is there a phd in architecture

How to get a PhD in Architecture

Whether you’re at a crossroad in your professional career as an architect or in the middle of your BArch or MArch with some doubts on whether you want to practice architecture, pursuing a doctoral program in architecture might be an opportunity to still be involved with the world of architecture albeit not by practicing professionally. Pursuing a PhD in Architecture can easily be seen as a career shift since the point of getting a degree in architecture is to become an architect, however, there is another side to architecture that is less concerned with creating buildings and more on research, a route that can be as important and fulfilling. Nowadays, this can come in different forms of non-professional degrees, one of which is a Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture. In this article, I hope to provide some insight to those who are interested in doing research work in architecture.

A Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture is a relatively new addition to doctoral studies when put next to other fields in the humanities and sciences. At least in the United States, PhD’s in Architecture didn’t emerge until the 1970s. For example, Taubman College in Michigan , one of the first to offer a Doctor of Architecture, only started offering the degree in 1969 while Harvard did not introduce its degree until 1987. This delay shouldn’t come as a surprise since practicing architects have always been able to work in academia with a professional degree alone, leading to a discussion of whether the field of architecture even needed to have this degree. In fact, even the first generation who pursued these degrees continued to practice throughout their time in school. The PhD, however, did allow for architects and designers to more directly involve themselves in academia and have an impact there.

Ultimately, offering a non-professional degree in Architecture as high as a PhD birthed other non-professional degrees that we see today in schools. Alongside the MArch and BArch degrees, there are the MS degrees which are non-accredited degrees that provide studies on a specific research topic. For example, several schools around the United States, including USC , UPenn , and GSAPP , offer master's in historic conservation degrees that focus on historic architecture conservation research. Other concentrations include sustainable design, urban design, architectural history, and even real estate development. Although not required for accreditation, it’s a great opportunity for individuals who are passionate about a specific subject in architecture.

A prerequisite to start your PhD is to have a Master of Arts. This is typically already built into the PhD program itself and could take up to two years to complete. The Master of Arts degree is seen as a preparation for a PhD degree. Although built-in, you may still need to apply to enter the PhD degree once completed. Once you do enter, your years pursuing a PhD will depend on your chosen research. In architecture specifically, this can last between four to seven years. A second language (some institutions even require a third) is often a requirement while pursuing a PhD to be able to understand historical documents on a deeper level. The language depends on your chosen research, but typically they must fall within the modern languages.

The Application

Just like applying to your previous degrees, you’ll want to consider location since you’re expecting to be in school for several years. Most importantly, however, it’s vital to really dive into the school, the department where your PhD lies, and the faculty that is part of that department. In this level of academia within architecture, schools can define their architecture differently. Some schools don’t have a sole architecture department but rather, are integrated within another department such as arts and urban planning. Schools that do have an independent architecture department will also typically present specific tracks for studies. MIT for example has a History and Theory of Architecture track along with a History and Theory of Art. At UC Berkeley , they provide a PhD track of Building, Science, Technology, and Sustainability as a collective, also known as BSTS, and a track of History, Theory, and Society as a collective, also known as an HTS.

Furthermore, looking into faculty who are working on the same interest and passion as you are will be an important consideration as they essentially serve as advisors throughout your research. On top of these, you will have to take the GRE (a good amount of schools are waiving this even for PhD applications), an essay talking about what you're interested in researching and why, and recommendations from previous employers, faculty and so forth. PhD applications are typically due by the end of the year, but each school will vary in its specific dates.

Compared to paying a tuition fee in a professional degree such as BArch and MArch, pursuing a PhD relies on funding from grants and scholarship as research work can be seen as work in itself. The initial funding and conditions will vary from each school. The common thread, however, is that becoming a TA or even teaching a full course at the institution is a way to receive money while doing your research. Because PhD’s are primarily seen as a route towards academia (not always exclusively), this will serve as a great opportunity for those who are interested in practicing their skills in teaching. Just like any degree, outside scholarships and grants are opportunities for more funding and typically, this is seen as a way to avoid doing teaching jobs to focus on doing your research and writing a dissertation.

The Dissertation

If you have a BArch or MArch, you might already be familiar with the idea of a thesis. The dissertation is essentially going to be your thesis that you’ll be working on pretty much your whole time in your PhD. A dissertation is the main requirement for you to obtain your Doctor of Philosophy degree, typically a book-length research project which you would defend to a committee. Schools will go about this differently but nonetheless, expect to do a lot of reading and writing within your PhD degree to cultivate your research work.

Job Prospects

A Doctor in Philosophy is the main way to get into academia. There is still a lot of debate on what kind of professionals should be teaching studios and seminars in architecture schools, nonetheless, you will find an array of schools that provide some sort of architectural study to students, lying in different places within the spectrum of the built work and the historical theory work. Another route to consider would be a job at a research institution focusing on the arts and culture such as museums as they can also provide openings due to architecture falling within the humanities. Ultimately, the point of a PhD is to be able to have the space and time for an individual to research a topic which that individual feels passionate about and believes to be an important topic. This specificity can lead towards a more specialized workforce, whether that is in academia, the arts, or even urban planning.

Because architecture is mainly a practicing profession, doing research work can be an anomaly. However, this is not to say that the work cannot have value in the world of architecture. Architecture can live through different mediums — from living in the built environment to existing in a piece of writing. Regardless of which medium you resonate the most with, it’s important to remember that executing your interests and passions can spark and inspire ideas, and architecture should continue cultivating a diverse set of thoughts. So if you have a passion for a certain topic, find ways to cultivate it. Whether it be by building something or writing about it.

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About the Author

Lance Arevalo

22 Comments

APRIL 6, 2021 | 3:00PM ET / 12:00PM PT

"Expanding the View into Post-Professional Degree Programs"

https://www.acsa-arch.org/webi...

great and awesome idea !

   I see more unplayable student loans in someone future.    Focus on helping current professionals make more money.  Creating more elite intellectuals does not help. 

thisisnotmyname

"Typical funding for the doctoral degree includes four years of full funding (tuition fellowship, benefits, and stipend based on a Graduate Student Instructorship or a Graduate Student Research Assistantship) and two additional years of tuition only fellowship (TOF) with benefits, if required. "

I knew a few PHDs from UMich, they didn't have to pay anything. You might be projecting. 

phd programs are almost always 100% funded, with a stipend on top.

now, is a phd in architecture a necessary degree? still debatable- i wasn't aware how new this type of degree is in architecture.

It's a jumping off point to get deep into research or academia. People aren't doing this to go do the same thing as all the MArchs and BArchs. With that in mind, I would say it's a great approach if that is your intent.

Nam Henderson

i'm speaking more about the broader philosophical debate about the nature of the degree.. i think prior to the 70's, what was common was an art history phd with a focus in architecture, which i think there is plenty of argument in it being sufficient enough.

A PhD in architecture is great, but only if there are available teaching slots open. Though it goes back to the larger point where architecture expertise should be valued more in media, government, etc. Biden's about to pass a 3 trillion dollar infrastructure bill with no apparent design vision -- just a lot of economist BS. Meanwhile there are no popular critics left, and the few venues left are keen to pretend like the McMansion lady has something interesting to say.

JJArchitect

PhD acronym 'piled high and deep'

DesignGnome

One of the offices I worked at has an office in Honolulu, many of my co-workers there have PHDs in arch 

Context is key. University of Hawaii has a professional DArch degree. It is very different than the other Arch PHDs as far as I understand.

Yea, don't do this unless you want to struggle to find a middling academic job. Even if the doctorate is heavily subsidized, this is a complete waste and will no way help you in your architectural business. On top of it, they put the most bizarre, out of touch professors in this sector - or you are learning on you're own / in thesis mode - which you could do without being a PHD student.

Just a reminder to those in college thinking about pursuing this degree path - a PhD in Architecture - if you bypass getting licensed (per NCARB and State Board requirements) to obtain your PhD and take a career path in academia, it is illegal to call yourself an 'Architect' in the U.S. Please don't confuse the two.

I mean, if you just don't get licensed regardless of what you do in academia technically it's illegal... Unless you work in IT ;D Anyway, the two things are entirely unrelated, you can get a PHD and conceivably still get licensed, you could get a MArch and not get licensed. I know there are a lot more unlicensed MArchs out there calling themselves Architects than PHDs calling themselves architects. This seems like a rather non-problem. 

My comment was directed more to those in the age bracket I often mentor (high school students and college students) looking to become licensed Architects. Many of them are always looking for the least path of resistance to become licensed Architects - merely providing clarity the article did not address. Designers/people misrepresenting themselves as or doing work as 'Architects' is an issue - Google how state Architecture boards are cracking down on people misrepresenting themselves as 'Architects'. One of the states I'm licensed in issues rulings and legal cases each month the State brought against designers/people working as or misrepresenting themselves as 'Architects'. The cases often end in hefty fines and/or in extreme cases more punitive legal ramifications for the individuals.

Am curious as to how the profession protects the term 'Architect' but doesn't really work to heighten the terms standing in the world. Most clients are happy with a designer, developer, planner or interest to do most of the work, perhaps getting an architect to stamp when necessary. All of this does little for the 'Architect' as it was understood by Frank Lloyd Wright or anyone else.

J D J... That's fair. Getting a doctorate is definitely not least path of resistance though. As for the legal actions. I also see that in the state I am licenced in, but it's almost exclusively for people who have represented themselves as architects for the purpose of performing architectural services. Which, is of course illegal and the main point. However, I have also know hundreds of recent grads and young professionals who refer to themselves as "architectural designers" or something like that, which is illegal and they technically know it.

My favorite is the Honorary Doctorate. 

Dr. Sean "P. Diddy" Combs

Dr. Aiec Baldwin

Dr. Robert DeNiro

Dr. Conan O'Brien

Dr. Usain Bolt

Dr. L.L. Cool J

Dr. William Shatner

Odd, nothing in the alphabet letter salad following J Daniels Jenkins name above indicates that he is an architect. 

wrong- aia indicates licensure vs assoc aia.

By the way, Harvard began its Ph.D. in Architecture program in the 1900s. 

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Ph.D. in Architecture

• dissertations

The PHD in Architecture addresses the development of modern architectural form and ideas as they have been affected by social, economic, and technological change. In broad terms, it encompasses the relations between the profession, practice, civil institutions, and the society at large.

As a doctoral program, it is oriented toward the training of scholars in the field of architectural history and theory. Its structure reflects a dual understanding of the scholar’s role in the discipline at large: as a teacher and as a researcher making an original contribution to the field, with an emphasis on expanding and reinterpreting disciplinary knowledge in a broad intellectual arena. Course requirements are therefore designed to give entering students a solid foundation in historical knowledge and theoretical discourse, with sufficient flexibility to spark and support individual research agendas. The program’s focus is on the history and theory of modern and contemporary architecture and urbanism in an international and cross-cultural context, from the mid-eighteenth century to the present. Within this, a wide range of research is supported through the varied expertise of the faculty and through strong relationships with other departments throughout the university and beyond.

The Ph.D. in Architecture is a program within the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) while the actual degree is granted by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS).

Admission for 2024

• The application deadline for 2024 admissions was January 4, 2024 and is now closed.
• For additional information on the application process and requirements, please see the GSAS website.

Lucia Allais Barry Bergdoll (Art History) Ateya Khorakiwala Reinhold Martin Mary McLeod Felicity Scott Mark Wigley Mabel Wilson

Affiliated Faculty

Zeynep Celik Alexander Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi

All students entering the PhD program in Architecture receive two Residence Units of Advanced Standing, having entered with a master’s degree in architecture, architectural history, or a related field. As such, students must complete the M.Phil. degree within three years from initial registration and the Ph.D. within eight years from initial registration.

Year 1: Students begin required coursework, including language proficiencies Year 2: Students complete required coursework and language proficiencies; begin required teaching apprenticeship Year 3: Students complete required teaching apprenticeship; complete M.Phil. Examination (by mid-February); and defend the Dissertation Prospectus (by early May) Year 4+: Students research, write, and defend the doctoral dissertation

At least once each semester, students should meet individually with the director of the program or with their program or dissertation adviser. Students are assigned a program advisor in the first year, the duties of which are assumed by their dissertation advisor in the third year. Students must have acquired a dissertation advisor by the seventh week of their sixth semester. Students are allowed to change both their program and dissertation advisers during the course of their studies.

All students are expected to meet the requirements of Satisfactory Academic Progress as stipulated by the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Renewal of student funding packages each year is dependent upon their maintaining good academic and administrative standing .

Students are required to spend four semesters in residence during which time they are expected to take thirteen courses (39 credit points), of which at least eight must be taken for a letter grade. The remaining five courses can be taken for R credit. The required academic course work breaks down into the four sections described below. In addition to the doctoral colloquia and doctoral seminars, five further classes should be seminars (not lecture courses). At least six of the thirteen courses should be taken with faculty from the Ph.D. in Architecture committee. It is assumed that these thirteen courses will be spread out approximately evenly over the first four semesters of study, although students can complete a larger number of courses in the first year to accommodate teaching requirements in the second year.

For any course in which a student receives an incomplete, the student must complete all outstanding coursework before the beginning of the next academic year. To remain in good standing with the program, students cannot hold more than one incomplete at any time. Students must complete all incomplete coursework prior to taking their M.Phil. examination.

Section 1: Doctoral Colloquia All students are required to take two doctoral colloquia in the fall semester and at least two doctoral seminars in the spring semester over the four-semester sequence. Three of these must be taken for a letter grade.

Section 2: Architectural History/Theory To complete distribution requirements, students will be required to take graduate-level courses from the following areas of study:

• One pre-1750 (Western or non-Western)
• Two courses either in Eighteenth-Century Architecture and Theory or Nineteenth-Century Architecture and Theory

At least half of the syllabus must address these time frames for a course to satisfy the requirement. At the discretion of the program director, these requirements may be modified for students who have had previous, relevant graduate-level courses.

