UMA/ARC Mission
To educate and empower students to explore, investigate, and analyze the built environment, and propose valued creative design solutions based in the core value understanding of space, scale, and light in design with meaningful intention, for the enriched experience of human activity the betterment of human habitation.
Vision
The vision of the UMA/ARC program is to instruct our students to view architecture as a humanistic and professional discipline, which synthesizes art, science, and math through challenging intellectual rigor. It is an academic search into how the designed environment affects psychological and social behavior while honoring keen aesthetic judgment, and technical understanding of how a building is built with all its many and varied systems.
UMA/ARC achieves this through teaching, scholarship, creative work, research, service to the greater community, and a fully rounded curriculum. The program is committed to the highest ideals of the profession and culture of architecture.
Our primary goal is to prepare our graduates for immediate employment or advanced professional study while becoming a lifelong learner. In addition, they should be able to contribute effectively to each other while in school, the community in which they live and work and in the future to the profession and our society.
Core Values
- UMA/ARC is committed to the concept that the designed environment affects behavior.
- UMA/ARC is committed to designing with intention reflecting the awareness that there is a connection between designed space and the life-quality of the user’s experience.
- UMA/ARC is committed to instill in students the importance and use of Space, Scale, and Light in the design process.
- UMA/ARC is committed to involvement with the greater social and professional community.
- UMA/ARC is committed to work-by-hand as a means to best understand, design technology, and the use of advanced computer programs to present these ideas to others.
- UMA/ARC is committed to the investigation and implementation of sustainable ideals.
- UMA/ARC is committed to its own academic growth and evolution .in maintaining the highest standard expected in professional degrees.
- UMA/ARC is committed to the highest standard of student work and faculty instruction.
- UMA/ARC is committed to a liberal and fine arts base for architectural education in light of today’s complex society which demands a well-rounded practitioner with knowledge beyond architecture.
The UMA/ARC program is committed to the values of mutual respect, cooperation and communication, creativity and innovation, the pursuit of excellence, effective communication and diversity.
Program Philosophy (See Mission Statement)
As we live and work in designed environments, we must become aware of the reality that each space we inhabit influences how we experience the activity for which that space was designed. This timeless process goes on with every space we inhabit over time and even in new spaces which we have just begun to experience. Whether we realize it or not, all spaces affect us socially and psychologically to some extent. It is the designer’s goal to understand that every space he or she designs has that effect on others and to design responsibly.
The design of space will affect the quality of “activity satisfaction” (the reason for which the space was designed) Part of the design philosophy in our instruction is to make the student aware of his or her vital responsibility to those for whom they design, and to create the highest and best experience and satisfaction of activity.
At UMA/ARC, we strongly believe that space affects life as space affects behavior.
With developed skills in designing effectively with Space, Scale and Light and intention, a student designer can conceive and present spaces that enrich the lives of those who use them.
History
Professor Roger Richmond envisioned the program over 20 years ago as a two plus-year associate’s degree. At the time he saw a profound need to educate the Maine student in ways of meaningful humanistic design. In UMA, Professor Richmond found a good match for the goals and aims of the architecture curriculum. With the help of Professor Robert Katz of the UMA Art department, the first program coursework was offered in 1987.
The AA grew to a 4-year Bachelor of Arts degree in 2001. With this growth came the opportunity to review and refocus our overall curriculum. While maintaining high quality core values such as investigations of Space, Scale, and Light, and the necessity to Design with Intention, we have recommitted ourselves to the more advanced tools and language of architecture. In this way we best prepare our graduates for further study, professional practice, or immediate employment, and to graduate with an awareness of the importance of architecture in the development of society, and architecture’s power to affect the quality of individual lives.
Admissions Or More Information
For admission into the new BA in Architecture Program you must have:
- High School Diploma
- General Equivalency Diploma
- A completed UMA Application
- An interview with a member of the Architecture faculty
For more information about becoming a student in the BA in Architecture Program at UMA, contact:
Office of Admissions
University of Maine - Augusta
Augusta, ME 04330
1-877-UMA-1234
Online UMA Application for Admission
Download PDF version of BA in ARCHITECTURE registration form