To view current course offerings visit Testudo; for more detailed information on courses, please visit University of Maryland's Undergraduate and Graduate Course Catalogs.
ARCH 150 - Discovering Architecture (3 Credits)
Introduction to architecture and design studio education. The course examines fundamental design principles and skills related to architecture. The design studio projects apply ideas and concepts introduced in lectures, readings and onsite visits. The design studio projects are both analytic and synthetic in nature. The explicit goals of the course are: To explore the discipline of architecture; To promote visual thinking and representational skills; To develop analytic design thinking skills; To learn some of the conventions of architectural representation; To enhance cultural awareness of architecture and design.
ARCH 170 - Design Thinking and Architecture (3 Credits)
Examines conceptual, perceptual, behavioral, and technical aspects of the built environment, and methods of analysis, problem-solving, and design implementation.
ARCH 171 - Design Thinking and Making (3 Credits)
Examines iterative design processes and critical thinking skills through active learning and design thinking methodologies to solve problems and apply design as a lens of inquiry and exploration. Students will understand Design Thinking through interactive and experiential learning.
ARCH 200- Design Media and Representation I (3 Credits)
Study of architectural representation in physical and digital design media. Examine visual literacy and visual communications through applied drawing, modeling and visual making to explore the role of design media and representation in design and design thinking.
ARCH 201 - Elements and Principles of Architecture (1 Credits)
Survey of fundamental elements and principles of architecture and architectural education. Frames study of architecture as a profession, discipline and critical practice.
ARCH 225 - History of World Architecture I (3 Credits)
Pre-1500 World Architecture survey course - History of Architecture structured to develop critical thinking and visual literacy with regard to the worldwide legacy of design thinking and cultural production through architecture.
ARCH 226- History of World Architecture II (3 Credits)
Post-1500 - World Architecture survey course - History of Architecture structured to develop critical thinking and visual literacy with regard to the legacy of design thinking and cultural production through architecture.
ARCH 270- Design in Practice (3 Credits)
Case studies and hands-on design projects ranging in scale from a product to a building to give students insight into the process by which architects work both individually and collaboratively to put disciplinary knowledge and expertise into practice to shape our built environment.
A Fearless Ideas Course from the Academy for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (AIE).
A General Education I-Series (SCIS) and Scholarship in Practice (DSSP) course.
ARCH 271 - People, Planet, and Profit: Building Sustainable Places (3 Credits)
An introduction to the four disciplines represented in the School: architecture and urban design, community planning, historic preservation, and real estate development, that work to create a more sustainable environment for the future to create a more sustainable environment for the future using our interpretation of the quadruple bottom line: socio-cultural, economic, environmental, and design sustainability. Students will be provided with an understanding of the fundamental scholarship and processes of each of these disciplines and examine the intersections between them. Additionally, they will learn by applying the approaches of the four disciplines through a series of field studies.
ARCH272 Sustainability at College Park (3 Credits)
Explore the ways and the degrees to which University of Maryland, College Park campus master planning and operations incorporate principles of sustainability including smart growth, LEED and other building rating systems, higher education rating systems, sustainable agriculture and transportation planning. Among other subjects, students will learn about the Campus and the City of College Park and survey the relationship between local, national and global sustainability concerns. Students will learn about the University's Climate Action Plan and the roles, and extent to which, the UMD Office of Sustainability and other campus units are helping develop a carbon-neutral and resource-efficient campus infrastructure.
ARCH289 Independent Studies in Architectural Sustainability (1-4 Credits)
Independent Studies in Architectural Sustainability. Proposed work must have a faculty sponsor and receive approval of the Architecture Program Curriculum Committee.
ARCH 300 - Design Media and Representation II (3 Credits)
Study of architectural representation in physical and digital design media. Examine visual communications and speculative visual studies through applied drawing, modeling and making to explore expanded roles of representation in design and design thinking.
ARCH 386 - Experiential Learning (1 - 6 Credits)
Learning experience tied to internship of specified duration with targeted learning outcomes.
