Following the path of architecture as a career is without any doubt a good choice. It’s a noble and highly respected profession where you have a direct influence on the environment around you as well as the delight of helping communities improve their quality of life. It also happens to pay well as a job. However, no one can deny that becoming an architect is not that easy. It requires a huge sense of commitment and dedication to study and a lot of resolve in the very competitive job market. That’s why from which architecture school you get your degree is also as important as the effort you’re going to invest.
Based on the QS University Rankings, which take into account a variety of factors; such as academic reputation, employer reputation, and research impact, we provide you with a list of the world’s top 10 colleges and universities for studying Architecture in 2019.
10. Tsinghua University, China | Architecture Schools
The Department of Architecture of Tsinghua University was established by the renowned architectural scholar Liang Sicheng in Oct. 1946 and transferred to the School of Architecture, in 1988, comprised of the Department of Architecture and the Department of Urban Planning. In 2001 and 2003, the Department of Building Science and Technology and the Department of Landscape Architecture were separately founded, and all the departments above have been made up of the four departments of the current School.
During the development over the past seventy years, Tsinghua School of Architecture has been maintaining distinctive features and advantages in the aspects of personnel training, scientific research, theoretical innovation, creative practice, and international exchanges.
9. Manchester School of Architecture, United Kingdom
Manchester School of Architecture (MSA) is an innovative collaboration between Manchester Metropolitan University and The University of Manchester. It unites two schools with more than 100 years of experience, over 35 experts in their architectural fields, and more than 700 students from over 50 countries producing creative, challenging, and academically rigorous work and research in the heart of Manchester which kept them consistently ranked as one of the top schools in the UK and the whole world.
MSA has gained a reputation for the variety, vitality, and quality of work, and achievement of its students and alumni. This is reflected in their appraisals by professional bodies like the Architects Registration Board (ARB), Royal Institute for British Architects (RIBA), and The Landscape Institute, alongside the number and variety of prizes, gained externally.
8. National University of Singapore | Best Architecture Colleges in World
NUS Architecture is Asia’s premier school of design, architecture, landscape, and urbanism. Led by a multidisciplinary and international faculty, they champion design excellence through a vision of ‘Architecture for Asia’. They advance impactful architectural solutions in the heart of Asia, and in the tropical center of the world. Their design and research vision respond specifically to the challenges of the equator.
NUS is continuously growing to meet the needs of its international student population and the rapidly evolving environment around them. They offer six different programs including landscape architecture, urban design, urban planning, and integrated sustainable design. The faculty and alumni comprise prestigious award winners including the Singapore President Design Award, World Architecture Festival Awards (WAF), International Architectural Award, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Awards, American Institute of Architects Awards (AIA), Society of American Registered Architect Awards (SARA) and Architectural Design Awards Singapore (SIA).
7. University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
The Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge is part of the Faculty of Architecture and History of Art. Both Departments are housed in Scroope Terrace on Trumpington Street.
Although it’s considered small compared to other schools, the Department continues to grow and it is now several years running that the graduate intake is larger than the undergraduates. There are close to 300 students in total in the Department and around 30 staff members, composed of full-time academic staff and part-time Design Fellows from highly successful practices based in London.
6. University of California Berkeley, United States
The College of Environmental Design (CED) at the University of California stands among the nation’s top environmental design schools. It is one of the world’s most distinguished laboratories for experimentation, research, and intellectual synergy. The first school to combine the disciplines of architecture, planning, and landscape architecture into a single college, CED led the way toward an integrated approach to analyzing, understanding, and designing our built environment.
5. Harvard University, United States | Architecture Schools
The Harvard Graduate School of Design (also known as The GSD) is the professional graduate school at Harvard University, located at Gund Hall, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The GSD offers master’s and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, urban design, real estate, design engineering, and design studies. The GSD has over 13,000 alumni and has graduated many famous architects, urban planners, and landscape architects. The school is considered a global academic leader in the design field. The GSD has the world’s oldest landscape architecture program (founded in 1893), and North America’s oldest urban planning program (founded in 1900). Architecture courses were first taught at Harvard University in 1874. The Graduate School of Design was officially established in 1936, combining the three fields of architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture under one graduate school. The market value of the school’s endowment for the fiscal year 2016 was approximately $428 million.
4. ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Switzerland
As the leading Swiss institution of higher education in the technical and natural sciences, ETH Zurich has also proven itself at the highest international level. The Department of Architecture (D-ARCH) is one of the most highly regarded faculties of architecture in the world. It owes its prominent position to both the high quality of the teaching and the outstanding results of the research. This well-established approach to teaching and research, representing a long tradition, manifests itself in the structure of flexible design studios that work in close cooperation with the institutes, and it is experienced throughout all phases of Bachelor and Master Studies at the D-ARCH as a holistic and open programme.
3. Delft University of Technology, Netherlands | Best Architecture Colleges in World
The Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft, established in 1904, has a leading role in the area of architecture education and research in the broadest sense. Some three thousand students, hundreds of researchers, lecturers, and professors follow or provide education there, do research, and support work in a dynamic, distinctive, and internationally oriented environment. The Faculty’s aim is to educate students to become excellent architectural engineers: from building technologists and urbanists to architects, landscape architects, real estate experts, and geodata specialists, working at both national and international levels. It has a strong international community with over 30% of foreign Master’s students and staff from 42 countries.
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States
The MIT School of Architecture and Planning (MIT SAP) is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. Founded in 1865 by William Robert Ware, the School offered the first formal architectural curriculum in the United States, and the first architecture program in the world operating within the establishment of a University. MIT SAP is considered a global academic leader in the design fields and one of the most prestigious schools in the world as it was on the top world ranking in QS World University Rankings for the last 4 years.
1. The Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL, United Kingdom
The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment (The Bartlett) is the Faculty of the Built Environment of University College London (UCL), part of the University of London in England. It is home to the Bartlett School of Architecture and The Bartlett School of Planning, two of the leading architecture and urban planning schools in the world. Building on a long tradition of innovation and ingenuity, The Bartlett School of Architecture has 261 staff of 32 different nationalities, all of whom continue to explore new challenges with a passion for inventiveness, intelligence, effectiveness, and wit. In the past 20 years, their students have received more RIBA medals than any other school. Many have gone on to occupy leading roles in established practices worldwide and are now part of their vibrant alumni network.
