups of students from SCI-Arc’s undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate programs with faculty and visiting architects leading design projects that explore a wide variety of focuses and interests. Applied research in advanced studios and seminars in the final semesters of the program prepare students for Graduate Thesis.
Heading titleLed by a Global Faculty of Practitioners and Scholars
SCI-Arc was founded on the idea that architects should teach what they practice and we still believe that practicing architects can best communicate to students the complex realities of thinking about and making architecture. Today, SCI-Arc faculty is comprised of some of the most dedicated and cutting-edge thinkers in Los Angeles in architecture, culture, history, and technology. Design Studio faculty are active practitioners working in many of LA’s most innovative architecture firms. The symbiotic relationship between practice and teaching produces a close dialogue between conceptual and professional practice.
"At SCI-Arc, there is a community that looks to learn, looks to share, looks to explore, a group of students so passionate about the smallest details, the smallest crevices in architecture that there ends up being a wide variety of interests and conversations happening all at once-- conversations and relationships that permeate the entire school, that don’t simply live in a classroom, or in an auditorium, but that spills into the corridors, into lunches and coffee breaks, to dinner gatherings and collaborative projects.
To be at SCI-Arc is to be surrounded by people as strange as you, as invested as you, as obsessive as you."
M.Arch 1 student work by Brian Larsen in Ramiro Diaz-Granados's 2GB Design Studio
Heading titlePreparing for the Future
SCI-Arc graduates are heavily recruited by top firms including Morphosis, Gehry Partners, Gensler, ZGF, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Zaha Hadid Architects, UNStudio, Shigeru Ban Architects, Tesla Motors, Snøhetta, Kengo Kuma and Associates, Bjarke Ingalls Group, Toyo Ito and Associates, MAD Architects, Neil M. Denari Architects, Eric Owen Moss Architects, and more.
SCI-Arc graduate program alumni have founded firms such as Design, Bitches, Barbara Bestor Architects, Brooks and Scarpa, among others, and have taught at Syracuse University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Princeton University, Knowlton School of Architecture at OSU, Taubman College of Architecture at University of Michigan, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Rhode Island School of Design, and Rice University, among many others.
Heading titleM.Arch 1 Course Catalog
Explore the diverse course offerings in SCI-Arc’s M.Arch 1 program.