Temple University’s Master of Architecture program is now accepting applications for fall of 2013. Located in Philadelphia, a thriving cultural center with a vibrant community of architects and designers, the program connects students with leaders in the profession, including local practitioners and prominent national educators.
The Master of Architecture program of the Tyler School of Art is housed in the new architecture building within Temple University’s Center for the Arts, where students and faculty work alongside colleagues from Fine Arts, Music and Dance, Film and Media Arts, and Theater. The architecture building has state of the art equipment for digital fabrication and studios and labs for all of the department’s programs.
Sponsored by Temple University
The curricula of the Tyler Architecture Department engage the city, exploring and addressing the ethical and social dimensions of architecture and the built environment. The department believes design to be an act of cultural and technological production. Its programs focus on design thinking as critical inquiry, teaching students how to assess and intervene in the physical world through carefully considered acts of making. Tyler Architecture faculty is dedicated to developing an ethos of leadership. Its students are encouraged to become active participants in the discourse and practices surrounding the complex global and local issues of our time.
Philadelphia is a center for design excellence that has a long and distinctive architecture and planning history and a sustained legacy of innovation. It is a city in the forefront of urban design, addressing some of the most current issues facing cities around the world. Tyler’s Architecture Department engages its urban context and its history, building upon the legacy of architecture and planning excellence found in the origins of the city and carried through the mid-century modern Philadelphia school. Within its programs, urban issues are a primary driver of design practice as students engage responsively and creatively in current topics and needs for the environment as a whole – green building and sustainability, social equity and access, health and well being, urban living and quality of life. Its programs recognize the importance of Philadelphia as a site of industrial innovation. In parallel with innovative practice models, the curricula focus on the opportunities that arise through the use of new technologies, emphasizing the why and what of design.
Central to the work of the department is the recognition of architecture as a material practice where acts of design and acts of making extend into one another. Understanding that materiality, space, light, and dimension define architecture and place, Tyler professors instill fluency with these physical elements as their students seek to create humane and inspiring environments. The curricula address a range of practices and scales, linking hybrid, digital, and analog methods of design and visualization. Furthermore, its programs recognize the importance of research and stress the role of theory and analytical methods of knowledge production.
The department recognizes the strength of multiple modes of leadership practiced by built environment professionals and embrace different forms of leadership in a changing world. In its programs pedagogy and research are applied and connected to real conditions through partnerships. In this way, architectural education ensures its relevance to the transforming world of practice. Students and graduates who recognize the importance of collaboration are empowered as individuals and better able to navigate a complex professional world.
Tyler Architecture recognizes that architecture has a primary role in the making of places aimed at improving environments and housing people. In its curricula and research, the department addresses the complex socio-economic, cultural and political dynamics of the contemporary city and explores opportunities for design in a world impacted by globalization. The department is committed to graduating students who recognize the importance of current issues of design in the public realm. In addition, the faculty embraces the diverse cultures and learning styles of its students and considers this form of diversity as an important factor in the future of architectural practice.
The Master of Architecture program is an accredited first-professional degree fulfilling the education requirement towards registration as an architect. There are a range of opportunities for financial support including graduate assistantships, department work-study, department scholarships, university fellowships, and others. For additional information on the application process, refer to Temple University’s Architecture website at architecture.temple.edu.
