Bachelor of Architecture - STEM Designated

IIT Architecture Chicago is one of the top-ranked architecture programs in the United States, and our bachelor’s program is tailor-made for undergraduates who want to make their mark on the built environment. This five-year, STEM-designated degree is accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board, allowing our graduates to become licensed architects without additional time in school.

The College of Architecture faculty comprises award-winning architects, engineers, and scholars. With their guidance, our students develop a deep understanding of design, structures, history, theory, and practice, preparing them to assume leadership roles in the profession.

Our studio-based curriculum engages the latest technologies to support a renowned heritage of making. We don’t just talk architecture here—we make it. Supported by one of the nation’s largest fabrication labs, and situated in a leading technology-focused university, IIT Architecture Chicago offers students a unique opportunity for rigorous study in an environment of deep curiosity and rigorous investigation.

Program Overview

This five-year, STEM-designated undergraduate degree is accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board, allowing graduates to become licensed architects without additional study. Studios integrate advanced digital technologies with sustainable design, collaborative thinking, and professional practice.

Through its deep commitment to a rigorous architectural education and its historic contributions to the legacy of modernism, the College of Architecture enjoys an unparalleled international reputation. With a pedagogy based on the synthesis of practice and research, the Illinois Institute of Technology offers the professional, five-year Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.). Accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), this well-established degree program prepares architects to apply visual communication, design, analytical, and professional skills to provide inventive solutions to a broad range of design problems.

Drawing strength from a lineage that reaches back to the Bauhaus, the faculty and curriculum of the college are committed by way of vigorous research to the material culture of the built environment, to a sophisticated integration of technology and design, and to a deep engagement with professional practice. The college challenges students to engage with a full range of contemporary issues, including sustainability, global urbanization, material, and structural advances, design/build integration, digital modeling and fabrication, and design theory and criticism. The students, faculty, and alumni foster an academic environment that is intellectually stimulating, professionally challenging, committed to innovation, and international in scope.

The profession of architecture is changing, due to forces both internal and external. Developments in technology offer architects new representational tools that change how projects are conceived. Digital fabrication tools provide architects with new means of realizing their projects and suggest a future in which architects move between the studio and the shop, working side-by-side with fabricators to make their visions a reality. The college prepares students to take command of these new technologies and forge a future that embraces new modes of thinking and making.

While technology is reshaping architecture within, the profession is also being affected by external forces. Economic factors and changes in project delivery are upsetting traditional power structures within the industry, while the increasing complexity of building projects is leading toward specialization within the field and the creation of new alliances. Within this rapidly-changing environment, architects of tomorrow will have to be agile, carving their own paths through the profession and authoring their own careers. The B.Arch. degree program stresses research, analysis, and synthesis as the means to prepare students for an expanding field in which resourcefulness, critical thinking, and the ability to seize opportunities and new territories of intervention will be rewarded.

As the Illinois Institute of Technology focuses on a future of global urbanism and instills in its students a profound awareness of the changing world around them, it also acknowledges what does not change, remaining true to its legacy as a place of rigorous thinking and making. Amidst new patterns of urbanization and technological advances, and against the backdrop of a changing profession, the College of Architecture is still a place where how a thing is made matters—whether it is a door, a building, or a city.

Program Specializations

• Architectural History and Theory
• Design/Build
• Digital Design
• Landscape Architecture

Why Illinois Tech is one of the best value universities in the country

As an Illinois Tech student, you’ll automatically be considered for our university’s generous institutional scholarships. On average, this adds up to a savings of $107,472 on tuition and housing for every student during your four years at Illinois Tech ($134,340 for five years, based on fall 2021 figures).

We’re committed to dramatically reducing the cost of your degree, so you can focus on learning at one of the most dynamic and innovation-driven universities in the country.

Want some more great reasons?

• On top of our institutional scholarship, on average, Illinois Tech awards our students an additional $34,412 each in need-based tuition aid over four years ($43,015 for five years). (among FAFSA filers, fall 2021)
• We’re the #44 Best Value School in the nation (U.S. News & World Report)
• 98% of our students receive some form of financial aid
• The mean starting salary of our undergraduates is $63,938

Located in the great global city of Chicago, Illinois Tech is a top-tier, nationally ranked, private research university with programs in engineering, computer science, architecture, design, science, business, human sciences, and law. As Chicago’s only comprehensive tech-focused university, Illinois Tech offers a bachelor of science, master of science, professional master’s, and Ph.D. degrees, as well as certificates, in in-demand STEM fields and other areas of innovation. Options include in-person, hybrid, and online courses. Undergraduate students can take part in dual-degree and pre-med/pre-health programs, as well as Illinois Tech’s Accelerated Master’s Program, which allows them to receive both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in as few as five years.

Illinois Tech is the only university to offer all students the Elevate program. Elevate guarantees that students participate in hands-on experiences—internships, research, competitions, study away, career-focused short courses, and more—that empower them with the twenty-first-century skills that employers seek. Elevate also ensures students receive personalized academic and career mentorship from a team of advisers and are uniquely career-ready upon graduation.

Illinois Tech is ranked #1 in Illinois among private colleges for return on investment (after aid, PayScale) and is the #44 ranked best value school in the United States (U.S. News & World Report). Illinois Tech graduates achieve a 92.8% employment rate within six months of graduation (2021 class). Its alumni include the inventor of the cell phone, the pioneer of barcode technology, and the head scientist for Amazon Alexa, among other leaders.

Students enjoy studying and living on a historic campus just minutes from downtown Chicago, which offers networking, internship, and career opportunities. Less than a mile from Lake Michigan’s stunning beaches, Illinois Tech’s campus has been acclaimed as “one of America’s most beautiful college campuses.” Illinois Tech students come from more than 106 countries and all 50 states.