Section 3: Social and Critical Studies Students should take at least one course outside of Architecture and Art History. Representative departments in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences with an emphasis on comparative historical and critical studies include: African American and African Diaspora Studies, Anthropology, East Asian Languages and Cultures, English and Comparative Literature, Germanic Language and Literature, History, Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies, Philosophy, and Political Science, or within relevant University Centers and Institutes. The specific topic and the choice of faculty will be decided in consultation with the student’s program adviser or the director of the program.

Section 4: Electives Remaining coursework is completed through elective courses in students’ areas of interest, the selection of which should be decided in consultation with the student’s program adviser or the director of the program.

The four-semester program has been designed to give doctoral candidates sufficient training for the M.Phil. examination, with a special emphasis on the ability to teach classes in modern architectural and urban development and its relationship to parallel developments in material history and contemporary thought. Students must complete their M.Phil. (generals) examination no later than their sixth semester in the program.

The M.Phil. qualifying examination is divided into three interrelated sections:

Three revised coursework papers, chosen to reflect the student’s research interests and abilities

Two essays written in response to specific questions formulated by the examining committee, one essay pertaining to the major field and one to the minor field. Students will receive two questions pertaining to the major field but only answer one of them.

The oral examination

The qualifying exam will be divided into major and minor fields. These fields are to be determined in consultation with the program faculty supervising the exam. The major field should be fairly broad and involve cross-cultural comparisons and/or cover at least a century in time. The minor field should focus on another topic, historical or theoretical in character, distinct from the major field. Students must consult the relevant supervising faculty in deciding on their major and minor fields.

The examining committee will be comprised of three members, two covering the major field and one covering the minor field. At least two members of the examining committee should be drawn from the Ph.D. committee or from the program’s associated faculty. Each student prepares the two bibliographies in consultation with these faculty and distributes final versions of the bibliographies one month prior to the oral examination. Each member of the committee will be responsible for one question, which the student receives a week after submitting the bibliographies. The papers are to be completed in a two-week period and submitted at least one week prior to the oral examination. The oral exam consists of discussion of the submitted essays, the coursework papers, and the bibliographies.

To receive the degree of M.Phil. students must complete the required coursework, the M.Phil. exam, the required four semesters of teacher training, and must have demonstrated proficiency in two languages other than English.

After successfully completing the qualifying examination, each student defends his or her dissertation proposal before a faculty committee, composed of the student’s dissertation adviser, who must be on the list of approved Architecture Doctoral Dissertation Advisors , and two other readers, at least one of whom should be from the list of Architecture dissertation advisors or associated faculty. Defense of the dissertation prospectus must take place before the end of the sixth semester.

The student will then be free to pursue the research topic independently, in ongoing consultation with the dissertation adviser. It is expected that the dissertation be completed approximately two to three years after approval of the topic. Since all students come into the program with Advanced Standing, students must complete the dissertation within eight years of entering the program, approved Leaves of Absence notwithstanding.

The dissertation must be submitted four weeks before the dissertation defense. A copy is to be provided for each member of the examining committee. This committee consists of five people, at least three of whom are approved as a dissertation advisor in Architecture or the associated faculty. At least one member of the committee must be from outside GSAPP. The student is granted the Ph.D. upon defending the dissertation successfully and depositing the final copy in accordance with University regulations.

For more information on the Ph.D. dissertation, refer to the GSAS Dissertation Toolkit .

• For information on Ph.D. student employee compensation and benefits, click here .
• For information on available resources for parents, click here .
• For more information on the GSAPP PhD Travel, Conference, and Exhibition Participation Support program, click here .

Spring 2024 Courses

Related events, other architecture programs at gsapp.

Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture and Design Research, Architecture Track

Ph.D., based at Main Campus + WAAC

Degree Tracks within the Ph.D. in Architecture and Design Research program

There are two major tracks within the Ph.D. in Architecture and Design Research degree program, each of which has topical areas. The requirements for the tracks vary slightly, but both provide significant flexibility for each student to develop a plan of study consistent with his or her academic goals. The two tracks are Architecture and Design Research.

Architecture Track

The Architecture track within the Ph.D program in Architecture and Design Research includes research topics in Architectural Representation and Education, Architectural History and Theory, Historic Preservation, and Computing and Representation.

The Architecture track will share resources on the Blacksburg Campus and the Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center in the National Capital Region (NCR). At the latter location, students can make use of the many research libraries available in the Washington, DC area, including the Library of Congress, National Building Museum library, American Institute of Architects Library, CASVA, Smithsonian Institution, the Dumbarton Oaks Library and many privately-owned architectural archives to develop their topics in architectural representation.

Design Research Track

The Design Research track within the Ph.D. program in Architecture and Design Research primarily operates on the Blacksburg campus. Principal focus areas within the Design Research track are Building Science, Interior Design, Industrial Design, and Landscape Architecture. Other areas of study include those outlined in the  MS degree , History/Theory/Criticism, Health and Wellness Design, Social Impact Design, Biodesign, and Design Technology. Over the past fifteen years, the number of students and diversity of research activities in the Design Research track has steadily grown resulting in an internationally recognized program. Admission to the program is highly competitive with only a few admissions offered each year.

Architectural Acoustics focus

The Architectural Acoustics focus within the architecture program at Virginia Tech engages acoustics under the umbrella of design. The program encourages students to bring issues of room acoustics, speech privacy, and noise control into their design studios and into their careers, and involves students in individually-tailored rigorous research in the field.

Architectural Acoustics students are encouraged to integrate their class work with their design studio work. Academic study centers around understanding the relationship between the built world and sound, calculating and predicting acoustic performance of spaces, and executing acoustic measurements (impulse response, reverberation time, background noise, and sound transmission loss). The College’s Architectural Acoustics Laboratory houses equipment capable of taking acoustic measurements in rooms, simulating acoustic environments and analyzing the acoustic character of computer-modeled and scale-modeled rooms.

Those interested in learning more about the curriculum, discussing the body of research investigated, or speaking with students who have completed their study in architectural acoustics are encouraged to contact Prof. Michael Ermann by email or at 540.231.1225.

The faculty are seeking to admit a highly selective group of students who have master’s degrees in closely allied fields, such as Architecture, Environmental Design, Building Science, Landscape Architecture, Architecture History and Theory, Interior Design, and Industrial Design. In addition to the application requirements of the Virginia Tech Graduate School and those pertaining to all graduate programs within the School of Architecture and School of Design, applicants to the Ph.D. degree in Architecture and Design Research must submit a portfolio and a 2,500-word statement of research focus. Students are encouraged to contact members of the faculty with whom their interests and research focus area align.

Degree Requirements for the Ph.D. in Architecture and Design Research:

The Graduate School requires each Ph.D. student to complete 90 semester hours of graduate study and dissertation.

All students, regardless of area of specialization, are required to complete a sequence of specific Architecture and Design Seminars. A two-semester sequence seminar will focus primarily on epistemology and the nature of discipline and practice of architecture, viewed in the context of architecture and the allied fields. Students will also enroll in a continuing seminar course required every semester of residence. In these seminars, Ph.D. students, the School faculty involved with the graduate program, and possible guests present their own research for critical review and feedback. The Ph.D. students in the Architecture track must also pass a test of reading ability in a foreign language related to their selected topics (native languages and English do not fulfill this requirement).

In addition, all students must complete a special Research Methods course organized by area of specialization. At the approval of the student’s advisory committee, the course may be also taken in the other area of specialization or outside of the school.

Related links

Information regarding admission to Graduate Programs in Architecture

Graduate Architecture Program Policies

Ph.D. in Architecture

The PhD in Architecture (PhD-Arch) program at Carnegie Mellon advances interpretive, critical and contextual perspectives on the built environment and spatial design. The program offers students an interdisciplinary platform to investigate built environment cultures, practices and politics across a range of historical and geographical contexts.

Nida Rehman

Assistant Professor & PhD-Arch Track Chair

Program Overview

The PhD in Architecture (PhD-Arch) program at Carnegie Mellon advances interpretive, critical and contextual perspectives on the built environment and spatial design. Bringing together methods in history of architecture, urban studies, critical spatial practices, environmental humanities, digital humanities, environmental justice and community-oriented research, the program offers students an interdisciplinary platform to investigate built environment cultures, practices and politics across a range of historical and geographical contexts.

The intellectual foundation of the program is informed by Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s commitments to racial and spatial justice in architectural epistemology, pedagogy and practice. The program builds on and extends the foundational work in the school in the area of community-oriented urban design and research and is supported by the wide-ranging expertise and resources in the school and across the university, particularly in the arts and humanities.

Admission Information

Program Curriculum

Learn more about the PhD-Arch curriculum below.

PhD-Arch Curriculum

Program Faculty

For more information about the PhD-Arch program, please contact track chair Nida Rehman .

Erica Cochran Hameen

Assistant Professor, DEI Director & DDes Track Chair

Stefan Gruber

Associate Professor, MUD Track Chair & RCI Director

Kai Gutschow

Associate Professor & Associate Head for Design Ethics

Associate Professor

Francesca Torello

Special Faculty

Admissions Resources

Are you a current student looking for resources? Handbooks, procedures and other information can be found on the Student Resources page .

MA & PhD in Architecture

Ucla architecture and urban design offers two academic graduate degrees: the master of arts in architecture (ma) and doctor of philosophy in architecture (phd)..

The programs produce students whose scholarship aims to provoke and operate within architecture’s public, professional, and scholarly constituencies. Both programs are supported by the Standing Committee, made up of five faculty members: Michael Osman (interim program director), Cristóbal Amunátegui , Dana Cuff , Samaa Elimam , and Ayala Levin . A number of visiting faculty teach courses to expand the range of offerings.

Applications for the MA/PhD program (Fall 2024 matriculation) are completed via the UCLA Application for Graduate Admission , and are due January 6, 2024. Candidates will be notified of decisions in March 2024; admitted candidates who wish to accept the offer of matriculation must submit their Statement of Intent to Register (SIR) by April 15, 2024.

All MA and PhD students are required to enroll in a two-year colloquium focused on methods for writing, teaching, and researching in the field of architecture. The six courses that constitute the colloquium train students in the apparatus of academic scholarship. Over the two-year sequence, students produce original research projects and develop skills in long-format writing.

Research Opportunities

The intellectual life of the students in the MA and PhD programs are reinforced by the increasing number of opportunities afforded to students through specialized faculty-led research projects. These include cityLAB-UCLA and the Urban Humanities Institute .

MA in Architecture

This program prepares students to work in a variety of intellectual and programmatic milieus including historical research, cultural studies, and interdisciplinary studies with particular emphasis on connections with geography, design, art history, history of science and literary studies, as well as studio and design based research.

Beyond the core colloquium, MA students take a series of approved courses both at UCLA AUD and across campus. The MA program is a two-year degree, culminating in a thesis. The thesis is developed from a paper written by the student in their coursework and developed in consultation with the primary advisor and the standing committee. In addition to courses and individual research, students often participate in collective, project-based activities, including publications, symposia and exhibitions.

The program is distinguished by its engagement with contemporary design and historical techniques as well by the unusual balance it offers: fostering great independence and freedom in the students’ courses of study while providing fundamental training in architectural scholarship.

Recent MA Theses

• Jacqueline Meyer, “Crafting Utopia: Paolo Soleri and the Building of Arcosanti.”
• Joseph Maguid, “The Architecture of the Videogame: Architecture as the Link Between Representational and Participatory Immersion.”
• Meltem Al, “The Agency of Words and Images in the Transformation of Istanbul: The Case of Ayazma.”
• Courtney Coffman, “Addressing Architecture and Fashion: On Simulacrum, Time and Poché.”
• Joseph Ebert, “Prolegomena to a Poiesis of Architectural Phenomenology.”
• Jamie Aron, “Women Images: From the Bauhaus Weaving Workshop to the Knoll Textile Division.”
• Gustave Heully, “Moldy Assumptions.”
• Brigid McManama, “Interventions on Pacoima Wash: Repurposing Linear Infrastructure into Park Spaces.”

MA Typical Study Program

Phd in architecture.

This program prepares students to enter the academic professions, either in architectural history, architectural design, or other allied fields. PhD students are trained to teach courses in the history and theory of architecture while also engaging in studio pedagogy and curatorial work. In addition to the colloquium, PhD students take a series of approved courses both at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design and across campus. They select these courses in relation to their own research interests and in consultation with their primary advisor. The priorities for selection are breadth of knowledge and interdisciplinary experience that retains a focused area of expertise. To this end, the students identify Major and Minor Fields of study. The Minor Field is generally fulfilled by satisfactorily completing three courses given by another department and the Major Field by five courses offered by UCLA Architecture and Urban Design.

Once coursework is completed, PhD students move to the Comprehensive Exam, Qualifying Exam, and the writing of a dissertation, and final defense, if deemed appropriate by the doctoral committee. In the transition from coursework to exams, PhD students work on one paper beyond its original submission as coursework. The paper begins in the context of a departmental seminar, but often continues either in the context of an independent study, summer mentorship, or a second seminar with faculty consent. Upon the research paper’s acceptance, students begin preparing for their comprehensive exam. Before their third year, students must also satisfactorily complete three quarters of language study or its equivalent according to University standards. The particular language will be determined in consultation with the Standing Committee. The Comprehensive Exam is administered by at least two members of the Standing Committee and at most one faculty member from another Department at UCLA, also a member of the Academic Senate.

The Comprehensive Exam tests two fields: the first covers a breadth of historical knowledge—300 years at minimum—and the second focuses on in-depth knowledge of a specialization that is historically and thematically circumscribed. Students submit an abstract on each of these fields, provide a substantial bibliography, and prepare additional documentation requested by their primary advisor. These materials are submitted to the committee no less than two weeks before the exam, which occurs as early as the end of the second year. Students are encouraged to complete the Comprehensive Exam no later than the end of their third year of study.

The Comprehensive Exam itself consists of two parts: an oral component that takes place first, and then a written component. The oral component is comprised of questions posed by the committee based on the student’s submitted materials. The goal of the exam is for students to demonstrate their comprehensive knowledge of their chosen field. The written component of the exam (which may or may not be waived by the committee) consists of a written response to a choice of questions posed by the committee. The goal of this portion of the exam is for students to demonstrate their research skills, their ability to develop and substantiate an argument, and to show promise of original contribution to the field. Students have two weeks to write the exam. After the committee has read the exam, the advisor notifies the student of the committee’s decision. Upon the student’s successful completion of the Comprehensive Exam, they continue to the Qualifying Exam.

