Summer 2012 registration is now open!  Explore courses by browsing your program of interest.  Learn more about the registration process and register online here.  Browse the Catalog or download the full PDF!

For more information or to register click on the links below or call 617-585-0101 or email at pce@the-bac.edu.

For courses and workshops with the Landscape Institute click here.

For courses and workshops with the Sustainable Design Institute click here.

The Boston Architectural College is pleased to announce that Karen Nelson has been named Head of the BAC's Architecture program. As we diversify our programs to better anticipate the requirements of professional design practice, the need has grown for program leaders who collaborate across the disciplines of architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture. Karen Nelson's work as a visionary in this regard during her tenure at the BAC is exceptional.

Photo left: Karen Nelson, Head, School of Architecture

Photo by: Liz Linder Photography

Summer Academy at the BAC is a 4-week design exploration program where high school students build fundamental architecture and design skills working in the BAC design studios. At the February Open House we will tour the BAC campus, answer your questions and give you an overview of the range of design projects students address during the month of July.

Photo by Matt Gelineau

The fall Honors & Awards Student Recognition Event is held each year to acknowledge and celebrate the academic achievements of students who have received merit-based awards and scholarships over the course of the academic year. Student award recipients, staff, faculty, board members and key donors are invited to a reception and awards presentation during the evening where food, drink and music are provided and students receive certificates for their respective awards. Click here to see the full gallery.

Caption left: Honors & Awards Fall 2011 at the Algonquin Club. Photo by Bonica Ayala.

Current efforts to improve our urban environments focus on creating "smart cities" through new technologies, but they are falling short - our environments need to become smart, socially, with people. We need to focus our efforts on creating "socializing cities" through an intelligent programming of spaces, by taking advantage of the vast multitude of lifestyles, age groups, and experiences that exist in urban environments, by empowering every person to live life to the fullest for themselves, and consequently for the whole. Matthias Hollwich explores a new way for society to deal with urbanism, by outlining how we refocus our efforts towards people, and how architecture and urbanism can be re-engineered to support new living typologies, service proximities, social relevance and space.

Caption Left: Matthias Hollwich lectures students at the BAC. Photo by Mikkel Stromstad.

Explore the Spain 2011 study abroad gallery of images and join the eleven BAC students who traveled to Spain with Richard Griswold, Associate Provost and Dean of Students, and Jovi Cruces, Senior Associate at Dimella Shaffer Associates. The students were based in Madrid, with excursions to Toledo, Segovia, Cordoba, Barcelona, and more.

Associate Provost and Dean of Students Richard Griswold welcomes new and returning students to the BAC.  

More

5.4 | 6 PM | Cascieri Hall

DAVID HACIN, Hacin + Associates
THE INCREMENTAL CITY: BUILDING NEIGHBORHOODS, PUSHING BOUNDARIES

Sponsored by Atelier, your Student Government

Each spring, the Boston Architectural College appoints a Distinguished Visiting Critic to conduct an advanced studio for those seeking to study with highly accomplished design practitioners. A grant from the Hideo Sasaki Foundation enabled the BAC to appoint the team of Behnisch Architekten and Transsolar KlimaEngineering as the 2011 Hideo Sasaki Distinguished Visiting Critics. More...

Photo by Liz Linder 

The BAC's innovative, practice-based curriculum integrates professional design practice more extensively than tradition co-op programs. Most BAC students compliment their academic studies with full-time work within firms and community-based activities.

At graduation 80% of BAC students already are experienced design professionals, with a professional portfolio, resume and network already established. Our faculty of practicing designers understand the skills needed for success in today's challenging and increasingly global design environment.

BAC graduates are consistently cited as being among the most prepared for the design challenges of the 21st century. Employers value the skills and practical approach BAC students bring, and many of our students have risen to an advanced position within a firm by the time they complete their degree at the BAC.

Many of the BAC's most successful students and graduates began their studies elsewhere and transfer to the BAC after taking coursework or completing programs at other institutions. The BAC welcomes transfer students from any major of study at both the undergraduate and graduate level, and is still accepting transfer application for fall 2012. Learn More.

