The faculty comprises a large and diverse group of teachers, practitioners, scholars, and researchers who represent a wide spectrum of backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints. Approximately thirty permanent faculty members are supplemented by dozens of part-time professional practitioners from the region and around the country, as well as by exchange scholars from foreign institutions. Priorities stressed by the faculty reflect changing ideas and concepts of architecture. Studios are sequenced, beginning with fundamentals and demanding an increasing independence at advanced levels. The defined studio sequence not only helps clarify the student's experience, but also insures that students get a broad and coherent cross section of design problems and instructors.
Most states require that an individual intending to become an architect hold an accredited degree.
These professional degrees are structured to educate those who aspire to registration and licensure to practice as architects. The pre-professional degree is useful to those desiring a foundation in the field of architecture as preparation for either continued education in a professional degree program or for employment options in fields related to architecture. Architectural education at the University of Washington requires a minimum of six years of higher education to attain the first professional degree, the Master of Architecture. The professional degree, Master of Architecture, is awarded only upon completion of the third segment. Students must also complete a master's thesis, extending over one or more additional quarters, on a research topic or design problem of their choice.