About the CAED

Cal Poly’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design (CAED) is the largest program of its type with seven degree programs in five closely related departments: Architecture, Architectural Engineering, City and Regional Planning, Construction Management, and Landscape Architecture.

The common educational goal shared by all degree offerings within the CAED is excellence in educating tomorrow’s architecture and environmental design leaders. The CAED programs are distinguished by an active incorporation of hands-on-learning experience and a close instructional relationship with the broad-range requirements of successful professional practice.

Building on Success

For half a century, the CAED programs and our 8,000 alumni have been a major, positive influence to the forces that shape the planning, design and construction worlds.

The CAED remains committed to the founding principle of providing an application-oriented education. The studio format is emphasized along with seminars, lectures with small tutorials and specialized instructional laboratories. The high educational benefit of the programs is dependent on a low student-to-professor ratio, high quality technological and support access and well-equipped instructional spaces. The CAED has a long history of organizational and resource commitment to specialized support functions including: a 12-acre outdoor experimental construction laboratory in Poly Canyon; media resource center (MRC); photographic presentation facility; specialized computing facilities; computer rendering and graphics laboratory; materials testing laboratories; and construction methods laboratory. For more about these click on support facilities and applied research.

To accomplish the mission of the CAED, these are essential investments to maintain academic excellence.

Achieving The Vision

The CAED mission is to be the premier institution in the nation preparing students for leadership roles in the professions that plan, design, construct and steward the built environment. Graduates of the CAED programs are immediately ready to apply their skills and abilities in making positive contributions to the professional practice environments they join.
Accomplishing the CAED mission requires: continued commitment to the principle of learn by doing; continued excellence of faculty and leading-edge programs; recruiting the most promising students; building partnerships with alumni and other practitioners; and securing adequate supplementary support for program advancements not possible through state funding.

Shaping The Built Environment

With more than 1,900 students, the CAED is the largest program of its kind in the nation. Admission to the programs is highly competitive and results in the best students being selected from high schools and community colleges throughout California.

The CAED has an ongoing commitment to diversity in order to build a strong and effective learning environment to prepare students for a wide range of professional practice opportunities. The faculty represent an effective mix of significant professional practice and research experience. They are dedicated to preparing future leaders who take responsibility for improving the built environment.

The curricula within the CAED emphasize: interdisciplinary technical skills grounded with essential economic, environmental and social values; participation in community studies, internships/work experience programs and structured options to study off campus — through urban colloquiums, international programs, student exchanges and extended field trips; gaining unique perspectives from the research and practice experience the faculty bring to the classroom; and receiving broadened perspective through instructional access to prominent professionals invited to campus and sponsored project participation.

Partnering With The Professionals

Strong, two-way linkages between our educational programs and the professional practice community are essential to the CAED’s:
undergraduate professional programs; post-professional master's degree programs; sponsored research initiatives; and continuing education course offerings.

Our integrated educational approach effectively expands applied research activities that complements the instructional offerings and accommodates opportunity for faculty and student involvement. The CAED’s Design and Construction Institute has developed a number of outstanding interdisciplinary concentrations to further link the innovative and creative talents of the faculty and students to practitioners and the professions.

Areas of emphasis include the California Center for Construction Education, Computer-Aided Design Research Center, Earthquake-Resistant Building Systems, Geographic Information System, Renewable Energy Institute and Sustainable Environments Emphasis Group.

Cal Poly – A Special Place

The only predominantly technical university within the 23-campus California State University system, Cal Poly enjoys a national reputation. U.S. News & World Report has rated Cal Poly the best public, largely undergraduate university in the West. More than 70 percent of Cal Poly students are enrolled in professional programs that are supported by a complementary mix of general education courses. As part of Cal Poly’s guiding philosophy, every program requires completion of a senior project for graduation.

Cal Poly is located in San Luis Obispo, along the Central Coast of California, approximately 230 miles south of San Francisco and 200 miles north of Los Angeles. The small town setting that Cal Poly enjoys encourages a close student-faculty relationship. Students find the faculty open, knowledgeable mentors eager to help further the education of those that seek assistance.

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