Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urbanism | UBC Undergraduate Programs and Admissions

Take your passion for design and urban environments to the next level in UBC’s Design in Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urbanism program. Through small studios and intimate seminars, you’ll learn how design impacts society and the environment, and how the shaping of space can effect cultural change.

Why this program?

Study with an award-winning faculty of internationally renowned experts
Learn in small studios and intimate seminars that allow for low student-to-faculty ratios
Gain practical experience and mentorship in active design-build projects

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Program information

Campus: Vancouver
Faculty: School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
Degree: Bachelor of Design in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urbanism

Length 4 yrs
Co-op Yes
You can combine your studies with full-time, paid work at top local and international organizations.
Honours Yes
You can study intense specialization in a single field.

The Bachelor of Design in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urbanism program explores the connectedness of design across multiple scales – from the body to the city. The program revolves around a core design studio sequence that begins with foundational skills and culminates in the design of complex spaces. You’ll build a strong foundation in critical thinking and the practical skills necessary to create environments that are socially and ecologically sustainable. Additional courses in history, theory, media, technology, and professional practice contribute to a holistic design curriculum.

Experiential learning and research

Build a deep disciplinary foundation and develop essential skills through hands-on practical experience, collaborative work projects, and interdisciplinary learning opportunities that integrate architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. You’ll have the opportunity to enrol in a design-build elective where you’ll tackle real-world problems, exploring and testing solutions and then executing them. Students in the environmental design program can participate in a mentorship program, lectures, studio reviews, and an annual exhibition of graduating student work.

Design+Build at SALA

Campus features

The School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture offers a comprehensive woodworking shop as well as digital fabrication devices.

Making+Building at SALA

DES 110 - Measured Architectural Drawing
Techniques applicable to analytic and technical drawing used in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design with focus primarily on analog drawing techniques. Open to all UBC students regardless of prior experience.
DES 200 - Design Thinking
Design thinking through the analysis of architecture, landscape architecture and urban design and through hands-on design projects. This course is open to all UBC students, regardless of prior experience. Credit will granted for only one of ENDS 231 or DES 200.
DES 220 - Architecture in Context: Vancouver and its Region
The unfolding architecture and urbanism of Metro Vancouver. Using Vancouver as a laboratory to examine the historical transformation of the built environment, and how this has affected particular activities, land uses, and social groups within the region. This course is open to all UBC students, regardless of prior experience.
DES 230 - Sustainability by Design
Interactions between human and natural urban systems using local and international examples of successful sustainable community designs. This course is open to all UBC students, regardless of prior experience.

DES 201 - Design Studio I - Context and Site
Design within the context of various analytical lenses including ecological, climatic, social, political, cultural and historical influences.
DES 202 - Design Studio II - Form
Essential processes and methods for thinking in three-dimensional spatial terms.
DES 211 - Design Media I
Techniques in architectural drawing, two-dimensional representation, three-dimensional representation and general visual literacy.
DES 232 - Material Culture
An investigation of building materials and associated design objectives, environmental conditions, historical context, regulatory controls, and economic constraints.
DES 321 - Architectural History I
A global history of architecture pre-20th century.

DES 301 - Design Studio III - Building Scale Synthesis
Design at the architectural scale through the medium of program and site.
DES 302 - Design Studio IV - Vancouver
Vancouver as a laboratory for design at the architectural and urban scale with a focused view into how design is implicated in the social, political, and environmental transformation of the city.
DES 330 - Structural Systems and Supports
Basic structural systems in the built world including wood, steel, concrete, composite systems and essential structural logics of soil retention systems and drainage.
DES 421 - Design Theory
Introduction to a broad range of theories in architecture and design as they relate to the built environment.
DES 323 - Histories in Landscape Architecture
Landscapes from medieval times to the present studied synchronically across design elements as well as chronologically with the development of several key historical concepts.

DES 401 - Design Studio V - Urban Systems Scale Synthesis
Relationships between communities and environment, urban infrastructure and ecological systems.
DES 402 - Design Studio VI - Away
A design project engaged with an international context and site. Emphasis placed on mapping, interpretation of the international context as well as methods of construction, notions of program, and policies, regulations and codes that relate to the site.
DES 422 - Urbanism by Design
A history of the planning, landscape architecture and urban design of cities, and of how ideas have influenced the design of the city.
DES 430 - Environment, Urban Form, and Infrastructure
Relationships between, and integration of, the natural environment and the physical form, spatial structure, and infrastructure of livability of cities.
DES 445 - Entrepreneurship and Ethics in Design
Core business skills, building on students' design capabilities to pursue ethical and sustainable design-based business goals.

Life at UBC's Vancouver campus

The Bachelor of Design program is offered on UBC's beautiful Vancouver campus. You’ll learn from passionate and skilled experts who can support you in connecting with professional design communities locally and internationally as you create close ties with faculty members and student peers.

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Your future

The Bachelor of Design program is distinctive in Canada in the way it integrates architecture and landscape architecture, producing graduates with a unique skill set that is broadly applicable to many career choices, including architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, lighting design, and other allied fields of design.

Program requirements

Canadian high schools
International high schools
International baccalaureate

English-language requirements

English is the language of instruction at UBC. All prospective students must demonstrate English-language competency prior to admission. There are numerous ways to meet the English Language Admission Standard.

General admission requirements

IB Diploma Programme

Completed IB Diploma, including at least three Higher Level courses.

IB Certificate Courses

IB Certificate courses (Standard and Higher Level) may be used in an admissions average if you are graduating from a recognized high school curriculum that can be used as your basis of admission.
IB Math Applications and Interpretations SL, or IB Math Studies, do not satisfy the math requirement for admission to UBC’s science-based programs, the Faculty of Management, the UBC Sauder School of Business, or the Vancouver School of Economics.

Degree-specific requirements: Design in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urbanism

No specific courses required beyond those needed for general admission
Video interview
Creative test
Resume

Related courses

The following subject categories are particularly relevant for this degree. Consider taking courses in these areas in your junior year and senior year.

Language Arts
Social Studies (Geography and/or History courses in particular)
Visual and Performing Arts