Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design Viewbook 2025-26

Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design

MARCH • MLA • MUD • MSAAD • MSAS • DUAL DEGREES

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts is a place for interdisciplinary learning. Here, we combine the theoretical and practical to create an environment in which architects, landscape architects, and urban designers study alongside artists, curators, and theorists.

As part of a tier-one research institution, Washington University in St. Louis students in the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design are uniquely poised to pursue expansive research and make distinctive contributions to their field.

Academics

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Student Experience

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From the Office of the Director

WashU is a place where professors, practitioners, and students together ask important questions about the future of our built environment. How can we create a more sustainable, imaginative world, for and by a more diverse community of people? What role does artificial intelligence play in designing our buildings, landscapes, and cities? How do we work across disciplines—with engineers, social scientists, and historians—to make meaningful and ethical impacts in our world? If you are intrigued by how you could impact society as architects, landscape architects, and urban designers, I invite you to explore these ideas further and engage with our talented community of students.

To learn more about the programs and people that make up the Sam Fox School, please visit samfoxschool.washu.edu and our social media channels, where you can see the inspiring work created by our students and faculty. We encourage you to plan a visit with our admissions team so that you can experience firsthand the studios, fabrication shops, people, and intellectual culture that make our school vibrant and stimulating. We look forward to seeing you on campus.

Aki Ishida, AIA, LEED AP Director, College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design

Sam and Marilyn Fox Professor

Academics

Our studios are organized around cumulative, collective experiences collaborating on thematic issues of our time. We provide a rigorous academic environment where students develop a love of craft and the ability to move fluidly between digital and analog design methods, and 2D and 3D design processes.

Dual Degrees

In our dual degree programs, you can earn two master’s degrees within Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design:

• MArch + MLA

• MArch + MUD

• MLA + MUD

Or, take full advantage of the academic resources at WashU by earning a degree in another discipline:

• Business Administration

• Construction Management

• Social Work

• Public Health

MArch MLA MUD MSAAD MSAS

MArch | Master of Architecture

MArch 3 6 semesters | 3 years

MArch 2 4 semesters | 2 years

STEM-designated, accredited program that offers a professional experience focusing on the role of architects in society and culture

MLA | Master of Landscape Architecture

MLA 3 6 semesters | 3 years

MLA 2 4 semesters | 2 years

Accredited, professional degree that enables students to become registered landscape architects. The program is STEM-designated with a focus on systems-thinking.

MUD | Master of Urban Design

2 semesters + summer | 1 year

STEM-designated degree program for individuals who hold professional or pre-professional degrees with a focus on the environmental and social challenges and opportunities of 21st-century cities

Master of Science degrees can be completed as standalone programs or consecutive to any of the terminal degree programs.

MSAAD | Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design

3 semesters | 1.5 years

Post-professional program to pursue advanced design studies, research, and teaching preparation

MSAS | Master of Science in Architectural Studies

2 semesters | 1 year

Graduate program designed to engage in research specialization in either Architectural Pedagogy or the History and Culture of Architecture

Faculty

We pride ourselves on our low student-to-faculty ratio and our premier faculty scholars and practitioners. Small class sizes, research assistantships, and regular advising allow faculty to actively mentor students in their academic and professional goals.

PROGRAM CHAIRS

Chandler Ahrens

Chair, Graduate Architecture

Associate Professor

Derek Hoeferlin

Chair, Landscape Architecture

Raymond E. Maritz Professor of Architecture

Linda C. Samuels*

Chair, Urban Design

Professor

Director of Sustainable Design and Environmental Justice

*pictured. Photo: Whitney Curtis.

Visiting Faculty

The Sam Fox School brings nationally and internationally recognized practicing architects into our studios and classrooms each year. With their diverse points of view, these guest faculty contribute to the richness of the student experience and become deeply engaged within our university and community.

Invited Speakers and Guests

Every semester, our dynamic lecture series offers insights from renowned architects, artists, designers, landscape architects, urban designers, historians, and critics. Invited speakers often interact with students during workshops and informal gatherings, in addition to participating in studio visits, where they conduct one-on-one reviews of work.

Anna & Eugeni Bach

Julie Bargmann

Charles Birnbaum

Edward Ford

Gina Ford & Brie Hensold

Mario Gooden

Grafton Architects

Annette Helle

Cory Henry

Walter Hood

Eric Höweler

Francis Kéré

Michael Maltzan

Rahul Mehrotra

Elisa Silva Nader Tehrani

Kotchakorn

Voraakhom

Research

The foundation of our programs is the breadth and depth of our faculty’s research.

