BLOOMINGTON, IN Peg Faimon, Dean of the Indiana University School of Art, Architecture + Design announces that IU will now offer, for the first time in the school's history, a Master of Architecture degree program. This new program will be based in Columbus, Indiana, a city renowned for its remarkable modernist design heritage, and will be headed by T. Kelly Wilson, Director of the Indiana University Center of Architecture + Design in Columbus. The program's first classes will matriculate in Fall 2018.

Pedagogically, the new program will approach the study of architecture by realigning artistic inquiry and practice with architectural design. The program proposes the idea of a "cabled conversation" that is an interaction between faculty, students through a robust visiting faculty program where the strands of discourse and inquiry found within the expressive arts and the sciences weave through the discipline of architecture.

According to Dean Faimon, "Our impetus for starting this new Master's program stems from our fundamental belief that we can provide something that is missing right now in architectural education: a hands-on, artsintensive education using the immersive environment of Columbus as a classroom."

The program utilizes Columbus, a city that has been a location for many great experiments of modern architecture and civic consciousness, as a "living laboratory." Living and working among the architecture, art and landscape of Columbus provides the students with the example of compelling modern precedent and gives access to the power of community and its importance in the creation of architecture.

Professor Wilson describes the program's reason for being as follows: "The IU Master's program in architecture holds, at its core, the idea that cross-pollination between art and design is central to extraordinary creativity and inventive thinking. As a program, we are invested in the idea that students of architecture must develop knowledge belonging to a multiplicity of disciplines held within the fields of art and design." For this reason, the goal is to form a student body with a diverse mix of backgrounds, ranging from those with traditional four-year undergraduate degree in architecture, to those with degrees in the liberal arts, including the sciences, philosophy math, English and the arts.

Moreover, the curriculum will engage students in a nomadic program of study where they will travel to cities around the globe, experiencing and analyzing the many acts of invention in art and design. The program also intends to create close integration with industry partners, such as Columbus-based Cummins Inc., and access to their digital fabrication capabilities.

As Faimon summarizes, "Our hope is to educate a new crop of architects who think as broadly and creatively as possible about solving the challenges of their generation. We intend to provide students with a broad exposure to all forms of creativity and to enable access to knowledge springing from the creation of inspired and thoughtful architectural design."

The application deadline is January 15, 2018. For information: https://architecture.indiana.edu

For more information, please contact: Elizabeth Kubany, KubanyJudlowe, 212.951.1895, elizabeth@kubanyjudlowe.com