University of Maine at Augusta
Department of Architecture
Our mission expresses who we are: SMALL… INTEGRATED… HANDS-ON. This fundamentally means we are about people: our students, our faculty, and our community partners. We teach architecture through engagement, educating and empowering students to explore, investigate, and analyze the built environment. Engagement brings students into active contact with each other, their coursework, and our community partners. Our program is rooted in three essential elements. The first is the mission to engage community; this is where our work takes place. The second is the desire to work in collaboration, both within and without the university; this is what allows us to affect positive change. And third is seen in our curriculum, based in the idea of being "grounded in real"; these are the tools we use to affect our collective built environment.
http://www.uma.edu/academics/programs/barch/
Setting
Our unique set of core teachings make UMA/ARC the ideal location to begin or complete your architectural education. We offer an affordable, design-based, and socially-conscious path toward architectural licensure. UMA/ARC's program is located in Augusta, Maine on the Kennebec River. The newly-renovated Handley Hall (formerly the Gannett Building) features dedicated studio space, teaching space, our digital lab, and the street-level Richmond Gallery. Located at 331 Water Street, our presence in the heart of the state capitol is the ideal place from which our students can engage communities across the state.
School Philosophy
The program's mission is consciously simple and desires to be universal. Our desire is to think beyond the classroom and even beyond architecture. We want to empower YOU, our students, some of which may not become practicing architects, to be good citizens and good stewards of the built environment. Combined with a liberal arts core, we aim to create life-long learners who utilize their education and energy to strengthen their respective communities.
The vision of the UMA BArch program is to instruct our students to view architecture as a humanistic and professional discipline, which synthesizes art, science, creativity, and math through challenging intellectual rigor. It is an academic search into how the designed environment affects psychological and social behavior while honoring keen aesthetic judgment, and technical understanding of how a building is built with all its many and varied systems.
UMA/ARC achieves this through teaching, scholarship, creative work, research, service to the greater community, and a fully rounded curriculum. The program is committed to the highest ideals of the profession and culture of architecture. UMA/ARC graduates will contribute effectively to the communities in which they live and work, to each other while in school, and to the profession in the future.
Programs
The Bachelor of Architecture degree is built upon a solid foundation of UMA Architectural education. Over 25 years ago, Professor Roger Richmond envisioned the architecture program as a two year-plus associate's degree. At the time he saw a profound need to educate the Maine student in ways of meaningful humanistic design. In UMA, Professor Richmond found a good match for the goals and aims of the architecture curriculum.
The AA grew to a 4-year Bachelor of Arts degree in 2001. With this growth came the opportunity to review and refocus our overall curriculum. While maintaining high quality core values of Space, Scale, and Light, and the necessity to Design with Intention, we recommitted ourselves to the more advanced tools and language of architecture. Our goal has always been to best prepare our graduates for further study, professional practice, or immediate employment, and to graduate with an awareness of the importance of architecture in the development of society, and architecture's power to affect the quality of individual lives.
Today these core ideals are the foundation of Maine's only professional architecture degree. Our program is based on three meaningfully unique parts: Community, Collaboration, and Design. We are seeking committed, creative students to join us in engaging the communities of Maine and beyond.
of Focus
1. Art & Design
2. Building Technologies
3. Community Design
4. Digital Design & Visualization
5. Materials and Construction
Opportunities
Study Abroad
Facilities
24 Hour Workshop
Large-format Printer
Laser Cutter
Woodshop
3D Printing
Fabrication Lab
Policies
Transfer Policies
UMA welcomes hundreds of transfer students each semester. In fact, the majority of our new students are transfer students!
Whether you are coming in with a few courses or several semesters of credit, we will work with you to develop your educational plan and maximize your advance standing.
Explore the tabs below to learn about different ways UMA accepts transfer credits for previously completed course work: (https://www.uma.edu/admission/transfer/)
