The Amsterdam Academy of Architecture offers a course by designers for designers. It targets students who are motivated and equipped and selects tutors who have distinguished themselves in the practice of design and research.

Students are trained in spatial design as a practical and critical discipline at the point of intersection of art, science and technology. The deliberate decision to link it with arts education (AHK) underlines the particular importance that the Academy attaches to the artistic aspect of the exercise of the profession.
The Academy provides a small-scale, high-quality learning environment with an open climate in which the determination of their own positions by tutors and students plays a key role. An international orientation is an inevitable part of this.

Architecture, urban design and landscape architecture are independent disciplines. Reflection on what constitutes the inalienable essence of these disciplines – and thus must form the backbone of the educational programme – therefore forms a part of the Academy mission. This does not alter the fact that the three disciplines are deliberately offered simultaneously and partly in combination. This is to prepare the student for an integrated exercise of the profession in a field of work where there is a growing demand for specific design skills within the blurring boundaries.

Specific locations in the Netherlands and abroad are the designer’s laboratory. The city of Amsterdam, the location of the Academy, is actively deployed in the course as a social building, a historic work of art, and an ongoing design challenge. The idea behind this is to position the spatial designer as a socially engaged ‘master’ who tackles assignments from the perspective of a historically grounded reflection on what already exists and with an analytically grounded critical attitude towards the future.


The Academy of Architecture offers three courses leading to a master’s degree:

A    architecture
U    urban design        
L    landscape architecture


Objective
The Academy of Architecture prepares students to practise spatial design as a discipline at the interface between fine art, building technology, civil engineering, landscape architecture, and the spatial sciences. The qualification entitles graduates to exercise an independent profession in one of the disciplines that are taught at the Academy. The diploma complies with the admission criteria of the various registers of architects formulated in the Law on the Title of Architect. Graduates have direct access to the registers of architects, urban planners or landscape architects.