Students are expected to take the Qualifying Exam before the beginning of the fourth year. The exam focuses on a dissertation prospectus that a student develops with their primary advisor and in consultation with their PhD committee. Each student’s PhD committee consists of at least two members of the Standing Committee and one outside member from another department at the University (and a member of the Faculty Senate). Committees can also include faculty from another institution. All committees are comprised of at least three members of UCLA Academic Senate. The prospectus includes an argument with broad implications, demonstrates that the dissertation will make a contribution of knowledge and ideas to the field, demonstrates mastery of existing literature and discourses, and includes a plan and schedule for completion.

The PhD dissertation is written after the student passes the qualifying exam, at which point the student has entered PhD candidacy. The dissertation is defended around the sixth year of study. Students graduating from the program have taken posts in a wide range of universities, both in the United States and internationally.

Recent PhD Dissertations

• Marko Icev, "Building Solidarity: Architecture After Disaster and The Skopje 1963 Post-Earthquake Reconstruction." ( Read )
• Anas Alomaim, "Nation Building in Kuwait, 1961-1991."
• Tulay Atak, “Byzantine Modern: Displacements of Modernism in Istanbul.”
• Ewan Branda, “Virtual Machines: Culture, telematique, and the architecture of information at Centre Beaubourg, 1968–1977.”
• Aaron Cayer, "Design and Profit: Architectural Practice in the Age of Accumulation"
• Per-Johan Dahl, “Code Manipulation, Architecture In-Between Universal and Specific Urban Spaces.”
• Penelope Dean, “Delivery without Discipline: Architecture in the Age of Design.”
• Miriam Engler, “Gordon Cullen and the ‘Cut-and-Paste’ Urban Landscape.”
• Dora Epstein-Jones, “Architecture on the Move: Modernism and Mobility in the Postwar.”
• Sergio Figueiredo, “The Nai Effect: Museological Institutions and the Construction of Architectural Discourse.”
• Jose Gamez, “Contested Terrains: Space, Place, and Identity in Postcolonial Los Angeles.”
• Todd Gannon, “Dissipations, Accumulations, and Intermediations: Architecture, Media and the Archigrams, 1961–1974.”
• Whitney Moon, "The Architectural Happening: Diller and Scofidio, 1979-89"
• Eran Neuman, “Oblique Discourses: Claude Parent and Paul Virilio’s Oblique Function Theory and Postwar Architectural Modernity.”
• Alexander Ortenberg, “Drawing Practices: The Art and Craft of Architectural Representation.”
• Brian Sahotsky, "The Roman Construction Process: Building the Basilica of Maxentius"
• Marie Saldana, “A Procedural Reconstruction of the Urban Topography of Magnesia on The Maeander.”
• David Salomon, “One Thing or Another: The World Trade Center and the Implosion of Modernism.”
• Ari Seligmann, “Architectural Publicity in the Age of Globalization.”
• Zheng Tan, “Conditions of The Hong Kong Section: Spatial History and Regulatory Environment of Vertically Integrated Developments.”
• Jon Yoder, “Sight Design: The Immersive Visuality of John Lautner.”

A Sampling of PhD Alumni and Their Pedagogy

Iman Ansari , Assistant Professor of Architecture, the Knowlton School, Ohio State University

Tulay Atak , Adjunct Associate Professor, Pratt School of Architecture

Shannon Starkey , Associate Professor of Architecture, University of San Diego

Ece Okay , Affiliate Research, Université De Pau Et Des Pays De L'adour

Zheng Tan , Department of Architecture, Tongji University

Pelin Yoncaci , Assistant Professor, Department Of Architecture, Middle East Technical University

José L.S. Gámez , Interim Dean, College of Arts + Architecture, UNC Charlotte

Eran Neuman , Professor, School of Architecture, Tel Aviv University

Marie Saldana , Assistant Professor, School of Interior Architecture, University of Tennessee - Knoxville

Sergio M. Figueiredo , Assistant Professor, Eindhoven University of Technology

Rebecca Choi , Assistant Professor of Architecture History, School of Architecture, Tulane University

Will Davis , Lecturer in History, Theory and Criticism, Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore

Maura Lucking , Faculty, School of Architecture & Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

Kyle Stover , Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, Montana State University

Alex Maymind , Assistant Professor of Architecture and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Architecture, University of Minnesota

Gary Riichirō Fox , visiting faculty member at Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and lecturer at USC School of Architecture

Randy Nakamura , Adjunct Professor, College of Arts and Sciences, University of San Francisco

Aaron Cayer , Assistant Professor of Architecture History, School of Architecture + Planning, University of New Mexico

Whitney Moon , Associate Professor of Architecture, School of Architecture & Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

Todd Gannon , Professor of Architecture, the Knowlton School, Ohio State University

Dora Epstein Jones , Professor of Practice, School of Architecture, the University of Texas at Austin

Sarah Hearne , Assistant Professor, College of Architecture and Planning, University of Colorado Denver

PhD Typical Study Program

*The choice of language to fulfill this requirement must be discussed with the Ph.D. Standing Committee

Our Current PhD Cohort

AUD's cohort of PhD candidates are leaders in their fields of study, deepening their scholarship at AUD and at UCLA while sharing their knowledge with the community.

Adam Boggs is a sixth year Ph.D candidate and interdisciplinary artist, scholar, educator and Urban Humanist. His research and teaching interests include the tension between creativity and automation, craft-based epistemologies, and the social and material history of architecture at the U.S.-Mexico border. He holds a BFA in Sculpture Cum Laude from the Ohio State University, and an MFA in Visual Art from the State University of New York at Purchase College. Prior to joining the doctoral program at UCLA he participated in courses in Architecture (studio and history) at Princeton University and Cornell University. His dissertation analyzes the history of indigenous labor during the Mexican baroque period to form a comparative analysis with the 20th century Spanish revival architecture movement in Southern California and how the implementation of the style along the U.S.-Mexico border might function as a Lefebvrian “thirdspace” that disrupts binary thinking. In Spring 2024 he will teach an undergraduate seminar course at AUD on the history of architecture at the U.S.-Mexico border as part of the CUTF program.

Hanyu Chen is a second-year doctoral student at UCLA AUD. Her research focuses on the intersection between (sub)urban studies, heritage conservation, and the genders of the space. Specifically, it concerns the dynamics of genders in (sub)urban areas and how these dynamics are conserved as heritage. Born and raised in China for her first 18 years, Hanyu chose the conservation of comfort stations in China as her master's thesis at the University of Southern California, where she earned her master’s degree in Heritage Conservation and officially started her journey in architecture. Her thesis discusses the fluidity and genders of comfort stations and how they survive in contemporary China’s heritage conservation policies.

Hanyu also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in AMS (Applied Mathematics and Statistics) and Art History from Stony Brook University.

Yixuan Chen

Yixuan Chen is an architectural designer and a first-year doctoral student in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA. Driven by an impulse to demystify both the grand promises and trivial familiarities of architecture, her research embarks on the notion of everydayness to elucidate the power dynamics it reveals. She investigates the conflicts between these two ends and focuses on modernization across different times and places.

Prior to joining UCLA AUD, she was trained as an architect and graduated from the University of Nottingham's China Campus with a first-class honors degree. Her graduation project “Local Culture Preservation Centre,” which questioned the validity of monumental architecture in the climate crisis, was nominated for the RIBA President's Medal in 2016.

She also holds a Master of Arts degree with distinction in Architectural History from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Her dissertation, “Shijing, on the Debris of Shijing,” explores the vanishing shijing places, or urban villages, where rural migrant workers negotiate their urban identity in Chinese cities, revealing shifting power relations. Additionally, she authored an article in Prospectives Journal titled "Architectural Authorship in ‘the Last Mile,’" advocating for a change to relational architectural authorship in response to the digital revolution in architecture.

Pritam Dey is an urban designer and second-year doctoral student at UCLA AUD. His research interest lies at the intersection of colonial urbanism, sensorial history, and somatic inquiries. His architecture thesis investigated the crematorium and temple as sensorial infrastructure, and was presented at World Architecture Congress at Seoul in 2017. Previously Dey worked in the domain of urban design, specifically informal markets, as a shaper of urbanism in Indian cities. Prior to joining the AUD doctoral program, his past research focused on investigating the role of informal and wholesale markets in shaping up urbanity in the Indian city cores and co-mentored workshops on Urbanity of Chitpur Road, Kolkata with ENSAPLV, Paris which was both exhibited at Kolkata and Paris. He also co-mentored the documentation of the retrospective landscape of Hampi with the support of ENSAPLV and French Embassy. His investigations on the slums of Dharavi title ‘The tabooed city’ was published in the McGill University GLSA Research series 2021 under the theme: the city an object or subject of law?

An urban designer and architect, Pritam Dey pursued his post graduation from School of planning and Architecture, Delhi. During his academic tenure at SPA, he was the recipient of 2018 Design Innovation Center Fellowship for Habitat design allowing him to work on the social infrastructure for less catered communities in the Sub Himalayan Villages. In 2022 He mentored a series of exhibitions on the theme of Water, Mountains and Bodies at Ahmadabad.

He was the 2022-23 Urban Humanities Initiatives Fellow at UCLA and recipient of 2023 UCLA Center for India and South Asia fellowship for his summer research.

Carrie Gammell

Carrie Gammell is a doctoral candidate working at the intersection of architectural history, property law, and political economy. Her research focuses on claims, investments, and intermediary organizations in the United States, from the Homestead Act of 1862 to the Housing Act of 1934.

Carrie is also a Senior Research Associate at cityLAB UCLA, where she studies state appropriations for California community college student housing. In the past, she contributed to Education Workforce Housing in California: Developing the 21st Century Campus, a report and companion handbook that provides a comprehensive overview of the potential for land owned by school districts to be designed and developed for teachers and other employees.

Prior to joining AUD, Carrie worked as an architectural designer in Colombia and the United States, where she built a portfolio of affordable housing, multi-family residential, and single-family residential projects as well as civic and cultural renovations and additions. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Rice University and a Master in Design Studies (Critical Conservation) from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Chi-Chia Hou

Chi-Chia Hou is a doctoral candidate in his sixth year at UCLA AUD. His working dissertation, “New Frontier: Architecture and Service 1893-1960,” explores his interest in architecture and wealth, changing ideas of profit and management, and social scientific discourses for measuring work and worker, self and others, and values of landed property.

His research locates moments of theorizing methodologies to manage income-generating properties in schools of agriculture, home economics, and hotel studies. The schools taught their students theories, while instilling the imminence of faithful direction of oneself, of self-as-property. The pedagogies, existing beyond the purview of Architecture, were of immense architectural consideration.

Chi-Chia Hou took a break from school in the previous academic year to learn from his daughter and has now returned to school to learn from his brilliant cohorts.

Adam Lubitz

Adam Lubitz is an urban planner, heritage conservationist, and doctoral student. His research engages the intersection of critical heritage studies and migration studies, with an emphasis on how archival information can inform reparations. His community-based research has been most recently supported by the Columbia GSAPP Incubator Prize as well as the Ziman Center for Real Estate and Leve Center for Jewish Studies at UCLA.

Prior to joining AUD, Adam worked at World Monuments Fund within their Jewish Heritage Program, and taught GIS coursework at Barnard College. His master's thesis applied field research with experimental mapping techniques in the old town of a municipality in Palestine. Adam holds MS degrees in Historic Preservation and Urban Planning from Columbia University and a BA in Urban Studies from New College of Florida.

José Monge is a PhD candidate in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design. His dissertation, titled Maritime Labor, Candles, and the Architecture of the Enlightenment (1750-1872) , focuses on the role that whale-originated illuminants, specifically spermaceti candles and oil, played in the American Enlightenment as an intellectual project and the U.S. as a country. By unravelling the tension between binaries such as intellectual and manual labor–the consumers that bought these commodities and the producers that were not able to afford them–the project understands architecture as a history of activities that moved from sea to land and land to sea, challenging assumptions about the static “nature” of architecture.

Kurt Pelzer

Kurt Pelzer is a fourth-year PhD candidate at UCLA AUD. Their research explores the relational histories, material flows, and politics of land in and beyond California in the long nineteenth century during the United States parks, public lands, and conservation movements.

Their current scholarship traces the settler possession and exhibitionary display of a Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in the 1850s; an act that contested the ways Miwok peoples ancestral to California's Sierra Nevada knew and related to life and land. Their broader interests include histories of colonialism and capitalism in the Americas, environmental history, and Blackness and Indigeneity as a methodological analytic for political solidarities and possibilities.

Prior to arriving at UCLA, Pelzer worked at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in the Architecture and Design Curatorial Department participating in exhibitions, programming, and collections work. Pelzer completed a Master of Advanced Architectural Design in the History, Theory, and Experiments program from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and earned their Bachelor's degree in Landscape Architecture from the College of Design at Iowa State University.

Shota Vashakmadze

Email Shota Vashakmadze

Shota Vashakmadze is a sixth-year PhD candidate at UCLA AUD. His dissertation traces the conjoined histories of architectural computing, environmental design, and professional practice in the late 20th century, adopting critical approaches to architecture’s technical substrates—the algorithms, softwares, and user protocols of computation—to examine their social and political dispositions. In his scholarship and pedagogy, he aims to situate forms of architectural labor within the profession’s ongoing acculturation to environmental crisis. Most recently, he has been leading the development of the interdisciplinary “Building Climates” cluster, a year-long course sequence at UCLA, and co-organizing an initiative dedicated to fostering discourse on climate change and architecture, including a two-day conference entitled “Architecture After a Green New Deal.”

His research has been supported by the Canadian Centre for Architecture and appeared in journals including Architectural Theory Review , The Avery Review, and Pidgin Magazine. He is currently completing a contribution to a collection on landscape representation and a chapter for an edited volume on architecture, labor, and political economy.

Shota holds an MArch from Princeton University and has a professional background in architecture, landscape, and software development. Before coming to UCLA, he researched methods for designing with point cloud data and wrote Bison, a software plugin for landscape modeling.

