Architecture
Architecture students at California College of the Arts are challenged to be creative and visionary. Across four academic programs and four research and teaching labs, they design with aesthetic, social, and environmental issues in mind, producing work that links image to identity, form to performance, and order to equity.
Overview
Embrace innovative thinking and making
Design better futures
We believe that architecture and interior design are critical cultural practices that can and should serve the common good. Architecture at CCA is an arena for the free and open exchange of ideas about the future—of our buildings, cities, and planet—and a laboratory where these ideas are tested through speculative architectural research. Our students challenge conventional ideas at every turn in an innovative culture of making that weds discipline-specific skills and knowledge to emerging technical and conceptual methods.
With each passing semester, you’ll increasingly see yourself as a designer actively engaged in the most important issues of the day, becoming ever more confident as your knowledge base grows, your skills sharpen, and your ability to identify, develop, and communicate your ideas matures. Guided by a faculty with practice-based expertise—ranging from experimental history and leading-edge digital fabrication to fresh urban form-making, novel representational methods, and down-and-dirty design/build—you’ll transform theory into action as you produce new disciplinary knowledge and discover career opportunities that value design speculation and versatile leadership.
The city is your urban laboratory
Central to your experience at CCA is our San Francisco location: a place where the leading edge of digital culture meets an enduring legacy of social and environmental action. Here, new ideas about how we inhabit this planet are continually being tested. You’ll study in a world-class, top art and design college that values interdisciplinary exchange and open dialogue.
Creating opportunities for excellence
We are stewarding our discipline toward a more sustainable and inclusive future for everyone. With the generous support of the Gensler family and the award-winning Gensler firm, and in honor of the late former board chair, we’ve established the M. Arthur Gensler Jr. Center for Design Excellence, a dedicated academic and professional initiative that advocates for diversity and social justice within the field, supports forward-looking design research and practices, and connects students with leading professionals in the field. Through scholarships, mentorships, and tailored curricular engagements, you’ll connect with industry leaders, discover-cutting edge faculty research, and find inspiring opportunities to construct your career in shaping the future of the built environment.
The M. Arthur Gensler Jr. Center for Design Excellence was created through the generosity of the Gensler Family and the Gensler firm to celebrate the life and legacy of visionary architect, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Art Gensler.
Community
Fundamentally collaborative
Meet the dean of Architecture
Dean Keith Krumwiede is an award-winning educator and the author of Atlas of Another America: An Architectural Fiction, a satirical assessment of the American Dream. Named “Book of the Year” by critics Alexandra Lange and Mark Lamster, Atlas of Another America reflects Krumwiede’s multifaceted and humorous approach to the culture of architecture and its often-complicit relationship to power and privilege. His work has been exhibited globally at renowned architecture biennials, universities, and galleries. A thought-leading researcher, Krumwiede’s scholarly articles have appeared in The Architect’s Newspaper, Praxis, Domus, and elsewhere. Prior to joining CCA in fall 2018, he was an Arnold W. Brunner/Katherine Edwards Gordon Rome Prize Fellow in Architecture.
High-profile architecture and design educators
Our award-winning faculty drive the success of our discipline. As teachers, researchers, practitioners, and public intellectuals, we’re active in shaping important conversations around architecture and interior design. Our faculty believe that architecture and interior design are critical cultural practices that reflect values, impact lives, shape urban spaces, harness technological innovation for positive change, and envision other futures for an environmentally challenged world.
Robust public programming
Our national and international networks are amplified by our lecture series and symposia. Open to the public, our keynote lectures feature architects, designers, and theorists from the Bay Area and around the world. Recent guests include Wang Shu, Jeanne Gang, Eyal Weizman, Amanda Williams, Tatiana Bilbao, and Neyran Turan.
We also host numerous symposia each semester, inviting faculty and scholars from other architecture schools to join us in wrestling with controversial, provocative, and future-focused topics. Often directly tied to projects our students, faculty, and external partners advance in our architecture research labs, symposia are opportunities to learn from scientists, engineers, and other practitioners whose work intersects many different disciplines. Recent symposia topics include Reckoning: Monuments and Racial History, Domestic Affairs: Housing the Multitude, and Designing Material Innovation.
Explore Architecture
@cca_arch_div
Sept. 15, 2023
💭Throwback from last semester...
from our TranSTUDIO 2023 | tessellation in transformation
We have amazing projects by architecture students @ferjii @negaarinaa @kianoush_hamedi @gimmeyourtacos @tury.2000 @vrs.arch @ahmadalajmis @simranomer @chelsea_in_wonderworld @spaceshipflow and @rad_guitar taught by professor Negar Kalantar(@negarkalantar)
Check out their website from the link in our bio! https://transtudio2023.wordpress.com/category/tessellation-in-transformation/
#ccainteriordesign #ccarts #californiacollegeofthearts #caarchitecture #architecture #interiordesignstudent #studio #sanfrancisco #artschool #imadethat #architectureschool #architecturestudent #architecturestudentblog #interiordesign #tessellation #patterndesign #geometry #tranformation
Sept. 13, 2023
Sign up to be a part of our AMAZING architecture division student organizations. Make sure to stay tuned for their events and scholarship opportunities!