Through a distance/ low-residency program that includes brief periods of intensive study in Boston, the BAC's online Master of Design Studies in Sustainable Design creates leaders of the green building revolution. In classes with leading practitioners and thinkers in the field, students acquire the technical expertise, leadership skills, and resolve required for the vital work of transforming how we create and occupy our buildings and communities.

Video by Matt Gelineau and Bonica Ayala

David Lewis AIA is a principal at Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis (LTL Architects), a design intensive architecture firm founded in 1997 by Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki and David J. Lewis, located in New York City.

LTL's methodology of practice combines intensive research with a design approach that strives to make extraordinary architecture by creatively engaging the programmatic requirements, economic imperatives, and technological demands of the project at hand.

Essential to this approach is the belief that architecture can and should intensify the social. We maintain that architecture is most interesting when it engages people and collective situations, and therefore we have purposely focused the majority of our work on spaces that address the public - whether cultural, institutional or hospitality based.

Photo by Bonica Ayala

"Stories are often an aspect that remains untold or hidden behind our projects; yet we feel that they are the reason that gives depth to certain projects, going beyond just what we see. They are often the very motor to projects." - Brendan MacFarlane.

In his lecture, Brendan explained the stories behind his work, how they have developed and gave form and meaning.

View the gallery.

Malden, MA, December 14, 2011 - Dozens of residents packed the Lower Gallery of the Malden Public Library to view and discuss new visions for the Malden River, as part of the first ever "Malden River Design Forum." The event was hosted by Tri-City Community Action Program, Inc. (Tri-CAP), as part of its Mystic River Watershed Environmental Justice Initiative, along with partners: the Mystic River Watershed Association, the Boston Architectural College, the Malden Public Library, and the Malden Redevelopment Authority. More 

Featured work: David Burn, M.Arch, Malden River project proposal: Parking Forest

David Burn, Master of Architecture

President Landsmark notes with sadness the passing of Mayor Kevin White who served for 16 years and transformed the City of Boston. Ted Landsmark, who served directly for Mayor White during his administration, gathered with significant City policymakers to remember Mayor Kevin White, who led Boston through some of the most tumultuous times in the city's history. Kevin White died on Friday, January 27 at age 82.

BAC News posts news articles and broadcast videos concerning The Boston Architectural College. All content is copyrighted, and any duplication or further dissemination may require permission of the copyright owner.

Means and Methods is the construction industry term for the way something is built or fabricated. It is also designates a territory outside the realm of architecture. It is explicitly extra-architectural, a kind of forbidden territory. Much of design relies on understanding how things come together, tolerances, properties, where materials come from, where the materials may end up in the future. These broadened understandings of architecture are not just important to the design process, they are essential in creating a more expansive definition of what it is that architects do. The lecture will present a number of extra-territorial projects by Höweler + Yoon Architecture and the processes and products of their expanded practice.

Caption Left: Eric Höweler

Photo by: Mikkel Stromstad

The past few years have seen dramatic changes in the practice of profession design. Overseers and Trustees came together for a President's Breakfast with Ted Landsmark for a dialogue to learn how the Boston Architectural College is altering its approach to design education in response to these significant shifts and to discuss the importance of our program's interdisciplinary and global focus and explore the future of design education.
In addition to President Ted Landsmark, presentations were made by Provost Julia Halevy, Acting Head of Architecture Karen Nelson, Head of Interior Design Crandon Gustafson, Head of Design Studies Don Hunsicker, Head of Practice Len Charney, Head of Landscape Architecture Maria Bellalta, and Director of Global Initiatives Sharon Matthews.

Caption left: President Ted Landsmark and Valerie Fletcher at the President's Breakfast.  Photo by Matt Gelineau.

The Boston Architectural College is hosting two live online information sessions Thursday, September 22, 2011. We will take questions and cover topics such as:

• What to expect from a low-residency online program
• Curriculum
• Career opportunities
• How to apply and more

Click on the programs below for details and access to the two scheduled information sessions:

• Master of Design Studies (7:00-7:45 PM Eastern Standard Time)
• Distance Master of Architecture (8:00 - 8:45 PM Eastern Standard Time)

For more information please contact the Admissions Office at admissions@the-bac.edu or +617-585-0123.

