Norman Millar, Department Chair
norman.millar@woodbury.edu

The Department of Architecture offers a five-year, nationally accredited, professional Bachelor of Architecture degree. Located on the Pacific Rim, the Southern California region and its megalopolis, stretching from Los Angeles through San Diego to Tijuana, present a vital and diverse context within which to examine architecture, urbanism, culture, and the natural environment. The department sees its student population, which reflects this same vitality and diversity, as its greatest asset.

The department's mission is to provide an excellent architectural education in an open, creative, and spirited environment that recognizes and promotes the potential of its students and faculty.

The architecture program at Woodbury University combines architectural education with a comprehensive foundation of humanist scholarship preparing students intellectually to perform effectively and ethically in an ever-changing global society. The Architecture Department emphasizes, analyzes, and debates the role of the architect/citizen as cultural communicator and builder responsive to societal, cultural, and environmental challenges. We integrate into the design curriculum recent innovations in computer-aided design, multi-media, and sustainable technologies.

Students within the department are expected to master five areas of study pertinent to all architecture:

• Critical Thinking - the ability to build abstract relationships and understand the impact of ideas based on research and analysis of multiple cultural and theoretical contexts
• Design - the inventive and reflective conception, development, and production of architecture
• Building - the technical aspects, systems, and materials and their role in the implementation of design
• Representation - the wide range of media used to communicate design ideas including writing, speaking, drawing, and model making
• Professionalism - the ability to manage, argue, and act legally, ethically, and critically in society and the environment

With campuses located in Burbank-Los Angeles, Hollywood and San Diego, and a summer program in Barcelona and Paris, Woodbury University offers students a variety of urban experiences that enhance their architectural education.

ACCREDITATION

Woodbury University's architecture program is accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board. 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 US professional degree programs in architecture, recognizes two types of degrees: the Bachelor of Architecture and the Master of Architecture. A program may be granted a six-year, three-year, or two-year term of accreditation, depending on its degree of conformance with established educational standards. Masters degree programs may consist of a pre-professional undergraduate degree and a professional graduate degree, which, when earned sequentially, comprise an accredited professional education. However, the pre-professional degree is not, by itself, recognized as an accredited degree.