Faculty teach and conduct research in these areas in support of the School's primary objective to promote critical engagement with the design of a healthy and sustainable built environment.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was among the first American institutions of higher learning to offer a curriculum in architecture.

The profession's growing awareness of the need for a professional architecture school in the United States was evidenced by the report of the Committee on Education at the first annual convention of the American Institute of Architects in 1867.

Almost a thousand miles to the west, newly appointed Regent John Milton Gregory, at the newly established center of learning, the Illinois Industrial University (renamed the University of Illinois in 1878), also realized the need for formal professional training in architecture.

Architecture was included in the Polytechnic Department of the proposed administrative structure Gregory presented to the trustees in May 1867.