IIT College of Architecture Creates First-of-Its-Kind Tall Buildings Degree in Partnership with the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat
CHICAGO—Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), in partnership with the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), today announced a first-of-its-kind, one-year multidisciplinary graduate degree program, the Master of Tall Buildings and Vertical Urbanism (M.TBVU).
According to the United Nations’ World Urbanization Prospects 2018 Report Highlights, global cities are projected to grow at the rate of around 1.5 million people every week for the next 28 years. The new M.TBVU program will explore tall buildings as responsive, fully-integrated, high-density solutions to the profound urban, social, and sustainability challenges that are a characteristic of rapid urbanization.
“As cities continue to grow, the way we construct and manage tall buildings has never been more critical to global, social, and economic development,” says Reed Kroloff, the Rowe Family College of Architecture Dean Endowed Chair at IIT College of Architecture. “It’s a natural outgrowth of our five-decade record of design and technical innovation in high-rise building, research that helped create such landmark buildings as the Sears Tower and the Hancock Center.”
This new degree program aims to prepare future generations of leaders in architecture, construction, and real estate development to address the need for more sustainable land use, reductions in the carbon footprint of architecture, and the way tall buildings are constructed and managed in order to better support their responsibilities to cities and the people that live in them.
“In order to ensure that cities are places where people can thrive, we must do more than simply increase density, we need to integrate tall buildings more thoughtfully into both our urban and social fabrics,” states Antony Wood, director of the M.TBVU program at IIT College of Architecture and CTBUH president. “Graduates of this program will enter the field with a unique set of knowledge, skills, and connections, prepared to create positive, sustainable outcomes for future societies.”
“Together with our longtime research partner, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, I am excited to unveil this new master’s degree,” says Peter Kilpatrick, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at Illinois Institute of Technology. “With this unique and highly innovative degree program, we seek to offset the deleterious effects of mass urbanization, land cost, and climate change today in order to create more sustainable, healthy, and flourishing cities tomorrow.”
Financial support is available for all students who are accepted into the program. Interested applicants are encouraged to contact Illinois Institute of Technology’s Office of Graduate Admission for more information.
To learn more about the Master of Tall Buildings and Vertical Urbanism program, please visit IIT College of Architecture’s M.TBVU program page.
Illinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology, also known as Illinois Tech, is a private, technology-focused research university. Illinois Tech is the only university of its kind in Chicago, and its Chicago location offers students access to the world-class resources of a great global metropolis. It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, computing, architecture, business, design, science and human sciences, and law. One of 22 institutions that comprise the Association of Independent Technological Universities, Illinois Tech provides an exceptional education centered on active learning, and its graduates lead the state and much of the nation in economic prosperity. Illinois Tech uniquely prepares students to succeed in professions that require technological sophistication, an innovative mindset, and an entrepreneurial spirit. Visit iit.edu.
Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH)
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is the world’s leading resource for professionals focused on the inception, design, construction, and operation of tall buildings and future cities. CTBUH facilitates the exchange of the latest knowledge available on tall buildings through publications, research, events, working groups, its global tall buildings database, and its extensive network of international representatives. CTBUH also developed the international standards for measuring tall building height and is recognized as the arbiter of such designations as “The World’s Tallest Building.” By extension, its “Buildings of Distinction” program recognizes the achievements of important projects through the installation of public signboards and plaques.
