The Master of Architecture program trains students to become leaders in the professional practice of architecture with innovative methods of design research and inquiry.
Students: Sophy Feldman & Rowan Price Instructor: Alexandra Barker SP23 Studio 4
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Master of Architecture at Pratt
The MARCH curriculum embraces an integrative approach to design that weaves together technical knowledge and creative practice, building science and environmental stewardship, and professional responsibility and equity. We actively engage the pressing climatic and social challenges of our era through rigorous inquiry. Through case studies that leverage the city as our classroom, students develop innovative design strategies that convey a thorough understanding of the way in which architecture shapes the built environment and its communities. As architects, our inquiry extends across all scales of the built environment, from individual buildings to neighborhoods, cities, and all the way to global systems and ecosystems. What connects our intervention across this broad range of scales is our deep commitment to design work that prioritizes the well-being and safety of all life forms.
The Master of Architecture (M.Arch) is a three-year NAAB-accredited, STEM-certified professional program. Our 84-credit, three-year track is designed for students who have completed a bachelor’s degree, including majors other than one of the architectural design professions. The program is also available in a 56-credit, two-year Advanced Standing track for students with bachelor’s degrees from four-year Architecture or Engineering programs.
The M.Arch program is structured with a core curriculum of design, history-theory, technology, and media courses, followed by an advanced curriculum of applied research and elective courses. The entire curriculum is designed to equip students with the professional knowledge required for becoming a successful architect.
We believe in an integrative approach to architecture. Our curriculum is designed to provide students with a deep understanding of the diverse practices and modes of inquiry that converge in the architectural discipline and profession.
In the first three semesters, the core curriculum is structured to coordinate learning across design, technical, historico-theoretical, and media courses. In the fourth semester, this coordinated learning culminates in the Integrative Studio. Unique to the GAUD, the Integrative Studio combines the teaching of architectural design, building systems, and regulatory compliance into a single course. Collaboration is a fundamental aspect of the Integrative studio: students work on a single architectural project in teams, supported by GAUD faculty and a cohort of technical consultants from leading New York City firms. During the last two semesters, our M.Arch program further compliments the Integrative Studio with an advanced curriculum of studio and elective courses. In these advanced courses, students engage in directed research projects alongside a diverse group of faculty members from Pratt Institute and the architectural profession at large.
Our integrative approach begins, does not end, with our program. By integrating different modes of architectural knowledge and practice, and engaging audiences both within and outside the architectural professions, our M.Arch program equips graduates with the unique ability to intervene in the complex systems shaping the building and living environment.
Integrative Design:
Our M.Arch students are trained to make complex design decisions that integrate architectural ideas with structural, building, and regulatory systems. Their integrative thinking advances environmental stewardship, social equity, and community resilience in all aspects of design work.
Environmental Design Practice:
Our M.Arch students are trained to embrace their responsibility as stewards of the environment. Their work reflects a deep awareness of architecture’s impact on the living and building environments by integrating research on fragile ecosystems, ecologically responsive technologies, and sustainable materials.
Inclusive and Equitable Design:
Our M.Arch students are trained to view equity, diversity, and inclusion as an integral aspect of design. They understand their responsibility to consider diverse needs, values, and physical abilities in design practices, and act on that understanding by integrating an ethos of equity and inclusion in their architectural solutions.
Design Knowledge:
Our M.Arch students are trained to think critically about architecture’s role in the world. They use cutting-edge design methods, media, and technologies to advance architectural knowledge within the discipline and in culture more broadly.
Collaborative Design:
Our M.Arch students are trained to practice creative leadership that benefits their clients, communities, and society at large. Their design work builds relationships, from collaborations with consultants and industry experts to outreach with community partners and stakeholders.
Design Learning:
Our M.Arch students are trained to ask thought-provoking questions throughout their careers and their lives. They value forms of inquiry and collaborative exploration that deepen their understanding of architecture’s connections to complex systems, including bodies of historical-theoretical knowledge, socio-economic forces, environmental dynamics, and cultural contexts.
Take A Look At How Our Courses Advance Design Research And Thinking
Our faculty are leading practitioners, scholars, and educators, including a distinctive cohort of PhD candidates from top universities who share a common desire to develop each student’s potential and creativity to the fullest. Bringing different views, methods, and perspectives the faculty provide a rigorous educational model in which students make and learn. See all GAUD faculty and administrators.
