Design studio is at the core of an architecture education. From their first semester in the B.Arch program, SCI-Arc undergraduate students are immersed in hands-on, project-based design studio courses where they build visual literacy, learn design skills, test ideas, and receive continuous, personal feedback on their work from studio faculty.

During Design Studio, students build design and technical expertise while employing advanced tools and technologies in the development of projects which fuse together concepts of space, aesthetics, architectural theory, and materiality, among others.

SCI-Arc’s B.Arch curriculum is structured around Design Studio. Students will enroll in one design studio course each semester while in the program.

Through a required seven-semester sequence of design studios, B.Arch students acquire both a robust set of techniques and sensibilities for making and appreciating architecture as well as the concrete knowledge and methodologies essential for the production of buildings.

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.

In their final semester of design studio, students complete the production of a year-long thesis project, which addresses a position in relation to contemporary architectural discourse and presents a highly developed building design project.