Working at the confluence of environmental and social issues, our faculty are pioneering developments in the future of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. Their knowledge provides students with meaningful opportunities to fuel their own success.

We strive for distinction in six key areas, focusing our efforts to better advance knowledge in our fields.

Design Practice

Collective Housing Sustainable & Equitable Environments

History, Theory, & Culture

Arts, Fabrication, & Technology

Socially Engaged Practice

Design Practice

Most fundamental to our programs is the development of students’ holistic design acuity. Our goal is for students to develop clear design principles, strong technical skills, an independent, critical position on the making of the built environment, and a deep understanding of its impacts on the complex systems surrounding us.

Student work

Each semester offers a range of options that emphasizes the development of strong conceptual abilities, thoughtful integration of technical information, and powerful representations of architectural ideas in two- and three-dimensional form through a variety of media.

Students graduate with vital technical skills, individual artistic sensibility, and the ability to think critically and rigorously. They go on to lead projects, firms, and agencies.

For more examples of student projects, visit our website or request a copy of our graduate student work publication, Approach

Bottom

Clockwise from top left: Emma Woolcott, MArch/MUD, instructor Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich.

Jia Song, MLA, instructor Seth Denizen.

Kaitlin Sampson, MLA, instructor L. Irene Compadre.

Nayoung Shin, MUD, instructor Linda C. Samuels.

Collective Housing

Housing is one of the most critical issues facing the future of our field. There is a social imperative and a dire global need for affordable, beautifully designed, and environmentally responsible homes and neighborhoods that are culturally attuned.

International Housing Studio

In the International Housing Studio, a core studio of both the MArch 2 and MArch 3 programs, students deepen their understanding and responsiveness to cultural, climatic, and social conditions and develop proposals for collective urban dwellings in a diverse array of global locations, working with faculty who are active practitioners.

Within a common framework and shared group discussions, students explore contemporary issues around housing with an emphasis on spatial and organizational arrangements that accommodate diverse occupants through time and changing situations, mediate climate passively, and celebrate the benefits of community.

Top right: Maggie Welker, MArch, instructor Julie Bauer.

Bottom left: Miao Hu, MArch, instructor Don Koster.

Bottom right: Lucas Kamal, MArch/MUD, instructor Derek Hoeferlin.

Sustainable & Equitable Environments

We endeavor to make structures that respect not only the environment, but also the humanity and agency of the people within that environment.

Through a variety of courses, workshops, and projects, students explore the interdependence of the community, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design, and how they can work together to emphasize equitable access and distribution across systems.

Wastewater Agriculture

Who gets the water first, cities or farms?

That’s the fundamental question behind Assistant Professor Seth Denizen and Visiting Assistant Professor Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich’s research in Mexico City and its nearby agricultural valley, where irrigation through the city’s wastewater has been the norm for more than a century. Now, locals and researchers are reevaluating the safety of wastewater and the long-term effects of contaminants like heavy metals and pharmaceuticals on crops and the people who farm and consume them. At the same time, the wastewater brings with it valuable natural fertilizer, the absence of which forces farmers to purchase commercial fertilizer. As demand for water increases and new social challenges arise, Denizen believes that landscape architects are some of the best-positioned professionals to address the massive changes that are required to create a better, more sustainable system for both urban and rural communities.

Students in the landscape architecture studio visited Mexico, learning firsthand from the farmers whose lives depend on the environmental solutions they researched and designed for in studio.

History, Theory, & Culture Design Agendas

To be informed makers and engaged leaders, students must understand the broader cultural context of their disciplines, as well as historical and contemporary issues impacting the field.

The Sam Fox School has leading faculty experts on the history of modern architecture and urbanism, as well as the principles and methods of conservation and historical research. Their deep scholarship and research will enable you to explore critical concepts and theories.

The 2024 Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s–1970s exhibition and symposium at WashU’s Kemper Art Museum and Sam Fox School situated some of the most celebrated works of modern architecture in St. Louis within the context of mid-twentieth-century regional developments. Full of architectural drawings, models, photos, maps, artworks, and more, it was the first major exhibition to examine the complex connections in St. Louis among modern architecture, urban renewal, and racial and spatial change in the interlocking histories of New Deal planning, the Great Migration, and the civil rights and Great Society eras. The exhibition was co-curated by Eric P. Mumford, the Rebecca and John Voyles Professor of Architecture, and Michael E. Willis, FAIA, NOMA, AB ’73, MArch/ MSW ’76.

