Architecture School - Degrees & Programs | Academy of Art University

Self employed architects typically organize and maintain their own professional practice in architectural design. Firm principals are typically sole practitioners, or run small offices of less than 10 people sometimes in partnership with other principals. Architects may choose to specialize in a specific market segment, or they may promote a specific skill set within a particular area of architecture. Firm principals are responsible for signing and stamping construction documentation sets, and must be licensed in the state in which a project is being built.

Job Duties:

Office ownership and management
Create and market your firm
Lead designer on projects

Job Skills:

Organize and run the office
Supervise projects
Demonstrate leadership in running own firm

Project architects are the team design leaders in medium to large architectural design firms. Working with other members of the architectural staff in a firm, you’ll coordinate and lead design decisions on projects. Depending upon the scope and complexity of a project, there may be a lead project architect, technical project architects, interior design architects, and other specialists. Project architects usually hold an architectural license in one or more states.

Job Duties:

Make major project design decisions
Coordinate consultant activities
Work with client and contractor on design delivery
Coordinate and compile construction documentation

Job Skills:

Demonstrate design leadership
Balance large and small details
Collaborate effectively with the design team
Demonstrate design and technical knowledge

As an Architect you can be part of an urban or master planning design team that is responsible for environmental design decisions at the scale of a neighborhood, district, city, or region. Architects are necessary within larger planning groups to contribute their specific knowledge of building morphology to the contributions and effects of the built environment upon larger scale planning activities. Architects may hold dual degrees in architecture and planning, or they can be part of a planning group within the public or private sector.

Job Duties:

Define impact of urban and regional planning issues
Delineate urban form in specific architectural terms
Relate architectural design issues to city design
Write architectural components of environmental impact reports

Job Skills:

Define architectural issues in city planning
Abstract and delineate morphology in relation to city planning
Comprehensive graphic and writing skills

Specialize in sustainability-driven design projects such as net zero energy design, active and passive energy systems, experts in materials, assembly, life-cycle costing, developing world economics and growth, or sustainable healthcare specialists. Work within a design project team or become an independent consulting practice serving a wide range of private and institutional clients.

Job Duties:

Work with design teams to integrate sustainable design
Research new technologies and methods in sustainable practices
Contribute to or coordinate LEED design project delivery

Job Skills:

Work with and integrate knowledge towards project design
Articulate and promote sustainable practices in design

As a graduate from an architectural school, you will have a broad range of design skills that may be used in a wide range of design activities outside of architectural practice, ranging from building envelope design, historical preservation, industrial design, furniture design, color, branding, business and product consulting, among other possibilities. These design consultants may work within a larger non-architectural design organization, or they may act as specialized consultants for design firms.

Job Duties:

Apply design skills towards design and non-design practices
Be an expert team member in a design project

Job Skills:

Abstract design thinking
Interpolate and generalize data into comprehensible patterns
Work with both architectural and non-architectural design teams
Extrapolate design aspects of non-conventional problems

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Course Catalog

We encourage you to explore the limits of your creativity and create your own path to creative fulfillment. Many of our classes can be taken without any prior experience or knowledge; all that's required is a desire to learn and explore. If you’d like to take a class that has a prerequisite, please contact an admissions representative. Once you’ve demonstrated equivalent knowledge or completion of a similar course a representative will assist you with registration.

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About NAAB Accreditation

NAAB Accreditation

The National Architectural Accrediting Board [NAAB.org]
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 educational standards.

Doctor of Architecture and Master of Architecture degree programs may require a pre-professional undergraduate degree in architecture for admission. However, the pre-professional degree is not, by itself, recognized as an accredited degree.

The Academy of Art University, School of Architecture, offers the following NAAB-accredited degree programs:

B. Arch. (162 undergraduate credits)

Next accreditation visit 2018

Link to NAAB APRs and VTRs:

M. Arch. (pre-professional degree + 63 graduate credits)
M. Arch. (non-pre-professional degree + 87 graduate credits)

Next accreditation visit 2021