Program Abroad Opportunities

Summer Program in Vicenza, Italy

The program is open to all students in the School of Architecture. Students receive six credits through the International Studies Office.  Extensive field trips to explore the art, architecture, and urbanism of the Veneto region are an essential part of the program. A faculty member of the School of Architecture leads the program. Knowledge of Italian language and cultural customs and traditions is recommended, but not required.

Summer Program in China

The UVA program in China introduces students to Chinese art, architecture, urbanism, and culture. The program includes study trips to sites in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, and Hangzhou. The program is open to all students in the School of Architecture. Students receive six credits through the International Studies Office. A faculty member of the School of Architecture, as well as local experts, lead the program.

 One of the greatest global challenges of the twenty-first century is Chinese urbanization. Cities change; Chinese cities, through their scale and speed of developments, are at a historically unique moment of distinctive change. This change is producing global consequences. UVA Architecture China Program takes on the challenge to research into the emerging conditions of Chinese cities as they forge unprecedented realities in two of China’s most dynamic city-regions, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.

The program will guide students in the methods of urban research, and visit locations of historical significance, sites of important buildings, and offices of influential architects. Students will work together with professors and students from South China University in Guangzhou on urban research to gain knowledge and insight, and attend talks by leading experts and practitioners in China in architectural design, urban planning, landscape architecture, and history. The research results will be reviewed in Guangzhou in June, and exhibited in Charlottesville in the winter.

Summer Program Sustainable Europe

The Sustainable Europe program, is open to undergraduate and graduate students in the School of Architecture. Students receive six credits through the International Studies Office. This course analyzes trends, planning, and policies in sustainable urban development, water resource management, and sustainable transport in Europe. It is divided into interrelated modules and includes travel to several locations to examine various case studies.  A faculty member from the School of Architecture leads the program.

Summer Program in Morocco

This program is purposefully designed to fully engage students in contemporary sustainable development efforts taken in Morocco. Participants will engage with different actors involved in Morocco’s sustainable development initiatives including NGO employees, policy makers, researchers, field specialists, entrepreneurs, and students.

Topics include urban development projects (new towns and affordable housing developments), renewable energy plants, the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project, the 2016 sustainable tourism charter, cultural preservation efforts, social entrepreneurialism, and other projects that demonstrate Morocco’s commitment to sustainable development. Site visits and meetings with local professionals will be supported by readings, assignments, and discussions lead by co-instructors (UVA faculty), local subject matter experts, and instructors at a local cooperating institution.

Fall Program Barcelona, Spain

The School of Architecture offers a full semester program in Barcelona. The Barcelona semester abroad program is a fall option for undergraduate and graduate students in any program in the school, subject to the program director and Associate Dean of Academics approval. The program includes courses in studio design, urban and architectural history, and 20th-century design practices. Courses are taught by UVA faculty in collaboration with faculty at local universities.  

Experience the rich architectural and urban design histories of one of Spain’s largest cities. Through coursework, excursions, and daily life, this exciting program provides graduate students an invaluable opportunity to look closely at the critical issues of urbanization, including population densities, environmental impacts, and infrastructural efficacies, affecting the viability of cities in the 21st century.

The main goal of this program is to dive deep into urban investigation in the laboratory that Barcelona constitutes. Using existing academic and institutional networks, participants will have the chance to access the most exceptional places in the city and personally meet important administrators, planners, and designers of Barcelona.

A series of courses fulfills an equivalent semester for School of Architecture graduate students at UVA School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban and Environmental Planning, as well as as well as 4th-year undergraduate students in Architecture and Urban and Environmental Planning. These course offerings also fulfill the Urban Design Certificate offered at the School of Architecture. Participants will be considered on an individual basis under the advice and permission of the chair of the department.

Extended Embedded Travel Program Venice, Italy

The Venice Program offers a unique collaborative experience:  the study of a centuries-old relationship between dwelling, the land, and in this case, the water.  Being immersed in the daily rituals of a foreign culture and in material, spatial constructs take an unparalleled hold on the imagination.  In a one-semester, fifteen-credit curriculum, the students retrace the urbanization of Venice and the Veneto, attend lectures and visit exemplars of the development of Venetian art and architecture, conduct independent research and participate in a design studio. The Venice program’s focus on strategies for resilience in dynamic settings is grounded in an understanding of landscape processes, the multiple histories embodied in the cities, buildings, and art, and the cultural structures that enable communal life. The complexities of building and rebuilding a city in a preposterous landscape emerge again as contemporary challenges operate at nested scales of daily life, material constructs, and landscape systems. 

The School of Architecture has a longstanding connection to Venice and the Veneto, initiated by the late Professor Mario di Valmarana over 40 years ago. As a commitment to Mario’s legacy, the school has continued the program through the generosity of alumni who have funded numerous student scholarships and the Mario di Valmarana Professorship.  The semester-length program in Venice builds upon this deep tradition to offer the students of the School of Architecture the opportunity for immersion in the rich art, architecture, and landscape of the unfathomable cultural life of Venice.

The program is open to fourth-year undergraduates and final year graduate students of all of the disciplines of the School of Architecture. Following three weeks of structuring a research focus and initiating urban analysis in Charlottesville, the students embark on a six-week residence in Venice from mid-September to the end of October. Upon their return, students apply lessons from Venice in an immersive design studio or independent study.

January Program Rome, Italy

This course provides firsthand, direct knowledge of Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture through an intensive program of on-site visits in Rome. The course complements the extensive on-grounds teaching in Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture at the University.

The goal of this course is twofold. First, it gives students a deeper understanding of the specificity of objects and sites, that is, their materials, texture, scale, size, proportions, colors, and volumes, all elements that are almost completely lost in classroom teaching, which is entirely based on digital images. Second, it provides students with a full understanding of the importance of original location for the interpretation of Renaissance art. Unlike modern art, Renaissance & Baroque art was originally tied to a defined location and made to serve a specific purpose, be it devotional, civic, or celebratory. Guided by these two notions, the course is based on extensive walks through the urban fabric of Rome and in-depth visits to works of art and architecture.