Curriculum Credit and Studio Organization in Accredited 5-Year B.Arch Programs
William TottenThis research includes National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB)-accredited five-year Bachelor of Architecture programs in the United States that offered a full slate of courses during its most recent accreditation visit. In total, forty-five schools were included. Data was collected in three categories: general curriculum organization, general information about their studio’s organization and expectations for students, and qualitative data about the state of the program and its impact on its students.
Data about the curricular organization was gathered from each school’s website and course catalog related to the number of credits required in each of four categories: (1) studio courses (courses students take in a studio with other architecture students and critic); (2) allied architecture courses (specific architecture courses that are required during a specific semester); (3) architecture electives (architecture courses chosen by the student); and (4) general education requirements (GER) (non-architecture courses that are required including elective credits which may be fulfilled by non-architecture courses).
Data about studio was collected with a survey sent to each school and augmented by online sources for non-responding schools. To evaluate how each school’s instruction performed, I assigned each a Student Performance Criteria Score based on testimony published in the Student Performance Criteria portion of the school’s NAAB Accreditation Visiting Team Reports. The Student Performance Criteria are a set of accreditation requirements that describe how well students learn important aspects of architecture, such as accessibility and structural systems. To calculate the score, a school received +1 for each criterion that was Met with Distinction, -0.5 for each listed as a Cause of Concern, and -1 for each Not Met. Criteria that were Met did not receive a point value as NAAB does not provide comment on them in the report. Thus, a higher Student Performance Criteria Score indicates better student learning outcomes.
Two general trends in the data stand out. First, B. Arch programs emphasize studios and allied architecture courses over non-architecture courses and architecture electives. In four schools, while architecture elective courses are available, none are required for the completion of the B. Arch degree. Thus, a majority of the classes an architecture student is required to take are already prescribed, and only a small percentage of credits are chosen by the student. Although the number of credits is loosely regulated by NAAB, schools vary in their emphasis on specific credit types. For instance, the New Jersey Institute of Technology requires 18% of degree credits to be taken in architecture electives, far above the average of 8%, and Virginia Tech devotes about 45% of credits to studio, above the 33% average.
Second, a majority of schools still organize their curricula around a traditional studio space, in which students are able, and sometimes encouraged, to work 24/7. 84% of schools reserve individual spaces for all of their students. Those that do not do so for everyone reserve spaces for students based on their studio year, like at Thomas Jefferson University where all students third year and up receive a space. The Academy of Art University has a robust online B. Arch program, and thus only reserves a studio space for all students enrolled in the in-person B. Arch program. 71% of schools provide year-round 24/7 access to studio and schools that do not tend to extend their hours close to important deadlines like final review or do not remove students from studio when the building officially closes, functionally making them 24 hour access. Interestingly, although students are still organized into physical spaces, the use of those spaces has become more flexible as a majority of schools encourage students to purchase laptops. Doing so facilitates movement within studios to collaborate with others. All schools except two require the purchase of a computer. One of these, the University of Notre Dame, prides itself on its physical methods of drawing and modeling and consequently does not employ computers until the fourth year of its curriculum.
As we move forward and attempt to solve these issues we should be mindful of this typical curriculum organization, and question in what ways it helps us, and in what ways it can be improved.
William Totten is pursuing a Bachelor of Architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. This research was originally prepared for the Space-Time-Studio research group organized by Gabrielle Esperdy in Summer 2023.
This essay was published as part of Transect Volume 5: Pedagogy (2024), Jacob Swanson, Daniel Girgis, Dhruvi Rajpopat, Fatima Fardos, Jimenna Alcantar, Elizabeth Kowalchuk, eds.