Boston, a national leader in green building, is promoting the next generation of high performance deep green buildings. The E+ Green Building Program will demonstrate the feasibility of regenerative multi-unit residential buildings and bring energy and environmentally positive homes to Boston's neighborhoods.

The BAC is proud to host an exhibition of proposal submissions in McCormick Gallery.

The Landscape Institute: ASLA 2010 Recipient of Award for Excellence in Residential Design On Good Design

Guest Lecturer Aart Oxenaar presented Cascieri 19: Educating Architects for a Transforming City as part of the Spring 2011 Cascieri Lectureship in the Humanities.  He explored the concurrent education model and the ways in which it supports architecture schools in remaining open to the changing demands of society. More...

Photo by Liz Linder 

Janice Barnes, Global Discipline Leader for Planning and Strategies at Perkins + Will, will interpret Workplace Trends, Active Design and overall wellness in the built environment through the lens of Transparency.

Transparency is the name of a new website launched by Perkins + Will in November of 2011. The site is a virtual depot of information about toxins, asthma triggers, and carcinogens commonly found in the built environment. The result of research that the firm has been developing since 2002, the information is now compiled and available to architects and designers from any firm, large or small, with the goal of developing healthier and more sustainable environments.

3.29 // 7PM
BRENDAN MACFARLANE
Founding Principal, Jakob + MacFarlane
STORIES | HISTOIRES
Cascieri 20: Lectureship in the Humanities

4.10 // 6PM
MICHAEL MURPHY, ALAN RICKS & SIERRA BAINBRIDGE
MASS Design Group (MASS)
TOWARDS AN ARCHITECTURE (OF IMPACT)
Exhibition: Buidings that Heal
Sponsored by the Hideo Saski Foundation

4.18 // 6PM
NETTE COMPTON
Director of Green Infrastructure
New York City's Department of Parks and Recreation
GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE IN NYC: LESSONS LEARNED FROM BUILDING IN THE PUBLIC REALM

4.25 // 6PM
JANICE BARNES
Principal and Global Discipline Leader for Planning + Strategies
Perkins + Will
TRANSPARENCY@WORK

5.1 // 6PM
DAVID LEWIS
Founding Principal, Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis (LTL Architects)
INTENSITIES

Student Lecture Series Sponsored by Atelier

50 Select Exhibitors from across the United States offering fine art, photography, jewelry, furniture, glass, ceramics, sculpture, fine prints, drawings, and more at the only show and sale of its kind in New England.  Produced by Fusco & Four/Ventures, LLC.

Image left: Dragonfly Lounge Chair and Ottoman

Courtesy of Sebastian Carpenter Design (MA)

The BAC Alumni Board recently welcomed back Representative Chris Walsh, for an evening of conversation about his path to the legislature, and discussion of projects and legislation of interest to the design community. Representative Walsh is in his first term in the State Legislature. He sits on the Tourism, Arts and Cultural Committee, Transportation Committee, and the Committee on Children and Families, Persons with Disabilities. He has been an architect in Framingham for more than 25 years and is the only registered Architect in the legislature.

Representative Chris Walsh and President Ted Landsmark

Photo by Bonica Ayala

The Thesis Proposal Exhibition is an in-progress exhibition by the Thesis Seminar Students of the thesis abstract, sketch design drawing(s), sketch design model(s), site analysis and case study proposal(s) assembled onto one design board for exhibition. Click here to see full gallery.

Caption left: Thomas Parks, Director of Distance Master of Architecture and Joe Stromer, Thesis Student.

Photo by Bonica Ayala

Eponymous Practice. Like never before, the technologically de minimus globe on which we live enables broader geographical reach for all types of practitioners, but perhaps, most particularly for small firms. Consider the 5 year practice of the Klopfer Martin Design Group based in Cambridge, MA to learn about 3 projects at 3 scales on 3 continents and how its partners reject the idea of ‘firm profiling' in defining their practice.

