Program Overview

M.S. Advanced Architectural Design Program Overview

The Master of Science degree in Advanced Architectural Design is a three-semester, post-professional program that provides outstanding young professionals—who already hold a Bachelor of Architecture or Master of Architecture—the opportunity to conceptualize design as a critical practice that shapes the world’s technological, relational, and environmental evolutions. The program is viewed as a framework for exploring both academic and professional concerns through a set of inquiries and premises: architecture and its design practices are critical in addressing contemporary challenges; architectural specificity is the result of transdisciplinary cooperation; architecture’s future agency lies in the discipline’s capacity to mobilize realities across different scales and time frames. These ideas are explored through innovations in representational tools and the embrace of new probationary artifacts, inviting students to shift away from the specialized mastery of specific scales towards methods of “transscalarity.” By aligning new models of response to new architectural modes of practice, the Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design program strives to empower graduating students in the face of unknown future scenarios.

Program Structure

The Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design program starts in the summer semester. Considered the core of the program, the summer semester consists of the Advanced Design Studio—offering up to eleven design studios each year—and two required courses that establish the critical and historical coordinates for the program: , that explores how the capacity for architecture to impact societies and ecosystems result in the way design operates ecologically across scales of space and time; and , which explores contemporary theory in a unique combination of coordinated seminar sessions taught by current Architecture PHDs and guest lectures. All invited speakers are collectively engaging with transdisciplinary ways of addressing climate via situated, material, and social-economic and political means in the making of societies.

Advanced Design Studio

The Advanced Studios bring together students in the Master of Architecture and Master of Sciences in Advanced Architectural Design programs. These studios, which take place during the fall and spring semesters at the School, have always explored the future of architecture in a diversity of ways. Each studio creates its own world—with its own intersection of social, cultural, formal, material, economic, and environmental concerns—and students have almost 20 worlds to choose from. After selecting a studio, students conduct experiments and develop projects through concepts and massings, programs and forms, drawings and models, materials and atmospheres, metrics and narratives.

People

• Lydia Kallipoliti, Program Director
• Xiaoxi Chen, Associate Director
• Lola Ben-Alon, Sequence Coordinator, Building Tech
• Laura Kurgan, Sequence Coordinator, Computation
• Reinhold Martin, Sequence Coordinator, History and Theory
• Amelyn Ng, Sequence Coordinator, Representation

Fall 2025 Courses

• ARCH4005-1: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-14: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-1: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-2: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-3: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-4: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-5: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-6: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-8: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-9: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-10: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-11: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-12: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-13: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-15: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4105-16: Advanced Studio V + Clinic
• ARCH4105-17: Advanced Studio V + Clinic
• ARCH4105-18: Advanced Studio V
• ARCH4050-1: Arch Elective Internship
• ARCH6784-1: Conservation of Brick, Terra Cotta & Stone
• ARCH6900-1: Research I
• ARCH4341-1: Traditional American Architecture
• ARCH4385-1: Arab Modernism(s): Experiments in Housing, 1945-present
• ARCH4388-1: (Re) Inventing Living: Modern Experiments in Latin American Housing
• ARCH4427-1: Architecture Apropos Art
• ARCH4441-1: Interlaced Existence: Death, Life, Liminality
• ARCH4442-1: If Buildings Had DNA
• ARCH4469-1: The History of Architecture Theory
• ARCH4597-1: Extreme Design
• ARCH4625-1: Tensile/Compression Surfaces in Architecture: Tactile Methods for Architects
• ARCH4715-1: Re-Thinking BIM
• ARCH4845-1: Generative Design I
• ARCH4866-1: Modernism + The Vernacular
• ARCH4874-1: Construction Ecologies in the Anthropocene
• ARCH4892-1: Data Visualization for Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities
• ARCH4894-1: Spatial UX
• ARCH4987-1: Architectural Photography: From the Models to the Built World
• ARCH4988-1: Coding for Spatial Practices
• ARCH6510-1: Neighborhood Preservation and Zoning
• ARCH6682-1: Subject+Object
• ARCH6756-1: Make
• ARCH6768-1: Conservation of Architectural Metals
• ARCH6801-1: Structural Daring & The Sublime In Pre-Modern Architecture
• ARCH6830-1: Difference and Design
• ARCH6917-1: Seed Bombs: Technologies in Ecological Design
• ARCH6921-1: AI for Existing Buildings
• ARCH6930-1: Women, Gender + Modern Architecture
• ARCH6934-1: Traditional Building Technology
• ARCH6938-1: Rendering Systems
• ARCH6939-1: GIS for Design Practices
• ARCH6941-1: Architectural Acoustical Ecology
• ARCH6942-1: Daylight, Metabolism
• ARCH6953-1: Invis-abilities: Enhancing Accessibility in Design for Mind and Body
• ARCH6962-1: Environment, Built: Episodes from an Elemental History of Architecture
• ARCH6964-1: Information Richness: Architecture, Media, Politics
• ARCH6967-1: Cities of Knowledge: Orientalizing Manhattan
• ARCH6988-1: Fortifications and Other Infrastructures of the British Empire
• ARCH6814-1: New Towns After Smart Cities
• ARCH6840-1: Archives of Toxicity
• ARCH6861-1: Environments of Governance
• ARCH6927-1: Architecture, Technology & the Environment
• ARCH6929-1: The Reimagining of Lower Manhattan Post-Sandy
• PLAN6272-1: New York Rising: How Real Estate Shapes a City
• PLCE4444-1: The Future City: Transforming Urban Infrastructure

