School of Architecture
Faculty
Director: Jodi La Coe, BARCH, MARCH, PhD
Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies: Liyang Ding, BARCH, MARCH, PhD
Associate Director of Graduate Studies: Arian Korkuti, BFA, MS, MARCH, PhD
Elizabeth Andrzejewski, BARCH, MARCH, PhD (ABD)
Catherine Armezzani, BFA, MA (St/Arts/Int/Arch)
Joshua Berman, BA, MA (St/Arts/Int/Arch), MDESIGN (Hist/St)
Miguel A. Calvo Salve, BA, MARCH, PhD
Stephen Garrison, BFA, MFA
Kim Hagan, BARCH, MIA
Maria MacDonald, BFA, BARCH, MIA
Michelle Pannone, BARCH, MS (Urb/St)
Arturo Pavani, BARCH/SC, MARCH, MARCH, PhD
Ryan Scavnicky, BS (Arch), MARCH, MS (Des/Thry/Ped)
James Sullivan, B/ENV/DES, MARCH
Mission Statement
At the Marywood University School of Architecture, our mission is to educate undergraduate and graduate students in built environment disciplines who engage the world passionately and intelligently. As a professional school that values the liberal arts, our programs set a rigorous studio-based curriculum within an educational environment that encourages critical thinking, collaboration, and speculation.
From interior objects to urban environments, we value design and construction as a disciplined practice -- the means by which we engage the world at a range of scales with conceptual and
formal clarity, disciplinary consciousness, social agency, and material speculation. We believe that education offers a way of making and thinking that enables our students and graduates to
do good in the world. Our shared values allow differences between and among our programs to become opportunities for productive exchange, collaboration, and growth.
Program Overview
Marywood University School of Architecture offers undergraduate professional and pre-professional programs in Architecture, Construction Management, Environmental Design, Interior Architecture, and Virtual Architecture. These programs emphasize disciplinary knowledge within an interdisciplinary framework, and offer study abroad opportunities, including in Florence, Italy.
ARCHITECTURE: The professionally accredited undergraduate program in Architecture, the Bachelor of Architecture (BARCH), is a five-year curriculum that is intended for students who will pursue a career as a licensed architect. The BARCH is accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB). For students interested in advanced study, the BARCH provides the opportunity for advanced standing into the School of Architecture’s Master of Interior Architecture and Master of Architecture programs.
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT: The undergraduate program in Construction Management, the Bachelor of Science in Construction Management (BSCM), is a four-year curriculum that is intended for students who will pursue careers in the construction industry. Marywood is a prospect school seeking accreditation for the BSCM through the American Council for Construction Education (ACCE).
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN: The pre-professional undergraduate program in Architecture, the Bachelor of Environmental Design in Architecture (BEDA), is a four-year curriculum that is intended for students who will pursue a professional master’s degree or enter into a related field. The BEDA curriculum follows the BARCH curriculum but with the option to substitute some selected professionally-oriented courses with courses from other areas of the curriculum or other university course offerings. The BEDA provides the opportunity for advanced standing into the School of Architecture's Master of Interior Architecture and Master of Architecture programs.
INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE: The professionally accredited undergraduate program in Interior Architecture, the Bachelor of Interior Architecture (BIA), is a four-year curriculum that is intended for students who will pursue a career as an interior architect/designer. The BIA is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). For students interested in advanced study, the BIA provides the opportunity for advanced standing into the School of Architecture’s Master of Interior Architecture and Master of Architecture programs.
VIRTUAL ARCHITECTURE: The undergraduate program in Virtual Architecture, the Bachelor of Virtual Architecture (BVA), is a four-year curriculum that is intended for students who will pursue a career as an immersive environments designer for films, video games, and other virtual and augmented realities. The BVA is seeking accreditation through the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). For students interested in advanced study, the BVA provides the opportunity for advanced standing into the School of Architecture’s Master of Interior Architecture and Master of Architecture programs.
The Center for Architectural Studies
The School of Architecture occupies the Center for Architectural Studies, the spacious, LEED® Gold renovation of the former Health and Physical Education Building, the adjoining Shields Center for Visual Arts, and the highly acclaimed Insalaco Center for Studio Arts, all located along the northeastern edge of the Arts Field in the heart of the campus. The close proximity of these three places of creative exploration encourages cross-disciplinary learning and discovery.
The Center for Architectural Studies has been designed to showcase a number of sustainable design features, including a geothermal passive cooling system, daylight harvesting, roof water capture/reuse, and a green roof. The Center features a primary circulation/exhibition area connecting two sides of the campus, two levels of studios, classrooms, shop and digital fabrication facilities, and a central three-story-high Commons with clerestories that admit abundant natural light throughout the day. The Commons, which runs the entire length of the building and is located on both sides of the building’s major cross axis, serves as the building’s agora, in the tradition of ancient Greece - an open, shared, central space for exchange among all faculty and students. In this flexible space, learning is dynamic with formal and informal design critiques, serendipitous encounters, collective discussions, debates, displays, and exhibitions.
Special Features
Design Studios
Education must seek, generate, transfer, and question knowledge with breadth and imagination. In the School of Architecture, the fundamental place of learning is the studio—long considered the core of an architect’s education extended to other disciplines. It is the place of creative exploration, research and discovery, and the testing of ideas, theories, and concepts. In the studio, students develop means of critical thinking that enables them to effectively address various issues, from problem-solving and aesthetics to building assemblies and environ- mental systems.
Each student has an individual, custom-made work space - a desk designed to accommodate a laptop computer and a drawing board, and a personal storage cabinet for equipment and supplies.
