Graduate
The Master of Architecture program engages architecture as a generalist practice while encouraging each student's freedom to pick and choose from changing realities in order to shape them for the better. We prepare students to deal with an ever more ambiguous world, one that can no longer simply be flattened by such binaries as local and global, quantity and quality, mind and nature, form and function, or standards and exceptions.. The challenge we pose our students is to transgress the obsolescence of opposing values and navigate the tricky waters of a world no longer organized around presupposed notions of solidity, permanence, rootedness, centrality, protection, and identity. Our program is the very place where visions of the future are tested and where students are asked to understand the world’s complexity in order to focus the tangible, the legible, and the relevant.
Individuals who possess a Bachelor's degree can apply to the Master of Architecture program. Our curriculum offers a set of core courses (in Design, History and Theory, Technology, and Practice) and many free electives, both in the School of Architecture and across campus. In studio courses, strong emphasis is given to the very means by which architecture is able to change the world through program, form, and technology. Such fundamental aspects to design, can, when mobilized, produce a practice of architecture that is as speculative as it is realist. Every fall, optional "Totalization" studios are conducted in such a way as to have students rigorously weigh all aspects of building design while nonetheless biasing their engagement so as to produce highly specific architectural projects. In their final thesis semester, students are asked to face the world and engage it through architectural speculation and a precise understanding of historical, political, economic, and physical dimensions, which can together define a better future.
The Master of Architecture program is accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) and qualifies graduates to take the state professional licensing exams after completing the required internship in an architectural office.
Programs of Study
There are three program options at the Master of Architecture level: Options 1, 2, and 3. They differ according to the Bachelor's degree received prior to entering the graduate program.
Option 1: seven semester program
Offered to individuals who hold a four-year undergraduate degree with a major in a field other than Architecture. Preference for admission is given to those who have completed a balanced education in the arts, sciences, and humanities. A minimum of two semesters of college-level courses in the history of art and/or architecture and one semester of college level courses in mathematics or physics is recommended. Previous preparation in the visual arts is also desirable, as are courses in philosophy, literature, and economics. In order to graduate, students in this program must complete, in addition to 6 semesters of design studios, a curriculum of 46 credit hours with an additional free electives course load of 27 credit hours.
Option 2: five semester program
Offered to individuals who hold a four-year undergraduate degree with a major in Architecture. Preference for admission is given to those who have successfully completed between four to six semesters of undergraduate design studio as well as undergraduate courses that are analogous to those given in the first year of Option 1. A minimum of two semesters of college-level courses in the history of art and/or architecture and one semester of college-level courses in mathematics or physics is recommended. In order to graduate, students in this program must complete, in addition to 4 semesters of design studios, a curriculum of 39 credit hours with an additional free electives course load of 15 credit hours.
Option 3: three semester program
Offered to individuals who hold a professional degree in architecture (B.Arch.) or its equivalent from a foreign university. Preference for admission is given to those who have significant practical experience in architecture and who have demonstrated a high achievement in design. In order to graduate, students must complete in addition to 2 semesters of design studios, a curriculum of 16 credit hours with an additional free electives course load of 18 credit hours.
M.Arch. Thesis Requirement
Thesis is payback time – it is when students build upward and outward from what they’ve learned over the years, giving back to the school by providing new disciplinary fodder. More immediate than a crystal ball, some of the common threads underlying a Rice thesis might well reveal tomorrow’s future. Despite working in the context of Texas’s vast horizon, Rice thesis students do not envision an endless frontier. Rather than turning away from the discipline, our students have found new territories embedded within architectural and urban paradigms, breathing into them new life and vitality. All Master of Architecture candidates are required to do an independent thesis, articulating an ambition and envisioning its architectural specificity. Students develop their individual thesis proposals during their penultimate semester in a required, pre-thesis seminar. Thesis design evolves from the honing of that proposal and continues through the final semester, under the guidance of an individual advisor. In early January, thesis projects are reviewed publicly by a panel of eminent jurors in the RSA’s Farish Gallery. In short, the school starts each new year with a batch of new visions.
To download a PDF of required Graduate courses, click here.
To download a PDF of typical Graduate course schedules, click here.