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
Info Sessions
Wednesday, October 16th, 2024 6:00-7:30 ET (Zoom) Thursday, November 7th, 2024 12:00-2:00 pm ET (in-person) Monday, November 25th, 2024 6:00-7:30 pm ET (Zoom)
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.
🎉 Congratulations to Eugene Kim (M.Arch ‘26) 🎉
We’re excited to announce that Eugene has been selected as a recipient of the 2025 Center for Architecture Design Scholarship and the AIA Component Matching Scholarship, each valued at $1,000!
Presented by the Center for Architecture and the American Institute of Architects, these awards recognize outstanding academic achievement, design excellence, and a commitment to advancing the architectural profession.
Eugene’s work reflects a strong dedication to innovation, sustainability, and socially responsive design. We look forward to seeing his continued impact on the field.
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ARCH 806 | Design 6: The Power Station | Spring 2025 | Instructors: Fabian Llonch | Students: Jacob Brill-Weil
Gradient of Entropy
This project explores entropy as a spatial and material gradient—across circulation, structure, and landscape. Early site analysis and conceptual investigations lead to the question: What happens when erosion is seen as a generative design tool? The site itself sets the logic: Flood levels are not treated as threats to be walled off, but as temporal conditions that activate the ground An eroded, tidal shoreline becomes more structured and geometric as you approach the entry point. That horizontal transition, from organic to constructed, becomes the origin of a vertical one within the building. What begins as a fixed, efficient structure within the existing shell gives way to a looser, entropic condition above. Circulation is the spatial driver of this entropy. Visitors enter at the pressure point of most control, where site and structure meet in a tight threshold. From there, they ascend around a central void. The stairs begin efficient, but shift into ramps, platforms, and hanging paths that erode conventional directionality. The structure begins with the existing rigid column grid of the original building. Rather than erasing
this logic, the new structure grafts onto it—extending cantilevers and irregular branches that support the looser, more entropic volumes above. This structural grafting becomes a spatial negotiation: between the inherited order below and the loosened, expressive architecture above. It’s not a clean break, but a slow disintegration of regularity, where each new branch diverges slightly more from the origin. Ultimately, entropy is not used here to destroy form—but to generate it. It’s a way of designing space that responds to time, climate, and movement. Across every layer—circulation, structure, skin, and site—the project shifts from rigidity to openness, from enclosure to blur, from order to disorder.
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ARCH 806 | Design 6: Storied Cabinets | Spring 2025 | Instructors: Joe Vidich & Olivia Vien | Students: Miranda Schmidt & Rachel Guo, Cristian Maldonado & Cadyn Chien, Genevieve & Ayman
This studio examines the intersections of architecture, objecthood, and narrative through a playful exploration of scale, format, and mediation. Anchored by the notion of the architectural “story” as both stacked, connected spaces and layered tales of meaning, the studio investigates how architecture can blur boundaries between the container and the contained, the functional and the fantastical.
This studio encourages one to rethink the role of architecture not merely as shelter but as a medium for experimentation, storytelling, and play. The course challenges students to push the boundaries of conventional formats and question how architecture operates as object, space, and narrator in ways that provoke wonder and curiosity Through a rigorous process of material experimentation students will explore innovative ways to detail, and assemble 1:1 prototypes of their Storied Cabinets using traditional materials such as lumber and cork. The iterative process of experimentation and analysis will encourage students to develop practical problem-solving skills, design adaptability, and a stronger appreciation for craftsmanship and materiality. In addition, through partnerships with local professional fabricators, the Penacova municipality, Amorim cork company, and University of Coimbra, students will develop projects that demonstrate the potential of combining traditional materials with contemporary fabrication techniques.
Student Work:
1-7. Images | Cristian Maldonado & Cadyn Chien | Instructor: Joe Vidich & Olivia Vien
8-10. Images | Miranda Schmidt & Rachel Guo | Instructor: Joe Vidich & Olivia Vien
11-12. Images | Genevieve & Ayman | Instructor: Joe Vidich & Olivia Vien
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ARCH 704 | Design 4: Integrated Studio | Spring 2025 | Instructors: Gisela Baurmann | Students: Costanza Bacci & Shay Shaul
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. Architects have a unique opportunity to contribute to ecological restoration by designing innovative urban infrastructure that minimizes environmental impact and embeds sustainable practices into everyday life. A valuable framework for this work is offered by the permaculture movement, which defines its goal as “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems that possess the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems” 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.
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ARCH 805 | Advanced Design Research I: The Rise of Hyperbuildings | Fall 2024 | Instructors: Peter Trummer | Students: Jonathan Lee @preludetoabrokenphone
In recent years, a new kind of architectural formation has emerged within our global cities. In Asia, we can find shopping malls with villages on their roofs, or in Hamburg, Germany, a Hotel and a Park were recently built within and on a WW2 Flakturm. These kinds of architecture do not just resemble new types of buildings. Instead, this new urban phenomenon fuses various urban entities into a larger unity. A hotel, a park, a street, or an entire urban fabric doesn’t just emerge as a whole, but what is unique about these new urban entities is that they use existing buildings as their infrastructure. Is it a shopping mall in one case or a vacant war building in the other? Both buildings act as the ground for these buildings to exit. As such, these new kinds of architectural formations are more than just a new kind of building: they are Hyperbuildings. Hyperbuildings involve, on the one hand, a critique of how we have built our cities so far, while at the same time, they offer us a new thesis. Over our 5000-year-long urbanization processes, we transformed natural territories, primarily through agriculture and secondly through pure tabla rasa, into a new datum on which we have built our urban spaces of inhabitation and circulation. The hyper building, using existing urban artifacts as their infrastructure, provides us with a thesis in which we can learn how existing real estate can converge into forms of infrastructure for new types of urban morphologies.
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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.
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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
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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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