ARCH 400 - Architecture Design Studio I (6 Credits)
Introduction to architectural design with particular emphasis on conventions and principles of architecture, visual and verbal communication skills, formal analysis, design process, spatial composition, architectural promenade, basic program distribution, and elementary constructional and environmental responses.
ARCH 401 - Architecture Design Studio II (6 Credits)
Continuation of ARCH 400 with introduction to building typology, urban and contextual issues, design of the vertical surface, and architectural interiors.
ARCH 402 - Architecture Design Studio III (6 Credits)
Architectural design studio with emphasis on building and facade typologies, the development of architectural promenade and sequence, public and/or civic infill buildings dependent upon the architectural promenade, and urban housing types of varying densities. The architect's obligations to urban context are explored in many dimensions including historical, typological, and physical.
ARCH 403 - Architecture Design Studio IV (6 Credits)
Investigations into the relationship between the man-made and the natural world including introductory issues of assembly and material value. Design of the site and the building are combined into an integral process delimiting and probing the boundaries of each and exploring their reciprocal relationship. The architect's obligations to the natural and urban contexts are explored in many dimensions including historical, typological, environmental, and physical.
ARCH 404 - Graduate Architecture Design Studio I (6 Credits)
Introduction to architectural design with particular emphasis on conventions and principles of architecture , visual and verbal communication skills, formal analysis, design process, spatial composition, architectural promenade, basic program distribution, and elementary constructional and environmental responses.
ARCH 405 - Graduate Architecture Design Studio II (6)
Architectural design studio with emphasis on building and facade typologies, the development of architectural promenade and sequence, public and/or civic infill buildings dependent upon the architectural promenade, and urban housing types of varying densities. The architect's obligations to urban context are explored in many dimensions including historical, typological, and physical.
ARCH 406 - Graduate Architectural Design Studio III (6 Credits)
Investigations into the relationship between the man-made and the natural world including introductory issues of assembly and material value. Design of the site and the building are combined into an integral process delimiting and probing the boundaries of each and exploring their reciprocal relationship. The architect's obligations to the natural and urban contexts are explored in many dimensions including historical, typological, environmental, and physical.
ARCH 407 - Graduate Architecture Design IV (6 Credits)
Studio problems and theories concentrating on urbanism and urban design techniques. Issues and sites range from high-density urban in-fill to suburban and greenfield development in American and other contexts. Studio theories explore such topics as Contextualism, Neo-Traditional design, Transit Oriented Development, density, sustainable development, building typology, and street design.
ARCH 408 - Special Topics - Architecture Design Studio (6 Credits)
Design Studio course to examine topical problems in architecture and urban design.
ARCH 420 - History of American Architecture (3 Credits)
American architecture from the late 17th to the 21st century.
ARCH423 – History of Roman Architecture
Survey of Roman architecture from 500 B.C. To A.D. 325.
ARCH 425 - History of World Architecture I (3 Credits)
Pre-1500 World Architecture survey course - History of Architecture structured to develop critical thinking and visually literacy with regard to the worldwide legacy of design thinking and cultural production through architecture. Structured to nurture critical thinking and visually literacy with regard to the worldwide legacy of architecture. The work in the course will involve the evaluation of sources and arguments in reading architectural history. Architecture will be framed relative to ways of thinking, religious beliefs, cultural heritage, and cultural values.
ARCH 426 - History of World Architecture II (3 Credits)
Post-1500 - History of Architecture survey course - History of Architecture structured to develop critical thinking and visually literacy with regard to the worldwide legacy of design thinking and building innovation in architecture. Structured to nurture critical thinking and visually literacy with regard to the worldwide legacy of architecture. The work in the course will involve the evaluation of sources and arguments in reading architectural history. Architecture will be framed relative to ways of thinking, religious beliefs, cultural heritage, and cultural values.
ARCH 427 - Theories of Architecture (3 Credits)
Survey of architectural theories - theories of architectural design, representation and urban design from antiquity to the present day.
ARCH 428C - Selected Topics in Architectural History; City Beautiful Architecture and Urbanism in USA (3 Credits)
This course covers the period following the World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893 up to WW II. The architecture and urbanism of this period represented a zenith of the Beaux Arts philosophy of design represented most cogently by the McMillan Plan for Washington, DC (1902) and its many antecedents across the United States.
