The USC undergraduate architecture program has been committed to the fundamental concerns of the built environment for over 100 years. Rooted in Los Angeles but embracing a global outlook, our programs encourage progressive, cultural thinking about architecture and its role in social change. 

The USC School of Architecture nurtures its students, supporting your interests, challenging you and helping you transition into the professional world of design and architecture. The unbeatable combination of a world-class research university, Trojan spirit and Los Angeles – a center of architectural culture – will present you with an education that will forever change your life.

Beyond design studios and other classes, there is much going on at the School, including student events, lectures, exhibitions, global travel opportunities and workshops. The School is a constant hive of activity and invention, and the deeply knit undergraduate architecture community progresses our ideals into the future built environment.

Invention and innovation are becoming increasingly important to the field of architecture. The array of technological developments in design has the potential to enable a built environment that is increasingly environmentally sustainable, socially responsible, and culturally resilient than it is today.

The Bachelor of Science in Architecture + Inventive Technologies (BSA+IT) is a unique program of study. Students will learn various processes of design from conceptual ideation to digital modeling, from full-scale prototyping to manufacturing viability, and from real-time testing in the lab to bringing the products to the marketplace. In the ever-evolving architectural industry the impact of new products is immeasurable.

The BSA+IT program seeks to explore the full range of product possibilities spanning the physical, digital and virtual worlds by producing graduates that are trained critical thinkers and productive designers that are well-equipped to contribute solutions to the on-going problems of the built environment today.

This four-year degree requires 128 units, with an optional 131 unit track to prepare students for advanced placement in a top-rated Master of Architecture program. The program accepts freshman for Fall 2023 (and USC change-of-major students who are beginning their sophomore year in Fall 2024).

The Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies program begins intensively with architectural studies in the first two years and provides a mix of architectural and general university studies throughout the program. The curriculum includes a core program in the first two years identical to the Bachelor of Architecture professional degree program. The last two years provide the opportunity to explore many aspects of architecture and related fields and to develop individual strengths and interests.

Students take an introductory course in specialization in the second year, which provides an introduction to related fields and alternative degree options. Students can elect to move into the four-year non-professional B.S. in Architectural Studies program with a degree plan identifying electives fulfilling an area of concentration. The program is concluded with a seminar with all degree candidates, allowing for collaborative work on areas of common interest.

The Bachelor of Science in GeoDesign is an interdisciplinary major offered by the Spatial Sciences Institute, the USC School of Architecture and the USC Price School of Public Policy. This degree treats planning as a globally relevant framework for collective action, the spatial sciences as a platform for supporting science-based decision-making, and design as a vehicle for solving the world's wicked problems. This degree prepares students for professional careers and/or graduate study by engaging them in the acquisition, representation, analysis, modeling and visualization of spatial information set in the context of the built environment and policy. The underlying spatial principles, methods and tools can be used to support sustainable planning, facility and infrastructure management, the design of livable and healthy communities, and a series of regional planning applications to address pollution, water and energy needs, and the impact of population growth on the environment. The major electives provide students with opportunities to explore one or more facets of the built environment and a series of complementary analytical and visualization tools in more detail. Finally, the major is structured to provide students with sufficient elective credits to explore minors or other programs at USC so they can broaden their education to better prepare themselves for the next stage of their lives.

The Minor in Architecture provides the flexibility of complementing a student’s major with an area of specialization. Taking a minor in the School of Architecture is a unique opportunity for a student to stimulate his or her imagination and learn creative approaches to problem solving.

The Minor in Architecture or Landscape Architecture provides the flexibility of complementing a student’s major with an area of specialization.

USC Graduate Architecture leverages the extensive experience and wide-ranging expertise of a deeply talented roster of licensed architects, design-thinkers, and design scholars to explore the power of design to change the built environment. With a deep commitment to disciplinary knowledge, civic and spatial justice, and innovation in architectural practice, we take the term Citizen Architect very seriously.

The Master of Architecture is built on three levels. The first level is dedicated to introducing essential disciplinary knowledge and the fundamental design skills required for the NAAB-accredited degree. The second level builds upon this foundation with increasingly refined vocational knowledge and advanced professional capability. The final level culminates with a year of individually directed design research, with master classes and a directed design research project (thesis) focused on the student’s emergent architectural interests. All three levels draw on the USC School of Architecture’s commitment to spatial justice, the University’s extended resources, and the inspiration of Los Angeles. Firmly rooted in an investigative mode of critical, professional practice, the program’s aim is for every graduate to be prepared for the challenges of the 21st century.

Under the vision of Dean Milton S. F. Curry and the directorship of Alvin Huang, the Master of Advanced Architectural Research Studies (M.AARS) is designed to align with the mission and priorities of the USC School of Architecture, a dynamic platform for educating and inspiring citizen architects, designers and scholars to analyze problems and create design solutions that both respond to the challenges of our time and embrace the promise of a better built environment.

