Career Consideration: Architecture or Architectural Design
School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)
In the Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects (AIADO), our studios have no boundaries. We are creative across disciplines and we are engaged with our community at SAIC, our context in Chicago, and the world.
Our students are exploring the future of how we live, work, and communicate. They’re asking how design responds to shifting modes of belonging; and ensuring design will address the transcendent challenge of a changing climate.
Architecture, Interior Architecture, & Designed Objects Undergraduate Overview
The Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects (AIADO) is a place where students can explore design and experiment across boundaries.
The Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio (BFA) is an interdisciplinary curriculum designed to prepare students for life as a 21st century artist and designer. Students are encouraged to take courses in any medium of field of study relevant to their practice. Small class sizes, a commitment to personal attention, and support for free expression define the undergraduate experience.
AIADO offers pathways through the BFA that combine sequenced, project-based design studios with electives that build skills and expand knowledge in design. As a BFA student, pathways offer you a guide to the prerequisites for advanced studios in the BFA, preparation for further graduate study, and support developing your own design portfolio.
-
AIADO offers combined coursework with departments including Fashion Design, Fiber and Material Studies, Sculpture, and Ceramics, allowing students to build strong connections to other areas of the School. BFA students are encouraged to apply to the department’s External Partnership courses with collaborators in industry and culture. Students participate in the Academic Spine, including the Sophomore Seminar, Junior Professional Practice Seminar, and Capstoneexperience in their final year. BFA students work in the School’s workshops, libraries, and museum collection, making the most of the resources of the School and the city.
With courses on architectural design, representation skills, and architectural history and theory, the Architecture Pathway focuses on architecture and its impacts on public life while allowing students to experiment in areas such as technology and building performance, urbanism and social practice, and the visualization and communication of information.
The Architecture Pathway is an excellent preparation for graduate study in Architecture.
-
The Interior Architecture Pathway focuses on the experimental design of interior spaces at various scales. Students work across disciplinary boundaries in developing design ideas that are future oriented and addresses the role and impact of interior spaces in the 21st century. The Interior Architecture courses equip students with a progressively broad range of knowledge and skills to become spatial innovators in an exciting field that bridges architecture, object, and service design. The pathway is also an excellent preparation for graduate study.
Students who complete the Interior Architecture Pathway meet criteria for the NCIDQ examination given by the Council for Interior Design Qualification.
-
Borrowing critically from product design, systems design, furniture design, and interaction design, the Designed Objects Pathway focuses on the critical and creative rethinking of the systems, tools, furnishings, and products that we use or interact with in our everyday lives.
Investigations into how objects extend human potential and inspire imagination are balanced with studies in the responsible and imaginative use of new technologies, materials, and production processes. A concern for sustainability provides an opportunity to explore alternative visions of how we live, work, communicate, and play.
Ranked #2 Graduate Fine Arts Program in the US #7 Art and Design School in the World Founded in 1866, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is one of the most historically significant accredited independent schools of art and design in the world.
Based on 67 evaluation metrics, School of the Art Institute of Chicago architecture program ranks #154 Architecture School (out of 459; top 35%) in the United States and in Top 5 Architecture Schools in Illinois.
National. Best Colleges for Art in America. 26 of 724. Most Diverse Colleges in America. 55 of 1,495.
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)
As an integral part of an art and design school, Architecture at RISD emphasizes process, artistic sensibilities and social and ethical responsibility. Students hone the ability to think and communicate through drawing, making, writing and discussing ideas with others as they define and articulate a personal approach to the discipline.
Through a program that builds on itself, students learn to think critically; to produce architecture through both reflection and invention; to build using a variety of materials; to understand the technical aspects of architecture; to communicate ideas through drawing, model making, writing and speaking; and to be socially and ethically engaged in society.
After exposure to the fundamentals of the field—design, material performance, digital and manual representation, and architectural history—students move on to solidify work by focusing on architectural, urban design and environmental issues, engaging in advanced topics in architectural history and responding to complex architectural design problems.
Graduates are able to:
use critical thinking to build abstract relationships and understand the impact of ideas.
use and experiment with the representational techniques of the discipline.
investigate architectural form using spatial principles and material properties.
comprehend technical aspects of building practices, systems and materials and apply this knowledge to architectural solutions.
synthesize a range of complex variables into an integrated design solution.
understand principles for the practice of architecture, including advocacy, ethical actions and project management.
develop a creative process and frame theoretical questions through making.
conduct advanced research, including gathering and assessing information and establishing research methods.
RISD's Architecture program has the distinct advantage of being integrated into a college known for the breadth and depth of its fine arts and design offerings. Architecture majors benefit from a strong visual and humanities-based education within a progressive professional curriculum, as well as immersion in a community of creative individuals—and potential collaborators—who are passionate about disciplines as diverse as animation, graphic design, printmaking and sculpture.
In the final year of the program, students focus on an intensive investigation and analysis of building systems, professional practice and design as part of a self-determined degree project.