Master of Architecture
Our Master of Architecture degree program is rooted in our legacy as one of the country’s first and foremost architecture programs, but it is never static. Our program constantly evolves and looks toward the future by fostering architecture as a mode of inquiry and experimentation.
Our Master of Architecture program will challenge you to ask hard questions and develop your own positions as you encounter new ways of thinking about architecture and test different methods for design, making, and research. At a time when architecture is increasingly confronted by changing social, technological, and environmental contexts, you’ll make important connections between the spatial and physical qualities of buildings and pressing matters such as climate change, social justice, digital culture, and the housing crisis.
Our students and faculty are ambitious and intellectually agile, always rising to new challenges and opportunities to apply their knowledge to emerging issues in the built environment. We welcome everyone, not just those with an architecture background. This includes designers, creatives, innovators, and those interested in how people live in the built environment and what design can do in the world.
The studio experience is central to a Taubman College education. With one of the largest continuous academic studios in the world, it is a fully engaged, communal learning environment where you’ll collaborate with faculty and peers and push yourself to expand intellectual and creative capacities that you might not even know you have.
We constantly evaluate and challenge how the studio experience instills a spirit of inquiry, implementing new technologies and methods to empower students and foster experimentation.
Our online academic journal for current conversations in architecture and urbanism at Taubman College and beyond.
Dimensions is the student-produced journal of architecture at the University of Michigan published annually since 1987.
It seeks to contribute to the critical discourse of architectural education by documenting the most compelling work produced by its students, faculty, fellows, and visiting lecturers.
Our M.Arch program combines coursework in design, history and theory, representation, digital fabrication, computation, technology, practice, and sustainability.
For those who do not qualify for advanced standing and enter our three-year track, the first year introduces design techniques, histories, theories, and workflows, providing a broad disciplinary understanding. Our Form studio focuses on the underlying structural relationships between architectural elements. Situations, the second studio in the three-year sequence, is unique to Taubman, concentrating on the relationships that emerge through the simultaneous assembly of the public (people) and matter (stuff).
Those who enter with advanced standing begin in the second year of studio instruction with our Institutions studio, which involves designing a midscale institutional structure and challenges you to assess the role of institutions in structuring society. In the second half of the second year, the theme of architecture and society continues in a studio we call Collectives, where we often explore how architecture mediates ways of living together.
The first studio in the last year is Propositions, where faculty present distinct advanced topics to speculate on the most emergent ideas and design methods in architecture. Elective coursework allows you to chart a unique path to develop your passion. Finally, we are one of only a handful of schools that have a design Thesis, a yearlong experience with a thesis development seminar in the fall, and a studio in the winter. Each student works with a faculty advisor on a student-directed thesis.
Space to Ideate and Innovate
The Taubman College Digital Fabrication and Robotics Lab (FABLab) supports research and teaching activities in digital fabrication, robotic construction, and physical making across a wide range of materials and processes. It is recognized as one of the premier facilities among academic institutions worldwide.
Intellectually Diverse Faculty
Our program’s strength is rooted in its agility and intellectual diversity. You will learn from a faculty of award-winning architects, renowned scholars, and cutting-edge researchers with a wide range of expertise, methodologies, and ways of designing and theorizing architecture’s role in the world.
Community and Connections
You will be well-supported by a large and inclusive community of students, faculty, and staff who are knowledgeable, curious, collegial, and just as excited about architecture as you are. They bring a variety of experiences and points of view. They will be your sounding board, your support network, and your friends.
We are one of the few architecture programs in the nation that offers a dedicated full-time career and professional development team. Through various programs and resources to help our students explore careers, secure positions, and continue skill development and management, Taubman architecture graduates enter their careers prepared to create a better, more just, and more beautiful built environment.
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