This one-year, three-semester post-professional graduate degree is focused on degree concentrations:

1. City Design + Housing

2. Performative Design + Technology

3. Social Practice + Spatial Justice (admission will open in the future for Fall 2023)

Building Science at the USC School of Architecture recognizes that exemplary architecture requires innovative responses to natural forces. The integration of the study of building sciences with knowledge of current practices and new technologies creates synergistic and holistic architectural design that satisfies performative goals. The Chase L. Leavitt Master of Building Science program addresses the need for a new generation of design professionals prepared to bring appropriate technology to the design of a sustainable environment while recognizing the critical impacts that science and technology can play in social and cultural realms.

Within this context, the program emphasizes: 1) The integration of planning, design, and technology to form a coherent, interdependent force for the appropriate construction of urban places. 2) Recognition of the ecological importance of energy-conscious design and construction as well as the social value of “citizen architects” creating places in which natural forces and systems are utilized rather than suppressed. 3) The development of research and design methods suited to the complexity of building in urban settings and effective in the use of extensive information. Students are individually guided through their study and complete a thesis-based research project.

USC’s Master of Heritage Conservation (MHC) program empowers students to improve people’s lives using historic places and the stories they tell. MHC students love history and relate it closely to physical space. They want to tell the stories of their community. They’re curious about the world around them. They see historic places as tools for social justice, community revitalization, and sustainability. They want an academic approach that integrates urban planning, elevates cultural heritage, and pushes the boundaries of the field. They want not only an advanced degree but a close community of scholars, friends, and future colleagues. Or, they’re not sure what they want and seek a supportive space in which to find out. 

The global term for historic preservation, heritage conservation more accurately reflects the work within the discipline, as well as the continuum of conservation from the natural environment to built and intangible heritage. With a distinct perspective rooted in urban planning and design, the program focuses on three areas: modernism and the recent past, cultural and intangible heritage, and underrepresented communities. There’s no better place to explore these issues than Los Angeles— a postwar metropolis and one of the most diverse, complex, and fascinating cities on the planet.

And there’s no better place in Los Angeles than the USC School of Architecture, alma mater of architects both legendary and overlooked—including Paul R. Williams, whose archive we now steward in partnership with the Getty Research Institute. Much of the history we teach was made in Southern California, from a rich legacy of modern architecture to the long-standing fight for social justice.

Landscapes are the intersection of nature, social conditions and the built environment. The Graduate Program of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism at the USC School of Architecture explores the role of Southern California and global geographies as generators and solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental challenges of climate change, social and environmental justice and the role of technology. In our program we research these issues and develop multi layered proposals using design thinking to address extreme natural and social conditions affecting people, infrastructure and the environment, especially as these issues present themselves in our everyday life.

Our program curriculum is focused on a balanced core of design studios, media and representation, history & theory, construction documentation, plant materials and ecology, and urbanism. The studio sequence is designed to build design and communication skills within the process of understanding site, context and strategies for intervention. We begin with small local urban sites where intensive field work is critical to site understanding and build up to a year-long investigation of relevant topics and site investigations in the third-year design research seminar and studios. Students synthesize their coursework in history, plant materials, ecology, construction and urbanism with their studio work. Second year studios provide opportunities to investigate design responses to climate change impacts and options to collaborate with architecture students in an integrated setting. Elective courses in our curriculum come from a wide range of offerings in the School of Architecture and related real estate, planning, GIS and cinema courses offered at USC.

We are fortunate to inhabit one of the most culturally and environmentally diverse geographies in the world. We are located within an hour’s drive from the Pacific Ocean, the San Gabriel Mountains and the western edge of the Sonoran Desert. Los Angeles is the most vibrant and diverse city on the West Coast of the US. We are known as the city that is constantly reinventing ourselves. At the beginning of the 21st century we are engaged in efforts to re-define our City and our relationship to natural systems. We are optimistic that this generation, with the benefit of increased attention to the qualities and power of the landscape will prove to be more resilient than the last.

The focus of this program is on understanding the broad and complex role of architecture within the urban context. Studies focus on cities throughout the world where conditions of increasing density, environmental challenges and cultural complexity require design initiatives that support amenity, sustainability and cultural meaning. The certificate is open to graduate students not pursuing a degree in Architecture.

Building science at USC recognizes that exemplary architecture requires a creative response to natural forces, based on informed good judgment in the areas of architectural technology. The Certificate in Building Science is intended as a supplement for students enrolled in graduate course work in architecture, landscape architecture, his­toric preservation, urban planning or related discipline.

Ideal for professionals who wish to augment their academic credentials in order to facilitate their work on heritage conservation projects, the 14-unit certificate program includes four core classes that impart the fundamentals of the discipline. The certificate is also an ideal complement to a graduate studies in architecture, landscape architecture, building science, planning, public art administration, geography, anthropology, or other related disciplines.

This program is intended to introduce at the graduate level the basic subjects inherent to the field of landscape architecture: plant materials suitable to urban conditions; urban utility and transportation systems in relation to topography, natural drainage and pathways; plant and wildlife communities; as well as inquiries about landscape infrastructure and ecology, and the history of human settle­ment in the evolution of urban landscapes. Southern California and Los Angeles provide an exceptionally valuable natural and socio­cultural laboratory for landscape architecture studies. 