Alexa Vaughn

Alexa Vaughn (ASLA, FAAR) is a first year PhD student in Architecture + Urban Design and a Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellow , from Long Beach, California. She is a Deaf landscape designer, accessibility specialist, consultant, and recent Fellow of the American Academy in Rome (2022-23). She is a visionary speaker, thought leader, prolific writer and researcher, and the author of “ DeafScape : Applying DeafSpace to Landscape,” which has been featured in numerous publications.

Her professional work is centered upon designing public landscapes with and for the Deaf and disabled communities, applying legal standards and Universal Design principles alongside lived experience and direct participation in the design process. She is an expert in designing landscapes for the Deaf community (DeafScape) and in facilitation of disabled community engagement. Prior to joining the A+UD program, Alexa worked for several landscape architecture firms over the course of six years, including OLIN and MIG, Inc.

Through a disability justice lens, her dissertation will seek to formally explore the historical exclusionary and inaccessible design of American urban landscapes and public spaces, as well as the response (activism, policy, and design) to this history through the present and speculative future. She will also actively take part in activist- and practice-based research with cityLAB and the Urban Humanities Institute .

Alexa holds both a BA in Landscape Architecture (with a minor in Conservation and Resource Studies) and a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture (MLA) from the University of California, Berkeley, with specialization in accessible and inclusive design. Much of her work can be found at www.designwithdisabledpeoplenow.com and on Instagram: @DeafScape.

Yashada Wagle

Yashada Wagle is a third year PhD student in Critical Studies at UCLA AUD, and a recipient of the department's Moss Scholarship. Her research focuses on imperial environmental-legislative regimes in British colonial India in the late nineteenth century. She is interested in exploring questions around the histories of spaces of extraction and production as they network between the metropole and the colony, and their relationship with the conceptions of laboring bodies therein. Her master's thesis focused on the Indian Forest Act of 1865, and elucidated the conceptualization of the space of the ‘forest’ through the lenses of its literary, legislative, and biopolitical trajectories, highlighting how these have informed its contemporary lived materiality.

Wagle holds a Bachelor in Architecture (BArch) from the Savitribai Phule Pune University in India, and a Master in Design Studies (History and Philosophy of Design and Media) from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She was previously a Research Fellow at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA) in Mumbai, India.

In her spare time, Wagle enjoys illustrating and writing poetry, some of which can be found here .

Dexter Walcott

Dexter Walcott is a registered architect currently in his fifth year with the Critical Studies of Architecture program at UCLA. His research focuses on the Latrobe family and early nineteenth century builders in the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys. He is interested in the role of the built environment in histories of labor, capitalism, steam-power, and industry.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Joy is a fifth-year PhD student in architecture history. Her research explores geology as antiquity from early 19th – 20th century British colonial Hong Kong and China. She holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature with a focus in German from Middlebury College in 2017, and is a graduate of The New Normal program at Strelka Institute, Moscow in 2018. Previously, she has taught in the Department of Architecture at University of Hong Kong, as well as the Department of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

After working as a curatorial assistant at Tai Kwun Contemporary in 2019, she has continued the practice of art writing and translation, collaborating with many local Hong Kong artists as well as international curators such as Raimundas Malašauskas. In her spare time, she practices long-distance open water swimming. In 2022, she completed a 30km course at the South of Lantau Island, Hong Kong.

The MA and PhD programs welcome and accept applications from students with a diverse range of backgrounds. These programs are designed to help those interested in academic work in architecture develop those skills, so we strongly encourage that you become familiar with fundamental, celebrated works in the history and theory of architecture before entering the program.

Applicants to the academic graduate programs must hold a Bachelor’s degree, or the foreign equivalent. All new students must enter in the fall quarter. The program is full-time and does not accept part-time students.

Applications for the MA and PhD programs (Fall 2024 matriculation) will be available in Fall 2023, with application deadline of January 6, 2024; please revisit this page for updates. Accepted candidates who wish to enroll must file an online Statement of Intent to Register (SIR) by April 15, 2024.

How to Apply

Applying to the MA and PhD programs is an online process via the UCLA Application for Graduate Admission (AGA).

Completing the requirements will take some time, so we strongly recommend logging in to the AGA in advance to familiarize yourself with the site and downloading the documents and forms you will need to complete your application.

You can also download this checklist to make sure you have prepared and submitted all the relevant documents to complete your application.

Your Statement of Purpose is a critical part of your application to the MA and PhD programs. It is your opportunity to introduce yourself and tell us about your specific academic background, interests, achievements, and goals. Our selection committee use it to evaluate your aptitude for study, as well as consideration for merit-based financial support.

Your statement can be up to 1500 words in length. Below are some questions you might want to consider. You don’t need to answer every question; just focus on the elements that are most relevant to you.

• What is your purpose in applying to the MA or PhD program? Describe your area(s) of research interest, including any areas of concentration and specialization.
• What experiences have prepared you for this program? What relevant skills have you gained from these experiences? Have your experiences led to specific or tangible outcomes that would support your potential to contribute to this field (e.g. performances, publications, presentations, awards or recognitions)?
• What other information about your past experience might help the selection committee in evaluating your suitability for this program? E.g. research, employment, teaching, service, artistic or international experiences through which you have developed skills in leadership, communication, project management, teamwork, or other areas.
• Why is UCLA Architecture and Urban Design the best place for you to pursue your academic goals?
• What are your plans for your career after earning this degree?

Your Personal Statement is your opportunity to provide additional information to help the selection committee evaluate your aptitude for study. It will also be used to consider candidates for UCLA Graduate Division fellowships related to diversity. You can read more about the University of California Diversity Statement here .

Your statement can be up to 500 words in length. Below are some questions you might want to consider. You don’t need to answer every question; just focus on the elements that are most relevant to you.

• Are there educational, personal, cultural, economic, or social experiences, not described in your Statement of Purpose, that have shaped your academic journey? If so, how? Have any of these experiences provided unique perspective(s) that you would contribute to your program, field or profession?
• Describe challenge(s) or barriers that you have faced in your pursuit of higher education. What motivated you to persist, and how did you overcome them? What is the evidence of your persistence, progress or success?
• How have your life experiences and educational background informed your understanding of the barriers facing groups that are underrepresented in higher education?
• How have you been actively engaged (e.g., through participation, employment, service, teaching or other activities) in programs or activities focused on increasing participation by groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education?
• How do you intend to engage in scholarly discourse, research, teaching, creative efforts, and/or community engagement during your graduate program that have the potential to advance diversity and equal opportunity in higher education?
• How do you see yourself contributing to diversity in your profession after you complete your academic degree at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design?

A Curriculum Vitae (résumé of your academic and professional experience) is recommended but not required.

Applicants must upload a scanned copy of the official transcripts from each college or university you have attended both in the U.S. and abroad. If you are accepted into the program you will be required to submit hard copies. These can either be sent directly from each institution or hand-delivered as long as they remain in the official, signed, sealed envelopes from your college or university. As a general rule, UCLA Graduate Division sets a minimum required overall grade-point average of 3.0 (B), or the foreign equivalent.

As of this Fall 2023 cycle, the GRE is NOT required as part of your application to UCLA AUD. No preference will be given to those who choose to submit GRE scores as part of their application.

However, if you do take the GRE exam and wish to include it as part of your application: More information on this standardized exam can be found at www.ets.org/gre . In addition to uploading your GRE scores, please direct ETS to send us your official score sheets. Our ETS codes for the GRE are below:

UCLA Architecture and Urban Design Institution Code: 4837 Department Code: 4401

We recommend you take the exam at least three weeks before the application deadline as it usually takes 2-3 weeks for ETS to send us the test scores.

If you have received a Bachelor’s degree in a country where the official language of instruction and primary spoken language of daily life is not English, you must submit either a Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or an International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Exempt countries include Australia, Barbados, Canada, Ireland, Jamaica, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. This is a requirement that is regardless of your visa or citizenship status in the United States.

To be considered for admission to the M.Arch. program, international students must score at least a 92 on the TOEFL or a 7 on the IELTS exam. Because processing, sending, and receiving TOEFL and IELTS scores can take several weeks, international students must schedule their exam no later than October 31 in order to meet UCLA deadlines. TOEFL scores must be sent to us directly and uploaded as part of the online submission. Our ETS codes for the TOEFL are below:

UCLA Architecture and Urban Design Institution Code: 4837 Department Code: 12

If your score is less than 100 on the TOEFL or 7.5 on the IELTS, you are also required to take the English as a Second Language Placement Examination (ESLPE) on arrival at UCLA. The results of this test will determine any English as a Second Language (ESL) courses you need to take in your first term of residence. These courses cannot be applied towards your minimum course requirements. As such, you should expect to have a higher course load than students not required to take ESL courses.

If you have earned a degree or completed two years of full-time college-level coursework in the following countries, your TOEFL / IELTS and ESLPE requirements will be waived: U.S., U.K., Canada (other than Quebec), Australia, and New Zealand. Please provide official transcripts to demonstrate course completion. Unfortunately, we cannot accept any other documentation to demonstrate language proficiency.

Three (3) letters of recommendation are required. These letters should be from individuals who are familiar with your academic and professional experiences and can evaluate your capacity to successfully undertake graduate studies at UCLA. If you do not have an architecture background please note that we are looking for letters that evaluate your potential as a graduate student, not necessarily your architecture experience.

Letters of recommendation must be sent electronically directly to UCLA by the recommender. When logged in, you can enter the name and email address of each of your recommenders. They will be contacted by email with a request to submit a letter on your behalf. You can track which letters have and have not been received. You can also send reminders to your recommenders to send their letters.

Writing samples should illustrate an applicant’s capacities for research, analytical writing and scholarly citation. Texts may include seminar papers, theses, and/or professional writing.

Please complete and submit the Department Supplement Form to confirm your intention to apply to the MA or PhD program.

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Ph.D. in Architecture

• About Architecture
• Building Science, Technology, and Sustainability

History, Theory, and Society

The Ph.D. in architecture is a research degree appropriate for those seeking careers in teaching and scholarship in architecture and its related areas, or in roles in government or professional consultation that require depth in specialization and experience in research.

The Program

Berkeley’s Ph.D. program in architecture is interdisciplinary in outlook, reaching into the various disciplines related to architecture and incorporating substantial knowledge from outside fields. Students admitted to this program carry out a program of advanced study and research, both on the basis of formal class work and of individual investigation. Work centers on three related fields of study, the major field (the basis for the dissertation), and one-to-two minor fields, at least one of which must be from a discipline outside architecture.

Fields of Study

The Ph.D. degree emphasizes course work and supervised independent research in one of the following areas of study:

• Building Science, Technology and Sustainability (BSTS)
• History, Theory and Society (HTS)

Major fields outside these fields or combinations thereof may also be proposed at the time of admission.

Course work is individually developed through consultation with an academic adviser. Outside fields of study may take advantage of the University’s varied resources. Recent graduates have completed outside fields in anthropology, art history, business administration, city and regional planning, computer science, various engineering fields, psychology, women’s studies, geography and sociology.

The following are members of the Ph.D faculty, broken into one of two offered areas of study. Please also review the current list of all faculty in the Architecture Department for other faculty and specialities. A sampling of faculty research is described on the faculty research projects page.

Building Science, Technology and Sustainability

Requirements

The Ph.D. program in architecture is governed by the regulations of the University Graduate Division and administered by the departmental Ph.D. committee. Specific degree requirements include:

• A minimum of two years in residence.
• Completion of a one-semester course in research methods.
• Satisfaction of a foreign language requirement for those in the History, Theory and Society.
• Completion of one-to-two outside fields of study.
• A written qualifying examination, followed by an oral qualifying examination.
• A dissertation.

Course requirements for the degree include:

• 2023-2024 BSTS Ph.D. Handbook [PDF]
• 2023-2024 HTS Ph.D. Handbook [PDF]
• 2022-2023 BSTS Ph.D. Handbook [PDF]
• 2022-2023 HTS Ph.D. Handbook [PDF]
• 2021-2022 BSTS Ph.D. Handbook [PDF]
• 2021-2022 HTS Ph.D. Handbook [PDF]

Ph.D. Alumni List

• Ph.D. Alumni — Building Science, Technology and Sustainability
• Ph.D. Alumni — History, Theory, and Society

Applicants to the PhD program must have completed a four-year Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree. A professional degree in architecture, landscape architecture, or urban planning is recommended but not necessary. For students planning to pursue the Architectural Technology track within the PhD program, a background in architecture and/or engineering is required. For more information, please contact  Professor Ali Malkawi .

To be eligible for admission, applicants must also show evidence of promising academic work in their field of interest or in closely related fields. Students from outside the United States must demonstrate an excellent command of spoken and written English. Applicants from underrepresented and historically marginalized communities are particularly welcome and highly encouraged to apply. To attend a virtual information session, click here .

All applicants must indicate a proposed major area of study at the time of their initial application. These proposed areas of study should be congruent with the interests and expertise of at least one Graduate School of Design faculty member associated with the PhD program.

While the GRE is not required for admission, applications must include the following:

• Unofficial transcript(s).
• Three letters of recommendation.
• A statement of purpose that gives the admissions committee a clear sense of the student’s intellectual interests and strengths and conveys their research interests and qualifications.
• A short personal statement.
• A writing sample or samples (totalling no more than 20 pages, not including references). This can be a paper written for a course, journal article, and/or thesis excerpt. The writing sample should preferably focus on a subject related to architecture, landscape architecture, or urban planning.
• Please note that unless a specific justification is provided by the applicant, design portfolios are not typically considered as part of the application.

Applications to the PhD program in Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning are received through the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. For more information on the application process, requirements, and its timeline, visit their website .

If you have additional questions, please contact Margaret Moore de Chicojay , the PhD program administrator and a key point of contact for incoming and current students.

Harvard Griffin GSAS and Harvard GSD do not discriminate against applicants or students on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry or any other protected classification.

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Phd / ms in architecture.

