Cultivate your point of view using architecture as a lens. You’ll conduct research-driven architectural investigations to identify your thesis topic, develop your architectural language, and use site and demographic analysis as design criteria for the final thesis project in the subsequent semester.

Prerequisites: ARH 450, LA 292, LA 429, & a minimum of 126 units completed

Course Learning Outcomes

• Identify an area of research and submit a written thesis booklet describing and framing the inquiry
• Conduct research with sensitivity and empathy for user groups whose lived experiences have been historically under-represented.
• Incorporate input from advisors with varied design and engineering expertise
• Develop a site selection criteria and document an analysis of the selected site
• Develop a program proposal that directly addresses the stated problem
• Develop a robust architectural language by working iteratively 
• Create preliminary design options for a complex program and mixed-use/hybrid building and identify major functional and environmental requirements

NAAB Criteria

• PC 2 Design How the program instills in students the role of the design process in shaping the built environment and conveys the methods by which design processes integrate multiple factors, in different settings and scales of development, from buildings to cities.
• PC 7 Learning and Teaching Culture How the program fosters and ensures a positive and respectful environment that encourages optimism, respect, sharing, engagement, and innovation among its faculty, students, administration, and staff.
• PC 8 Social Equity and Inclusion How the program furthers and deepens students’ understanding of diverse cultural and social contexts and helps them translate that understanding into built environments that equitably support and include people of different backgrounds, resources, and abilities.