Master of Architectural Design and Urbanism (M.ADU)

The Notre Dame School of Architecture graduate programs in architecture and urban design promote built environments that are durable, useful, and beautiful, and which are supportive of strong communities. The School seeks to train designers, scholars, preservationists, and advocates for the built environment who will play a leading role in their professions and may translate their skills and advocacy to a variety of disciplines and arenas.

Toward these ends, the graduate curriculum promotes a holistic approach to design education and the understanding of detail, building, and city as a continuous and interdependent scalar spectrum. It engages both intellectual endeavor and the practical teaching of craft in order that the best lessons of historic precedent might be learned, expanded upon, and combined with a judicious use of contemporary strategies, materials, and methodologies in order to contribute toward buildings and urbanism which are environmentally and culturally sustainable.

Until recently, the School of Architecture graduate programs offered two different “tracks”, focused respectively on classical architecture and urban design. The intent was to offer students an opportunity, for two semesters following their foundational semester(s), to delve into the particular issues of one scale or the other. As part of the School’s recent decision to reinforce the inseparability of building design and urbanism, students are no longer required to select one of two tracks which have been seen by some as disparate fields of study. The unbundling of the course selections does not eliminate any of the courses that made up the two tracks. Instead, these courses may now be selected by students on an a la carte basis, allowing greater flexibility for students interested in exploring multiple scales and issues in greater depth.