American Institute of Architecture Students
“AIAS aims to promote excellence in architectural education, training, and practice; to foster an appreciation of architecture and related disciplines; to enrich communities in a spirit of collaboration; and to organize students and combine their efforts to advance the art and science of architecture.”
@aias.cca @aiasorg
Alpha Rho Chi
“We are an interdisciplinary group of Architecture, Industrial Design, Interaction Design, and Graphic design students that organize for educational and professional development, network expansion, community involvement, and diverse perspectives!”
@apx_cossutius
International Interior Design Association
“We advocate for advancement in education, design excellence, legislation, leadership, accreditation, and community outreach to increase the value and understanding of interior design as a profession that enhances business value and positively impacts the health and well-being of people’s lives every day.”
@iidanorcal @iida_hq @iida_cca
National Organization of Minority Architects
“NOMA’s mission, rooted in a rich legacy of activism, is to empower our local chapters and membership to foster justice and equity in communities of color through outreach, community advocacy, professional development and design excellence.”
@cca_nomas @nomanational
Architecture Student Council
"The Architecture and Interior Design Division Student Council is a student-led organization that works to foster and cultivate the culture of the division as well as advocate for its students. Together we plan community-building events and engage in conversation surrounding how we can continually improve the culture of our programs. If you're interested in being a part of this group please reach out to @hannahhleathers, we would love to have you!"
#ccarts #californiacollegeofthearts #ccaarchitecture #architecture #interiordesign #studio #sanfrancisco #architectureschool #ccainteriordesign #aias #aiasorg #alpharhochi #alpharhochifraternity #iida #iidasf #nomas
Sept. 11, 2023
We are excited to announce the first event to kick off the Fall 2023 ALS "Rachely Rotem: Indoor Urbanism." Rachely Rotem (@rachely.rotem) will deliver the lecture “Indoor Urbanism" this Thursday, Sept. 14, 5-6:30 PM, in the Nave Presentation Space. She will present her new book Field Guide to Indoor Urbanism, which calls for a shift in environmental thinking, designing for exchanges between architecture and the city that are both outside-in and inside-out. At its core, the book asks designers to consider this question: in the face of the climate crisis, what is architecture’s capacity to change?
Rachely Rotem is the founding Director and studio futurist, at MODU, a New York-based design studio working in architecture, urbanism, and interior design. At MODU, she has directed numerous projects, notably the Cloud Seeding pavilion and the Heart Squared public artwork. Together with Phu Hoang, she was awarded the 2017 Founders Rome Prize in Architecture. In 2019, they were awarded the Emerging Voices award from the Architectural League of New York and in 2018 they received the US-Japan Creative Artists fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is co-author (with Phu Hoang) of Field Guide to Indoor Urbanism, published by Hatje Cantz in 2023. Rachely holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Technion in Haifa and a Master’s in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University, where she was awarded both the LowenfishMemorial Prize and the William Kinne Fellows Traveling Prize. She is an associate professor of practice at the Knowlton School of the Ohio State University and teaches in the graduate programs at Columbia University. Rachely is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome, a licensed architect in Israel, and a LEED Accredited Professional in Building Design and Construction.
Click the link in our bio to register!
#californiacollegeofthearts #ccainteriordesign #ccaarchitecture #architecture #interiordesign #architectureschool #architecturelecture #architecturelectureseries
Sept. 8, 2023
The Fall 2023 Architecture Lecture Series @cca_arch_div is LIVE now! theme of the 2023-2024 CCA Architecture Lecture Series is Design Action, through which we will explore how architects, architectural educators, and artists can work to shape a more sustainable and equitable future. Speakers in the series, who span a range of disciplines, will share how their designed actions, and the ideas that guide them, contribute to new understandings of our responsibilities as creative cultural agents. You can find the full list of Fall 2023 events, and watch recordings of our past lectures, on SCAFFOLD, CCA Architecture Division’s online content channel, where you’ll also find stories by and about our students, faculty, alumni, and friends.
Explore SCAFFOLD by clicking our link in bio.
#californiacollegeofthearts #ccainteriordesign #ccaarchitecture #architecture #interiordesign #architectureschool #architecturelecture #architecturelectureseries
Students and faculty stories
AIA California recognizes CCA architecture students
San Francisco's housing dynamics explored by CCA
Undergraduate
Reimagine our cities and environments
Create innovative work across disciplines
The five-year Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) program is NAAB-accredited and STEM-designated. With a focus on critical thinking and creative making, students learn how to be agents of change, leveraging their skills toward environmental, social, and political impact. Design studios emphasize conceptual rigor, engaged research, and material and formal experimentation, setting students up for success across a range of project scales.
