Architecture

BArch Degree – Code #0135

Advantages

NAAB Accreditation Information

In the United States, most state registration boards require a degree from an accredited professional degree program as a prerequisite for licensure. The National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), which is the sole agency authorized to accredit professional degree programs in architecture offered by institutions with US regional accreditation, recognizes three types of degrees: the Bachelor of Architecture, the Master of Architecture, and the Doctor of Architecture. A program may be granted an eight-year term, an eight-year term with conditions, or two-year term of continuing accreditation, or a three-year term of initial accreditation, depending on the extent of its conformance with established educational standards. Doctor of Architecture and Master of Architecture degree programs may require a non-accredited undergraduate degree in architecture for admission. However, the non-accredited degree is not, by itself, recognized as an accredited degree.

Alfred State Department of Architecture and Design offers the following NAAB-accredited degree program: Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) 156 Credit Hours

A detailed archive of NAAB-related accreditation documents is available on our website.

Post-Graduate Studies

Program Student Learning Outcomes

• PSLO.1. = NAAB PC.1. Career Paths — The program helps students understand the path to becoming a licensed architect in the United States and the range of career opportunities available to them that utilize the discipline’s skills and knowledge.
• PSLO.2. = NAAB PC.2 Design — The program promotes the role of design in shaping the built environment, and conveys the methods by which design integrates multiple factors, in different settings and scales of development.
• PSLO.3. = NAAB PC.3 Ecological Knowledge and Responsibility — The program provides a holistic understanding of the dynamic between built and natural environments, enabling future architects to responsibly mitigate climate change by leveraging ecological, advanced building performance, adaptation, and resilience principles in their work and advocacy activities.
• PSLO.4. = NAAB PC.4 History and Theory — The program prepares students to understand the histories and theories of architecture and urbanism, framed by broad social, cultural, economic, and political forces.
• PSLO.5. = NAAB PC.5 Innovation — The program expands students' understanding of the field and encourages exploration, risk-taking, and inventiveness.
• PSLO.6. = NAAB PC.6 Leadership and Collaboration — The program helps students understand approaches to leadership in multidisciplinary teams, diverse stakeholder constituents, and dynamic physical and social contexts, and learn how to apply effective collaboration skills to solve complex problems.
• PSLO.7. = NAAB PC.7 Learning and Teaching Culture — The program fosters a positive and respectful environment that encourages optimism, respect, sharing, engagement, and innovation among the members of its faculty, student body, administration, staff, and the profession.
• PSLO.8. = NAAB PC.8 Social Equity and Inclusive Environments — The program deepens students understanding of diverse cultural and social contexts and helps students translate that into built environments that support and include people who have different backgrounds, resources, and abilities.
• PSLO.9. = NAAB SC.1 Health, Safety, and Welfare in the Built Environment — How the program promotes students’ understanding of the role of the built environment in human health, safety, and welfare at multiple scales. 
• PSLO.10. = NAAB SC.2 Professional Practice — How the program fosters an understanding of professional ethics, the regulatory standards, and the fundamental business processes relevant to architectural practice in the United States.
• PSLO.11. = NAAB SC.3 Regulatory Context — How the program enables students to understand the fundamental principles of life safety, land use, and related regulations that apply to buildings and sites within the US, and the evaluative criteria architects use to assess those regulations as part of a project.
• PSLO.12. = NAAB SC.4 Technical Knowledge — How the program prepares students to understand the established and emerging systems, technologies, and assemblies of building construction, and the criteria architects use to assess those technologies against the design and performance objectives of projects.
• PSLO.13. = NAAB SC.5 Design Synthesis — Ability to make design decisions within an-architectural project while demonstrating broad synthesis and consideration of user requirements, regulatory requirements, site conditions, ecological concerns, and accessible design.
• PSLO.14. = NAAB SC.6 Building Integration — Ability to make design decisions within an architectural project while demonstrating broad integration and consideration of building envelope systems and assemblies, structural systems, environmental control systems and life safety systems.

Entrance Requirements/Recommendations