A Message from the Dean

The Yale School of Architecture educates architects, scholars, teachers, and leaders who will shape the future through design. The School emphasizes an architectural education based in the real world and strives to build more inclusive, diverse, and equitable design professions. Founded in 1916 as an architecture program rooted in the Beaux-Arts tradition, the School became one of the leading institutions for modern architecture in the United States under Paul Rudolph, before becoming an incubator for cultural postmodernism later in the twentieth century. Today, our focus is on engaging with the world beyond the academy to create an ethical, relevant architecture that supports a sustainable, resilient planet.

The Building Project, founded in 1967, allows students in the professional Master of Architecture (M.Arch. I) degree program to design and construct a building in New Haven, giving them on-site experience that fosters connections to our community. Students in the post-professional Master of Architecture (M.Arch. II) degree program pursue a series of design research seminars, studios, and symposia, building on their previous studies to reenter the professional world as leaders. Students in both M.Arch. programs work closely with a renowned full-time and tenured faculty together with a visiting faculty of internationally recognized designers to develop an individual professional practice. Our Master of Environmental Design (M.E.D.) students pursue interdisciplinary and individually determined courses of study, culminating in thoroughly researched thesis projects.

This bulletin details the requirements of the N.A.A.B.-accredited M.Arch. I program, as well as those of the post-professional M.Arch. II program and the M.E.D. In addition to our core studios and seminars, wide-ranging elective offerings are available within the School of Architecture across our four curricular study areas: Design and Visualization, Technology and Practice, History and Theory, and Urbanism and Landscape. Students in all three programs are encouraged to also explore course offerings from Yale’s many other schools and departments, as well as its world-class museums, archives, and collections.

The Yale School of Architecture is a deeply collaborative learning environment, nestled within Paul Rudolph’s intricate and expressive masterpiece, the Yale Art & Architecture Building (now Paul Rudolph Hall). Our studio spaces are open areas where students learn from each other as well as from the faculty, and surround the review spaces so that pin-ups, critiques, lessons, and social events can include and benefit everyone. We believe in open discussion and in the multiplicity of approaches to designing the built environment.

Welcome.

Deborah Berke, FAIA LEED AP
Dean, Yale School of Architecture