ARCH 428F - Selected Topics in Architectural History; History of Modern Architecture
This course will focus the so-called heroic period of modern architecture stretching from the later 19th century to the period just after World War II. The course will cover the major historical events that precipitated the evolution of modernism and review the theories that influenced its development. Significant to the discussion will be the basis for architecture in the 19th century and how those theories, insights and built projects came to influence the first generation of the so-called “moderns”. Also important will be parallel developments in allied arts, such as painting, and the impact of the industrial revolution. Subject matter will range from smaller scales such as furniture and painting to interiors, buildings, housing and urban design. Area focus will be primarily through the work of individual architects and those that comprise significant, articulated movements, such as the Beaux-Arts, Futurism, Cubism, Purism, deStijl and the Bauhaus. The course will deal primarily with the evidence of modernism in projects and built form, the ideas that brought them about, and secondarily with the social, economic, and political contexts under which these places and projects have been shaped.
ARCH428E - Selected Topics in Architectural History; Global Renaissance
Restriction: permission of department. The course 'Global Renaissance' explores the architecture and urban cultures that flourished under the wide-reaching concept of the Renaissance, during the period ranging from 1450 to 1700. The Renaissance is a term that we usually associate to northern Italy, where it originated. However, the phenomenon of the Renaissance coincided with an age of global exploration, commerce, trade, and colonialism, all of which expanded the ideas of the Renaissance to every corner of Europe, the Mediterranean, the New World, and beyond. During the course we will work with UMD s MITH (Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities), to create a digital humanities platform (a web page) in which we will showcase the work you will produce throughout the course. The main characteristic of the digital humanities is to employ technological tools to present humanities subjects under new light. In this case, the work will take the form of 3-D architectural models, use of GIS tools, image editing, or other digital-technological tools to produce a public pedagogical resource about the Global Renaissance.
ARCH428N - Selected Topics in Architectural History; Medieval Architecture
Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean produced a unique building culture in which design was flexible and deeply grounded in the act of construction. In this class, we will trace the diversity of Byzantine, Islamic, Romanesque and Gothic architecture through select case studies. Students will learn to unravel buildings in terms of phases of construction, relate each phase to a different social or political context, and describe the structural technologies that medieval masons rightly flaunted.
ARCH428T - Selected Topics in Architectural History; American Building Typologies
Examines key public, institutional, commercial, and residential building types since the founding of the nation to 1980. Such an approach to American architecture facilitates in-depth studies of like-purposed buildings, focusing on function and design through time. Categories could include state capitals, jails and prisons, places of worship, libraries, art academies and cultural institutions, railroad stations, banks, stores and so on. Students gain additional perspective by examining the buildings' historical, cultural, and social contexts.
ARCH 430 - Measuring Sustainability in Architecture (3 Credits)
Studies metrics of sustainability as included in rating standards, including LEED. All students will take the LEED GA test.
ARCH 443 - Visual Communication For Architects (3 Credits)
Investigation of the relationship between drawing from life and architectural drawing, the conventions of architectural drawing and the role of architectural drawing as a means to develop, communicate, and generate architectural ideas.
ARCH 445 - Visual Analysis of Architecture (3)
Study of visual principles of architectural and urban precedents through graphic analysis. Exercises include on-site observation, documentation, and analysis. Focuses on the development of an architect's sketchbook as a tool for life-long learning.
ARCH448M - Selected Topics in Visual Studies in Architecture; Applied Model Making
Introduces students to best practices in creating architectural models. Precedent buildings serve as the introductory basis for this three-dimensional physical model-making course. Students will have exposure to a wide range of materials, equipment, and model-making techniques including manual tools, proper machine use, incremental design, and project planning.
ARCH 458 Selected Topics in Urban Design (3 Credits)
Selected Topics in Urban Design
ARCH 460 Site Analysis and Design (3 Credits)
Principles and methods of site analysis; the influence of natural and man-made site factors on site design and architectural form.