Caption Left: Belarus Holocaust Memorial rendering by KMDG

Summer Academy 2011 captures the work of high school students working in the Boston Architectural College studios during the month of July. Students build design skills in freehand sketching, perspective drawing and collage, model-making, mapping and diagramming as they explore creative solutions to architectural problems at the scale of the body, the building and the city. At BAC Summer Academy high school students see how the world looks differently through the eyes of a designer.

Felice Silverman '92, IIDA was nominated and selected to receive the Distinguished Alumni in Service Award by her alumni peers for the contributions she has made to the community through her practice of Interior Design.

Felice earned a Professional Certificate in Interior Design from the BAC in 1992, and is currently President and Principal at Silverman Trykowski Associates, Inc. in Boston, Massachusetts. She contributes to the design community through her leadership in the International Interior Design Association (IIDA), and serves the BAC community through her support of students and role in governance.

On the 16th of November 2010, design educators, practitioners, thought leaders and those who work to envision the future of our cities gathered, pre-Build Boston, at the Seaport World Trade Center Boston, to imagine the future of design education. Catalysts: Kermit Baker, Chief Economist for the American Institute of Architects; Steve Brittan, Burt Hill; Jim Cramer, The Greenway Group, and Ted Landsmark of The Boston Architectural College presented to the group, punctuated by working sessions in which roundtable groups raised questions and proposed solutions, imagined what collaborative thinking teams might look like, and envisioned new educational models. 

David Lewis AIA is a principal at Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis (LTL Architects), a design intensive architecture firm founded in 1997 by Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki and David J. Lewis, located in New York City.

LTL's methodology of practice combines intensive research with a design approach that strives to make extraordinary architecture by creatively engaging the programmatic requirements, economic imperatives, and technological demands of the project at hand.

Essential to this approach is the belief that architecture can and should intensify the social. We maintain that architecture is most interesting when it engages people and collective situations, and therefore we have purposely focused the majority of our work on spaces that address the public - whether cultural, institutional or hospitality based.

Photo by Bonica Ayala

David Burn is a Master of Architecture student at the Boston Architectural College. As part of the semester-long course, Natural System Studio, David and fellow students developed architectural and landscape designs for the Malden River corridor. Below is David's design proposal: Parking Forest.

Featured work: David Burn, M.Arch, Malden River project proposal: Parking Forest
David Burn, Master of Architecture

The 5th Gala Preview Party was elegant and fun. It was a grand occasion to meet and network with people from throughout the design community including designers, curators, dealers, builders, developers, architects, preservationists, collectors, artists, alumni, staff, faculty, students and others that comprise the extended BAC community. The AD20/21 show is produced by Fusco & Four/Ventures, LLC. We extend our sincere thanks to Tony Fusco and Bob Four for producing a remarkable show and for including the BAC in their growing success.

Each spring the BAC invites the Hideo Sasaki Distinguished Visiting Critics to exhibit work, lecture and conduct an advanced studio for those seeking to study with highly accomplished practitioners who foster the concepts of collaboration and integration. This year the BAC presents the Mass Design Group, a not-for-profit firm, that creates well-built environments using appropriate design, local investment, and innovation to break the cycle of poverty. MASS collaborates with governments, NGOs, private sector firms, and health care experts to advocate for the most underserved and provide scalable models of community-based development and training.

Video by MASS DESIGN GROUP

Mr. Wolf will present a talk on the infusion of global design and style into his work, and will sign copies of his books Lifting the Curtain on Design and Crossing Boundaries: A Global Vision of Design.

Complimentary admission is available for BAC students and faculty.

Image left: Vicente Wolf

Courtesy of Vicente Wolf Associates, Inc.

The BAC is one of six architecture programs named as recipients of the 2011 NCARB Grant for the Integration of Practice and Education in the Academy. With this grant, The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards supports accredited architecture programs' efforts to create academic initiatives that will have a long-term, ongoing impact on architecture education in the academy with programs that strive for innovation in architecture education. The Committee was especially impressed with the proposal to involve non-faculty architect practitioners in the education of future architects.

