Who We Are

Our Mission

A global leader in our fields, the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University drives acts of transformation. Together, we advance multidisciplinary research, critical inquiry, and creative practices to engage with the world’s challenges and build thriving, resilient, and inspired futures.

Our Guiding Principles

Academic and Creative Excellence
We believe that scholarship, research, and creative practice can and do transform each of us individually as well as the world we share. Across our disciplines, we provide an education that supports rigorous processes of investigation and experimentation, reframes problems, and expands possibilities.

Engaged Learning
Our approaches to teaching and learning are driven by making meaningful connections with the world and one another, deepening our understanding of the complex challenges and unique opportunities that define our time. 

Belonging
AAP embraces an ethos of respect for difference as we share knowledge, raise questions, and learn from one another. As a community that comes together from many backgrounds, we each bring unique experiences and insights that help advance our collective mission. 

Our Priorities

Critical Inquiry
At AAP, we engage generously and rigorously across scales and contexts with ideas, each other, and the world around us to advance knowledge, scholarship, and critical discourse.

Creative Practice
We teach and learn practice as a common value. Across our disciplines, we understand creativity as a means of engagement and a mode of learning, thinking, and collectively contributing to the world. 

Catalyzing Collaboration
Across AAP, Cornell, and beyond, we forge generative partnerships with a wide range of disciplines to deepen our expertise and encourage entrepreneurial ventures that expand fields of possibility.

Resilient Cities, Spaces, and Communities
As we face today’s global challenges, we strive to make a meaningful impact on society and the built environment with applied, actionable research that creates more just, sustainable, and resilient cities and communities.

Design and Emerging Technologies
As emerging technologies and media transform how we live, work, and interact, we ethically explore multiple intersections in design and technology to accelerate innovation, actualize imagination, and transform our disciplines. 

Innovative Pedagogies
Our community understands the value of knowledge and education for all; we are committed to discovery, experimentation, hands-on learning, and evolving how we teach and learn in and outside of the classroom.