Our BFA in Interior Design, is a four-year accredited program with a focus on sustainable material practices and spatial innovation. Students learn to design for various human environments, including the home, workplace, and public sphere. Internships with prominent Bay Area architecture and interior design firms give students a first-hand look at the daily processes they’ll encounter throughout their careers.
Graduate
Architecture matters
Connect architectural innovation with social impact
Our Master of Architecture (MArch) program champions innovation and experimentation in architectural design, preparing students to lead conversations and develop solutions around some of the world’s most pressing issues. NAAB-accredited and STEM-designated, the MArch program guides students through three years of advanced study, leveraging design, research, and material innovation to merge conceptual, historical, and physical contexts.
Our second STEM-designated program, the Master of Advanced Architectural Design (MAAD), is for early-to-mid-career professionals interested in collaborative and experimental design practices. Over the course of one intensive year, students focus on an independent research or design project through mentored study and a range of elective offerings in one of three areas associated with our research labs: Digital Craft, History Theory Experiments, or Urban Works.
Labs & Research
Engage with urgent issues
Instigate change
We believe architecture can imagine and create alternative futures, and we translate this belief into direct action. Our four research labs, which are formulated around faculty interests and expertise, present students with myriad project opportunities, such as developing solutions to regional issues brought on by climate change for the Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge.
From gritty experiments with alternative materials to groundbreaking thinking about urban issues, these projects are often conceived and realized in collaboration with external partners. Recent collaborators include Autodesk, the City of San Francisco, Kreysler & Associates, and the Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge.
Digital Craft Lab
The Digital Craft Lab features experimental making through emerging technologies. Advanced computation, robotics, responsive environments, and rapid prototyping are motivations to reconsider how architecture is produced.
Experiments in Collective Living, Fall 2018
Urban Works Agency
The Urban Works Agency responds to the politics of the contemporary city. Equity, ecological vitality, and economic resilience are reimagined through urban and territory scaled analysis, narratives, and arguments.
Architectural Ecologies Lab
The Architectural Ecologies Lab serves as a platform for collaborative research between designers, scientists, and manufacturers. This interdisciplinary setting provides the tools to address ecological challenges like sea level rise, habitat restoration, and climate change.
Black Lives Matter Teach-In: On Race, Architecture, and the City
History Theory Experiments
History Theory Experiments works to preserve and present the immaterial aspects of architectural heritage through the reconstruction of environments, immersive augmented reality, and cutting-edge conservation techniques.
Advanced electives
Vertical electives are courses that integrate graduate and undergraduate architecture students as they learn the process of taking conceptual ideation to practical implementation; the objective of vertical electives is to deepen students’ understanding of and ability to create what’s possible when theory, practice, and experimentation converge. While electives vary from year to year, we’re particularly excited about these two:
- Mechanized Natures – Explore architectural attitudes toward machines and nature through drawing projects that engage processes of automation and ecological thinking.
- Urban Imaginaries – Reflect on "the urban imaginary" by examining how cities are defined through material forces, social acts, political directives, and market exchanges, as well as historically informed ideas about what defines "the city."
Pollintor Power Hub by Roxana and Javier Breceda from the "Bouyant Ecologies: Urban Ecotones at Islais Creek integrated studio, 2020.
Advanced and integrated studios
Our advanced studios, which undergraduates can take during their final two years, are either embedded within our research labs or framed around collaborations with external partners. Studios, like the ones featured below, focus on how architectural design can problem-solve for challenging environments and increasingly dense cities.
Buoyant Ecologies
In contrast to anthropocentric technologies of “resilience” motivated primarily by self-preservation, this evolving advanced studio series explores alternative strategies for human adaptation to ecological change that both depend on and support the health and diversity of nonhuman terrestrial and marine species.
Common Ground: Re-Making the Ground Floor
This advanced urban studio explores the role of social infrastructure in building a more just, inclusive, and thriving city. Students reimagine the ground floor of the city as a shared infrastructure in the service of the public good by imagining new configurations of our collective urban ground.
Metropol Parasol in Seville, Spain.
Travel studios
We encourage every undergraduate and graduate student to study abroad at least once. You’ll broaden your cultural influences, explore new environments, and meet other creative practitioners. Our most recent travel studios focused on the following themes:
- China | Picking Up Threads: Stitchlink 2020 – Explore the burgeoning southeastern region of China studying the work of several contemporary Chinese architects
- Mexico | Material Cultures in Mexico City & Oaxaca – The studio weaves together cultural research, material exploration, and design innovation to explore resonance between traditional craft practices and contemporary techniques of architectural design and production.
We’re here to answer your questions
We’re happy to share more information about our alumni, faculty, and the ambitious projects we’re pursuing in our four research labs.
Explore other disciplines at CCA
Get more details about your program of interest