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School of Architecture
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In the school’s Studio 305, students are employing powerful new technologies that may alter the future of architecture. Here, a milling machine follows computer-created designs to carve three-dimensional objects out of foam or wood. Working in the opposite direction, another device, called a three-dimensional scanner, is able to create a computer-based image of physical objects.
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School of Architecture Brochure (PDF)
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School of Architecture Brochure (PDF)
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Undergraduate Degree Offered: architecture
(B.Arch.—five-year professional degree)

Areas of Study: architectural science; architectural acoustics, building conservation; built ecologies; lighting; sustainability

Career Options: professional architecture; development; planning; construction; faculty at prestigious universities

Graduate Degrees Offered: M.S., M.Arch., Ph.D.

Website: http://www.arch.rpi.edu/
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School of Architecture

It is through architecture that a future shaped by technology and imagined in science fiction will be made real.

Though architecture is the most public of the arts, it is also in these times a context for the most far-reaching creativity.

To sustain this energy, an education in architecture must deal with the physical and structural demands of building; must equip students to be creative in the new media that supports computational design, and, best of all, must provide experience of the global context within which American architects practice.

Such issues are at the core of the undergraduate and graduate programs in architecture at Rensselaer. The school has extensive international programs ranging from Rome to India and China.

The school also offers a semester-long program in New York City for both undergraduates and graduates at the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology (CASE), a unique educational and research consortium between Rensselaer and the architecture practice of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), dedicated to addressing the global need for sustainable, energy-efficient built environments.

At the interdisciplinary New York Center, faculty, students, and industry leaders collaborate to address the global need for accelerated innovation and implementation of radically improved, energy- efficient, sustainable built environments. The program encourages study and research between disciplines; the studio environment supports the most ambitious applications of information-based design and technology and places high value on creativity.

Design is central to architectural education, and at Rensselaer it is taught by 23 permanent and full-time clinical faculty complemented by adjunct professors drawn from research and practice through the region and beyond.

The Bachelor of Architecture from Rensselaer is a professional degree fully accredited by the National Architectural Accreditation Board.

Graduates of the school are distinguished by being creative, pragmatic, independent, and progressive, with a strong sense of social responsibility, and are much sought after in practice.

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Design and Design Studio
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Design and design studio form the core of all architecture degree programs. Students explore and develop their design proposals based on a growing knowledge of architecture and their emerging ability.
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Lighting Research Center
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First-year students' exhibit “Material Witness”, displayed for six months in the Albany International Airport Gallery, took the commonplace and trash-bound and transformed them into sculptural and graphic art.
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Center for Architectural Science and Ecology
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The Center for Architectural Science and Ecology engages scientists, engineers, and architects in the pursuit of a common goal of redefining how to build sustainable cities and environments.
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* Direct from the Dean’s Office

Architecture is situated at a unique moment in history where a convergence of global interests demand that our discipline responds in a critical and innovative manner. Faced with an ever-increasing focus on creating new forms of renewable energy, smart grids and coastal city solutions, computational engines, immersive environments, and ecologically sound building components for the 21st century, the profession of architecture has inherited a wealth of transdisciplinary priorities that calls out for a new era of creative inquiry and engagement.

Reinterpreted as a moment of opportunity, it’s an extraordinary time in academia to explore alternative design methodologies, digital design and manufacturing technology, a variety of more expansive interdisciplinary collaborations, and the larger mission of educating the next generation of architects to harness their innate intellectual and creative imagination in service of a complex planet undergoing continuous change.

Here in the School of Architecture at Rensselaer, we take pride in preparing our students to become future leaders in the profession. Beyond offering a comprehensive education that leads toward licensure within our two NAAB accredited professional programs, we aspire to create an environment and culture throughout the School that rewards the nobility of ideas, the roots of theoretical inquiry, the merits of social responsibility, the resounding effects of innovative design and the impressive achievement of realizable proposals that are thoughtfully conceived as benevolent gifts to the world at large.

Evan Douglis,
B.Arch., The Cooper Union;
M.Arch., Harvard
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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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