Overview
We offer a NAAB-accredited Two-year Master of Architecture and Three-year Master of Architecture tracks, Graduate Certificate in Urban Design, and Graduate Certificate in Public Interest Design, the first of its kind in the United States.
The educational experience of the Master of Architecture is oriented toward "situational" investigations, in which the focus of creative activity is on perceiving, interpreting and representing the meaningfulness of human situations through acts of making architecture. Intellectual rigor, imaginative visualization and manual dexterity are promoted in every student. The program encourages each student to:
- Comprehend the value of creative engagement with the prevailing realities of the city as a primary means of cultural transformation, and to perceive Portland as an "urban laboratory" for experimental investigations of prevalent human issues.
- Explore the communicative potential of diverse media through continual acts of interpretive making at multiple scales, including full-size construction.
- Take advantage of the special reality of the academic setting in offering opportunities for speculation unavailable in contemporary practice situations, particularly through the Design Thesis experience.
- Develop an understanding of the dynamic relationship of individual and collective experience in urban environments through participation in, and fostering of, communication between citizen and institution in negotiating shared territories.
- Attain a dynamic awareness of the expectations, roles and practices of the contemporary architectural profession coupled with tangible capacities to operate creatively and productively in the field.
- Participate in, and contribute to, the advancement of knowledge in issues and technologies of sustainable living and environmental responsibility.