Photo left: Andy Miller M.Arch Student in practice at Meyer and Meyer Architects

Photo by: Bonica Ayala

Registration is now open! For more information call 617-585-0101 or email at pce@the-bac.edu.

For Professional & Continuing Education course offerings click here.

For Sustainable Design Institute course offerings click here.

The Boston Architectural College is pleased to announce that Maria Bellalta has been named Head of the BAC's Landscape Architecture program. Her professional credentials include practice with Sasaki Associates, Copley Wolff Design, and Martha Swartz Partners. She has worked on planning and landscape projects throughout the United States and Western Europe, with an emphasis on urban sustainability. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame, and from the Landscape Architecture program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She has taught at Harvard, at the Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Chile, and at the Boston Architectural College. "Understanding the principles of urban ecology and landscape design is essential for designing and maintaining sustainable communities," she has said. "I am very excited about joining forward-thinking design peers in enabling future designers to address the issues of building environmentally sustainable cities."

The BAC invites you to watch the video of the week-long Fall 2011 Intensives from our low-residency Masters of Design Studies in Historic Preservation in Boston. The Intensives included hands-on workshops in historic documentation and craft, and immersion in Boston's rich historical environment. For more information on the program click here.

Caption left: A group of MDS Historic Preservation Students building a traditional timber frame. Video by Matt Gelineau.

The BAC Alumni Association welcomes BAC alums and friends to join in honoring the 2011 recipients of the Distinguished Alumni in Practice Award, recognizing the contributions made to the design community through the practice of both Architecture and Interior Design.

The Boston Architectural College is pleased to announce the appointment of Crandon Gustafson, IIDA, ASID, AIA, LEED AP to the position of Head of the School of Interior Design. Crandon is an educator, interior designer and architect. He was most recently Director of the Center for Professional Development at Harrington College of Design in Chicago, and served prior to that as the school's Department Chair for Interior Design. He has taught graduate and undergraduate interior design studios, history, theory and practice courses.

In photo: Crandon Gustafson, BAC Head of the School of Interior Design and President Ted Landsmark.

Photo by Liz Linder Photography

The Boston Architectural College partnered with Fusco & Four to bring to Boston the 4th annual AD20/21: Art & Design of the 20th and 21st Centuries, at the Cyclorama in Boston's South End.   

The four-day event began with a Gala Preview Party to benefit the Boston Architectural College.  Special guests Massimo and Lela Vignelli were honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award and gave a presentation that traced the pivotal stages in their design careers.  Approximately 600 guests attended the Gala...more.  

Home page photo: Josh Castellano, BAC Student; President Ted Landsmark 

David Burn is a Master of Architecture student at the Boston Architectural College. As part of the semester-long course, Natural System Studio, David and fellow students developed architectural and landscape designs for the Malden River corridor. Below is David's design proposal: Parking Forest.

Featured work: David Burn, M.Arch, Malden River project proposal: Parking Forest
David Burn, Master of Architecture

A considered Life, as opposed to a merely reasonable one, does not take anyone else's opinion into account and relies solely on you. Which is why, even in my own practice, I was never all that interested in architecture as a collection of lines and objects, my reaction to the nonsensical argument that "he with the most toys wins" but instead was captivated by the stories they can tell, alone or together, by how they can enrich the human experience. Design-at-large, I will submit, is not about technique, style, decoration or even innovation but existence at large, about finding yourself within a context that inspires you to do things that only you can think of, to live an interesting life which may, in turn, lead to interesting architecture. - Stefan Boublil

The Heroic Soldier is representative of all that is courageous, selfless, determined, and unified. Together we feel the LOSS, brought by tragedies of war. Together we are STRONG, to support one another. Together we SACRIFICE, to give and serve one another. Together we are BRAVE. Together we are Heroes.

