The School of Architecture and Planning at The Catholic University of America is dedicated to the professional education of those who will plan, design, build, and conserve the built environment. Utilizing its remarkable location in the nation’s capital but also other international cities as learning laboratories, the school provides an enriching educational climate in which students investigate the realms of planning, design, theory, building, and sustainability within the context of the world in which we live.
As architecture and planning must respond to the needs and aspirations of our society, the architect and planner today must understand the nature of the human being in time, space, and culture. As a school within the national university of the Catholic Church in the United States, our principles are critically informed by the ethical, religious, philosophical, and societal potentialities of our discipline. Specifically, this translates into the study of the three relationships at the heart of all human habitation: our relationship with others (Social dimension), our relationship with the environment (Stewardship dimension), and our relationship with God (Sacred dimension). The attitudes, values, skills, and knowledge embedded in these dimensions are pursued through a philosophy devoted to the integration of artistic creativity, intellectual curiosity, technical acuity, cultural diversity, and spiritual maturity. In doing so, we aim to cultivate a holistic view of architecture, planning and design so that students, future architects and planners, can assume a personal responsibility for the beauty, equity, and wellbeing of the world. Our ultimate goal is to forge inspiring contemporary attitudes toward Building Stewardship for society at large.
We are thus committed to providing leadership and innovation in Building Stewardship by engaging in teaching, scholarship, practice, and service informed by our social, spiritual, and environmental concerns.