ARCH 462 - Methods & Materials of Building Construction (3 Credits)
Building Construction methods and materials are examined through case studies to explore the means and techniques applied to the material execution of buildings and BIM. Focus on an understanding of the organization of the design and construction process and awareness of building and zoning codes, material systems and types.
ARCH 463 - Sustainable Systems in Architecture (3 Credits)
Sustainable systems in architecture examines the nature of the global problem, environmental economics, understanding the local environment, bioclimatic design, solar control and shading, solar access zoning, residential scale energy design issues, commercial scale energy design issues and urban scale energy design issues.
ARCH 464 - Architectural Structures I (3 Credits)
This course covers the basic principles of architectural structures, including the influence of geometric, sectional, and material properties related to flexure and shear in beam and framed systems; vector mechanics with application to analysis of trusses, catenaries, and arches; diagrammatic analysis of beams for bending moment, shear, and deflection as well as the study of structural framing systems for vertical and lateral loads.
ARCH 465 - Architectural Structures II (3 Credits)
The basic principles of elastic behavior for different materials such as wood, steel, concrete, and composite materials and compares the properties and applications of materials generally will be covered. It investigates cross sectional stress and strain behavior in flexure and in shear, and torsion as well as the stability of beams and columns. The qualitative behavior of combined stresses and fracture in materials is also covered.
ARCH 466 - Environmental Systems in Architecture (3 Credits)
Environmental systems in architecture presents the theory, quantification, and architectural design implications for heating ventilating and air conditioning, water and waste, fire protection, electricity, illumination, acoustics, and vertical transportation.
ARCH 467 - Integrated Project Delivery (3 Credits)
Integrated Project Delivery is examined from design to implementation through an exploration of building construction, architectural design, and construction management perspectives.
ARCH468G - Selected Topics in Architecture; Building Craft & The Architectural Detail
A graduate level seminar / elective course that explores the issues of building craft and the architectural detail as they relate to contemporary architectural production.
ARCH468K - Selected Topics in Architecture; The Entrepreneurial Architect
Cross-listed with ARCH668K. Credit only granted for ARCH468K or ARCH668K.
ARCH468N - Selected Topics in Architecture; Architecture and the Forest Aesthetic
Architecture and the Forest Aesthetic is an advanced seminar that focuses on the contemporary theory and rich history of biotechnologies. We will discuss how the harvest and production of construction materials on an industrial scale can be designed to support healthy buildings and careful stewardship of landscapes and ecosystems in the temperate forest climate zone. The term project will involve hands-on learning and scientific trials. Students will have the opportunity to work in UMD’s architecture and engineering fabrication labs to experiment with biomaterials like woodcrete, low-carbon concrete, lime stabilized earth, and bambcore structural panels. Students will learn advanced fabrication software that aids in life cycle assessment, carbon accounting, scaled production, and application of these materials in building construction.
ARCH468P - Selected Topics in Architecture; Resume and Portfolio Design
Cross-listed with ARCH668P. Credit only granted for ARCH468P or ARCH668P.
ARCH 470 - Computer Applications in Architecture (3 Credits)
Introduction to computer utilization, with emphasis on architectural applications.
ARCH 472 - Building Information Modeling Communication and Collaboration (3 Credits)
Building Information Modeling is explored as pertains to collaboration and communication in the design and construction of buildings and building systems. Practical and empirical learning using BIM software and case studies of real world projects and construction scenarios.
ARCH478L - Selected Topics in Architecture; Architecture and Disaster Response in Historic Cities
Ecology studies the dynamic, mutually-beneficial relationships between living organisms and their environment. Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process used to explore and solve challenging problems. Drawing from both disciplines, this course considers the relationship of people to the living world, confronts humankind’s contributions to the current ecological crisis and applies design thinking to consider restorative, regenerative pathways.
ARCH478O - Selected Topics in Architecture; Three-Dimensional Digital Documentation: Using Laser-based Measurement Systems
This course focuses on the fundamentals of documenting components of the built environment and the landscapes in which they are located. It focuses on the use of lasers to calculate 3-D measurements at various scales, from objects, to buildings, and landscapes. It will cover data management and archiving, field documentation processes, and post-processing of scan point clouds. This includes the production of deliverables for clients or project partners, such as plans, elevations, orthoimagery, and cleaned exported point clouds in formats that are compatible with Autodesk software and other CAD or rendering software platforms. This course is intended for students working in fields that rely on accurately documenting components of the built environment in three dimension, including architects, engineers, preservationists, archaeologists, or digital designers.