Transscalarities: Arenas of Design

Transscalarities: Arenas of Design queries the ways in which architectural devices of reference, which have shaped the discourse of the field over the last few decades, and are characterized by their transitioning through spatial, material, and temporal scales. This foundational course explores the agencies architectural devices unfold through transscalar conditions—that is to say, the specific forms of politics that architectural devices perform by participating in diverse dimensional and physical settings; and the way they multiply their reach, influence, and sensitivity by entangling, for instance, the microbiological to the mineral, the atmospherical, the ecosystemic, the genetic, and the planetary. Transscalarities identifies the field of architectural design as a rich ecosystem of alternative, diverse, and confronting methodologies, traditions, and positions.

Arguments

The Arguments series brings together a diverse group of speakers whose work addresses today’s most pressing challenges—environmental, political, and social and beyond, by interrogating the way architectural devices and architectural practices gain collective relevance and by participating in environmental, technological and representational alliances, solidarities, defiances, disputes and controversies. Organized around a series of invitations to relevant scholars, professionals, artists, journalists or activists—half from the field of architecture, half from non-architectural fields—this course has as its main goal an interrogation of the way architecture is part of the realities that shape the evolution of the world’s societies and ecosystems.

Current Faculty

• Sebastián Adamo
• Emanuel Admassu
• Yussef Agbo-Ola
• Jayden Ali
• Farah Alkhoury
• Lucia Allais
• Garrick Ambrose
• Elias Anastas
• Yousef Anastas
• Amale Andraos
• Aristide Antonas
• Carlo Bailey
• David Barragán
• Gary Bates
• Larissa Belcic
• Michael Bell
• Neeraj Bhatia
• Imani Jacqueline Brown
• Eric Bunge
• Oscar M. Caballero
• Nerea Calvillo
• Fernanda Canales
• Corneel Cannaerts
• Jennifer Carpenter
• Luis E. Carranza
• Gabriela Carrillo
• Raven Chacon
• Hubert Chang
• Pimchid Chariyacharoen
• Xiaoxi Chen
• Yoonjai Choi
• Rachaporn Choochuey
• Anthony Clarke
• Nina Cooke John
• Chris Cornelius
• Thomas De Monchaux
• Jose Luis de Vicente
• Lafina Eptaminitaki
• Harold Fallon
• Michelle Farang Shofet
• Marco Ferrari
• Ricardo Flores
• Uriel Fogué
• Eva Franch i Gilabert
• Nathalie Frankowski
• Sean Gallagher
• Cruz Garcia
• David Gissen
• Max Goldner
• Laura González Fierro
• Laurie Hawkinson
• Michiel Helbig
• Joseph Henry
• Juan Herreros
• Steven Holl
• Elise Hunchuck
• Nahyun Hwang
• Wonne Ickx
• Ziad Jamaleddine
• Andrés Jaque
• Bobby Johnston
• Lydia Kallipoliti
• Ateya Khorakiwala
• Gordon Kipping
• Zak Kostura
• Anupama Kundoo
• Laura Kurgan
• Christopher Leong
• Jing Liu
• Michael Loverich
• Mireia Luzárraga
• Mariami Maghlakelidze
• Ruth Mandl
• Nzinga Mboup
• Mary McLeod
• Markus Miessen
• Rozana Montiel
• David Eugin Moon
• Alejandro Muiño
• Chloe Munkenbeck
• Lucy Navarro
• Khoi Nguyen
• Fuminori ​Nosaku
• Oscar Oliver-Didier
• Rory O'Neill
• Jorge Otero-Pailos
• Marina Otero Verzier
• Cyrus Peñarroyo
• Eleni Petaloti
• Bart-Jan Polman
• Eva Prats
• Philippe Rahm
• Mark Rakatansky
• Enrique Ramírez
• Bryony Roberts
• Nicolas Rondet
• Karla Rothstein
• Hilary Sample
• Amaia Sánchez-Velasco
• Felicity Scott
• Sonam Sherpa
• Galia Solomonoff
• Dan Taeyoung
• Paulo Tavares
• Takaharu Tezuka
• Yui Tezuka
• Antonio Torres
• Leonidas Trampoukis
• Bernard Tschumi
• Mio Tsuneyama
• Jorge Valiente Oriol
• Sumayya Vally
• Irina Verona
• Lorenzo Villaggi
• Mark Wasiuta
• Violet Whitney
• Mark Wigley
• Luc Wilson
• Mabel O. Wilson
• Ilze Wolff
• Dan Wood

