Master of Science in Architecture
The Master of Science in Architecture [MS in Architecture] is a post-professional degree focusing on deep research through experimental design inquiry. This program is dedicated to cutting-edge research and experimentation and seeks to explore the cultural and technological landscapes of Houston in a highly innovative fashion. With a highly flexible curriculum, the degree allows for maximum individuation within both the graduate topic studios and an open selection of elective courses.
This degree provides for an intensive yearlong (two semesters) degree track with highly individuated curation of content, allowing for a deep and focused inquiry. Culminating in an individual year-long master’s degree project, post-professional students have an opportunity to examine diverse issues confronting contemporary practice through critical design inquiry.
As ever-expanding global issues confront humanity, architecture must respond with dexterity. Architecture is perpetually challenged to do more with less and function with diminishing operational timelines from the moment of the event to the systemic response. It is time for critical specificity, not vagueness. Nothing can be static. Nothing can be done in isolation. Everything must be inclusive. New technologies and expanding tools allow us to confront these issues with ever-increasing sophistication and synthesis. The tools of design in all their diverse forms establish new processes and new opportunities. The results no longer resolve merely in form but in tactics and methods.
Method must continue architecture's fundamental dialectic to bridge technology and art. Method must now be inclusive to equally engage the fundamental issues of light, space, and form while rising to respond to the new essentialisms of performance, sustainability, and social consciousness. It is in this "process" where architecture can assert itself. It is in the "process" where architecture is perpetually reborn. It is in the "process" where one's voice can be found as a thinker and, more importantly, as an active maker.
The Hines College’s graduate architecture programs are uniquely invested in the processes of architecture. Understanding the methods of operation, streams of information and inquiry, and perhaps most importantly, the control points and variables within the systems that allow for insertion and redirection. It is only from within that an operative can divert or direct the flow. Operating simultaneously at the scale of the city, at the scale of the building, and the scale of the tool, our program understands professional and advanced research alike engages current global challenges at every scale.
This degree program is an immersive experience, graduating critical thinkers capable of facilitating holistic and performative design decisions. Our goal is to create strategic thinkers who lead design.
Degree Plan
This post-professional degree is a design-based program centered on the studio, for students already possessing a professional degree in architecture, urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture, or related design fields. It integrates the complexities of design thinking through advanced and deep inquiry in a highly individuated curriculum. The two-semester program consists of 36 academic credits in consecutive fall and spring sessions.
The program offers four concentrations:
Admission
This degree is intended for students already holding a professional degree in architecture, urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture, or related design fields.