Welcome to the PENN Ph.D. and MS Programs in Architecture. Our graduate group faculty, candidates, students, and alumni welcome you to our website, eager to share with you their commitment to advanced research in architecture. Each in their own way seeks to cultivate knowledge, awareness, and invention in one of the oldest academic disciplines. Dedicated to thinking and making, as well as to critical questions and inventive solutions, the PENN Ph.D. and MS Architecture community invites you to join us. 

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Architecture

DAAP » Academic Programs » School of Architecture and Interior Design » PhD in Architecture

Why study Architecture?

University of Cincinnati’s Ph.D. Program in Architecture is a post-professional degree program of advanced theoretical studies in architecture with a focus on the acquisition of critical skills related to architectural production, both built and theoretical. It is intended primarily for students already in possession of a graduate degree in architecture or a related field such as interior design, planning, or landscape architecture. The Ph.D. program is an outgrowth of the university’s longstanding MS Program in Architecture, whose focus has traditionally been on architectural history, theories, and criticism as they relate to architectural practice. The program exposes students to a range of concepts in the field and fosters the ability to question and assess the built environment and the documents that relate to it.

In addition to a common core consisting of coursework in architectural theories and research methods, students complete courses in a minor field, demonstrate mastery of a major with the qualifying exam, and successfully defend a dissertation proposal in the third year, qualifying for candidacy and achieving ABD (“all but dissertation”) status. Students research, write and defend the dissertation in the final years of the program. With faculty members with technical expertise in human and environmental factors, computation, parametric design, and robotics in addition to the program’s traditional strengths in history, theory, and criticism,  the program can accommodate a range of student interests. The major exam is a multi-day written examination based on a reading list agreed upon among the committee members.

To fulfill the minor requirement, students may propose an individual course of study, supervised by a professor other than the dissertation chair, or they may choose from among a number of approved graduate certificates offered by the university. Popular options include Historic Preservation; Urban Design; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and Data Analytics. 

Admission Requirements

Students applying to the Ph.D. Program in Architecture should have completed a Master's degree in architecture or a related field prior to matriculation. Students with an undergraduate degree or with an unrelated graduate degree must instead apply for the MS Program in Architecture. Some students enter the Ph.D. program directly from the MS program. These students retain their credits from their MS studies and enter the Ph.D. program at an advanced phase commensurate with their completed studies.

Unofficial transcript(s) from all colleges/universities attended are required. Official transcripts are not required during the admissions process, and only unofficial transcripts are required for the application. Applicants should not send official transcripts until they are offered admission and confirm enrollment to the university. For complete transcript requirements, please view the Transcript Submission Policy webpage.

A portfolio of design, art, or other graphic work is optional. The portfolio is an opportunity to demonstrate your design abilities, artistic talents, or other information you deem pertinent to your application. The content does not have to be architectural if your background is in another discipline. Written project statements to accompany visual work are helpful. Portfolios are submitted online.  We do not accept hard copies of portfolios.

Three letters of recommendation from persons who are in a position to evaluate your abilities and your potential for success as a graduate student are required. There is no standard form to fill out; instead, based on the information you provide in your application, recommenders will be emailed instructions on the process for submitting letters of recommendation. 

A summary of your academic and professional experiences is required.

A two-page statement of your interest in graduate study in architecture is required. This should be a concise, articulate presentation of your academic and career goals, and any specific interests you have in architectural topics for graduate research and design. It should reflect your prior intellectual and professional engagement with these issues, and may also provide some additional perspective on the work illustrated in the portfolio.

Students applying to the Ph.D. program must submit one or two writing samples demonstrating the ability to conduct scholarly research and examine theoretical concepts. The essays can expand on the areas of research interest or on any topic.

Applicants to the Ph.D. Program in Architecture must demonstrate a commitment to the critical study of architecture and related design fields, including interior design, urban design, and landscape architecture. Prior education or working experience in architecture or a related field is desirable. Excellent writing skills and an interest in theoretical research are essential. Students whose English writing or speaking skills are not adequate for the demands of the curriculum must enroll in advanced, graduate-level English as a Second Language coursework prior to, and sometimes in tandem, with program coursework.

The Ph.D. Program in Architecture prepares researchers, educators, and practitioners for advanced scholarly, pedagogic, and professional work in architecture and related fields. Most graduates of the program become full-time professors or practitioners of architecture. Other career opportunities include historic preservation, public policy, curating, journalism, and institutional administration.

Because UC’s Ph.D. Program in Architecture has a small number of students, we are able to facilitate one-on-one student and faculty advising and collaboration. Students work with their faculty to develop their research and writing skills and they publish and present their work in national and international venues. While the program does not have separate tracks for students pursuing technical research, program faculty members assist students in identifying coursework and campus resources to develop the necessary competencies. All entering students have the opportunity to consult with multiple members of the Ph.D. Program faculty and with the program coordinator to determine appropriate elective coursework and dissertation committee composition.

• The city of Cincinnati, once called the "Queen City of the West" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, provides an excellent array of cultural resources for students who intend to pursue a degree in the visual arts. It offers the energy and assets of a larger city, along with quiet neighborhoods steeped in rich traditions. Cincinnati offers live music venues that range from top-notch symphony and opera companies to a growing pop and rock community. Home to the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Taft Museum and the Contemporary Arts Center, the city also enjoys the presence of numerous art galleries and a strong support system among practicing artists. Cincinnati is situated within driving distance of Chicago, Pittsburgh, Atlanta and New York City, allowing DAAP students to take advantage of the rich cultural resources of these cities as well.
• UC's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) is one of the most comprehensive colleges of its type in the country. A collection of nationally respected design and art programs is housed in a unique and educationally stimulating architectural setting. Architecture students have opportunities to enroll in courses in a range of related disciplines and to participate in interdisciplinary studios or special projects.
• UC’s emphasis on interdisciplinary studies facilitates interaction with counterparts in other schools of the College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning as well as other colleges such as the Engineering, Arts and Sciences, Medicine, and the College Conservatory of Music. Such interdisciplinary studies should be planned in consultation with PhD Program faculty members and approved by the Ph.D. Program coordinator.
• Eligible students accepted to the Ph.D. Program in Architecture may compete for a limited number of scholarships and assistantships. All students are required to participate in a teaching practicum as part of the program, and many are chosen for paid teaching assistantships in the latter years of the program. Students are also eligible to work in campus jobs for up to 20 hours per week when classes are in session and 40 hours during vacations.
• The DAAP college library has an outstanding collection of books, periodicals and visual resources supporting architecture, planning, design, art history and related subjects. Access to library holdings is provided by an automated online catalog, UCLID, which provides access to the University of Cincinnati Library information database, and through OhioLINK, the holdings of other academic libraries throughout Ohio.
• The Computer Graphics Center is a state-of-the-art university facility with hardware that includes PCs, Macs, and peripherals such as scanners, plotters and digital video-editing suites. Students have access to sophisticated graphics equipment and receive hands-on instruction to augment the use of laptops in the classroom.
• The college supports a Rapid Prototyping Center, which is the home of state-of-the-art equipment that allows students to create communication aids for their work. Using CAD (computer-aided design) models, students are able to create physical models using three basic methods: 3-D printing, large format laser-cutting and CNC (computer numeric control) devices.

For applicants whose native language is not English, a TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) score of at least 100 iBT (600 paper) or an IELTS score of at least 7.0 is common and is typically our minimum. The university requires minimum scores of 80 on the TOEFL and 6.5 on the IELTS. Applicants with scores below the campus minimums will not reach the Ph.D. in Architecture admissions committee for review. Students whose scores are above the campus minimum but below the Ph.D. in Architecture Program standards, or students whose English writing or speaking ability does not meet program expectations, will be considered on a case-by-case basis, however, they must agree to take graduate-level ELS coursework and possibly other courses as a condition of acceptance.

• Guide: Ph.D 2019
• Guide: Ph.D 2018
• Guide: Ph.D 2017

Application Deadlines

Early Admission

General Admission

ALL applicants must apply by January 10th . 

The application process begins with an online UC Graduate Application . Supplemental materials are to be submitted online through the application process.

New students are admitted for the fall semester. We will notify successful candidates by April 15. An offer of admission may be withdrawn if a candidate does not accept within six weeks of our offer.

In general, the program offers neither deferrals nor admission in semesters other than fall, however individual requests for admission deferrals and for spring semester admission may be considered on a case-by-case basis depending on the specific nature of the request and the ability of the program administration to accommodate it.

The architecture program of the University of Cincinnati has been accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) continuously since 1948, and its courses satisfy requirements maintained by various state architectural registration boards.

In the United States, most state registration boards require a degree from an accredited professional degree program as a prerequisite for licensure. The NAAB, which is the sole agency authorized to accredit U.S. professional degree programs in architecture, recognizes three types of degrees: the bachelor of architecture, the master of architecture, and the doctor of architecture. A program may be granted a 8-year, 3-year, or 2-year term of accreditation, depending on the extent of its conformance with established educational standards. University of Cincinnati’s Ph.D. program in Architecture is not an accredited professional degree.

Contact Information

Find related programs in the following interest areas:.

• Architecture, Construction and Building Trade

Program Code: 23DOC-ARCH-PHD

Ph.D. Program Admission

Admission to the School of Architecture is granted through Princeton University's Graduate School. A bachelor's degree from a college or university of recognized standing is normally required. Admission information can be found online at http://gradschool.princeton.edu/admission/ . The deadline for applications for the Ph.D. program is January 3rd. 

Applicants to the Ph.D. program should be aware that a professional degree in architecture is highly desirable, but applications are also accepted from those with academic degrees in appropriate disciplines in the humanities, applied sciences, and social sciences. If a candidate does not have prior professional training, they may be required to take a special program of study in the processes and working methods of the profession.

Although a personal interview is not required, candidates for the Ph.D. program are encouraged to learn more about the School by visiting and talking to students and faculty members. The best opportunity is the Fall Open House , which is held each November.  This year, 2023, it will be November 6 . We will post details and an online RSVP in October . Students who are unable to attend the Open House may contact the School to determine if an individual visit can be arranged.  Please allow at least two weeks when scheduling individual visits.

APPLICATION

Princeton University's Graduate School Announcement is the official and complete source of information about Princeton's graduate programs and their requirements. The electronic application is available September through December for admission the following fall. The electronic application and specific information regarding application requirements are available at: http://gradschool.princton.edu/admission .

Address all inquiries to:

Office of Graduate Admission Princeton University One Clio Hall Princeton, New Jersey 08544-0270

Applicants should submit substantial evidence of their academic qualifications and scholarly interests, including examples of written work, unpublished or published. Candidates should submit a quantity of written material sufficient to demonstrate a broad familiarity with the field of architecture, well developed writing and research skills, and the candidate's command of potential research or study areas. In the statement of intent, each candidate must write a short essay, carefully describing their previous professional and academic experience, and its relevance to future plans for research and teaching. While it is understood that fields of concentration may change during the first two years of pre-generals study, the candidate should attempt to outline a potential area of research in the context of Princeton's program.

Ph.D. writing samples should be uploaded directly to the online application . You will be able to check the status of any materials online. The checklist is only viewable after an application has been submitted: www.princeton.edu/gradschool/admission/applicants/status/

We do not notify applicants individually of materials received.

APPLICATION DEADLINES

January 3rd - $75 Application Fee

Deadline applies to all applicants for the receipt of application and all supporting material. Earlier applications are encouraged.

Each candidate's application and academic record is reviewed by the faculty committee to determine the candidate's accomplishments and academic achievements and assess other qualifications for graduate study in architecture. Serious consideration is given to letters of recommendation from persons who are in a position to evaluate a candidate's abilities and estimate the applicant's promise. Admission to the Graduate School is highly selective. All applicants are considered on a comparative basis, and admission is determined after analyzing the relative merits of all of the candidates applying in the same field. For the Graduate School to operate according to its objectives and methods, enrollment must be limited. Every effort is made to select the most outstanding candidates from among those submitting applications.

Consideration is given to all complete applications received on or before the regular Graduate School application deadline date. Applications are examined in one group during February; applicants are notified of the results in March. All fellowships and scholarship awards to entering students are made from applicants in this group. Only under unusual circumstances may students enter the Graduate School at any time other than the beginning of the academic year.

Application for financial aid does not affect an applicant's chances for admission. Generous financial assistance is made available to all accepted students on the basis of income and need.

ABOUT THE PROGRAMS

PhD Track in the History and Theory of Architecture

PhD Technology Track

Admissions inquiries can be sent to [email protected] .

Texas A&M University Catalogs

Doctor of philosophy in architecture.

The PhD in Architecture provides students with the tools, resources, and access to faculty expertise essential to creating, developing, and disseminating new knowledge relevant to architecture and related areas of focus. Working closely with faculty whose research expertise includes a broad array of disciplines, students who pursue the PhD in Architecture at Texas A&M University identify and address gaps in existing bodies of scholarly and professional knowledge pertaining to architecture as an academic discipline, as a professional practice, and as a form of cultural production.

Departmental members of the Texas A&M University Graduate Faculty work individually and collaboratively to guide doctoral research in architecture, sharing their respective professional and scholarly fields' disciplinary expertise to establish a climate in which scholarship and creativity can flourish. In its long and distinguished history, the PhD program in Architecture at Texas A&M University has produced graduates whose contributions to academia and the architecture profession are numerous and wide‐ranging.

Curricular requirements of the PhD in Architecture program comprise a core of required coursework and elective courses taught within the Department of Architecture, supplemented with courses from other departments in the School of Architecture, and from other departments, colleges, and schools across the university. The PhD in Architecture prepares graduates for careers in academe, industry, government, non‐governmental organizations, and independent and institutionally supported research.

Steps to Fulfill a Doctoral Program

Program Requirements

• Student's Advisory Committee

Degree Plan

Transfer of credit, research proposal.

• Preliminary Examination

Preliminary Examination Format

Preliminary examination scheduling, report of preliminary examination, failure of the preliminary examination, retake of failed preliminary examination.

• Final Examination

Report of Final Examination

Dissertation, student’s advisory committee.

