Live and work in Monteverde, a rural but rapidly developing region on the Pacific slope of Costa Rica. Organized through a partnership with the Monteverde Institute academy, this studio, “Sustainable Futures,” offers a service-learning experience where UB architecture and urban planning students work with local practitioners on community-identified projects that envision ecologically and socially just futures. Since the program’s inception in 1995, hundreds of students have contributed to the planning, design, and construction of dozens of projects throughout the landscape. Explore the rich surrounding landscapes through local and in-country trips to Costa Rica’s rain forests, volcanic hot springs, and capital city of San Jose.  

A reinterpretation of the “grand tour” rite of passage in architectural education, Grand Tour Redux broadens the experience to include vast landscapes and both canonical and lesser-known works of architecture, art, design, and urbanism. Open to students in architecture, urban planning, and environmental design, the program has taken more than 300 students to hundreds of cities and towns, more than 20 countries in Europe and 30 states in the U.S., and over 1,400 buildings and sites since its founding in 2012. With a bus as home base, students engage in critical discussions between visits and initiate further dialogue and presentations of their site-based research. Observation and interpretation of this robust cross section of the built environment is further developed through critical reflection in student sketchbooks.

Investigate the forces at work in contemporary architectural practice through a summer studio based in Dublin, Ireland. Known as a “city of villages,” Dublin is an ideal setting to explore the relationship between Ireland’s complex history and the built environment. Exploring the full landscape of the Emerald Isle, the studio includes an excursion circumnavigating the Irish Coast and its rural and small-city landscapes. The program concludes with a week and a half in Glasgow, Scotland. Chronicle your experience through lectures and writings on Ireland’s best-known architects, photographic investigations of “Ireland as Image,” and postcard mapping and collages that explore Ireland as a global tourism destination.

Offered biennially, the Italy summer program sends you on a quintessential tour of classic cities and an intensive experience with the built world, from ancient landmarks and Renaissance masterpieces to tightly woven medieval streets and the classic contemporary Italian city. A highlight includes attending the Venice Architectural Biennale, one of the most prestigious architectural exhibitions in the world. The program is centered around a four-week residency in Rome where students work, explore, and live in the heart of the Eternal City. Unlock your imagination as you record your encounters with space, light, and form through sketches, watercolor paintings, and writings that culminate in a studio-wide storybook in the tradition of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.

Explore our culture of making through a two-part summer seminar studio pairing that combines manual and advanced fabrication tools in the art of furniture construction. Acting as designer, fabricator, and client, students work with the full suite of analog and digital machines in our Fabrication Workshop in Parker Hall to create full-scale bespoke furniture pieces. You’ll start with an up-close study of joinery craft in furniture using materials from wood and concrete to metal and glass, and then move into making pieces working directly with our state-of-the art CNC router and Waterjet cutter. Students gain proficiency in the skills and software behind the tools and explore the full range of their applications, workflows, tolerances, and limitations. 

Engage the diverse urban landscapes of New York City as a surprising refuge for biodiversity and proving ground for resilience in our emerging NYC Summer Program. In 2025, students explored the design of green infrastructure for multispecies urban environments with a focus on integrating environmental sensing systems into the city's landscapes. Weekly lectures and studio visits with local design professionals provided insight into contemporary theory and practice. The studio culminated with development of urban landscape interventions for sites located along the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway.

Take in the architecture of Spain through countless site visits, weekend travel, hand sketching, and design work - with time to experience the country’s rich history, vibrant art and culture, and world-class gastronomy. Based at a small campus, students live and work in Madrid during the week and wander on the weekends to cities far and wide, from Toledo and Sevilla to Bilbao and Barcelona. Lectures on world-renowned Spanish architects that have shaped the current architecture of Spain and the exploration of dozens of buildings for an architecture guide much of the architecture that is visited and inform the design studio’s project – the design of a UB Cultural Campus, an educational and social hub for UB-Madrid exchange programs. A unique experience for UB architecture students, the program in Spain has become a must since the program’s inception in 2016.

Explore the traditional architecture and stunning landscapes of Japan based in Tokyo. Studio and seminar sessions take place in a public co-working space in the city’s center, offering access to digital prototyping tools and engagement with local and international designers and creative practitioners. Guided tours include a high-speed rail journey to Japan’s most important historical and culturally significant architecture sites, from the Ise Shrines to the temples, gardens, and tea houses of Kyoto, the Carpentry Tools Museum in Kobe, and the art islands of Naoshima and Teshima. A significant portion of the program is dedicated to a fabrication workshop in Hida-Furukawa, a small town in the Gifu prefecture distinguished by its traditional wood-joinery techniques and abundant natural resources. Established in 2010, the program today is supported by the FabCafe Tokyo, FabCafe Hida, and Hidakuma design innovation labs. (Image by Nicholas Bruscia)     

Encounter iconic Danish architecture and cultural studies in Denmark’s second largest city through the Aarhus exchange program, offered through a formal partnership between UB and the Aarhus School of Architecture (Arkitektskolen i Aarhus). With the option to study abroad for one semester or a full year, students engage directly with Arkitektskolen i Aarhus’s studio culture and artistic, scientific, and practice-based approach to architecture. Make the most of your experience with explorations of the modern and Medieval built landscapes of this historic port city on the Jutland peninsula’s eastern coast.

Made possible by a grant of the Japan Ministry of Education for student exchanges between UB and Kanazawa University, this two-week, three-credit course immerses you in Japan’s unique approach to urban planning and place-based learning through site visits, interactive lectures, and explorations of Kanazawa’s well-preserved Edo-period districts and renowned gardens. The program continues with studies of cultural heritage in Kyoto, Osaka, and a concluding visit to Tokyo, one of the world’s most dynamic, vibrant, and innovative megacities. Throughout the course, students are immersed in the Japanese way of life through interactions with local experts, urban planners, and community members, and the option to experience a host family stay in Kanazawa.

Part of the two-year, double-degree, the International Media Architecture Masters Studies, this yearlong exchange program is offered through a partnership between UB and the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Explore the interdisciplinary and experimental field of media studies through the robust modernist traditions of the Bauhaus movement. Bauhaus-Universität has a longstanding reputation for supporting openness, creativity, a close link to industrial practice, and an international perspective. Located two hours from Berlin by train, the Bauhaus offers English-language courses in architecture, civil engineering, art, design, and media. (An intensive German language course is offered to all program participants). Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons