Graduate Programs

Notre Dame’s School of Architecture offers graduate degrees in both architecture and urban design and in historic preservation. There are three graduate degree paths for students seeking professional and post-professional degrees in architecture and urban design, including those joining architecture from other disciplines. The Master of Science in Historic Preservation program is a studio-based curriculum open to students with a previous degree in architecture.

All of the graduate programs offer extraordinary learning opportunities. Instruction is personal, and the learning environment is highly supportive. School and University resources are significant, and the content of the education is unique. Architecture is a part of the unity of all knowledge, and it operates in a cultural continuum. While its principles are time-tested and permanent, its renewal through every new generation of young architects, designers, and preservationists is as necessary as it is inevitable. Graduate education at Notre Dame involves learning that is based on this concept of architecture.

Students can expect to experience the following while attending the program:

• Receive a concurrent education in Architecture, Urbanism, and Ecological Design;

• Be taught by nationally and internationally prominent academic and practicing architects;

• Study the theoretical and historical foundations of architectural/tectonic forms and urban place-making;

• Understand how universal principles of design are manifested and applied to the vernacular and classical traditions of the world;

• Engage in one semester of study in our Rome program that began more than 50 years ago;

• Incorporate the important social justice and environmental issues of our day into design, by working directly with people in need and employing enduring, natural materials and techniques whenever possible;

• Design for communities and institutions in the US and abroad and engage with their varied cultures, physical settings, and resources;

• Integrate manual and digital techniques into design and graphic communication;

• “Learn by doing” through Dean’s charrettes, summer programs in the US and abroad, and other outreach projects;

• Have access to a world-class architectural library, furniture studio and 3D maker space, computer lab, and an architectural drawing archive;

• Be involved with architectural journalism through the publishing of academic journals;

• Be part of a school that sponsors the renowned Richard H. Driehaus Prize and Henry Hope Reed Award that lend international credence to our distinctive academic focus.

Learn more about the program at architecture.nd.edu/graduate.