After receiving admission to graduate studies and enrolling, the student will consult with the head of his or her major or administrative department (or chair of the intercollegiate faculty) concerning appointment of the chair of the advisory committee. The student’s advisory committee will consist of  no fewer than four members of the graduate faculty  representative of the student’s several fields of study and research, where the chair or co-chair must be from the student’s department (or intercollegiate faculty, if applicable), and  at least one or more of the members must have an appointment to a department other than the student’s major department . The outside member for a student in an interdisciplinary degree program must be from a department different from the chair of the student’s committee.

The chair, in consultation with the student, will select the remainder of the advisory committee. Only graduate faculty members located on Texas A&M University campuses may serve as chair of a student’s advisory committee. Other Texas A&M University graduate faculty members located off-campus may serve as a member or co-chair (but not chair), with a member as the chair.

If the chair of a student’s advisory committee voluntarily leaves the University and the student is near completion of the degree and wants the chair to continue to serve in this role, the student is responsible for securing a current member of the University Graduate Faculty, from the student’s academic program and located near the Texas A&M University campus site, to serve as the co-chair of the committee. The Department Head or Chair of Intercollegiate faculty may request in writing to the Associate Provost and Dean of the Graduate and Professional School that a faculty member who is on an approved leave of absence or has voluntarily separated from the university, be allowed to continue to serve in the role of chair of a student’s advisory committee without a co-chair for up to one year. The students should be near completion of the degree. Extensions beyond the one year period can be granted with additional approval of the Dean.

The committee members’ signatures on the degree plan indicate their willingness to accept the responsibility for guiding and directing the entire academic program of the student and for initiating all academic actions concerning the student. Although individual committee members may be replaced by petition for valid reasons, a committee cannot resign  en masse . The chair of the committee, who usually has immediate supervision of the student’s research and dissertation or record of study, has the responsibility for calling all meetings of the committee. The duties of the committee include responsibility for the proposed degree plan, the research proposal, the preliminary examination, the dissertation or record of study and the final examination. In addition, the committee, as a group and as individual members, is responsible for counseling the student on academic matters, and, in the case of academic deficiency, initiating recommendations to the Graduate and Professional School.

The student’s advisory committee will evaluate the student’s previous education and degree objectives. The committee, in consultation with the student, will develop a proposed degree plan and outline a research problem which, when completed, as indicated by the dissertation (or its equivalent for the degree of Doctor of Education or the degree of Doctor of Engineering), will constitute the basic requirements for the degree. The degree plan must be filed with the Graduate and Professional School prior to the deadline imposed by the student’s college and no later than 90 days prior to the preliminary examination.

This proposed degree plan should be submitted through the online Document Processing Submission System located on the website  http://ogsdpss.tamu.edu . A minimum of 64 hours is required on the degree plan for the Doctor of Philosophy for a student who has completed a master’s degree. A student who has completed a DDS/DMD, DVM or a MD at a U.S. institution is also required to complete a minimum of 64 hours. A student who has completed a baccalaureate degree but not a master’s degree will be required to complete a 96-hour degree plan. Completion of a DDS/DMD, DVM or MD degree at a foreign institution requires completion of a minimum of 96 hours for the Doctor of Philosophy. A field of study may be primarily in one department or in a combination of departments. A degree plan must carry a reasonable amount of 691 (research). A maximum of 9 hours of 400-level undergraduate courses may be used toward meeting credit-hour requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy.

Additional coursework may be added by petition to the approved degree plan by the student’s advisory committee if it is deemed necessary to correct deficiencies in the student’s academic preparation. No changes can be made to the degree plan once the student’s Request for Final Examination is approved by the Graduate and Professional School.

Approval to enroll in any professional course (900-level) should be obtained from the head of the department (or Chair of the intercollegiate faculty, if applicable) in which the course will be offered before including such a course on a degree plan.

No credit may be obtained by correspondence study, by extension or for any course of fewer than three weeks duration.

For non-distance degree programs, no more than four courses may be taken by distance education without approval of the Graduate and Professional School and no more than 50 percent of the non-research credit hours required for the program may be completed through distance education courses.

To receive a graduate degree from Texas A&M University, students must earn one-third or more of the credits through the institution’s own direct instruction. This limitation also applies to joint degree programs. 

Courses for which transfer credits are sought must have been completed with a grade of B or greater and must be approved by the student’s advisory committee and the Graduate and Professional School. These courses must not have been used previously for another degree. Except for officially approved cooperative doctoral programs, credit for thesis or dissertation research or the equivalent is not transferable. Credit for “internship” coursework in any form is not transferable. Courses taken in residence at an accredited U.S. institution or approved international institution with a final grade of B or greater will be considered for transfer credit if, at the time the courses were completed, the courses would be accepted for credit toward a similar degree for a student in degree-seeking status at the host institution. Credit for coursework taken by extension is not transferable. Coursework  in which no formal grades are given or in which grades other than letter grades (A or B) are earned (for example, CR, P, S, U, H, etc.) is not accepted for transfer credit . Credit for coursework submitted for transfer from any college or university must be shown in semester credit hours, or equated to semester credit hours.

Courses used toward a degree at another institution may not be applied for graduate credit. If the course to be transferred was taken prior to the conferral of a degree at the transfer institution, a letter from the registrar at that institution stating that the course was not applied for credit toward the degree must be submitted to the Graduate and Professional School.

Grades for courses completed at other institutions are not included in computing the GPA. An official transcript from the university at which transfer courses are taken must be sent directly to the Office of Admissions.

The general field of research to be used for the dissertation should be agreed on by the student and the advisory committee at their first meeting, as a basis for selecting the proper courses to support the proposed research.

As soon thereafter as the research project can be outlined in reasonable detail, the dissertation research proposal should be completed. The research proposal should be approved at a meeting of the student’s advisory committee, at which time the feasibility of the proposed research and the adequacy of available facilities should be reviewed. The approved proposal, signed by all members of the student’s advisory committee, the head of the student’s major department (or chair of the intercollegiate faculty, if applicable), must be submitted to the Graduate and Professional School at least 20 working days prior to the submission of the Request for the Final Examination.

Compliance issues must be addressed if a graduate student is performing research involving human subjects, animals, infectious biohazards and recombinant DNA. A student involved in these types of research should check with the Office of Research Compliance and Biosafety at (979) 458-1467 to address questions about all research compliance responsibilities. Additional information can also be obtained on the website  http:// rcb.tamu.edu .

Examinations

Preliminary examination for doctoral students.

The student’s major department (or chair of the interdisciplinary degree program faculty, if applicable) and his or her advisory committee may require qualifying, cumulative or other types of examinations at any time deemed desirable. These examinations are entirely at the discretion of the department and the student’s advisory committee.

The preliminary examination is required. The preliminary examination for a doctoral student shall be given no earlier than a date at which the student is within 6 credit hours of completion of the formal coursework on the degree plan (i.e., all coursework on the degree plan except 681, 684, 690, 691, 692, 693, 695, 697, 791, or other graduate courses specifically designated as S/U in the course catalog). The student should complete the Preliminary Examination no later than the end of the semester following the completion of the formal coursework on the degree plan.

The objective of preliminary examination is to evaluate whether the student has demonstrated the following qualifications:

a.     a mastery of the subject matter of all fields in the program;

b.     an adequate knowledge of the literature in these fields and an ability to carry out bibliographical research;

c.     an understanding of the research problem and the appropriate methodological approaches.

The format of the preliminary examination shall be determined by the student’s department (or interdisciplinary degree program, if applicable) and advisory committee, and communicated to the student in advance of the examination. The exam may consist of a written component, oral component, or combination of written and oral components.

The preliminary exam may be administered by the advisory committee or a departmental committee; herein referred to as the examination committee.

Regardless of exam format, a student will receive an overall preliminary exam result of pass or fail. The department (or interdisciplinary degree program, if applicable) will determine how the overall pass or fail result is determined based on the exam structure and internal department procedures. If the exam is administered by the advisory committee, each advisory committee member will provide a pass or fail evaluation decision.

Only one advisory committee substitution is allowed to provide an evaluation decision for a student’s preliminary exam, and it cannot be the committee chair.

If a student is required to take, as a part of the preliminary examination, a written component administered by a department or interdisciplinary degree program, the department or interdisciplinary degree program faculty must:

a.     offer the examination at least once every six months. The departmental or interdisciplinary degree program examination should be announced at least 30 days prior to the scheduled examination date.

b.     assume the responsibility for marking the examination satisfactory or unsatisfactory, or otherwise graded, and in the case of unsatisfactory, stating specifically the reasons for such a mark.

c.     forward the marked examination to the chair of the student’s advisory committee within one week after the examination.

Prior to commencing any component of the preliminary examination, a departmental representative or the advisory committee chair will review the eligibility criteria with the student, using the Preliminary Examination Checklist to ensure the student is eligible for the preliminary examination. The following list of eligibility requirements applies.

Student is registered at Texas A&M University for a minimum of one semester credit hour in the long semester or summer term during which any component of the preliminary examination is held. If the entire examination is held between semesters, then the student must be registered for the term immediately preceding the examination.

An approved degree plan is on file with the Graduate and Professional School prior to commencing the first component of the examination.

Student’s cumulative GPA is at least 3.000.

Student’s degree plan GPA is at least 3.000.

At the end of the semester in which at least the first component of the exam is given, there are no more than 6 hours of coursework remaining on the degree plan (except 681, 684, 690, 691, 692, 693, 695, 697, 791, or other graduate courses specifically designated as S/U in the course catalog). The head of the student’s department (or Chair of the Interdisciplinary Degree Program, if applicable) has the authority to approve a waiver of this criterion.

Credit for the preliminary examination is not transferable in cases where a student changes degree programs after passing a preliminary exam.

If a written component precedes an oral component of the preliminary exam, the chair of the student’s examination committee is responsible for making all written examinations available to all members of the committee. A positive evaluation of the preliminary exam by all members of a student’s examination committee with at most one dissension is required to pass a student on his or her preliminary exam.

The student’s department will promptly report the results of the Preliminary Examination to the Graduate and Professional School via the Report of Doctoral Preliminary Examination form. The Preliminary Examination checklist form must also be submitted. These forms should be submitted to the Graduate and Professional School within 10 working days of completion of the preliminary examination.

The Report of the Preliminary Examination form must be submitted with original signatures of the approved examination committee members. If an approved examination committee member substitution (one only) has been made, that signature must also be included, in place of the committee member, on the form submitted to the Graduate and Professional School. The original signature of the department head is also required on the form.

After passing the required preliminary oral and written examinations for a doctoral degree, the student must complete the final examination within four years of the semester in which the preliminary exam is taken. Exams taken in between terms will expire at the end of the term that ended prior to the exam. For example, a preliminary exam taken and passed during the fall 2019 semester will expire at the end of the fall 2023 semester. A preliminary exam taken in the time between the summer and fall 2019 semesters will expire at the end of the summer 2023 semester.

First Failure

Upon approval of a student’s examination committee (with no more than one member dissenting), and approval of the Department and Graduate and Professional School, a student who has failed a preliminary examination may be given one re-examination. In accordance with Student Rule 12.5, the student’s department head or designee, intercollegiate faculty, or graduate advisory committee should make a recommendation to the student regarding their scholastic deficiency.

Second Failure

Upon failing the preliminary exam twice in a doctoral program, a student is no longer eligible to continue to pursue the PhD in that program/major. In accordance with Student Rule 12.5.3 and/or 12.5.4, the student will be notified of the action being taken by the department as a result of the second failure of the preliminary examination.

Adequate time must be given to permit a student to address inadequacies emerging from the first preliminary examination. The examination committee must agree upon and communicate to the student, in writing, an adequate time-frame from the first examination (normally six months) to retest, as well as a detailed explanation of the inadequacies emerging from the examination. The student and committee should jointly negotiate a mutually acceptable date for this retest.  When providing feedback on inadequacies, the committee should clearly document expected improvements that the student must be able to exhibit in order to retake the exam.  The examination committee will document and communicate the time-frame and feedback within 10 working days of the exam that was not passed.

Final Examination for Doctoral Students

The candidate for the doctoral degree must pass a final examination by deadline dates announced in the “Graduate and Professional School Calendar” each semester. The doctoral student is allowed only one opportunity to take the final examination.

No unabsolved grades of D, F, or U for any course can be listed on the degree plan. The student must be registered for any remaining hours of 681, 684, 690, 691, 692, 791 or other graduate courses specifically designated as S/U in the course catalog during the semester of the final exam. No student may be given a final examination until they have been admitted to candidacy and their current official cumulative and degree plan GPAs are 3.00 or better.

To be admitted to candidacy for a doctoral degree, a student must have:

1.       completed all formal coursework on the degree plan with the exception of any remaining 681, 684, 690 and 691, 692 (Professional Study), or 791 hours,

2.       a 3.0 Graduate GPA and a Degree Plan GPA of at least 3.0 with no grade lower than C in any course on the degree plan,

3.       passed the preliminary examination,

4.       submitted an approved dissertation proposal,

5.       met the residence requirements.

The request to hold and announce the final examination must be submitted to the Graduate and Professional School a minimum of 10 working days in advance of the scheduled date. Any changes to the degree plan must be approved by the Graduate and Professional School prior to the submission of the request for final examination.

The student’s advisory committee will conduct this examination. The final examination is not to be administered until the dissertation or record of study is available in substantially final form to the student’s advisory committee, and all concerned have had adequate time to review the document. Whereas the final examination may cover the broad field of the candidate’s training, it is presumed that the major portion of the time will be devoted to the dissertation and closely allied topics. Persons other than members of the graduate faculty may, with mutual consent of the candidate and the chair of the advisory committee, be invited to attend a final examination for an advanced degree. A positive vote by all members of the graduate committee with at most one dissension is required to pass a student on his or her exam. A department can have a stricter requirement provided there is consistency within all degree programs within a department. Upon completion of the questioning of the candidate, all visitors must excuse themselves from the proceedings.

The student’s department will promptly report the results of the Final Examination to the Graduate and Professional School via the Report of Doctoral Final Examination form. These forms should be submitted to the Graduate and Professional School within 10 working days of completion of the final examination. The Graduate and Professional School must be notified in writing of any cancellations.