ARCH478T - Selected Topics in Architecture; Ecological Design Thinking
No course description provided.
ARCH478U - Selected Topics in Architecture; The Black Experience & The American Built Environment
This course will explore the historical and contemporary relationships between the American Black Population and the design, planning, land policy and use of American land.
ARCH478Z - Selected Topics in Architecture; Environmental Psychology
Focuses on the role of design in human behavior, exploring people-place relationships centered on human physical, physiological, psychological, sociological, and intellectual responses to elements of the built environment.
ARCH 600- Integrated Design Studio V (6 Credits)
Integrated and comprehensive building and site design. Course content bridges the gap between design and technology, between practice and education, in a studio setting. Explorations include the integration of conceptual and technical aspects of architectural form and assembly, highlighting the ways in which multiple layers of a building design are developed, coordinated and resolved.
ARCH 601 - Topical Design Studio VI (6 Credits)
Topical architectural design studio with concentration on advanced topical inquiry addressing but not limited to: architectural competitions, sustainable design, theoretical/conceptual issues, programmatic, contextual, and/or technical issues.
ARCH 611 - Advanced Architecture Technology Seminar (3 Credits)
Technology in design of buildings. Application of technological issues in building design; integration of technology in architecture; technology as a form determinant in architecture; other conceptual and philosophical issues related to the application of technology in the design, construction, and use of buildings.
ARCH628C - Selected Topics in Architectural History; History of Structure and Construction
Structure is a basic condition of architecture. Without some structural understanding, we would either build with no assurance of stability or safety, or we would create less dynamic dwellings out of fear. Since the dawn of civilization, building cultures throughout the world have mastered structure using different techniques, as well as methods of predicting structural behavior. Some cultures even found that studying structure held the key to architectural design. Structural study helped architects find forms that were beautiful in their efficiency, or it could lead them to a visual language of structural metaphors. That is what this course is about: the history of structure-driven design.
ARCH628E - Selected Topics in Architectural History; Global Renaissance
The course 'Global Renaissance' explores the architecture and urban cultures that flourished under the wide-reaching concept of the Renaissance, during the period ranging from 1450 to 1700. The Renaissance is a term that we usually associate to northern Italy, where it originated. However, the phenomenon of the Renaissance coincided with an age of global exploration, commerce, trade, and colonialism, all of which expanded the ideas of the Renaissance to every corner of Europe, the Mediterranean, the New World, and beyond. During the course we will work with UMD s MITH (Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities), to create a digital humanities platform (a web page) in which we will showcase the work you will produce throughout the course. The main characteristic of the digital humanities is to employ technological tools to present humanities subjects under new light. In this case, the work will take the form of 3-D architectural models, use of GIS tools, image editing, or other digital-technological tools to produce a public pedagogical resource about the Global Renaissance.
ARCH628U - Selected Topics in Architectural History; A survey of the history of Latin American Architecture and Urbanism in Context
This course delves into these issues and presents Latin American architecture and urbanism in context, involving and discussing the European and North American precedents that, in many cases, informed Latin American architectural and urban developments.
ARCH628N - Selected Topics in Architectural History; Medieval Architecture
Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean produced a unique building culture in which design was flexible and deeply grounded in the act of construction. In this class, we will trace the diversity of Byzantine, Islamic, Romanesque and Gothic architecture through select case studies. Students will learn to unravel buildings in terms of phases of construction, relate each phase to a different social or political context, and describe the structural technologies that medieval masons rightly flaunted.
ARCH628T - Selected Topics in Architectural History; American Building Typologies
Examines key public, institutional, commercial, and residential building types since the founding of the nation to 1980. Such an approach to American architecture facilitates in-depth studies of like-purposed buildings, focusing on function and design through time. Categories could include state capitals, jails and prisons, places of worship, libraries, art academies and cultural institutions, railroad stations, banks, stores and so on. Students gain additional perspective by examining the buildings' historical, cultural, and social contexts.
