The Master of Architecture (MArch)
The MArch degree is one of two degrees (some schools offer a five-year BArch) that prepare students for professional registration as architects in the United States. The MIT Department of Architecture offers the MArch degree. This professional degree is structured to educate those who aspire to licensed registration as architects. It is the centerpiece of the Department of Architecture.
Architectural design studios are the center of the MArch program. Faculty in the Design discipline group provide the core of the professional education through the studio program. Studios are arranged in ascending complexity and with increasing demands that students develop their skills and independence of view as they proceed through the program.
The approaches that faculty bring to the teaching of architectural design derive both from their years of professional (often award-winning) practice as well as from the opportunities for greater reflection the academic environment affords. The problems that are chosen relate both to the stage of development of the student and to the issues in practice and society challenging the architectural profession. For example, one studio addressed problems of growth and change in Chandigarh, the capital of the Punjab in India, where attitudes had to be developed toward the work of Le Corbusier as well as toward the contemporary problems of the city itself. Other studios have chosen sites in the center of Taipei, in San Juan, and, of course, sites close to MIT including downtown Boston, its greater metropolitan area, and surrounding towns and cities. In general design problems always include issues of preservation, conservation, and ecology that combine with the search for appropriate expression of the specific culture and locale. In particular, there is usually a problem or opportunity at hand in relation to which the students' work may make a substantial contribution.
Other studios address problems that may, on the surface, be more technical, dealing for example, with the development of new building envelopes that have improved environmental as well as visual performance. Still others may be more experimental in nature, utilizing some of the new digitally based tools. Even these studios don't fail to address significant societal issues; and all studios are centrally concerned with architectural form, and the two- and three-dimensional tools by means of which form can be devised, explored and expressed.
Students must recognize that there are many possible professional roles, and therefore must assume much of the responsibility for structuring their own educational programs. While the curriculum specifies that students enroll in a range of subjects in several interrelated fields, they have some choice within each study area and an opportunity to concentrate in one area which they may define. Students are urged to have the concentration be reflected in their theses.
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