Summer Academy at the BAC is a four-week design exploration program for high school students. Participants engage in a variety of hands-on experiences, including the construction of scale models, experimentation with a range of design techniques, site field trips, and firm visits. They explore inhabitation, navigation and repose - designers' most salient challenges - in the BAC studios during the month of July. Students employ freehand sketching, collage, model-making, mapping and diagramming to develop designs at the scale of the body, the building and the city. They prototype chairs, design dwellings and develop plans for ecologically significant urban open space.

Join BAC instructor Leslie-jon Vickory for a one week travel intensive that focuses on Maison et Objet, the international design tradeshow held twice yearly in Paris. Through field sketching, design charettes, product sourcing and research projects, you will explore Paris from a designer's point of view.

The BAC selects one student annually to receive the John Worthington Ames Scholarship to pursue self-directed design study.  Past Ames scholars reunited earlier this year to share the unique experiences they had as recipients of the award. More...

Watercolors on home page and left are by Laurie Soave while traveling through Italy on the Ames Scholarship

Each spring the BAC invites the Hideo Sasaki Distinguished Visiting Critics to exhibit work, lecture and conduct an advanced studio for those seeking to study with highly accomplished practitioners who foster the concepts of collaboration and integration. This year the BAC hosted the Mass Design Group, a not-for-profit firm, that creates well-built environments using appropriate design, local investment, and innovation to break the cycle of poverty. MASS collaborates with governments, NGOs, private sector firms, and health care experts to advocate for the most underserved and provide scalable models of community-based development and training.

Nette Compton, Director of Green Infrastructure for the City of New York Parks Department, is a landscape architect who has served as project manager for the High Performance Landscape Guidelines and now works on implementing them throughout the city in partnership with DEP and their Green Infrastructure Plan. She is involved with several sustainability initiatives within the Parks Department, other agencies and the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability.

This Urban Forum reviews the past several decades of development along Boston's High Spine and Washington Street corridor. Speakers discuss lessons to be learned, positive and negative, that can help guide future development and historic preservation as Boston's economy recovers, and in the decades to come. Beyond the impacts of individual buildings, the forum addresses city and district character, rates of change and transformation, economic composition and changes, and quality of life issues.

Martha Schwartz FASLA, Hon. FRIBA, Hon. RDI, Hon. DSc Principal delivered the 2nd lecture in our 2011 Student Lecture Series, The Softer Side of Sustainability.

"We must expand our remit to advocate for the regeneration and densification of our cities, and within this goal, our role as landscape architects expands exponentially. Our understanding of all the operative systems, both ‘hard' [technical] and ‘soft' [emotional, political, cultural] are our core areas of knowledge. We must grasp the task at hand in its expanse and complexities, and step up to the plate in our advocacy of sustainability at the urban scale. For as long as we trail behind the architects by ‘greening' their buildings, we are simply fiddling while Rome burns." - Martha Schwartz

Video by Matt Gelineau

The distance track of the BAC's Master of Architecture program features a week-long Intensive residency in Boston each semester that is packed with work in studio, field trips, and hands-on critiques. This incredibly active week of interaction fuels the semester by forming social bonds between students that heighten the value of learning online. This video from the August 2011 intensive capture a bit of the exploration that Distance M.Arch students engage in.

Practice continues to provide students with opportunities to get involved with real world projects, work with dedicated teams, and develop excellent experience and portfolio content. Join us for the third Gateway Initiative Open House in McCormick Gallery to learn about new and ongoing projects and how to get involved.

Designed in Boston, written by Don Robert Brown, AIA Emeritus and published by the Boston Architectural College, is a journal-history of the BAC, celebrating the first 120 years of the Institution.

Established in 1889, the BAC has remained true to its founding principles of affordability, accessibility, and practice-based learning.  Support the values and legacy of the BAC by pre-ordering a copy of Designed in Boston today.  The cost is $100, and proceeds will cover the design and production.

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Chris Johnson a Bachelor of Design Studies student at the Boston Architectural College won second place in the 7th Annual Extreme Redesign 3D Printing Challenge.  This past fall, Chris enrolled in VS638: Robotic Arm Fabrication a course hosted by Radlab and taught by Matthew Trimble. More...