A positive evaluation of the final exam by all members of a student’s advisory committee with at most one dissension is required to pass a student on his or her final exam. The Report of the Final Examination Form must be submitted with original signatures of only the committee members approved by the Graduate and Professional School. If necessary, multiple copies of the form may be submitted with different committee member original signatures. If an approved committee member substitution (1 only) has been made, his/her signature must be included on the form submitted to the Graduate and Professional School.

The ability to perform independent research must be demonstrated by the dissertation,  which must be the original work of the candidate . Whereas acceptance of the dissertation is based primarily on its scholarly merit, it must also exhibit creditable literary workmanship. The format of the dissertation must be acceptable to the Graduate and Professional School. Guidelines for the preparation of the dissertation are available in the  Thesis Manual , which is available online at  https://grad.tamu.edu .

After successful defense and approval by the student’s advisory committee and the head of the student’s major department (or chair of the intercollegiate faculty, if applicable), a student must submit his/her dissertation in electronic format as a single PDF file. The PDF file must be uploaded to the website,  https://grad.tamu.edu . Additionally, a signed paper approval form with original signatures must be received by the Graduate and Professional School. Both the PDF file and the signed approval form are required by the deadline.

Deadline dates for submitting are announced each semester or summer term in the Graduate and Professional School Calendar (see Time Limit statement). These dates also can be accessed via the website  https://grad.tamu.edu .

Each student who submits a document for review is assessed a one-time thesis/dissertation processing fee through Student Business Services. This processing fee is for the thesis/dissertation services provided. After commencement, dissertations are digitally stored and made available through the Texas A&M Libraries.

A dissertation that is deemed unacceptable by the Graduate and Professional School because of excessive corrections will be returned to the student’s department head or chair of the intercollegiate faculty . The manuscript must be resubmitted as a new document, and the entire review process must begin anew. All original submittal deadlines must be met during the resubmittal process in order to graduate.

Additional Requirements

Continuous registration, admission to candidacy.

• 99-Hour Cap on Doctoral Degree

Application for Degree

A student who enters the doctoral degree program with a baccalaureate degree must spend one academic year plus one semester in resident study at Texas A&M University. A student who holds master’s degree when he/she enters doctoral degree program must spend one academic year in resident study. One academic year may include two adjacent regular semesters or one regular semester and one adjacent 10-week summer semester. The third semester is not required to be adjacent to the one year. Enrollment for each semester must be a minimum of 9 credit hours each to satisfy the residence requirement. A minimum of 1 credit hour must be in a non-distance education delivery mode. Semesters in which the student is enrolled in all distance education coursework will not count toward fulfillment of the residence requirement.

To satisfy the residence requirement, the student must complete a minimum of 9 credit hours per semester or 10-week summer semester in resident study at Texas A&M University for the required period. A student who enters a doctoral degree program with a baccalaureate degree may fulfill residence requirements in excess of one academic year (18 credit hours) by registration during summer sessions or by completion of a less-than-full course load (in this context a full course load is considered 9 credit hours per semester).

Students who are employed full-time while completing their degree may fulfill total residence requirements by completion of less-than-full time course loads each semester. In order to be considered for this, the student is required to submit a Petition for Waivers and Exceptions along with verification of his/her employment to the Graduate and Professional School. An employee should submit verification of his/her employment at the time he/she submits the degree plan. See  Registration.

See  Residence Requirements .

All requirements for doctoral degrees must be completed within a period of ten consecutive calendar years for the degree to be granted. A course will be considered valid until 10 years after the end of the semester in which it is taken. Graduate credit for coursework more than ten calendar years old at the time of the final oral examination may not be used to satisfy degree requirements.

A final corrected version of the dissertation or record of study in electronic format as a single PDF file must be cleared by the Graduate and Professional School within one year of the semester in which the final exam is taken. Exams taken in between terms will expire at the end of the term that ended prior to the exam. For example, a final exam taken and passed during the fall 2022 semester will expire at the end of the fall 2023 semester. A final exam taken in the time between the summer and fall 2022 semesters will expire at the end of the summer 2023 semester. Failure to do so will result in the degree not being awarded.

A student in a program leading to a Doctor of Philosophy who has completed all coursework on his/her degree plan other than 691 (research) are required to be in continuous registration until all requirements for the degree have been completed. See  Continuous Registration Requirements .

• completed all formal coursework on the degree plan with the exception of any remaining 681, 684, 690 and 691, or 791.
• a 3.0 Graduate GPA and a Degree Plan GPA of at least 3.0 with no grade lower than C in any course on the degree plan,
• passed the preliminary examination (written and oral portions),
• submitted an approved dissertation proposal,
• met the residence requirements. The final examination will not be authorized for any doctoral student who has not been admitted to candidacy.

A student is required to possess a competent command of English. For English language proficiency requirements, see the Admissions section of this catalog. The doctoral (PhD) foreign language requirement at Texas A&M University is a departmental option, to be administered and monitored by the individual departments of academic instruction.

99-Hour Cap on Doctoral Degrees

In Texas, public colleges and universities are funded by the state according to the number of students enrolled. In accordance with legislation passed by the Texas Legislature, the number of hours for which state universities may receive subvention funding at the doctoral rate for any individual is limited to 99 hours. Texas A&M and other universities will not receive subvention for hours in excess of the limit.

Institutions of higher education are allowed to charge the equivalent of non-resident tuition to a resident doctoral student who has enrolled in 100 or more semester credit hours of doctoral coursework.

Doctoral students at Texas A&M have seven years to complete their degree before being charged out-of-state tuition. A doctoral student who, after seven years of study, has accumulated 100 or more doctoral hours will be charged tuition at a rate equivalent to out-of-state tuition. Please note that the tuition increases will apply to Texas residents as well as students from other states and countries who are currently charged tuition at the resident rate. This includes those doctoral students who hold GAT, GANT, and GAR appointments or recipients of competitive fellowships who receive more than $1,000 per semester. Doctoral students who have not accumulated 100 hours after seven years of study are eligible to pay in-state tuition if otherwise eligible.

Doctoral students who exceed the credit limit will receive notification from the Graduate and Professional School during the semester in which they are enrolled and exceeding the limit in their current degree program. The notification will explain that the State of Texas does not provide funding for any additional hours in which a student is enrolled in excess of 99 hours. Texas A&M University will recover the lost funds by requiring students in excess of 99 hours to pay tuition at the non-funded, non-resident rate. This non-funded, non-resident tuition rate status will be updated for the following semester and in all subsequent semesters until receipt of a doctoral degree. Please see the  Tuition Calculator  at the non-resident rate for an example of potential charges.

The following majors are exempt from the 99-Hour Cap on Doctoral Degrees and have a limit of 130 doctoral hours:

• Biochemistry
• Biomedical Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Counseling Psychology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Health Services Research
• Medical Sciences
• Microbiology
• Neurosciences (School of Medicine)
• Oral and Craniofacial Biomedical Sciences
• Pharmaceutical Sciences
• Public Health Sciences
• School Psychology

For information on applying for your degree, please visit the  Graduation  section.

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PhD in Architecture: Course Details, Eligibility, Admission, Fees

Updated on - Jan 4, 2023

PhD in Architecture is a three year doctorate program that deals with the research degree and collection, interpretation, and presentation of bibliographic resources and other databases, and specific computer skills. This PhD in Architecture course graduate can get many job roles such as Architectural Engineer, Architecture Designer, Architecture Draftsman Architectural Historian, Art Director, Building Contractor & Researcher, Interior Designer, Landscape Architect, etc.

Table of Contents

About phd in architecture, who should pursue a phd in architecture course, when to do a phd in architecture course, how to get admission for phd in architecture, types of phd in architecture courses, popular entrance exams for phd in architecture, top phd in architecture colleges in india, study phd in architecture in abroad, fee structure for phd in architecture, syllabus and subjects for phd in architecture, why choose phd in architecture course, phd in architecture course comparison, preparation tips for phd in architecture course, salary of a phd in architecture graduates, career options after phd in architecture, skills that make you the best phd in architecture graduates, phd in architecture course details.

PhD in Architecture is a three years doctorate degree which is created in such a way that the learners get to know a deep understanding of their chosen topics. Over the past few years, the scope of pursuing PhD courses in India has increased manifolds. 

Many universities are in front of admission in this course. This program is a research degree offering the opportunity for independent research under the supervision of a departmental member of staff. Unless the student becomes a member of a research group, the research is undertaken entirely by the candidate on their own, with regular supervision of progress with their supervisor. 

Eligibility Criteria for PhD in Architecture

As all the students know how useful a PhD in Architecture course is, that’s why it’s quite difficult to get admitted into their respective interested universities. Those students who want to take enrollment in this doctorate program have to qualify for the eligibility criteria i.e one should have a minimum mark of 55% in both B.Arch and M.Arch examinations. 

There are few PhD Agricultural entrance exams that have cutoffs to qualify. There is no age limit for the students for taking admission to this course.

A PhD in Architecture is a three years doctorate program that makes a student’s career in the public, private, academic, and non-profit sectors. When it comes to your career graph. A PhD in Architecture degree gives a variety of job opportunities to the graduates.

One of the most sought-after jobs for a PhD in Architecture degree holder is of a lecturer or a professor in a university or a researcher in most fields. 

Along with this, a PhD in Architecture degree holder can get a job in Landscape architecture, Park planning/capital planning, Specifications/contract administration, Site inspection, Field survey crew, Administration etc. 

Candidates will have in-depth knowledge and develop mastery over the subjects they have chosen for specialization, which will be extremely useful for them in their careers. Those learners who are interested in these specializations should pursue this course.

Aspirants are eligible to pursue a PhD in Architecture course only if they have completed their master's degree in a similar course/ field/ stream in which they want to pursue a PhD in Architecture. Some colleges also specify that candidates need to have completed an MPhil to pursue a PhD in Architecture course offered by them.

Admission to the PhD in Architecture course is not impossible if the students ensure that they research the details well. The universities follow the process of entrance-based admissions. The admission process with respect to admission through exams varies from college to college. 

Online and offline both facilities are available to the students for enrollment. The students are guided to check the college website to get detailed information.

How to Apply?

There are two ways to apply for admission in the PhD in Architecture course. Either online by visiting the college website and following the steps given there or offline by visiting the university's office. There are certain colleges that take interviews for checking the knowledge and communication skills of the candidates.

Selection Process

The selection process of the candidates for getting admission in the respective PhD in Architecture course ends an interview. The students who have cracked the entrance exams with good marks can give interviews for the further joining process. The last step of the admission procedure decides whether the student is eligible to take admission or not.

A PhD in Architecture is a research-based doctorate program and that's the reason this course can be done in any of three modes i.e full-time, part-time, and distance learning mode. Aspirants can pursue the PhD in Architecture course at many top universities. 

Full-Time PhD in Architecture

A full-time PhD in Architecture program duration is three years that is provided by many top respected colleges or universities. This full-time course is all about classroom-based studying, research projects, and assignments. There are no limitations on the age for taking admissions.

Part-Time PhD in Architecture

A part-time PhD Agricultural program is for 5 years. This course is basically created for students who are working somewhere or are professionals. A part-time mode is all about having limited classes. 

Part-time PhD is mainly focused on research for the development of the company rather than individual research work.

Distance PhD in Architecture

A distance PhD in Architecture in India program is quite easy for getting knowledge at any time from anywhere. Many people believe in pursuing this course because of no issue of being physically present at the universities. 

The objective behind the creation of this distance learning program is to provide the degree along with the knowledge while working.

Various institutes and testing agencies conduct PhD in Architecture entrance exams for admissions in PhD in Architecture and Technology. The following are some of these entrance examinations:

A Quick Glance at the PhD in Architecture Entrance Exams

Students can access the PhD in Architecture course details by going to the college's official website to which they are interested in applying. The specialization plays a vital role in the college's approach to the entrance exam. Below listed are some of the general guidelines of the PhD in Architecture entrance examinations: 

• The exam pattern includes common topics from 10+2, graduation and postgraduation level i.e. technology, life sciences, mathematics, sciences, and general aptitude.
• The papers are objective and MCQ-based.
• The syllabus, mode of examination, and question pattern may change according to a university/conducting body.

India is home to some of the PhD in Architecture colleges in the world. Aspirants have many options to choose from in terms of the best PhD in Architecture course as per their preferences. Depending on the type of PhD in Architecture programs offered, candidates will have to make the appropriate choice.

Below is the list of the top best PhD in Architecture colleges in the country:

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges in New Delhi

Delhi, the educational hub of India, stands in the fourth position in producing PhD in Architecture candidates. Here are the top 5 PhD in Architecture Colleges in New Delhi:

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges in Mumbai

Below is the list of colleges which are the top PhD in Architecture colleges in Mumbai:

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges in Pune

Below are the list of colleges which are the top colleges of PhD in Architecture in Pune:

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges in Chennai

Top 5 PhD in Architecture Colleges in Chennai are given below:

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges in Bangalore

Banglore city has some of the best colleges for PhD in Architecture courses in India. Here is the list of top colleges for PhD in Architecture in Bangalore:

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges in Kolkata

Check the Table below for the top colleges in Kolkata:

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges in Hyderabad

The Telangana state capital has some premier institutions in the country for PhD in Architecture courses in India. Check the table below for the top PhD in Architecture colleges in Hyderabad:

Top PhD in Architecture Government Colleges

There are several top Government Colleges offering quality PhD in Architecture programmes across the country. Check the table below for the top PhD in Architecture government colleges in India:

Top PhD in Architecture Private Colleges

India has seen significant growth in the number of quality PhD in Architecture private colleges that offer some of the best programmes in the country. Check the table below for the top PhD in Architecture private colleges in India:

Students can opt to study a PhD in Architecture course abroad if they can afford it. The PhD in Architecture course abroad is up to 5-8 years, depending on the type of course, college and country. 

The benefits of studying a PhD in Architecture course abroad are access to some of the best resources, facilities, and faculties, apart from worldwide exposure in terms of subject matter and other cultures. 

