Architecture focuses on the design and development of the built environment.
At environmental design, we encompass broad topics of sites, program, materiality, structural systems, modern technologies, human interconnectedness, and social interaction. This major endeavors to teach our students to be responsible citizens and stewards of aesthetic, ethical, social, economic and environmental concerns.
Meet our ARCH Faculty
Hands-On Learning
Environmental Design Core
Anchored through a combination of lecture courses and studio instruction, our core curriculum builds upon studios where students solve design problems at interrelated scales of the built environment: buildings, landscapes and urban systems.
- Intro to environmental product of design, 8-week studio
- Intro to architecture, 8-week studio
- Core technology 1
- ENVD Colloquium
- Core lecture: Design Theory & Thinking
- Intro to landscape architecture, 8-week studio
- Intro to sustainable planning & urban design, 8-week studio
- Core technology 2
- Core lecture: History of the Built Environment
- Choice of core design studio, 8-week studio
- Choice of core design studio, 8-week studio
- Core technology 3
- Core lecture: Ecology & Design
- Core lecture: Planning & Implementation
Students pursue in-depth projects and gain specialized skills necessary for pre-professional work or graduate study through upper-division course work.
ENVD Core8-week design studio
The second of four introductory studios introduce students to strategies and techniques of architectural design and communication in a hands-on studio environment. Students design a small-scale architectural project that responds to environmental, contextual and programmatic needs while developing the necessary skills for iterative design processes.
ENVD Core8-week design studio
Focusing on the languages of design, as well as on traditional and digital methods of visualizing architectural ideas and forms, this course builds on the skills learned in Studio 1 and begins incorporating the dynamic forces that shape our buildings.
ENVD major 16-week design studio
This course kicks off the architectural specialization sequence. It introduces students to the basic strategies and techniques of architectural design.This studio focuses on concepts of medium-scale building design, siting, and climate. Through multiple design exercises, students learn how these factors assist in shaping buildings.
ENVD major 16-week design studio
Dealing with problems at an intermediate level of complexity, this architecture studio emphasizes the interaction of form, programmatic use, human behavior and context in creating structure.Studio options may include a client-based community engaged project, real world applications, and/or result in a physical product. Students work across analog and digital platforms to produce high quality and portfolio-worthy work.
ENVD major 16-week design studio
The capstone of the studio sequence, this course investigates building technology, structural systems, user experience, and environmental sustainability.Studio options may include a client-based community engaged project, real world applications, and/or result in a physical product. Outcomes include well-developed structures designed with a high level of craft, resulting in sophisticated and exhibit-worthy presentations.
Innovative Curriculum
Signature and innovative, or core curriculum provides an intensive and balanced introduction to the traditional professions within the broad field of environmental design.Set a foundation with a three-semester introduction to design theories and practice before declaring your major.
ENVD Core
3 semesters of ENVD core
Interdisciplinary
six eight-week design studios
5-credit
technology course sequence
4
sixteen-week major design studios
Learning Objectives
Major Objectives
B.EnvD Objectives
Critical Thinking
Students will use creative, critical, and convergent thinking to address social and environmental issues through precedents, theory, research, and problem‐defining techniques in order to analyze the need for and impact of design solutions.
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Through iterative design students will develop conceptual or material solutions to socio‐environmental issues by synthesizing critical feedback and collaborative findings with their peers and the communities that they engage.
Communication & Representation
Students will employ graphic, verbal, written, spatial, and other communication strategies in order to organize, demonstrate and argue for design concepts and proposals.
Stewardship & Sustainability
Students will apply tenets of social and environmental justice through design stewardship and sustainability to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of all project constituents.
Technical Skills & Methodologies
Students will develop the foundational technical skills and learn to apply the methodologies necessary to enter the academic and professional disciplines of environmental design.
The Student Experience
Meet Current Students
Lleyton Karimi
Lleyton wanted to find a program that supported his ethical design goals while still teaching him relevant and applicable skills.
Nicole Chung
Nicole hopes that one day she'll be able to make a design that will be considered a landmark.
Gio Gordillo
Gio has always looked for a way to apply hislove for the arts in a practical manner.
AJ Newlin
AJ encourages design students to be confident in who they are and what theycan bring to the table.
Architecture in the News
Students propose design interventions for historical area in Syracuse, Sicily
For the win: A semester worth celebrating
Student work on exhibit at Eldora Mountain Resort
Affiliate Student Organizations
The American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS)is a national, non-profit organization made up of over 100 chapters across the country. Our CU Boulder chapter provides students with opportunities to get involved with the Boulder/Denver architecture community.