Pratt’s department of Graduate Architecture and Urban Design (GAUD) balances knowledge and understanding, enhancing your individual capacities to ask often difficult and challenging questions facing the profession and discipline, specifically through design and with audiences outside of architecture and urban design. This program is intended for students holding a four-year undergraduate, nonprofessional degree in any field. Applicants with degrees from a four-year BSc in Architecture or BScEng in Architecture may qualify for advanced standing.
Integrative Studio
Unique to the GAUD, the Integrative Studio is a combined design and integrative building-systems course and brings together a number of related disciplines into a single project, which students develop in teams. An ensemble of technical consultants from world-leading firms in New York City work directly with GAUD faculty and students on their design projects engaging in facade design, structural design, energy design and more.
Directed Research
In your final two semesters, the advanced curriculum is focused on Directed Research studios and electives. Among the studios, you might apply to participate in the Studio of Experiments, which is an opportunity to work closely with a visiting faculty member on a directed research topic set by the department chair. Learn more about Directed Research.
Seminars, Lectures & Events
Immersive seminars, lectures and events accompany each semester. They explore contemporary issues in architectural practice and research, and foster discussion between students and prominent scholars. Exhibitions spotlight exceptional faculty and student work, and the student publication offers students opportunities to engage in theoretical, editorial, and writing activities.
Study Abroad
Immersing yourself in another culture is an incredible experience that can extend the boundaries of creativity. Study abroad programs are an integral part of the university experience, and Pratt has deep connections with university partners around the world. In the first, second, or third year, students may elect to participate in one or both of our international programs. See where you can go.
Learning Resources
We develop disciplinary fluency in our program of study and we celebrate the interdisciplinary nature of design critical to address the plurality and complexity of the environments in which we operate. Learn about resources.
Our Alumni
Pratt’s distinguished alumni are leading diverse and thriving careers, addressing critical challenges and creating innovative work that reimagines our world.
Career Opportunities:
Graduates from the M.Arch program go on to work in leading architectural firms and other creative fields, both nationally and internationally. Take a look at where some of our recent graduates work:
Where They Work
Architect – Morphosis
Junior Designer – BIG Bjarke Ingels Group
Architectural Designer — Foster + Partners
Director – KPF
Senior Associate – SHoP Architects
Architect – Woods Bagot
Lead Designer – Zaha Hadid Architects
Architectural Designer – UNStudio
Assistant Chair, Interior Design – Pratt Institute
Join us at Pratt. Learn more about admissions requirements, plan your visit, talk to a counselor, and start your application. Take the next step.
You’ll find yourself at home at Pratt. Learn more about our residence halls, student organizations, athletics, gallery exhibitions, events, the amazing City of New York and our Brooklyn neighborhood communities. Check us out.
ARCH 806 | Design 6: FAIR-X | Spring 2025 | Instructors: Jonas Coersmeier | Students: Muzhi Wang & Lucius Hu
The studio discusses changing concepts of Nature as they pertain to ecological thinking and building, and addresses the architectural mandate in the midst of a global climate crisis. It points to the problem of distinguishing Nature from technology, investigates a new understanding of living systems, and offers an integrated reading of the term Natural Structures. Considering concepts of nature themselves as artificial constructs, the studio aims at overcoming the separations between built and grown structures, and designer versus design material. The studio takes a material approach to the post-digital project and current AI architectural discourse. It awards design intelligence to the (design) material and the universal, autonomous systems, AI and the robot. Robots here are not reduced to mere manufacturing laborers, but
they, along with their evolving drivers and routines, are invited to enter into a ‘creative’ dialogue with the human designer and material. The studio attempts to uproot the deep-seated idea that designer, machine and material interactions are always already hierarchical. We refer to the moment when generative architecture re-emerged in the context of digital technologies as the algorithmic project in architecture, and we discuss it critically in this design studio.