This multidisciplinary program provides students with the tools necessary to understand and quantify the sources of energy use in buildings and landscapes. Studies emphasize improving sustainable design choices regarding natural and man-made systems considering the performance of the built environment, the reduction of its embodied and operational energies, and the influence of other resource issues.

Sustainability is an imperative for our planet as climate change, population growth and dwindling oil supplies are all reminders that our resources are finite and we need a new paradigm to adjust to these global changes. The built environment represents the majority of our energy use and design can help reduce both the embodied and operational energy of our buildings and urban landscape.

This certificate provides students with the tools necessary to understand and quantify sources of energy use in buildings and landscapes and to use design of natural and man-made systems to reduce their energy use. This certificate will give students the background to help them make sustainable design choices through informed decision making that considers the performance of the built environment related to the energy required to make it, the energy it absorbs or releases, the energy required to maintain it, and the energy required to replace it. Environmental, economic and socially responsible solutions will be explored through the coursework.

With increasing urgency, organizations and governments require leaders to design and implement sustainability-focused policy and planning practices that help communities improve in the present without compromising the future. The USC Price graduate Certificate in Sustainable Policy and Planning develops analytic and methodological skills and provides students an interdisciplinary curriculum centered on key environmental and sustainability issues in policy and planning. See the USC Price School of Public Policy, for course requirements.

The Master of Urban Planning/Master of Advanced Architectural Studies Post-Professional dual degree program facilitates highly related cross-disciplinary studies in architecture and in planning at the master’s level. This program offers students interested in developing a career in urban design an opportunity to make more substantial commitments in both disciplines and to achieve a more coherent and extensive knowledge in the design of built environments and public policy. This dual degree program normally requires five semesters in residence.

For people who want to create livable cities rooted in history and culture, the Master of Heritage Conservation/Master of Urban Planning (MHC/MUP) dual-degree program offers the best of both worlds. MHC/MUP students are deeply curious about why the built environment is the way it is—and how they can make it work for everyone. They care about their community. They see a neighborhood’s identity as the heart of its vibrancy. They’re open to new experiences. They may have a background in urban planning, or they may be architects, historians, engineers, librarians, community organizers, curators, or anything else.

Dual-degree students attend both the School of Architecture and the Sol Price School of Public Policy, both of which seek to improve people’s lives through the built environment. While Los Angeles and California are particularly well suited to exploring this potential, the program explores planning and conservation practice throughout the U.S. and internationally.

Taught by leaders in both fields, the curriculum teaches the philosophies, theories, and practices of conservation and planning—including their roles in social injustice and what we can do about it. Topics range from urban design and public policy to architectural history and materials conservation. Students gain critical skills necessary to investigate, interpret, and evaluate the world around them.

Qualified students who are admitted to the Master of Landscape Architecture program in the School of Architecture and to the graduate program in the USC Price School of Public Policy may complete both degrees in a highly integrated five-seven semester program.

The Master of Heritage Conservation/Master of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism dual degree program facilitates highly related cross-disciplinary studies in heritage conservation and in landscape architecture at the master’s level. Those enrolled in the dual degree program will learn the histories, theories, and practices of landscape architecture and heritage conservation.

The Master of Heritage Conservation/Master of Building Science dual degree program facilitates highly related cross-disciplinary studies in heritage conservation and in building science at the master’s level. The primary objective of the dual degree curriculum is to impart to students a basic familiarity with the origins and development of the philosophies, theories, and practices of building science and heritage conservation. This curriculum has been developed so that students will graduate from this program with a broad practical knowledge of the techniques and strategies for conserving the existing built environment through the lens of science and technology. Students will be expected to understand the critical methodological tools necessary for a professional engaged in the investigation, interpretation, and evaluation of the urban built environment.

The Summer Short Course in Heritage Conservation offers clusters of lecture and field-based learning sessions about the fundamentals of the discipline in an intensive two-week format. Taught by a team of practicing professionals in fields ranging from conservation and engineering to economics and law, the course also includes visits to historic sites, such as the Gamble and Freeman Houses, the laboratories of the Getty Conservation Institute, and current rehabilitation projects. Designed for those interested in a career change, city officials needing to brush up on the basics, or students interested in learning more about the field, the Summer Short Course can be taken in sections or as a complete for-credit course.

Launched in Fall 2021, the USC A-Lab Architecture Development Program is the next iteration of a successful high school architecture program first established by Dean Milton S. F. Curry at the University of Michigan in 2015. The program partners with public high schools in Los Angeles to provide immersive instruction in architecture and design to underrepresented students.

The USC Summer Programs invites high school students to connect with the world of architecture. Exploration of Architecture provides a wide range of exposure to an architectural education, with in-person access to the vibrant surroundings of Los Angeles through an exciting four weeks with the USC School of Architecture. (The four-week program offers three units of college credit.)