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College of Architecture and Environmental Design

One of the country's highest-ranked architectural and environmental design colleges.


The College of Architecture and Environmental Design (CAED) encompasses all the professions that come together in designing and implementing the built environment – architecture, engineering, planning, construction, and landscape architecture.

San Luis Obispo, California

Majors

Explore Our Majors

Cal Poly's six academic colleges offer more than 60 majors for you to consider.

We require students to declare a major as part of the application process in order to maximize their experience in their chosen field from Day One. While changing your major may be possible, we recommend you explore majors thoroughly before making your choice.

Learn by Doing

Our college's majors are built around educational experiences that focus on hands-on, project-based learning. Through rigorous, time-intensive design studios, hands-on project labs, and work with industry partners, students develop the skills and abilities needed to find creative solutions to the real problems faced by industry and our global community.

Design a Village

Design a Village

Design, build, and spend a weekend in your structure during Architecture's famed Design Village competition.

Build a Tiny House

Build a Tiny House

Construction management students build tiny houses for a local area non-profit housing organization.

Plan Smart Cities

Plan Smart Cities

City and regional planning faculty and students engage with communities across California to plan for smart growth.

Career Opportunities

Construction manager looks over architectural plans

College of Architecture and Environmental Design graduates are ready to take on challenges immediately and are hailed as among the best in the nation by employers.

Our graduates work in the private sector and for local, state and federal agencies as architects, engineers, planners, consultants, contractors and more. Major employers include Devcon Construction, Gensler, Hensel Phelps Construction, HMH Landscape Architecture, KPFF Consulting Engineers, KTGY Architecture + Planning, Lionakis, Michael Baker International, Skidmore, Ownings & Merrill, and more.

Faculty

Faculty

CAED faculty bring diverse professional and academic backgrounds into the classroom.

With a low student-to-professor ratio and high-quality technological and support facilities, our faculty are able to help students focus on today’s design, planning and construction challenges.