It is our premise that in coming to a professional undergraduate architecture program at Carnegie Mellon University, you have chosen to be educated as architects and not merely to be "exposed" to architecture. You will therefore not only become skilled designers, but also capable of understanding the meanings inherent in two and three dimensional spatial design. You will need to personally develop the capacity to manipulate form and space in order to not only express your specific intentions but also to develop the professional and technical skills which will make your intentions of becoming architects a reality.

Our focus in the first year architectural design studio is the establishment of a fundamental understanding of representation and abstraction and adding one’s own thoughts and ideas about spatial thinking to that understanding.  This will involve a reiterative investigation into the relationship of technique, form and meaning through study, invention, testing and evaluation.  A series of short problems will: expose students to the complexity of visual communication and the design act; develop the skills of graphic presentation necessary for interpreting and communicating architectural intentions; and instill the ability to combine insight with rigorous analytical study in a “design process” that is efficient, personally effective, and becomes second nature.

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