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Interior of a concrete dome building with architectural models and drawings lining the walls.

Architecture

Department of Architecture

About the Department

Architecture at Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning is about creative and critical design practices that make lasting impact. Balancing rigorous research and scholarship, responsibility for our natural and built environments, we reimagine the world at every scale to build a just and sustainable future for all.

We see design as a process of creative experimentation and iterative analysis, ensuring non-judgmental, holistic, and open-ended inquiry enabled by independent, critical thinking and bold thought leadership. Our undergraduate and graduate programs are designed to support interdisciplinary collaboration and provide an integrated foundation in global history, theory, structures, environmental systems, building technologies, and visual representation, ensuring that our students are equipped with actionable knowledge and the agency to enact change.

Interior of a concrete dome building with architectural models and drawings lining the walls.

Above: An architecture exhibition in Milstein Hall.

Degree Programs

Studios and Spaces

  • Student examining models and pinned up work.
  • Student examining a structural model.
  • Students presenting pinned up work
  • Student pinning up work in a gallery.
  • Students laying on fuzzy chartreuse pads inside a large translucent plastic enclosure.
  • Students sitting at a table covered with building models.

Upcoming and Ongoing Events

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Latest News and Research

Latest News and Research

Announcements Explore Fall ’26 Classes for Non-Majors at AAP

Expand your disciplinary boundaries and enroll in courses that cultivate connection and catalyze actionable research. Options range from fundamentals to deep dives across architecture, art, city and regional planning, real estate, and design technology.

Stories Announcing: Building and Unbuilding the City Museum: From Le Corbusier to Ahmedabad

Brick building with large shrubery.

Architecture Associate Professor Lily Chi in collaboration with architect and educator Sarosh Anklesaria (M.Arch. II ’08) coedited this collection of essays examining the cultural center’s ambitious beginning, present precarity, and possible futures.

In the Media A Famed Brooklyn Cemetery Wants You to Come Visit… Before You Die

The New York Times — Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn is opening a $43 million visitor’s center and exhibition hall, designed by Gensler Visiting Critic Kim Yao’s firm Architecture Research Office.

Stories

Two people stand and look at a table with numerous wooden models.

AAP Students Lend Their Creativity to a New Vision for 4-H Camp

B.Arch. students in the Engaged Practices Design Studio course submitted dozens of ideas for renovating Camp Owahta’s 128-acre site after spending a semester getting to know its uses and potential.

Stories Announcing: Cornell Journal of Architecture Issue 13, “Missing”

Student presenting pinned up work.

Concluding a thematic set spanning three issues and marking the 45th anniversary of its inaugural volume, this student-led publication continues to capture current thinking in the field and reinforce the importance of writing and editing in an architectural education.

In the Media A Portrait of America in 25 Buildings and Monuments

TIME — AAP Gale and Ira Drukier Dean J. Meejin Yoon (B.Arch. ’95) contributes to TIME’s celebration of vibrant urban landscapes across America, nominating the architecture of the immigrant neighborhood.

In the Media What Makes a Vanity Project? A History of Building for Power

Deutsche Welle — Professor of Architecture Esra Akcan comments on the features of grand architectural projects and what distinguishes public purpose from political vanity.

Announcements Selected Team and Exhibition for Canada at the 2027 Venice Architecture Biennale

headshots including Mark Wasiuta, Theodora Vardouli, and Farzin Lotfi-Jam

Architecture Assistant Professor Farzin Lotfi-Jam will be one of three team members representing Canada at the 20th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia with Early Warning Architecture, an exhibition that situates architecture at the center of the most urgent technological, environmental, and geopolitical issues of our time.

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