University of Colorado Denver
College of Architecture and Planning
The University of Colorado Denver is the only institution within the state of Colorado to offer professionally accredited education in architecture. The College of Architecture and Planning offers a Bachelors of Science in Architecture and a Master of Architecture along with 4 other graduate degrees.
In the graduate program, students interact with outstanding practicing designers and planners in the Denver metro area through internships, mentorships, design juries, lectures, and engaged student professional organizations. The department has created an academic environment that is intellectually stimulating and educationally challenging and aims to educate future leaders in the discipline and profession of architecture. The Master of Architecture (MArch) program examines the interplay between architectural form and the complex cultural and technological context in which architects operate. Studies focus on integrating various design theories and practices that emphasize: (a) cross-disciplinary interdependence, (b) research orientation, and (c) real-world relevance. In this program, students collaborate with peers to produce an understanding of how connected disciplines play a role in the design and research of architectural projects. As part of this collaborative matrix, each research and design project asks a critical question that stresses environmental, economic, social, cultural, aesthetic and ethical concerns, then answers it using an appropriate method.
The College also offers graduate degrees in Urban and Regional Planning, Landscape Architecture, Historic Preservation, Urban Design, and a multi-disciplinary PhD Program in Design and Planning.
Setting
The program celebrates its place in a special set of landscapes—one of the most urbanized states, healthy, "cool," metroplex Denver, as well as the mountainous beauty of the Front Range. The College's programs in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Urban and Regional Planning and Urban Design are taught in the heart of downtown Denver, adjacent to Lower Downtown, home to many design and planning firms. Out-of-state and transfer students are accepted.
The University of Colorado Denver seeks to provide students, whatever their ages or circumstances, with opportunities to enhance their lives and careers through higher education. Emphasis is given to professional, pre-professional, and liberal arts instruction, with a strong multi-disciplinary and applied focus for the campus's research and service functions. The University is one of the most important educational resources in the Denver metropolitan area: a major urban, nonresidential campus located in the heart of the city with a broad range of civic, cultural, business, professional and governmental activities in close proximity. The University is committed to research, technology, creative scholarship, and providing an institutional culture that reflects the plurality, collegiality, and integration of an increasingly diverse global workplace.
School Philosophy
The College of Architecture and Planning embraces the educational vision of INTEGRATIVE DESIGN. The College engages design and planning challenges that are significant for our society. The College will take on these challenges in partnerships among the disciplines and with our external communities.
In the College of Architecture and Planning the faculty researches, teaches and practices ways to design environments that are meaningful and beautiful. We plan, shape and interpret those environments in ways that are collaborative, responsible, sustainable, enabling, and integrative. Promoting and acknowledging diversity in subject matter, method, and orientation are essential to the College's integrative approach.
Design, research, and scholarship are the distinctive practices the faculty uses to investigate, understand, integrate and affect the complex relationships between our designed environments and their natural and cultural settings. We shape, plan and evaluate those relationships to make sure that our designs are socially and environmentally appropriate, and aesthetically significant. Our need to consistently integrate design, scholarly inquiry and research acts to unite reason and imagination, intellect and intuition, judgment and wisdom, and mind and spirit as complementary orientations affecting our work.
The architecture program's mission is to lead in the discovery, communication and application of knowledge in the discipline of architecture. The program aims to excel in the education of its students, in the research and creative endeavors of its faculty, and in service to the community. The architecture program focuses on the design of buildings, and also on the interactions between buildings and their urban and natural settings. The program examines the interplay between architectural form and the complex cultural and technological context in which architects operate.
The Program's teaching challenges students to assert responsibility for the important role they play as a designer of buildings in urban and natural settings; understand and value the influences of history, theory, ideology, context, technology, and practice on architecture and on urban and rural landscapes; define their obligations, status, ethical behavior, and role as a member of an established design discipline and design profession; and be creative, thoughtful, and critical design leaders in the discipline and profession of architecture.
Programs
This degree program is designed for students who wish to prepare for careers in architecture or architecturally related fields generally and comprehensively.
The MArch degree program is fully accredited by NAAB, and provides the professional degree required by most states for architectural licensure. The Master of Architecture program has two tracks, according to the type of undergraduate degree that the student holds. For students who hold a pre-professional degree, the MArch will require a minimum of four semesters of coursework and at least 60-semester hours of credit. Students who hold a bachelor's degree unrelated to architecture must complete seven semesters of coursework and at least 105-semester hours of credit. Students entering with a B.Envd or a similar pre-professional degree will have their transcripts and design portfolios evaluated to determine the exact number of semester credits that they must take.
of Focus
1. Community Design
2. Design/Build
3. Digital Design & Visualization
4. Historic Preservation
5. History | Theory | Criticism
6. Urbanism
Opportunities
Study Abroad
Facilities
Large-format Printer
Laser Cutter
Woodshop
Fabrication Lab
Policies
Transfer Policies
For automatic admission to the architecture major, students must have a 2.75 cumulative GPA for all coursework attempted. Students with at least a 2.3 cumulative GPA may be considered on an individual basis if the academic record shows a consistent record of improvement and/or strong performance in science, mathematics, art or architecture-oriented courses. Students with a 2.0 to 2.29 cumulative GPA may be considered for admission as Pre-Arch majors in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
If not initially admitted to the architecture program, transfer students can be reconsidered through an internal CU Denver process upon meeting the criteria outlined above.