ARCH 629 - Graduate Independent Studies in Architectural History (1 - 4 Credits)
Content varies, students work with faculty advisor to create coursework.
ARCH 635 - Seminar in the History of Modern Architecture (3 Credits)
Advanced investigation of historical problems in modern architecture.
ARCH 654 - Urban Development and Design Theory (3 Credits)
Advanced investigation into the history, and practice of urban design, planning, and development.
ARCH 655 - Urban Design Seminar (3 Credits)
Advanced investigation into problems of analysis and evaluation of the design of urban areas, spaces, and complexes with emphasis on physical and social considerations; effects of public policies through case studies. Field observations.
ARCH668G- Advanced Selected Topics in Architecture; Building Craft & The Architectural Detail
No course description provided.
ARCH668K- Advanced Selected Topics in Architecture; The Entrepreneurial Architect
Cross-listed with ARCH468K. Credit only granted for ARCH468K or ARCH668K.
ARCH668N - Advanced Selected Topics in Architecture; Architecture and the Forest Aesthetic
No course description provided.
ARCH668P - Advanced Selected Topics in Architecture; Resume and Portfolio Design
Cross-listed with ARCH468P. Credit only granted for ARCH468P or ARCH668P.
ARCH678O - Advanced Selected Topics in Architecture; Three-Dimensional Digital Documentation: Using Laser-based Measurement Systems
This course focuses on the fundamentals of documenting components of the built environment and the landscapes in which they are located. It focuses on the use of lasers to calculate 3-D measurements at various scales, from objects, to buildings, and landscapes. It will cover data management and archiving, field documentation processes, and post-processing of scan point clouds. This includes the production of deliverables for clients or project partners, such as plans, elevations, orthoimagery, and cleaned exported point clouds in formats that are compatible with Autodesk software and other CAD or rendering software platforms. This course is intended for students working in fields that rely on accurately documenting components of the built environment in three dimension, including architects, engineers, preservationists, archaeologists, or digital designers.
ARCH 678T - Advanced Selected Topics in Architecture; Ecological Design Thinking (3 Credits)
Themes and topics of this course draw from the etymology and definition of the word “ecology,” which contains aspects of house, relationships, the living environment, and systems. Design thinking is itself systems thinking—in which many variables and scales, requirements and ideas are interrelated in a coherent whole. We study big-picture concepts and frameworks as well as cutting-edge applications, while exploring ways to be effective change agents.
ARCH678U - Advanced Selected Topics in Architecture; The Black Experience & The American Built Environment
This course will explore the historical and contemporary relationships between the American Black Population and the design, planning, land policy and use of American land.
ARCH678Z - Advanced Selected Topics in Architecture; Environmental Psychology
Focuses on the role of design in human behavior, exploring people-place relationships centered on human physical, physiological, psychological, sociological, and intellectual responses to elements of the built environment.
ARCH 679 - Advanced Independent Studies in Architecture; Independent Study in Architecture (1 - 4 Credits)
Content varies, students work with faculty advisor to create coursework.
ARCH 700 - Urban Design Studio VII (6 Credits)
Studio problems and theories concentrating on urbanism and urban design techniques. Issues and sites range from high density urban in-fill to suburban and greenfield development in American and other contexts. Studio theories explore such topics as Contextualism, Neo-Traditional design, Transit-Oriented Development, density, sustainable development building typology, and street design.
ARCH 770 - Professional Practice of Architecture (3 Credits)
Project management, organizational, legal, economic and ethical aspects of architecture.
ARCH 797 - Thesis Proseminar (3 Credits)
Directed research and preparation of thesis program.
ARCH 798 - Thesis in Architecture (3 Credits)
Complements the research of ARCH 799, with presentation of the design research to student's thesis committee.
ARCH 799 - Masters Thesis Research (1 - 6 Credits)
Development of master's thesis.
First-time registrants for ARCH 799 must take 6 credit hours. Should a thesis extend into an additional term, students must register for 1 credit hour of coursework.