Over three semesters, students develop expertise in various disciplinary realms, including but not limited to building technology, finance and media, landscape and urbanism, and real estate development, by completing coursework at either of our two campuses and multiple schools. Students and faculty members come together to discuss new models of architectural practice, to expand the role of the architect in society, and to question disciplinary boundaries.
Students are admitted to the MSArch program based on portfolios and research statements that demonstrate a clear research agenda that can be completed in three academic semesters. During the application process, students identify an area of concentration and a primary advisor within that area. Once enrolled, each student will work closely with the advisor in a small seminar/studio format to define the project and conduct research. This work is supported by a series of elective courses. In their final semester, students produce a thesis project that gives concrete form to their investigation, whether as a publishable article, exhibition, or prototype. At the end of their one -year course of study, students will have produced personal projects that will sustain and energize their future career choices, whether as designers, artists, filmmakers, game designers, entrepreneurs, or scholars.
Students in the MSArch program have full access to the resources offered by Woodbury’s design, media, and business programs, such as our Virtual Reality facilities, gallery and exhibition spaces, game design courses, and digital fabrication labs. Further afield, students are encouraged to use the unique conditions of Southern California as an extended network and laboratory, including local archives and technical expertise from nearby industries.
Students may choose from one of the following areas of concentration:
Materials & Fabrication
Via the Making Complex, students in this area work closely with the Institute for Material Ecologies to develop in-depth understanding of materials and their connections to environmental and political systems.
Management & Development
Drawing upon the expertise native to Southern California and in close collaboration with our School of Business, students in this area engage the real- world practices of management and real estate development.
Computational Design Systems
Students in this area focus on the design of computational design systems. They learn how to design and implement their own software tools and hardware prototypes using new generative design techniques, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
Photography & Curatorship
Taking advantage of the Julius Shulman Institute, our Hollywood exhibition space, and local archives, students in this area study the ways architecture is represented in media and in scholarship through architectural photography, exhibitions, and archives.
The City
Using the environments of Los Angeles and Southern California, students in this area explore present and future urban forms. Students may choose to work with the Hinterlands Institute on new, productive landscapes beyond the city’s edge.
New Interiors & Virtual Experience
Students in this area engage the new interior spaces of gaming and virtual/augmented reality. They take advantage of resources such as our VR lab and the course offerings of our Interior Design, Game Design, and Applied Computer Science departments.
Program Learning Outcomes
Design studios form the core of the undergraduate architecture curriculum. Students gain skills in drawing, model making, material construction, design software, digital fabrication, and critical writing. All graduates of the program are expected to master five program learning outcomes to varying degrees, depending on areas of concentration chosen:
- Critical Thinking: the ability to build abstract relationships and understand the impact of ideas based on research and analysis of multiple cultural and theoretical contexts;
- Design: the inventive and reflective conception, development, and production of our environment;
- Building: the technical aspects, systems, and materials and their role in the implementation of design;
- Representation: the wide range of media used to communicate design ideas, including writing, speaking, drawing, and model making;
- Professionalism: the ability to manage, argue, and act legally, ethically, and critically in society and the environment.
Assessment and Results of Learning
Assessment Process
The faculty assesses individual student learning outcomes in each project and for each course, following grading guidelines established across the University. Each year, key areas for measured assessment of student learning outcomes that involve not only programmatic outcomes, but also core competencies and institutional outcomes, are specified. The five core competencies include oral communication, written communication, information literacy, quantitative reasoning, and critical thinking. Institutional outcomes include design thinking, civic engagement, transdisciplinarity, and entrepreneurship.
In addition to the summative assessment of student learning outcomes at the major milestone s, formative assessment occurs within each studio. As students develop their projects, they receive regular, rigorous, and critical feedback in small groups, larger groups, and via individual desk critiques. Students also learn to provide rigorous and critical feedback to their peers, as well as to their own progress and process.
Formative assessment processes for student learning include:
Studio or Seminar Small Group Critiques
Students present their work to a group including other students and the instructor for feedback on research and analysis, development of an idea or belief, process rigor, movement toward clarity of idea or resolution of issue, and the skill and craft with which media are used.
Studio or Seminar Peer Critiques
Students present their work to each other for feedback on the same five points. In addition to developing these points in their own projects, students develop critical thinking and communication skills by providing relevant and cogent responses to other solutions and methods of working.
Studio Individual Desk Critique
Student and instructor meet one-on-one to review progress in the project and to discuss direction for continued development. Students learn to work quickly to test new ideas, manifest their ideas in multiple media, and evaluate the content of criticism.
Lecture/Seminar Multi-step Projects
Many lectures and seminars require iterative processes to develop a final product, whether a written paper, a presentation, a multimedia analysis, or a construction. The iterations provide the instructor with a gauge of student progress and provide students with intermediate feedback that contributes to product development.
Juried Public Project Reviews
Students present their work publicly to peers, instructor(s) and invited guests—often architects, allied professionals, and other design educators —at the end of a project or semester. The jury’s comments are both summative and formative; they evaluate the work before them for research and analysis, development of idea or belief, rigor and completion, clarity and resolve, and skill and craft, but they also suggest other approaches to the solution or additional work that might be done in any of the five areas noted. The jury’s remarks are intended to influence the student’s future work, not merely as judgment of the current work.
Public Gallery Reviews
Students present their work in a group gallery. Peers, instructors, and invited guests make a passive first pass through the gallery, observing the overall output of the group, then actively engage individual students in conversation about their work and how it contributes contextually. Students learn that their design ideas exist in and affect a body of work that has physical, intellectual, aesthetic, social, and historical value.
Academic Standards and Policies
Design Studio Academic Standards
Students must maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or higher for every two consecutive design studios to continue in the design studio sequence. A student whose two-studio GPA drops below 3.0 must repeat one of the two studios as necessary to achieve the minimum GPA prior to enrollment in the subsequent studio.
Satisfactory Studio Progress Policy
Any student who does not pass a studio with a grade of “C” or better after enrolling in it three times is subject to dismissal from the program.
Repeated Courses
A student may remediate a course for the purpose of improving a grade. However, the student only has one chance to repeat a course in which they have received a passing grade. If a passing grade was not achieved, then a student may repeat the course until they do achieve a passing grade. Financial aid cannot be applied to courses repeated voluntarily.
Completion Time Limits
Part-time graduate students may receive an additional two years to complete their degree objective. The graduate academic progress and grading policy is administered by the department and the registrar with Office of Student Development support.