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges Abroad

The table below contains the list of some of the best colleges abroad for PhD in Architecture:

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges in USA

The USA is home to some of the best universities and colleges offering top-notch PhD in Architecture programmes in the world. The US is the best country for PhD in Architecture studies and settling abroad.

It's a PhD in Architecture-level that the USA really shines through. The table below contains the list of top colleges of PhD in Architecture in the USA:

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges in the UK

A PhD in Architecture is a research degree and is the highest award available at universities in the UK. The study is based on a substantial research project on an area of academic interest, typically up to 100,000 words in length, written as a thesis which then must be defended in an oral examination in front of a panel of experts.

The table below contains the list of top colleges of PhD in Architecture in the Uk:

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges in Canada

An increasingly attractive and multicultural study destination, Canada is a great option to consider for your PhD in Architecture studies, offering a wealth of research opportunities to help you expand your expertise. Here are the top universities for PhD in Architecture in Canada:

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges in Australia

A PhD in Architecture in Australia means that you will develop your knowledge and skills, which ultimately increases your chances for employment within Australia and in any country. According to the UN's Education Index, Australia's education system ranks first. The table below shows the top universities for PhD in Architecture in Australia:

Top PhD in Architecture Colleges in Germany

It is much easier to get a PhD in Architecture in at a European university, which takes about 3-4 years in a good university in Europe. The PhD in Architecture from Germany in engineering enjoys an outstanding reputation. Germany's research institutions, universities and companies welcome international researchers and offer excellent opportunities for doctoral students.

The table below shows the top universities in Germany colleges of PhD in Architecture:

The fee structure for PhD in Architecture varies for different Universities. Also, the fee structure varies following the course and University. Students can download the admission brochure as well as the course curriculum to get the details of PhD in Architecture admission and fee structure. 

The average PhD in Architecture fee in India is INR 55,000 - 2 LPA. Now, read below to know about the fee structure of different universities.

PhD in Architecture is a doctorate course in Agriculture. The course may have a duration of 2 years and it is a full-time course. It is a research-based course. In the PhD in Architecture duration, the candidates get to learn the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of numerical data. 

This course mainly covers areas like Math and Statistics, etc. The students come to know about the fundamentals of agriculture and crop production. Though the actual course offerings might differ from one university to another, here is a list of major subjects which are commonly studied under a PhD in Architecture:

• Research Methodology in Architecture.
• Environment and Architecture
• Sustainable Architecture
• Waste Management Methodologies
• Basics of Project Management
• Building Code of Architecture
• Project Thesis
• Research/Dissertation

Read More: PhD in Architecture Subjects and syllabus

When students decide to pursue the PhD in Architecture qualification, they should research PhD in Architecture course details to ensure that they know the course they are enrolled in. Some of the common queries that students encounter are, "What is PhD in Architecture" and "Why PhD in Architecture?". To understand the answer to these questions, we can make it simpler by breaking it down into the following three short questions:

What is PhD in Architecture All About?

A PhD in Architecture or Doctor of Philosophy is a doctoral research degree and is normally the highest level of academic qualification one can achieve. A PhD in Architecture degree holder can get a job an Architectural Engineer, Architecture Designer, Architecture Draftsman Architectural Historian, Art Director, Building Contractor & Researcher, Interior Designer, Landscape Architect, and many more. The course has a specialization that deals with architectural research. The Students need to check the PhD in Architecture course outline perfectly.

Why PhD in Architecture Graduates Do?

Students can select the subjects of their choice depending on their interest in job prospects available in the specific field. Since graduates with a PhD in Architecture degree possess skills in various subjects, there are career opportunities available in multiple fields for them. 

In addition, there are many responsibilities that graduates of this role have to undertake, which makes the role very dynamic and diverse.

Design Architect: One of the popular roles undertaken by graduates of the PhD in Architecture course is Design Architect. They perform jobs like talking to the customers, making and altering drafts structures and observing ventures' progress.

Reasons Why PhD in Architecture Can Fetch You a Rewarding Career?

PhD in Architecture courses are a very reflective and exciting stream of education. Students can gauge the intrinsic worth of a PhD in Architecture course because it offers more avenues of employment opportunities than any other stream. Thus, the PhD in Architecture job scope is forever widening and appealing.

Diversity in Job roles: There is a diverse range of job roles available for the graduates of this course. Since the specializations available to the students are very flexible, it enables the students to pursue a wide range of roles in their careers.

Read More: PhD in Architecture Jobs and Scope

PhD in Architecture stands for Doctor of Philosophy in Statistics and is typically catered to students interested in and inclined towards research-based degrees and professional architecture. Here is a course comparison of PhD in Architecture with another course:

PhD in Architecture vs PhD Agronomy

There are many tips that students must note when deciding to pursue a PhD in Architecture degree. Some important preparation tips are listed below to ensure that the students crack the course and pass the exams without any hurdles. 

Improve Vocabulary: Improving vocabulary is very necessary as the PhD in Architecture course deals with many writing and reading activities. So having excellent communication and writing skills are a plus for the student studying the PhD in Architecture course.

Read and Practice More: Being up to date with the syllabus every day is very important. Practising and reading more will help the student be thorough with the syllabus and do well in the exams.

Have Intrinsic Knowledge and Interest in Subjects: Having intrinsic knowledge about the subject and having the same interest will keep the student motivated to learn more than what's in the syllabus.

Revise Methodically: Revising from time to time can be a key to scoring well in the final exam. Keep revising regularly and understand the subject properly. Revision is the key to scoring good marks.

The salary depends on the kind of job you get/you choose to do, what your PhD in Architecture research area is and where you are employed.No prior experience is required to be a PhD in Architecture Student. The average Salary of a PhD in Architecture graduate starts from INR 0.3 - INR 12 LPA (Source: Payscale), depending on the stream you belong from.

Read More: PhD in Architecture Salary

A PhD in Architecture degree is pursued by a majority of students because it offers better career options, for example, in the field of academics and research. PhD in Architecture in itself is a broad term, it has many specializations that have different career options and jobs. PhD in Architecture Jobs include:

• Architectural Engineer
• Architecture Designer
• Architecture Draftsman Architectural Historian
• Art Director
• Building Contractor & Researcher
• Interior Designer
• Landscape Architect

For studying a course like PhD in Architecture, there are so many skills that a student needs to have. The skills help the students to get well-maintained dignity, respect, and so much attention. So, that’s why the students need to put their efforts to come out of their comfort zones and earn respect as much as possible. Some of these skills include:

• Design Skills
• Abstraction
• Construction Administration
• Construction Documents
• Critical Thinking
• Restoration
• Residential Construction
• Building Contracts
• Database Management

Get Free Scholarship worth 25000 INR

Bachelor of Science in Architecture: Admissions

Welcome and thank you for your interest in the undergraduate degree programs in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (MAPP) at the University of Maryland. All prospective students must apply through the Office of Undergraduate Admissions . If you are interested in pursuing architecture as your major at the University of Maryland, make sure that you indicate this on your undergraduate admissions application. The Bachelor of Science degree is more restrictive than the Bachelor of Arts degree, and placement into this program depends on the degree placement review process that occurs during the student’s first studio course.

Undergraduate Admissions sponsors many events throughout the year for prospective students. We encourage you to visit campus!  Explore opportunities for visiting Maryland on the Admissions website .  

Contact Undergraduate Admissions at [email protected] .

Learn more about the Bachelor of Science in Architecture .

Degree Placement Review Process

In order to determine the degree placement of each student (B.A. or B.S.), current students and incoming transfer students need to apply through the Degree Placement Review Process.

Current UMD Students:

All students admitted to the Architecture program prior to Degree Placement Review Process are Bachelor of Arts in Architecture (B.A.) students. During students’ sophomore Spring semester (while enrolled in ARCH400), students can elect to submit an application to the Bachelor of Science in Architecture (B.S.) degree.

Transfer Students:

All transfer students who come into the Architecture program prior to the Degree Placement Review start as Bachelor of Arts in Architecture (B.A.) students. If a student has taken the proper equivalent prerequisite coursework, students may elect to apply for the Bachelor of Science in Architecture (B.S.) degree during the Spring semester, for the following Fall. 

All transfer students must be admitted by the University of Maryland, in addition to the Architecture program requirements. University admissions information can be found on the  University's website .

B.S. Application Documents:

Students must submit the documents outlined on the  BS ARCH Application Cover Sheet , including the cover sheet page, unofficial transcript, resume, essay, portfolio and optional letter of circumstance. Portfolio requirements can be found in this document:  BS ARCH Portfolio Requirements .

This evaluation of this application will determine the student's degree placement. This decision is based on academic performance, portfolio evaluation, professional aspirations and skill levels, as evaluated by Architecture program faculty.

For Fall 2024, the deadline to apply for the Bachelor of Science is April 12, 2024 . Please fill out this  form  before the deadline to be considered. 

Transfer Students

All transfer students who gain admission into the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation will be placed onto the Bachelor of Arts track. 

All transfer applicants should list Architecture Bachelor of Art as your intended major on the application.

To be considered for the Bachelor of Science track, students must participate in the Degree Placement Process. Please read the section entitled Degree Placement Process to learn more.

Pre-Transfer

The Pre-Transfer Advising program provides support to prospective transfer students from two-year and four-year schools before they apply to the University of Maryland to complete an undergraduate degree. Students are encouraged to use pre-transfer advising services to assess their readiness to transfer and estimate their time to degree completion. To sign up for a pre-transfer advising appointment, please visit: https://www.pretransferadvising.umd.edu/ .

Transfer Credits

The transfer credit evaluation process usually begins for newly admitted students two weeks after you receive your admission letter. To learn more about this process, please visit the Transfer Credit Services website .

Transfer courses that have already been evaluated can be found in the Transfer Database . If you would like to request an evaluation of a course(s) not appearing in the database, simply send an email to [email protected] with your name, UID (if you are a current student), name of the institution where the course was taken, the course ID and course title at the transfer institution, along with a detailed course syllabus.

Transfer Student Requirements

Go to the Undergraduate Admissions website for transfer application requirements.

All transfer deadlines to the University of Maryland can be found at:  www.admissions.umd.edu/apply/ApplicationDeadlines.php

Prerequisites and Recommended Courses

1 English Composition course (equivalent to ENGL101)

1 calculus course (equivalent to either math120 or math140), 1 physics course with lab (equivalent to phys121), at least 2 introductory architecture courses (equivalent to arch171 and arch200/300), 2 history of architecture courses (equivalent to arch225 and arch226).

Degree Placement Review Process Transfer Students: All transfer students who come into the Architecture program prior to the Degree Placement Review start as Bachelor of Arts in Architecture (B.A.) students. If a student has taken the proper equivalent prerequisite coursework, students may elect to apply for the Bachelor of Science in Architecture (B.S.) degree during the Spring semester, for the following Fall. 

All transfer students must be admitted by the University of Maryland, in addition to the Architecture program requirements. University admissions information can be found on the University's website .

Please see details in “Degree Placement Review Process” accordion above for the Bachelor of Science in Architecture application process.

Fall Application Deadlines:

U.S. and International Freshmen:

     Early Action: November 1      Regular Deadline: January 20

U.S. and International Transfer:

     Early Action: March 1      Regular Deadline: June 1

Spring Application Deadlines:

U.S. Freshmen:

     Early Action: December 1

International Freshmen & Transfer:

     Early Action & Regular Deadline: August 1

U.S. Transfer:

     Early Action: August 1      Regular Deadline: November 15

Additional information can be found on UMD’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions website .

Students are strongly encouraged to apply by the early action deadline.

Profile of Applicants

Applicants to the architecture program are typically highly motivated individuals who have demonstrated proficiency in the visual arts, as well as mathematics and science. Many of our students are admitted to and participate in the University Honors Program , the College Park Scholars Program , or the Gemstone Honors Program , while enrolled at the university.

Get a sneak peak of student life with these short videos featuring Salam , JT , and Jake  below.

Technology Requirements

The School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation requires that all students studying architecture purchase a laptop computer. Specific requirements for students studying architecture are listed below for both hardware and software. In addition to these requirements, many students also purchase monitors so that they can expand their digital workspace. 

We provide the following technical specifications to define the baseline requirements. Many software applications are available to all matriculated students.  We recommend you check the following website to see a complete list,  https://terpware.umd.edu/ . A list of required and recommended software is listed below. Please take advantage of student discounts for software.

Preferred Hardware Specifications

VR-Ready PC laptop ~ $2,400.00 Total (Great for multi-purposes overall)

Processor: Intel Core i7 or greater

Memory (RAM): 16 GB - 32 GB DDR4

Hard Drive: 512 GB SSD or greater for Operating System and 1TB for data storage

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX1060 or RTX2060 or greater

Extended warranty with accidental coverage.

MacBook Pro (16 inch model) ~ $2,700.00 Total (Great for graphic design, not for VR or modeling)

KEEP IN MIND:  Some coursework software are NOT compatible or supported on macOS such as AutoDesk Revit, NavisWorks and Lumion. A BootCamp partition must be configured for Windows OS so that those applications can be installed on top of Windows.

Processor: Intel Core i7.

Memory: 16GB - 32GB DDR4.

Hard Drive: 1TB SSD or greater.

GPU: AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with 8GB of GDDR6.

Apple Care is highly encouraged. 

Many students also purchase monitors so that they can expand their digital workspace. Additional external storage and peripherals are recommended for workability and backup purposes.

External monitor 27-inch 4K monitor or larger

University-provided cloud storage (Google Drive and/or Box) 

Software –  Approximately $ 244.00 Total

The following are the required software applications for architecture students:

Adobe Creative Suite (or Adobe Creative Cloud) -- FREE through UMD TERPware program:

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe inDesign

Adobe Illustrator

Autodesk– FREE through Autodesk Education portal ( https://www.autodesk.com/education/home )

Autodesk AutoCAD

Autodesk Revit

Microsoft Office– FREE through UMD TERPware program

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Powerpoint

Microsoft Excel

Rhinoceros (through  www.creationengine.com , $195)

SketchUp Pro (through  www.creationengine.com , $49)

Tuition and Fees

For current tuition and fees, please visit the  Student Financial Services and Cashiering  website.