Installation views of Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s–1970s at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis (September 13, 2024–January 6, 2025). Top photo: Joshua White / bottom photo: Dmitri Jackson.

Arts, Fabrication, & Technology

Faculty at the Sam Fox School are leading experts in new technology, fabrication methods, and creative techniques. Students have many opportunities to learn from this expertise, both in the classroom and in the field, as well as collaborate as research assistants.

Intelligent Fabrication

Digital fabrication is often critiqued as not being scalable to larger projects—in part because it is often associated with highly specialized small prototyping and installations. In this seminar, students focused on digital fabrication at the medium-to-large scale using a proprietary system designed by alum Scott Mitchell, founder of STUD-IO. The system focuses on intelligent prefabrication using custom software to create robotically fabricated metal studs that can be easily assembled into almost any form. The CNC machine is specifically designed to make these custom metal studs with a series of operations, promoting masscustomization.

Students designed, fabricated, and constructed full-scale prototypes outside of Weil Hall in a temporary installation.

Socially Engaged Practice

The Sam Fox School’s Office for Socially Engaged Practice connects students and faculty to communities in St. Louis and beyond to collaborate on meaningful projects in art, architecture, and design. These collaborations allow students to experience St. Louis outside the WashU campus while supporting education, innovation, and more in our community.

CityStudioSTL

CityStudioSTL is an initiative of the Office for Socially Engaged Practice that supports a series of community engagement and outreach projects that bring together students in architecture, art, and design with partners in the city of St. Louis.

The program allows students and faculty—working in collaboration with local community groups and residents—to conceive, plan, design, and construct projects.

The CityStudioSTL initiative funds:

• Fellowships—paid summer positions for students to work at a local firm on not-for-profit, St. Louis-specific projects

• Faculty course grants community-engaged teaching grants for working with the St. Louis community

• Student awards—supporting students engaged in community collaborative projects

Fellowships

Bedgid Laguerre, MArch, completed a CityStudioSTL fellowship with Christner Architects, a St. Louisbased design firm. Her project focused on redesigning outdoor space at a local school.

One thing that I found very appealing with the firm I worked with, Christner Architects, was how they’re based in St. Louis. A lot of their work is within their own city. That’s very inspiring to me because, as an architect, that’s how I see myself working. I wanted to contribute to where I’m from and my city.”

Bedgid Laguerre, MArch

CityStudioSTL Fellow, Christner Architects

Student Experience

You’ve learned what you’ll be studying here, but academics and studios are only half of the picture.

The Sam Fox School is a vibrant community actively engaged with campus opportunities while exploring all that St. Louis has to offer—from major art museums, renowned parks and National Historic Landmarks, to major league sports and a vibrant restaurant scene.

One of my favorite things about this program is the culture. The students and faculty are some of the most supportive, intelligent, and deeply passionate people I’ve ever met. I know I have made lifelong connections here.”

Hallie Nolan, MArch/MUD

Life in St. Louis

A mid-size city with an outsize creative scene, St. Louis is a confluence of rivers, people, and ideas. Beloved for its distinctive red brick and its incredible urban parks, our city has deep, historic roots. This is a place that reveres its designers, artists, thinkers, and makers, and our students are lively contributors to its culture. The city is abundant in modern and historic architecture, diverse in culture, and at the front line of social and political engagement. Most of all, St. Louis is a place for you to explore and experience.

#1

best city for new graduates, according to a 2022 study by Insurify

13 designated National Historic Landmarks in the city

140+ miles of bicycle and pedestrian trailways

Above: Landscape architecture students and faculty joined designer-in-residence Kotch Voraakhom on a guided canoe trip down the Mississippi

Facilities & Making Spaces

Students in our school can work at any scale—from the object to the city—with the technical resources to support them. Light-filled graduate studios are on the top two floors of LEED Platinum-certified Weil Hall, complete with large, L-shaped desks with plenty of room for iterative modelmaking. We offer leading facilities and technology for making, including 3D printers in plastic and clay, a CNC machine, well-stocked wood and metal shops, tools for augmented and virtual reality, and much more.

