Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center


The Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center, is an extension center of Virginia Tech's College of Architecture and Urban Studies, located in Old Town Alexandria. It houses the Master of Architecture, Master of Landscape Architecture, and Undergraduate Architecture programs for students from a wide variety of locations. Sited on an urban campus of six buildings in the heart of Old Town, WAAC allows upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design to address the complexities of urban areas using the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region as a resource laboratory for design and research. The center also encompasses a consortium of architecture schools from around the globe.

Overview

The WAAC has operated as the urban extension of Virginia Tech's College of Architecture and Urban Studies in the Washington metropolitan area since 1980. This past year, around 170 students from 10 consortium universities were presently enrolled. The WAAC is committed to individual professional growth through the design process as revealed and validated by the produced work. WAAC honors research leading to codified objective knowledge in an evolutionary process of reconsideration and representation. This assures the consortium a polemic ranging from the philosophic through the scientific, without a rigid dogma, and with a sense of individual responsibility.

Facilities

Currently the university has three teaching locations on Prince Street and owns two other buildings on Patrick Street. In addition, the WAAC Rectory houses the American Institute of Architects offices and the Gallery serves as a limited capacity dormitory for students in the region.