#Architecture #MLAStudents #MArchStudents #MSArchStudents #MSAUDStudents #PrattMArch #PrattInstitute #Design #StudentWork #PrattGALAUD #PrattSOA
ARCH 601 | Media and Methods | Fall 2024 | Instructors: Michael Zimmerman | Students: Dayanara Ramos @rr_dayaa
“This project developed from a series of drawing experiments, using unrolled elevations as a tool to explore form and space. Early studies focused on combining bold geometries with finer details, employing collage and layered linework to investigate the concept of hybrids. These techniques carried through to the design of a Victorian house on Governor’s Island, where I merged my unrolled elevation with that of the existing structure. The result is a hybridized home where the lines themselves define shifts in space—whether by bulging outward, receding inward, or carving out voids. These transitions create new and unique spatial experiences that cater to both public functions and private residential areas.“
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ARCH 602 | Design 2: Interiorities & Context | Spring 2025 | Instructors: Poyao Shih | Students: Emersyn Gentry & Alexandros Vamvakas
This design studio addresses a specific site through its interior. It emphasizes the related conceptual and material impacts of this “inside out” approach. Circulation and its material and spatial qualities are explored through the design of a small building that responds to a detailed ensemble of architectural programs and the multiple contexts of a local institution. For this studio, the project involves designing a middle school on a vacant site in Greenpoint,Brooklyn, NY. Greenpoint is a diverse community located in a rapidly developing area of Brooklyn, near the waterfront but, according to the most recent School Construction Authority assessment, with no need to elevate the building. It is, however, located near a contained site, and, based on depth to groundwater, the proposed school would be built slab-on-grade (no basement).
Student Work:
1-7. Images | Emersyn Gentry | Instructor: Poyao Shih
8-9. Images | Alexandros Vamvakas | Instructor: Poyao Shih
#Architecture #MLAStudents #MArchStudents #MSArchStudents #MSAUDStudents #PrattMArch #PrattInstitute #Design #StudentWork #PrattGALAUD #PrattSOA
ARCH 703 DESIGN 3: Urban Qualities & Materialities Integrated Studio | Fall 2024 | Instructors: Jonas Coersmeier | Students: Abyan Mohamed Ali @10_abyan
“Urbanistic Continuity is a housing initiative that examines the urban characteristics of New York while addressing its infrastructural challenges. With reference to ‘Blazing Epiphany: Maintenance Art Manifesto 1969!’ ,an interview with Mierle Laderman Ukeles, the project seeks to enhance the city’s existing maintenance systems by seamlessly blending it with expressions of art. The orthogonal nature of New York is used as a tool throughout the design, from urban to
interior, while integrating infrastructural elements within the formal logic. Studies conducted in the Lo/Lux studio couple the functional and aesthetic concepts of the design to create thresholds and housing systems which cater to joint family groups.“
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#PrattMArch #PrattInstitute #Design #StudentWork #PrattGALAUD #PrattSOA
ARCH 704 | Design 4: Integrated Studio | Spring 2025 | Instructors: Erich Schoenenberger | Students: Begum Nar & Junu Jang, Kerry Richardson & Sora Kim, Daniela Maurer & Selin Akad, Deniz Tokman & Colin House, Shae Anne Reid & Rebecca Yoo
Nature strives for balance, yet it’s repeatedly disrupted by catastrophic events—from ancient volcanic eruptions and mass extinctions to today’s human-driven CO₂ emissions that accelerate species loss and displace millions. In urban centers like New York City, where food is largely imported, a significant portion of edible food is wasted, missing an opportunity to recycle vital nutrients.
This semester’s architectural challenge addresses the imbalance caused by urban food waste by capturing its nutrients and energy to boost urban agriculture. Students will design a neighborhood composting facility that transforms food waste into a closed-loop resource for an agricultural greenhouse. Aerobic composting not only produces soil enhancers but also releases CO₂ (5), which can potentially increase agricultural yields by 30 to 40%. Beyond closing the nutrient loop, urban agriculture offers numerous benefits—it fosters self-sufficiency, exemplifies the natural cycles of our environment, generates local jobs, and produces fresh, edible food.
