Graduate Programme Hartwell / North Quad Est. 1897 2026 — 2028 Cohort

Master of
Architecture

A two-year professional degree for designers who believe buildings are arguments — about cities, ecologies, and the lives we share within them.

Duration
24mo
Full-time / four studio terms
Cohort Size
48
Students per entering class
01 — Programme

A studio culture built on questions, not answers.

The Hartwell M.Arch is organized around the design studio — six hours a day, four days a week, for four consecutive terms. Students work alongside practicing architects, historians, structural engineers, and ecologists on sites that range from the city block to the watershed.

Our curriculum refuses the false choice between craft and criticism. You will learn to draft a window detail and argue a housing policy in the same week. You will build at 1:1 and model at 1:5000. You will learn to see buildings as the visible parts of longer stories — about labor, land, and material.

We don't train architects to serve the world as it is. We train them to draw the world as it could be. — Dean Mara Okafor, FAIA
8:1
Student / Faculty
96%
Graduate Placement
$34k
Avg. Aid Package
42
Partner Studios
02 — Curriculum

Four studios.
Four provocations.

ST 501

Ground

Foundations in site, soil, and structure. A single-room building on a measured landscape.

Term I · 12cr
ST 601

Dwelling

Housing as typology, ethics, and economics. Multi-unit project on a contested urban parcel.

Term II · 12cr
ST 701

Commons

Civic program, public scale, and shared infrastructure. A library, market, or transit hall.

Term III · 12cr
ST 801

Thesis

An independent position, defended through drawings, models, and written argument.

Term IV · 15cr
03 — Admission

What we look for.

Undergraduate Degree

A four-year bachelor's from an accredited institution. Any discipline — architecture, art, engineering, the humanities. We want minds, not résumés.

Portfolio

15–20 pages of visual work that argues for how you think. Drawings, photographs, built things, written observations — evidence of sustained looking.

Statement of Intent

Up to 1,000 words. Tell us the question you cannot stop thinking about, and why architecture is where you need to ask it.

Three Letters

From faculty, employers, or collaborators who have seen you work closely. We read them carefully.

Language Proficiency

International applicants: IELTS 7.0 or TOEFL 100. Waived for degrees completed in English.

04 — Campus Life

A studio that never quite closes.

Students working in the main studio hall
North Studio24h access
Architectural model workshop
Fabrication LabCNC · 3D · Wood
Library reading room
Orr Library82k volumes
Campus quad in autumn
The QuadHartwell, NY
Student exhibition opening
Spring ReviewsPublic, April

Housing

Graduate housing at the Ellison Court residences, two minutes from the studio — reserved for first-year M.Arch students.

Community

Weekly lectures, monthly crits open to the public, and a 600-person alumni network across 34 cities.

The Town

Hartwell is a small river city — walkable, affordable, and close enough to New York for weekend site visits.

Draw the world
as it could be.

Begin your application Next deadline — January 15, 2027 · Request information