Junior/Senior · 6 weeks (June 21-August 2) · 6 credits

If you're contemplating a career in architecture, or if you'd simply like to indulge your passion for it, then this intensive program is for you.

You'll spend the mornings exploring architectural principles such as:

• Composition
• History
• Preservation
• Landscape architecture
• Planning, and
• Urban design

In addition, you'll delve into the nuts and bolts of architecture, including:

• Building construction
• Structures
• Acoustics
• Lighting
• Energy conservation, and
• Sustainability

Throughout these discussions, the class will also consider the cultural, social, and political factors involved.

You'll spend afternoons and late evenings in the architecture studio, where you'll put into practice what you learn in the mornings. Tackling a major design problem is the core of this part of the program. Small design-studio seminars, intensive individual instruction, and regular progress reviews will help you prepare for the presentation of your final project. You'll be able to add your final project, as well as a wealth of architectural drawings and models, to your portfolio.

A significant highlight of the summer is the introduction to computer-aided design. This hands-on experience is led by Cornell's world-renowned computer graphics faculty, using state-of-the-art technology. You'll also take field trips to significant sites in the area—in past years, students have visited buildings designed by Louis Kahn and Frank Lloyd Wright. Finally, you will examine works by distinguished contemporary practitioners.

You'll also enjoy the rare opportunity to use Cornell's Fine Arts Library, one of the oldest and most extensive architectural libraries in the world, and the chance to draw on the extraordinary resources of our distinguished university community. Faculty members and graduate teaching assistants in the Department of Architecture will work closely with you throughout the six weeks. There is one instructor for every ten to twelve students in the design studio.

Students successfully completing the program receive, in addition to a certificate, a total of six credits for Architecture 1110 and 1300, a letter grade for each course, and a written evaluation from their instructor. The use of the summer courses to partially or wholly fulfill basic design requirements is solely at the discretion of the institution that admits you as a degree candidate. In most cases, students receive transcript credits for the courses.

These rigorous six-week classes are open to both high school and college students and require no specialized knowledge or background, just a serious interest in design. College students should note that they must register for Architecture 1110 and 1300 through Cornell University Summer Sessions.

The cost of supplies for this program is about $350. This expense is in addition to the cost of the program.

To be eligible for this program, you must have completed your junior or senior year of high school by June 2008.

Career seminar and courses

You'll be enrolled in:

• Introduction to Architecture: Design Studio (ARCH 1110) (Mondays through Fridays, 1:30-5)
• Introduction to Architecture: Lectures (ARCH 1300) (Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 9-12)

Academic directors

Henry Richardson
"Most people live in architecture. For me architecture is more than a lifestyle. It is a passion and I live it. To actively live architecture is to dare to imagine worlds beyond the norm and to find ways of translating them into concrete palpable form. In the words of Einstein, 'If you can imagine it you can create it.' Moving continuously between the thresholds of imagination and creation, between the virtual and the real, is what living architecture is all about. I teach it, I research it in the Cornell CAVE (Computer-assisted Virtual Environment), and I practice it."

Henry Richardson is an award-winning professor of architecture in the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning as well as a licensed architect, a nationally certified city and regional planner, and an international consultant. He currently serves as a faculty fellow on Cornell's North Campus.

Vincent Mulcahy
"My life in architecture has many aspects. It is about service to others. It encompasses the sheer delight to be found in building things and in collaborating with that remarkable range of craftspeople who form and frame and fabricate. It is as well about a unique process of thinking through making which enables the architect to travel beyond the limits of unaided thought, employing the sketch, the model, and the simulation as potent tools to advance thought into uncharted conceptual territory. This dependence on the architect's devices not merely to represent but to instigate, induce, evoke, and explore is the essence of the process we call design."

Vincent Mulcahy teaches Architectural Design at Cornell, holds a Masters degree in architecture from Harvard University, is the recipient of the Rome Prize for Architectural Environmental Design, is a Fellow of The American Academy in Rome, and actively practices architecture in Ithaca, New York.

Introduction to Architecture "Starting Kit"
(The kit is available at the Cornell Store and must be purchased complete. Items are non-returnable. Prices are subject to change.)

The approximate total for the kit is $150.00 + sales tax.