Architecture Program Report Tulane University New Orleans ...

PREAMBLE
As an aid to the Accreditation Review Process the School of Architecture has
elected to formulate an overview of the program’s curricular goals and content.
This overview is followed by the Student Performance Criteria.
It should be noted at the outset that the Tulane School of Architecture is a
relatively small program housed within a private university. While there are
clearly benefits to such a program, there are also limitations to the size and
offerings of the curriculum. Hence, rather than write courses that only treat
certain areas of specialization within the broader scope of architecture, TSA has
worked to array as many of the requirements outlined below across the
curriculum. In order to maximize the student’s learning and experience, the
faculty (with only a few exceptions) teach in one primary subject area and in
design studio. This ensures a saturation of material rather than a series of
specialized subheadings subservient to or in addition to the Design Studio
curriculum. In addition, all design faculty are required to have received training
in a professional architecture degree program and many, if not most, are actively
engaged in practice. Therefore, the culture of practice, coupled with the
academic requirements of a university-based discipline, infuses the substance of
the curriculum. There is also concomitant attention paid to the need to integrate
the curricular areas into a comprehensive whole: the requirement of several
“comprehensive studios,” as well as the attention paid to problems of the built
environment evidence the commitment to the discipline and practice of
architecture
CURRICULAR GOALS AND CONTENT
As has been noted throughout the Architecture Program Report, the overarching
pedagogical intention is the synthesis of curricular areas. However, there are
particular goals and content relative to the various subjects. To better aid in the
evaluation of the curriculum, the goals and content of specific subject areas are
outlined in brief below. While not substantially different in content from the
Masters of Architecture Undergraduate Program, the Masters of Architecture
Graduate Program is compressed into three and one-half years. The shift to a
single degree nomenclature in 1999 maintained the difference in years of
education required for the degree.
First-year
For the School of Architecture, the Design Studio is the primary location for the
synthesis of the myriad curricular issues; it is essentially the ‘center’ of the
curriculum. Architecture is a highly interdisplinary discourse, combining information
from a broad range of sources (i.e. the arts, history, technology, business), and the