Free Online Architectural Design and Studio Courses from Top Universities

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Architectural design is the art of creating plans for functional, aesthetically pleasing buildings. Learn about the history of building styles and start drawing your own structural blueprints with these free online course materials.
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Free Architectural Design Courses

There are several online Architectural Design and Studio courses offered free by top universities. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a goldmine of them, but we also included a course from the Open University.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers a vast number of courses in Architectural Design for free. In the MArch Portfolio Seminar course, originally taught by Professors Mark Jarzombek and Meejin Yoon in 2003, you can view design ideas from architecture majors and learn how to assess design work. Other courses, such as the Level II Cuba Studio course, focus on a particular architectural project in a specific region, to get students to incorporate cultural and/or environmental elements into their work.

Open University

Open University offers a course focusing solely on the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. This pavilion is an example of Romantic architecture with exotic elements, and several architectural forms and their causes and effects are explored in relation to the structure.

Free Online Architectural Design Courses at a Glance

Course & SchoolProgram LevelFormatAssignmentsQuizzes & ExamsDownloadable
MArch Portfolio Center course from MITGraduateText/ImagesYesNoYes
Architecture Design, Level II: Cuba Studio course from MITGraduateText/ImagesYesNoYes
Architectural Design, Level II: Material and Tectonic Transformations: The Herreschoff Museum course from MITGraduateText/ImagesYesNoYes
Architectural Design, Level II: Material Essence: The Glass House course from MITGraduateText/ImagesYesNoYes
Architectural Design, Level III: A Student Center for MIT course from MITGraduateText/ImagesNoNoYes
Digital Design Fabrication course from MITGraduateText LessonsYesNoYes
Ecuador Workshop course from MITUndergraduateText/ImagesNoNoYes
Architectural Design Workshops: Computational Design for Housing course from MITGraduateText LessonsYesNoYes
Special Problems in Architectural Design course from MITGraduateText LessonsYesNoYes
Interrogative Design Workshop course from MITGraduateText LessonsNoNoYes
Experiencing Architecture Studio course from MITUndergraduateText LessonsNoNoYes
Architecture Studio: Intentions course from MITUndergraduateText LessonsYesNoYes
The Architecture of Cairo course from MITUndergraduateText LessonsNoNoYes
Brighton Pavilion course from the Open UniversityUndergraduateText LessonsYesNoNo

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