Study Abroad

Offered in: Fall term (Architecture, senior year)
Offered in: Summer term (Industrial + Interior Design, junior year)
Program Fee: $11,500* (cost in fall 2024)

As an epicenter of European culture, Berlin offers students a rich diversity of historic architecture, layered urbanism, and innovative design as background and inspiration for their design studies. Contemporary Berlin is a thriving, multicultural metropolis that balances care for the past—through museums, memorials, and adaptive reuse—with exuberance for the future. Once a city torn in two by Cold War ideological divides, Berlin now embraces multiplicity as a core component of its identity.  

Students in the semester-abroad program have studio space in the Berlin International University campus and live in apartments nearby, experiencing Berlin as a walkable city served by robust public transportation. Studio and seminar courses parallel those taught in Boston and are adapted to take advantage of Berlin’s rich cultural context.  As part of the Berlin Program, students and faculty travel to other European cities for comparative study. Recent cities visited include Paris, Strasbourg, and Basel. 

*Program fee is in addition to tuition, and includes airfare, accomodation, travel within the experience, museum and cultural site entrance fees, and transportation.

Offered in: Spring term (Architecture, senior year)
Program Fee: $13,500* (cost in spring 2025, meal plan included)

Nestled among the foothills of the Apennine mountains in the Marche region of central Italy, the walled city of Urbino is among Italy’s most cherished sites. As one of the primary centers of the Italian Renaissance, Urbino offers students a window into the past while revealing contemporary strategies for engaging with historic contexts. Students live in the city center, a UNESCO-designated area, and their classes are held in the hillside complex of the Collegi Universitari, a short walk from the city gates. This city-campus designed by architect Giancarlo de Carlo offers sweeping views of the countryside and a spatially dynamic context for studying architectural design. Many more works of de Carlo in the area are found woven throughout Urbino and serve as powerful examples of design that deeply and thoughtfully engage with context.   

As part of studio, architecture students contend with contemporary challenges related to the historic city and the greater Marche region. Design seminars reinforce students’ understanding of Italian architecture, urbanism, and design through analysis and documentation. These seminars take advantage of Urbino, as well as other notable Italian cities, as both classroom and as sites of study. As part of this program, students are guided through weekly excursions to famous sites and cities including Rome, Florence, Siena, and Venice. All travel is contextualized through a lecture-based course centered around Italian history and culture.  

Students are housed in historic hotels in the center of Urbino and provided with a meal plan for the semester. 

*Program fee is in addition to tuition, and includes airfare, accomodation, meal plan, travel within the experience, museum and cultural site entrance fees, and transportation.

During the fall of their program's final year, all Master of Architecture students pursue design research based on their experience of architectural culture in different regions of the world.  The semester begins with a ten-day, faculty-led study tour to different cities or regions, immersing students in contemporary urban and architectural challenges and establishing the learning goals of the semester's design projects.

Countries visited by recent Global Research Studio groups have included Kenya (Nairobi), Morocco (Marrakesh and rural villages), Japan (Tokyo and Kamakura), Türkiye (Istanbul), Scotland (Edinburgh and the Highlands), Greece (Athens and others), China (Shanghai and surroundings), Italy (Rome, Venice), and the US (Chicago, New England).