M.S. AAD Events

Today at 4pm: DeathLab & GSAPPX+, Avery 115

Recent News

• Nov 7: Faculty Xiaoxi Chen and Lily Chishan Wong '15 MArch present work at the International Image and Scenography Research Laboratory Colloquium
• Nov 1: Faculty James Piacentini M.Arch/MSUP ’20 and Faculty Oscar M. Caballero MSAAD ’20 showcase artwork in "fifteen group show" at Sommwhere Gallery in New York
• Oct 30: Faculty Mireia Luzarraga presents "CLIMATE OASE ARCHITECTURE – fundamentals of a new and sustainable built environment" for the Hessian Architects Day
• Oct 30: Faculty Karla Rothstein is featured in the article “The Secular Quest to Reimagine Death Rituals,” which profiles her work with DeathLAB
• Oct 29: Faculty Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood (MSAAD ’12) join Billie Tsien discussing their Miller Prize–winning installation.
• Oct 28: Faculty Sebastián Adamo (Adamo-Faiden), with faculty Hilary Sample (MOS Architects) and Equipo de Arquitectura, receives the Holcim Foundation Prize for Latin America
• Oct 28: Dean Emeritus Mark Wigley and Dean Andrés Jaque present "We the Bacteria: Notes Toward Biotic Architecture" at Princeton SoA
• Oct 25: Faculty Mary McLeod participates in "How did women change Modern Architecture?" at "Inspirations--Five Practices" at Tulane
• Oct 22: Faculty Ziad Jamaleddine presents "15 Degrees of Uncertainty: The Case for the Contemporary Mosque" at Drury University Hammons School of Architecture
• Oct 22: eTeymour Khoury ’25 MSAAD, Curator with Nikoletta Zakynthinou Xanthi ’25 MSAAD ’25, Angela Chiesa ’25 MSAAD ’25, Architectural Co-Curators, curate the “Design ‘In’ Conflict” exhibition in Beirut, Lebanon
• Oct 21: Faculty Xiaoxi Chen and Lily Chishan Wong '15 M.Arch participate in the 2025 Lisbon Architecture Triennale: How Heavy is a City? with the project "TA-CHIM: Weighing A City's Colonial Legacies".
• Oct 17: Faculty Karla Rothstein represents DeathLab at the Community Scholars Open Seminar Day at Columbia University
• Oct 17: Faculty Hilary Sample joins as board member for Female Design Council
• Oct 16: Faculty Lydia Kallipoliti presents "Building Matabolism" at Florida International University
• Oct 16: Faculty Juan Herreros presents “For an Activist Architecture” as part of the Shared Structures series, a collaboration between FADU-UBA and the Spanish Cultural Center in Buenos Aires
• Oct 15: Faculty Juan Herreros presents “Housing as Urban Infrastructure” as part of the Collective Housing series at the ETSAM, Madrid
• Oct 15: Faculty Mireia Luzarraga's firm TAKK exhibits work in the "The Sixth Sphere" at the Lisbon Triennial
• Oct 15: Faculty Jorge Otero-Pailos, Bilge Kose, and Kivanc Kose featured in Columbia Global for PreservAI
• Oct 14: Faculty Lydia Kallipoliti's book, "Histories of Ecological Design; An Unfinished Cyclopedia," is translated into Chinese, published by Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press
• Oct 10: Faculty Juan Herreros featured in Arquitecturaviva for the Santiago de Compostela train station
• Oct 10: Faculty Juan Herreros’s practice wins two awards granted by Official College of Architects, Madrid for MALBA Puertos museum and Coastal Parks of Panamá City
• Oct 10: Faculty Juan Herreros participates in Q&A for the film "More than a Museum", about the Munch Museum in Oslo at InCITE Gallery, Bangalore
• Oct 8: Faculty Michael Bell presents "Creative Pragmatics: Learning in the Making" in a conversation hosted by University of Southern Denmark
• Oct 7: Faculty Juan Herreros featured in El Paísfor the Santiago de Compostela train station

Other Programs at GSAPP

• Master of Architecture: A three-year professional degree that weaves together the highest level of disciplinary expertise with the critical and technical skills necessary to recast the boundaries of the discipline.
• M.S. Computational Design Practices
• M.S. Critical, Curatorial & Conceptual Practices: A two-year, full-time course of intensive academic study and independent research.
• Ph.D. in Architecture: The doctoral program addresses the development of modern architectural form and ideas as they have been affected by social, economic, and technological change.
• New York / Paris: A one-year intensive liberal arts program with a strong studio component, focused on the design issues of these two cities.
• Intro Program: A summer pre-professional program

Contact Information

Columbia University
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
1172 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, New York 10027

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