Shop Facilities
The School of Architecture maintains a deeply-rooted commitment to craft, making, and fabrication as a means of understanding the design potential of construction. To support this understanding, well-equipped wood, metal, ceramics, glass, and digital fabrication shop facilities are available to extend and enrich any design/build explorations that might begin in the studio and/or the classroom. Studio projects are often formulated to involve the use of these shop facilities to investigate material, form, connection, joinery, detail, and space.
The materials currently used in these facilities include plaster, wax, paper, concrete, wood, composite boards, cardboard, plastic, steel, and aluminum. The shop facilities also include a large CNC router, commercial-grade 3-D printers, laser cutters, spray booth, sandblasting room, and a space for material demonstrations and assembly. Metal shop facilities include an MIG welder, a shear break and roller, bench grinder, bandsaw, angle grinder, 16-ton hydraulic pipe bender, and a manual tubing roller.
All School of Architecture students are allowed access to the shop facilities upon completion of a safety orientation and tool-specific training sessions. The shops are managed by a full-time shop technician, who oversees safety training and skills development and is responsible for machinery maintenance.
Study Abroad Program
Architecture and Interior Architecture students are required to study abroad during one semester of their third year. The venue for this educationally and culturally enriching program is the International Studies Institute (ISI) Florence in Italy. Headquartered in the Palazzo Rucellai located in the heart of the historical center of Florence, this program has an international faculty, and design studios are taught by local practicing architects. Students have opportunities to take courses unique to their foreign experience in Italy while being pertinent to their growth and maturation as designers.
Construction Management and Virtual Architecture students are encouraged to study abroad.
Studio Reference Library
A reading area surrounded by reference books and monthly periodicals is positioned at one end of the first-floor studios and provides students with immediate access to information materials that augment the University’s central Learning Commons.
Student Laptop Program
All first-year School of Architecture students are required to purchase their own laptops for use in the fall semester of the first year of studies. Computers function as important digital tools in the design process, and they have become nearly as omnipresent as textbooks. As computer software becomes more varied and sophisticated—offering programs ranging from 2D drafting and 3D modeling to rendering and energy performance analysis—the computers required to run these programs demand certain specifications for optimal performance. Our laptop requirement is similar to that in many schools of architecture and ensures that students will be suitably equipped with a flexible, portable means of basic computing in the classroom, dormitory, and/or apartment, as well as in the studio to work on design projects.
For current laptop specifications, please see the School of Architecture's website under Student Resources..
Additional Enrichment Opportunities
The faculty of the School of Architecture believes that students must be exposed to ideas, designs and viewpoints occurring beyond the confines of the campus. We are therefore committed to bringing diverse people and ideas to the Marywood campus, while we also introduce our students to new urban/cultural experiences.
To this end, the School of Architecture offers numerous enrichment activities, such as an invited lecture series of prominent architects, interior exhibitions, guest critics, visiting faculty, and field trips to local, regional, and national locales to expose students to new points of view, cities, building designs, theoretical positions, and a wide range of professional achievements. Together, these opportunities serve to heighten the students’ awareness of the built world and the breadth of professional opportunities they will encounter upon graduation.
Accreditation
Architecture
In the United States, most registration boards require a degree from an accredited professional degree program as a prerequisite for licensure. The National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), which is the sole agency authorized to accredit professional degree programs in architecture offered by institutions with U.S. regional accreditation, recognizes three types of degrees: the Bachelor of Architecture, the Master of Architecture, and the Doctor of Architecture. A program may be granted an eight-year, three-year, or two-year term of accreditation, depending on the extent of its conformance with established educational standards.
Doctor of Architecture and Master of Architecture degree programs may require a pre-professional undergraduate degree in architecture for admission. However, the pre-professional degree is not, by itself, recognized as an accredited degree.
Marywood University School of Architecture offers the following NAAB-accredited degree programs:
BARCH degree (150 credits)
Previous Accreditation visit: 2019
Next accreditation visit for all programs: 2027
Interior Architecture
Marywood University is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). The BIA degree in Interior Architecture is included in this accreditation.
NASAD establishes national standards for degrees for art, design, and related disciplines including degrees in interior architecture and interior design.
Marywood University School of Architecture offers the following NASAD-accredited degree programs:
BIA degree (120 credits)
Previous Accreditation visit: 2018
Next accreditation visit for all programs: 2028
MIA degree (101 credits)
Previous Accreditation visit: 2018
Next accreditation visit for all programs: 2028
Admission and Matriculation
For entering freshmen, a minimum QPA of 3.00 (on a 4.00 scale) is generally required for admission to the undergraduate programs in the School of Architecture.
Design Portfolio
Applicants to any of the School of Architecture’s undergraduate programs may submit a Design Portfolio, but it is not specifically required unless otherwise mentioned. However, transfer students to any program in the School of Architecture must submit additional materials, including a portfolio.
Transfer Students
Marywood students who wish to transfer into the School of Architecture degree tracks from other programs within Marywood must have, at minimum, 3.00 overall QPA on a minimum of 12 credits. If a Marywood student is accepted, the student must complete a “Change of Primary Goal” form available from the Office of Academic Records.
Students from other accredited institutions who wish to transfer into the Architecture programs must have, at minimum, 3.00 overall QPA on a minimum of 12 credits. Students seeking transfer credit must submit a portfolio and/or other course materials and course work for evaluation.
Acceptable Academic Standing
A minimum QPA of 2.50 is required in any of the School of Architecture degree tracks for any student to be in good academic standing. Students must have a minimum QPA of 2.33 in their degree tracks’ required courses, including program electives, to graduate.
Bachelor of Architecture, BARCH
Bachelor of Environmental Design in Architecture, BEDA
Bachelor of Interior Architecture, BIA
Bachelor of Science in Construction Management, BSCM
Bachelor of Virtual Architecture, BVA