Earth's ecosystems are unraveling at an unprecedented rate, threatening human wellbeing and posing substantial challenges to contemporary society. Designing sustainable practices, institutions, and technologies for a resource-constrained world is our greatest challenge. This integrated and interdisciplinary course prepares students to understand, innovate and lead the efforts necessary to engage in this task.

Topical offerings in architecture. For a one-page course description and recommended baseline academic experience, please be in touch with the faculty member or academic advisor. 

The Building Workshop I addresses building science and technology topics that influence the built environment for safe and healthy human occupation. BIW 1 focuses on the dimension and performance of basic elements of construction, analyzed through a variety of historical, typological, and geographic precedents.

In this course we explore the delights and dilemmas of design. With paper, pencils, cardboard, and glue, we draw, sketch, and construct collages and architectural models. As we do so, we ask fundamental questions. What is design? What exactly do designers do when they design? What makes the practice meaningful, and what makes it difficult? To see work from past years, visit: https://web.arch.virginia.edu/designfundamentals/.

Topical offerings in architecture. For a one-page course description and recommended baseline academic experience, please be in touch with the faculty member or academic advisor. 

This course is about architectural design. Approximately twenty-five lecture/discussions span various aspects of design beginning with principles and including topics such as multiple ideas, multiple studies, abstraction, proportion and composition. Final topics include practical and esthetic considerations of design and materials. A class notebook is required for lecture notes and assignments of writings and drawings.

Students will attend 6 of the School of Architecture public lecture series and exchange feedback on architectural career paths and architecture's role in cultural, social, environmental, and economic contexts.

This course takes a systems perspective to study and design for sustainability in the built environment at various scales (e.g., materials, buildings, cities, and regions) and for different types of systems (e.g., physical, social, information). Students from SEAS, A-School, and other majors are welcome in this course, which emphasizes interdisciplinary design collaboration and diversity of thought. Grad course will have add¿l course requirement.

Investigates the role that ideas play in the conception, making, and interpretation of buildings and cities, and assists students in clarifying their own values and intentions as designers. Lectures cover a broad range of topics, with special emphasis placed on contemporary issues.

Students will attend 6 of the School of Architecture public lecture series and exchange feedback on architectural career paths and architecture's role in cultural, social, environmental, and economic contexts. ARCH 6264 must be taken after ARCH 6262.