School of Architecture
The School of Architecture is dedicated to maintaining the connection between design theory and practice and to extending the range of knowledge necessary to fully understand the built environment. The diversity of programs within the School and the accessibility of other programs within the Institute enable students to pursue a wide range of interests within the field. Architecture students may take electives in fine arts, illustration, computer graphics, industrial design, furniture design, interior design, and photography, as well as electives in advanced architectural theory, design, technology, and management. As a result, they know how to build, what to build for whom, and how to enhance the surrounding environment, in the city or the country, in public projects or private homes.
The school’s location in New York City allows students immediate and frequent access to the city’s resources. The graduate programs also have excellent internal resources: a strong faculty, good facilities, and a developing research network that connects the department and its students to serious national and international work in the field. This network brings distinguished visitors to speak to graduate students in a research forum; invites visiting faculty to teach studios, workshops, and seminars; and forges extensive and thoughtful connections with international cities and throughout the United States.
The opportunity to learn from peers is also an exciting part of the educational experience at Pratt. Post-professional degree students come from a wide range of architectural practice, and first-professional degree students come from diverse fields of undergraduate study. The student body includes many international students, each of whom brings a different perspective to the study of architecture. The School encourages transfer students to apply and will evaluate credits from other colleges, universities, or community colleges.
The School of Architecture demonstrates daily that learning does not occur solely within the classroom. This is reflected in the annual undergraduate and graduate lecture series, which bring some of the most influential architects in the world to campus; the Center for Experimental Structures; exhibitions by students and faculty that fill three galleries on a regular basis; and the study abroad programs in Italy and Cuba. The School publication, InProcess, documents student work throughout the year.
Pratt’s Center for Community Development, formerly PICCED, one of the oldest community advocacy and technical assistance organizations in the United States, gives students additional opportunities to work on real-life projects.
Students are further exposed to the professional world through optional internship programs that place them in outstanding New York architectural firms, public agencies, and nonprofit design institutions, giving them firsthand work experience and credit toward their professional degrees.
All of these opportunities help realize the School of Architecture’s mission to educate the future leaders of the design disciplines in the professional fields of architecture, urban design, city and regional planning, facilities management, urban placemaking and management, sustainable environmental systems, real estate practice, and historic preservation. This effort builds upon a strong context of professional education within an art and design institute that stresses the relationship between intellectual development and creative activity. The importance of lifelong learning is emphasized through studio-based curricula and research-oriented thesis programs.
The three-year Master of Architecture program is also a fully accredited professional program for students seeking licensure to practice architecture.
In the United States, most registration boards require a degree from an accredited professional degree program as a prerequisite for licensure. The National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), which is the sole agency authorized to accredit professional degree programs in architecture offered by institutions with U.S. regional accreditation, recognizes three types of degrees: the Bachelor of Architecture, the Master of Architecture, and the Doctor of Architecture. A program may be granted an eight-year, three-year, or two-year term of accreditation, depending on the extent of its conformance with established education standards.
Doctor of Architecture and Master of Architecture degree pro-grams may require a preprofessional undergraduate degree in architecture for admission. However, the preprofessional degree is not, by itself, recognized as an accredited degree.
The Pratt Institute School of Architecture offers the following NAAB-accredited programs:
- BArch (174 credits)
- MArch (Preprofessional degree + 56 graduate credits)
- MArch (Non-preprofessional degree + 84 graduate credits)
The next accreditation visit for all programs: 2024
The School of Architecture is home to other graduate programs in related disciplines. The graduate planning program is accredited by the Planning Accreditation Board and offers a two-year Master of Science degree in City and Regional Planning.
Other Master of Science degree programs include Facilities Management, Real Estate Practice, Historic Preservation, Sustainable Environmental Systems, and Urban Placemaking Management.
The School of Architecture reserves the right to temporarily retain during the academic year, for exhibition and classroom purposes, representative work of any student enrolled in its programs.
Pratt Institute has admirably filled a unique position in the American educational system...I am confident that Pratt will continue its traditions of excellence in the years ahead.
—President John F. Kennedy, from a telegram sent on the occasion of Pratt’s 75th anniversary in 1962
Dean
Quilian Riano
Assistant to the Dean
Ramona Allen
Director of Budget and Administration
Pamela Gill
Interim Director of Production and Technology
Rodrigo Guajardo
Office
Higgins Hall North, 1st Floor
Tel: 718.399.4304
Fax: 718.399.4315
arch-dean@pratt.edu
www.pratt.edu/architecture