The School

Note from the Chair

David Miller, FAIA, Professor and Chair

The Department of Architecture, within the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington, is a community of educators, scholars and professional architects that values excellence in teaching and research and interdisciplinary collaboration. We recognize architecture as a critical urban and cultural practice that integrates a complex array of social, ethical and ecological concerns within the process of design inquiry. Architects are the inventors of much of our environmental fabric and have the responsibility to confront a difficult world.  Our community believes in the value of design, and that architecture should reflect our vision of an ideal world.

The educational experience provided to our students in the Department of Architecture is enriched by the superb teaching of a remarkable faculty. Our dedicated teachers, from diverse backgrounds and experience, inspire students to excel within a broad curriculum that covers the fields of design, history/theory, building science and critical practice. We teach students from a broad set of horizons, the traditions of architecture within the context of social and technological change, a legacy of craft in the making of architecture, an activist and community-based design process, and in the principals of ethical action to address human and environmental concerns.