The application for the 2020-2021 school year is due on January 2, 2020.
Mission
The post-professional design research program is founded on the premise that architects can contribute to addressing urgent global challenges by adopting a new way of working: design research. This involves forming cross-disciplinary collaborations to explore the spatial consequences of cultural, political and environmental issues. The post-professional M.Arch. II program equips a future generation of Yale graduates with a methodology that will prepare them to form constructive alliances with experts in allied disciplines, the outcome of which will yield viable design proposals that can be implemented on regional, local, and global scales.
Individual and Group Research
Our two-year core curriculum equips students with an advanced degree that builds upon their previous architectural training to pursue both group and independent design research. It consists of a sequence of three consecutive seminars that culminates in a Design Research Studio offered in the final semester of the program. Working in teams, students generate a body of research about a broad theme that impacts contemporary global practice. At the same time, students work individually with faculty advisors to develop and execute a design research project that corresponds with their own individual interests. This individual and group research is shared through a student-organized symposium and assembled in a publication that brings this body of work to the attention of a wide audience that includes members of the design community and allied disciplines. The core curriculum allows students to explore independently while working within a supportive environment that fosters interaction, dialogue, and a sense of common purpose.
Academic Freedom: Advanced Studios and Electives
With only four required courses, our program offers students considerable freedom to shape their own curriculum to develop an increasingly reflexive, critical, and speculative relationship to their work. During the first three terms, students choose through a lottery system from variety of Advanced Studios, taught by leading practitioners and theoreticians from around the world. These studios are the same ones offered to M.Arch. I students. Students also take elective course options offered by the School that fall into the broad categories of design and visualization, technology and practice, history and theory, and urbanism and landscape. In addition, they are encouraged to take classed offered by other Yale schools and departments within the University. At the beginning of each term, students meet with the program director and faculty advisors, to help them choose elective courses that support their general interests as well as relevant classes that support their Design Research proposals. Students are encouraged to also take courses offered by other Yale schools and departments.
Community
The relatively small size of the Post Pro student body (approximately 40 students in the two year program) coupled with the modest size of the School of Architecture allows our students to form a collective identity while immersing themselves in the wider YSOA community. Enrolling in the four-semester sequence of required courses builds solidarity among M.Arch. II students. At the same time, Advanced Studios and elective seminars allow Post Pro students to engage with other YSOA students as well as students from other Yale departments.
Course of study
In course titles, a designates fall term, and b designates spring term. The School reserves the right to change the prescribed course of study as necessary.
M.Arch. II: Total Requirement: 72 credits
First Year (Summer)
| 1062c, Computation Analysis Fabrication | 0 |
First Year (Fall)
| Advanced Design Studio | 9 |
| 3072a, Design Research I | 3 |
| Elective* | 3 |
| Elective* | 3 |
| ___ | |
| 18 |
First Year (Spring)
| Advanced Design Studio | 9 |
| 3073b, Design Research II | 3 |
| Elective* | 3 |
| Elective* | 3 |
| ___ | |
| 18 |
Second Year (Fall)
| Advanced Design Studio | 9 |
| 3074b, Design Research III: Methods Workshop | 3 |
| Elective* | 3 |
| Elective* | 3 |
| ___ | |
| 18 |
Second Year (Spring)
| 1121b, Design Research IV: Studio | 9 |
| Elective* | 3 |
| Elective* | 3 |
| Elective* | 3 |
| ___ | |
| 18 |
*Students not on academic warning or probation may substitute independent elective course work. (See the School’s Academic Rules and Regulations for procedures and restrictions.)
Required Core Courses
3072a Design Research 1: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives
3 credits.
This seminar introduces students to Design Research, a practice dedicated to conducting cross-disciplinary research that explores the spatial consequences of urgent cultural, political, economic and environmental issues. The class is divided into four topics, each taught by one of four faculty members, dedicated to investigating a different global challenge through analytical perspectives being employed by leading interdisciplinary scholars and designers.
3073b, Design Research 2: Challenging the Built Environment
3 credits.
Each year this seminar takes up the design implications of a different contemporary global challenge. Students explore this broad issue through collective and individual research that allows them as a group to organize a public YSOA symposium that will be held in Spring 2021 and to draft individual proposals that they will develop in the Methods Workshop the following term.
3074a, Design Research 3: Methods Workshop:
3 credits.
In this workshop students develop and refine the initial research proposal that they submitted at the end of Seminar 2. Though weekly required reading and assignments, students become acquainted with key research methods that will allow them to craft a fully developed Research Script, a illustrated document that assembles materials that will form the basis of their design work in the Design Research 4 Studio the following term.
30745b Design Research 4: Studio
9 credits
Students meet on a weekly basis with faculty Advisors to develop the Design Research Script that they developed in the Methods Workshop. The class is coordinated by the Post Pro Director who works with Faculty Advisors to establish shared milestone assignments, including midterm, ¾ and final reviews.
Summer preparation courses for incoming M.Arch II students
In the summer prior to the beginning of the fall term, the School offers one four-week course that is required for incoming M.Arch. II students: 1062c, Computation Analysis Fabrication.
In the week before the beginning of the fall term, the School offers three preparation workshops that are required for incoming M.Arch. II students.
- Summer Shops Techniques Course. This one-week course introduces incoming students to the School’s fabrication equipment and shops. The course stresses good and safe shop techniques. Students are not allowed to use the School’s shops unless they have satisfactorily completed this course.
- Summer Digital Media Orientation Course. This two-part course, which occurs during the same week as the Summer Shops Techniques Course, covers accessing the School’s servers, the use of the School’s equipment, and the School’s digital media policies and procedures.
- Arts Library Research Methods Session. This ninety-minute session covers various strategies to answer research questions pertaining to course curricula and topics by using tools such as the Yale University online catalog, architecture databases, image resources, print resources, and archival resources.
