Welcome
Prospective students applying to Barnard College, Columbia College, or The School of General Studies who have questions about our department are encouraged to review our Information for Prospective students page.
Current students who have questions about our course offerings or our programs of study in architecture are encouraged to review our Resources for Current Students and Frequently Asked Questions pages. Additionally, current students are welcome to schedule appointments with our faculty advisors to learn more about our department.
Apply to our Spring 2024 Courses!
Many of our courses have an application requirement. In order to receive full consideration for admission to one of these courses, you must submit an application and also register online for the course's waitlist during the upcoming early registration period (November 13-17, 2023).
Our department will accept applications on a rolling basis but will only conduct two rounds of admissions to our courses during the following weeks:
November 13-17, 2023
January 8-12, 2024
On the day that an instructor or the department admits a student from the waitlist, that student will see their status change to "Approved" on SSOL. The student will then be automatically moved from the waitlist to the class list overnight. After January 12, 2024, students who remain on the waitlist for any of our courses will need to attend the first class session and speak with the instructor to inquire if any spots have opened up.
Events
Faculty News
Feeling at Home: Hazel Lu’s Journey with Architecture
For Hazel Lu, an architecture major who is also involved in graphic design and videography, creativity helped her to find new modes of expression.
The Space Where it All Starts
"The metal double doors click open. I step into 116B Lewisohn Hall, down the main aisle, where rows of desks are housed in an entirely white room: white-painted exposed brick walls, white plaster ceilings, and white linoleum floors. Inside, students and a professor critique one student’s architectural model. Huddled together, they squint, furrow their brows, and tilt their heads to the left and to the right. The way they all lean into the discussion draws me in and makes me want to join.
“The desk,” Professor Karen Fairbanks, chair of Barnard and Columbia’s Architecture Department, explains to me in a later interview, “is the beginning of our relationship with our students.” Having taught at Columbia and Barnard for over 21 years, Fairbanks has watched and worked with hundreds of students who, hunched over their desk spaces, toil over models and develop their minds as architects."
Read About B+C|A
Thirty-four of the College’s faculty, staff, and students collaborated to publish an open-access textbook — connecting higher education to a sustainable future for the planet.
Radio hosts Tanvi Krishnamurthy ’25 and Georgia Dillane ’25 challenge colonial narratives by embracing the sounds of Bollywood, psychedelic rock, and Sinéad O’Connor.
Through this inaugural collaboration with Design Summer Institute, the College empowers and equips young women to pursue careers in architecture and design.
Barnard and Columbia Architecture’s New Year Show turns campus inside out
"Technical drawings, sketches, collages, and 3D models currently line the fourth and fifth floors of Barnard’s Diana Center and Louise McCagg Gallery as Barnard and Columbia Architecture transformed the space into a dynamic hotspot of architectural design for its annual New Year Show. Exhibitions of campus turned inside out, indoor-outdoor pigeon habitats, and wearable architecture are only a small sample of the vast repertoire of student work on display."