FACILITIES & MAKING SPACES

• Caleres Fabrication Studio*

• Dubinsky Printmaking Studio

• Givens Wood & Metal Shop

• Lighting Studio

• Media Studio

• Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Studio for the Illustrated Book

• Walker Ceramics Shop

• Walker Metal Shop*

• Walker Wood Shop*

• Whitaker Learning Lab AND MORE!

*pictured

Study Abroad Barcelona

With cultures, economies, and ecosystems more connected than ever before, international perspectives are vital to the graduate student experience.

Opportunities to learn abroad range from weeklong intensives to semesterlong studios, taught by local practitioners and core faculty. Through these immersive and research-based experiences, students challenge their thinking, widen their outlooks, and develop place-based practices.

RECENT SITES

MArch students have the opportunity to study abroad in Barcelona, a city at the forefront of Spain’s drive and commitment to environmentally informed architecture for a sustainable, modern, and climateneutral economy. Students work in a dedicated studio space in the city center and have access to facilities at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Curriculum includes a mix of studios and seminars.

Global Urbanism Studio

The Global Urbanism Studio, which marks the culmination of the Master of Urban Design program, provides students the opportunity to study and experience significant global cities in comparative perspective. The studio’s travels have included Cambodia, China, Thailand (pictured), South Africa, Rwanda, and more. Students are guided by local partners and experts to develop an in-depth, contextual understanding of communities and the social and environmental challenges they face.

Below and right: The 2023 Global Urbanism Studio traveled to Thailand and Cambodia.

Jonathan Stitelman.

Careers

The strongest testament to the value of our programs is the success of our alumni.

From founding their own practices like HOK, to starting furniture and design businesses like the Egg Collective, to teaching at top universities and winning the Wheelwright Prize, Sam Fox School graduates are making their mark.

Our programs foster leadership skills that prepare you for expansive, ambitious careers. The WashU Center for Career Engagement offers oneon-one advising, workshops, portfolio assistance, career fairs, visits to professional architecture firms, and more. Graduates become part of the close-knit Sam Fox School community, with a network of colleagues and mentors around the world.

SELECT JOB & INTERNSHIP PLACEMENTS

Alloy Development

BIG: Bjarke Ingels Group

Bohlin Cywinski

Jackson

CannonDesign

Gensler

HOK

Lake Flato

MASS Design Group

Mithun

Olson Kundig

Perkins+Will

Populous

Sasaki

SCAPE

Snøhetta

SOM

Studio Gang West 8

Kengo Kuma & Associates

Shigeru Ban Architects

TenBerke

Over the years, our new hires from the graduate architecture programs at WashU have been among the best prepared in terms of professional readiness and design ability.”

Allison Méndez, AIA, NCARB Vice President and Lead Designer, CannonDesign

Scholarships & Fellowships

We recognize that financial support is an important part of your graduate school decision-making process, and the Sam Fox School is committed to providing assistance to as many students as possible.

Scholarship Support

Through our Sam Fox Ambassadors Fellowship program, the school awards 10 full-tuition graduate scholarships each year to candidates who demonstrate exceptional potential for advanced studies and creative research in their discipline. Ambassadors receive an annual creative activity and research stipend to support research or school-sponsored travel and participate in events that build meaningful interdisciplinary connections and advance creative work and scholarship.

Additional full and significant tuition scholarships and fellowships are available in recognition of academic achievement, area of interest, experience, and leadership potential.

Paid Assistantships

Graduate students are eligible for paid teaching or research assistantships, which are typically awarded to students who have been in the school for at least one semester and have done well academically. Assistants support our faculty with lectures and courses in design, graphics, structures, technology, and more. Select faculty also offer research assistantships.

Loan Assistance

Federal guaranteed loans are available to students who are U.S. citizens or U.S. permanent residents who meet all eligibility requirements and who have submitted the FAFSA.

Learn more about scholarship opportunities on our website.

94% of graduate students at the Sam Fox School receive financial support.

Photo: Caitlin Custer

I chose WashU for its thoughtfully balanced curriculum—one that embraces innovation and emerging technologies in architecture and construction, while also valuing the rigor of hand modeling and analog methods to study form, spatial relationships, program, and proximity. This dual emphasis allowed me to engage both conceptually and practically with the design process.”

Hannah Grau, MArch