The Department of Architecture offers an array of foreign study options in locations such as Australia, Japan, Mexico City, Rome and Scandinavia. Programs range in length from quarter long to short term study during university breaks and may be faculty led or based on an individual student exchange. International programs offer students an opportunity to directly experience architecture, urbanism, and other cultures gaining exposure to local-global and historical as well as the contemporary aspects of architecture.
UW students can also find additional foreign study options at the UW Study Abroad Office in 459 Schmitz Hall.
Japan
This Spring Quarter program is typically offered every other year under the guidance of Professor Ken Tadashi Oshima. Students travel during Spring Break to Japan exploring both traditional and modern architecture visiting cities such as Tokyo, Sendai, Nara, Kyoto and Kanazawa. Studio coursework is completed back in Seattle during the Spring Quarter. Past offerings include:
Metabolic Urbanism: Tokyo to Seattle (2017)
JAPAN at the Crossroads of Time & Space (2015)
Metabolic Urbanism on the Pacific Rim (2013)
Cultural Crossroads: Constructing a Japanese Cultural Center of Washington (2009)
Mexico
The UW Department of Architecture offers a study program in Mexico. Students live and work in downtown Mexico City, with the studio workspace in Luis Barragan’s studio located within the Museo Casa Barragan. The program of study has addressed the geography, history, urban design, housing, and architecture of Mexico. Site tours have been diverse to cover the broad historical, cultural, and economical range that constitutes the metropolis of Mexico City, and included excursions outside of the city as well as office visits to numerous architectural firms. Local architects Javier Sanchez, Mauricio Rocha, Gabriela Carrillo, Felix Sanchez, Diego Ricalde, Francisco Pardo, Paloma Vera, Victor Alcerrica, Laura Jenka, and Tatiana Bilbao have served as studio critics and assisted in leading site visits.
Rome
The Architecture in Rome program, offered in Autumn Quarter is based in the Palazzo Pio at the UW Rome Center. Students experience in depth the richness of Rome’s architecture and urban design. The AIR program is open to undergraduate and graduate students in architecture and related disciplines. Classroom lecture/discussion sessions address the many facets of the cultural development of Rome and Italy, including geography, history, urban design and architecture. Courses in history of Italian architecture, architectural graphics, architectural design as well as in Italian language are integral to the program.
Scandinavia
Valle Scholarship Program
The Valle Scholarship & Scandinavian Exchange Program supports the exchange of graduate students between the University of Washington and institutions and organizations in the Nordic countries and Baltic states for periods of 3 to 6 months. This exchange enriches students’ educational experience through international perspective and experience in the fields of civil and environmental engineering, architecture, landscape design, urban planning, and construction management. The program is unique in that students are fully funded and receive a monthly stipend, tuition and travel to and from their destination.
Exchange Program in Denmark: Aarhus School of Architecture
The UW Department of Architecture has an exchange agreement with the Aarhus School of Architecture in Aarhus, Denmark. Undergraduate and graduate students can apply to attend Aarhus School of Architecture for one or two semesters. US citizens who apply for this exchange are also eligible to apply for funding via the Scan|Design Fellowship.
Scan Design Foundation Studios
- Scan Design Foundation Master Urban Design and Landscape Studio + Travel: This travel study program for graduate students begins each September with a tour of Copenhagen and the Øresund region. Students gain first-hand knowledge of the methods of Gehl Architects and study the public spaces advanced by the firm, in addition to other examples of sustainable planning and design in the region. They then apply this knowledge in an interdisciplinary master studio, in which landscape architecture, urban design, and architecture students develop design ideas for a Seattle-based project. A master teacher from a Danish urban design firm will participate in the studio.
- Scan Design Foundation Master Architecture Studio + Travel: Each year, the Department of Architecture invites a distinguished practitioner/teacher from Denmark to teach a master design studio here in Seattle. The Scan|Design Foundation provides funding to help cover the costs of a trip to Copenhagen before Autumn term to meet the year’s visiting professor, to visit her/his office, and to see some of the firm’s work. Applications to apply for this studio and its travel component are available to architecture students in late winter/early spring quarter.
- Scan Design Foundation Master Furniture Studio + Travel: The Department of Architecture welcomes a distinguished practitioner/teacher from Denmark to teach a master furniture studio here at the UW during the spring term of every year. The College has received funding to help cover the costs of a student/faculty trip to Copenhagen in conjunction with the studio to explore the history of Danish Furniture design and meet with the distinguished practitioner.
- Scan Design Foundation Architecture Internship Program: With funding from the Scan|Design Foundation, the Architecture Internship Program has established six-month internships with three architecture firms in Copenhagen – COBE Architects, Dorte Mandrup A/S and EFFEKT Architects. Scan|Design interns will receive a standard Danish internship stipend, a supplemental living allowance and travel allowance. The Scan|Design Foundation stipulates that you must be a U.S. citizen in order to participate in the program. In order to obtain the proper visa from the Danish government you are required to be under the age of 35 at the start of the internship.
Berlin
From a Cold War island between East and West, Berlin has transformed into the real and symbolic capital of German reunification and a nexus of European integration. We will engage Berlin as a stage of heterogeneous, often conflicting scenarios, a stage of the stories, strategies, and struggles of global urbanization. We will discuss the city as a site where the past is a set of histories, the present a plurality of events, and the future a multiplicity of possibilities to be addressed in meetings with city officials, professionals, artists, and urban activists. To explore their spatial implications, we will visit the past and present symbols of geopolitical projection, the airports, the governmental buildings, and World Heritage Sites of museums, the contested sites of marginalized and gentrifying neighborhoods, the experimental sites of Berlin’s creative industries, informal housing, and urban gardening.
The program is organized as a course-trilogy of “stories,” “strategies,” and “struggles,” consisting, of a seminar and a design studio, as well as independent study and guest lectures. The partnership with Humboldt University and collaborations with peers from Berlin’s other universities will allow the development of “comparative urban pedagogies” (Jane M. Jacobs), a spectrum of different approaches to and methods of global urbanism.