Four distinct, yet increasingly interrelated, departments provide a rich setting for professional education. Architecture and landscape architecture seek to integrate the intellectual and pragmatic aspects of their disciplines in the belief that design skills must be responsive to cultural, historical, and physical context as much as to functional need.
Architectural history aims to develop an awareness of the value of the past.
Urban and environmental planning addresses community sustainability and the balance between environment, economy, and social equity. In addition to this and other courses regularly offered in each department, the curricula provide ample interdisciplinary opportunities for the exploration of such diverse contemporary issues as urbanism, energy conservation, social equity, environmental protection, preservation, and adaptive re-use. The School of Architecture offers four graduate programs leading to the Master of Architecture, the Master of Landscape Architecture, the Master of Architectural History, and the Master of Urban and Environmental Planning. In conjunction with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, it also offers a Doctor of Philosophy in the History of Architecture. In addition to the graduate degree programs, the school offers two interdisciplinary programs of study, one leading to the Certificate in Preservation and the other to the Certificate in American Urbanism.