Student Work:
1-2. Images | Begum Nar & Junu Jang | Instructor: Erich Schoenenberger @begumnarr @zu_nu
3-4. Images | Kerry Richardson & Sora Kim | Instructor: Erich Schoenenberger @kerryrichardsonn
5-6. Images | Daniela Maurer & Selin Akad | Instructor: Erich Schoenenberger
7-8. Images | Deniz Tokman & Colin House | Instructor: Erich Schoenenberger @deniztokmann @col.housee
9. Images | Shae Anne Reid & Rebecca Yoo | Instructor: Erich Schoenenberger @yebeccababy @shaeannereid
#Architecture #MLAStudents #MArchStudents #MSArchStudents #MSAUDStudents #PrattMArch #PrattInstitute #Design #StudentWork #PrattGALAUD #PrattSOA
ARCH 601 | Media and Methods | Fall 2024 | Instructors: Hart Marlow | Students: Margo Berthier @margo.berthier
“This studio focuses on discussions around reuse, the relationship between old/new, and programmatic requirements of an art space. The project is an addition to House 05 on Governor’s Island, to create an artist-in residence space. My idea is to reimagine the gallery space by creating an extension to the back patio, where the back becomes the new front. I produced a tectonic architectural quality that looks at concepts of lamination and delamination. This new assembly idea activates and deactivates the floor and ceiling, forming an envelope that wraps around the floor plate and extends to create interior moments where art can be pinned up, or where people can sit.”
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PROJECT | The Woven Tales Project | PAULA STODDARD & MICHAEL ORTIZ JIMENEZ @woventalesproject @_michortiz @_paulastoddard
“Following our Semester 5 studio and after receiving the Start-up Power Award at Pratt Research Open House, The Woven Tales Project was born, exploring applications of reclaimed textiles in architecture and adjacent fields like furniture and product design. Our process is guided by open-ended experimentation, allowing the material to shape our creative direction. One of our most exciting ongoing projects is Herencia Tótem, a research-driven exploration into the structural and aesthetic potential of reclaimed textiles. Through a process of material experimentation, we’ve developed a series of stackable forms that function as side tables and stools. Each piece is composed of repurposed textiles—including unwanted garments and discarded fabric samples—allowing us to investigate how these materials can be reconfigured into new spatial and functional applications. Our work has been exhibited at the Pratt Material Lab and the Craft Contemporary Museum in L.A., and this May, we’re thrilled to be showcasing at Launch Pad at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF). Our research is rooted in continuous exploration, embracing unexpected outcomes to push the boundaries of reclaimed textile applications.”
#Architecture #Exhibition #Project #Workshop #DesignExhibition #StudentWork #PrattInstitute #PrattSOA #Design #CreativeWork #PrattGALAUD #ICFF #Textile #PrattAlumni
ARCH 703 DESIGN 3: Urban Qualities & Materialities Integrated Studio | Fall 2024 | Instructors: Gisela Baurmann | Students: Adrian Ramon @ar.chival
“The COOP explores the density of urban life through an embrace of tenant proximity, designed through the forms and textures of the domestic chicken. A series of row houses atop open chicken runs create corridors from the street to the central towers, lined with front doors and activity. Pairs of similar apartment layouts push into each other along a hexagonal grid inspired by the close packing of scales on the chicken’s legs. The thread of social housing breaches individual living spaces, where shared walls and ceilings separating apartments slope and gently curve into one another to subtly imply a neighbor’s presence. Each floor plate of the towers contain one variant of the six typical layouts which rotate around the core, creating a tight flock of undulating levels. The concrete facade draws on the red hues on the crest and plumage of chickens, while the corrugated and perforated metal panels slipping over windows and up past balconies tie the facade together and speak to the coops on the lower levels of the site.”
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#PrattMArch #PrattInstitute #Design #StudentWork #PrattGALAUD #PrattSOA
ARCH 806 | Design 6: Untitled | Spring 2025 | Instructors: Thomas Leeser | Students: Andreas Palfinger @andreas_palfinger
Students produce design work that engages a multitude of media, is of a distinctive quality,
embodies a high degree of disciplinary precision and emphasizes the specific media and methods of the studio’s DR focus. A range of individual, faculty-formulated studios are proposed broadly engaging various aspects of architectural mediums and/or architectural contexts; as drivers of contemporary discourse, research and practice. Students are challenged to apply their individual backgrounds accumulated throughout the core curriculum to increased levels of precision, intensity, focus, independent and creative thought leadership through architectural design.
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#PrattMArch #PrattInstitute #Design #StudentWork #PrattGALAUD #PrattSOA
