Facilities & Makerspaces 

The Tyler experience is defined in part by access to exceptional facilities. Graduate students have the space, the technology and the tools they need to go wherever their creative vision takes them, including 

  • dedicated practice studio spaces for architecture, environmental design, and graphic and interactive design graduate students; and  
  • individual practice studios for MFA students. 

Tyler's 255,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility on Temple’s Main Campus is home to makerspaces of all shapes and sizes to support graduate students in their studies. These include 

  • an acid room for copper etching; 
  • an 18-station wheel throwing room;  
  • computer studios; 
  • digital fabrication labs; 
  • high-ceilinged, light-drenched painting studios;  
  • hot and cold glass shops; 
  • a media output center; 
  • two large wet labs and darkrooms; and 
  • wood and metal fabrication shops. 

Spaces also include an outdoor classroom, study nooks, café, spacious green courtyard with natural dye garden, exhibition galleries and Temple Contemporary—Tyler's visionary center for exhibitions and public programming.  

Photography Facilities

Tyler MFA students have access to state-of-the-art equipment, expansive studios and exhibition spaces across Tyler’s 255,000-square-foot facilities, including dedicated areas for ceramics, fibers and material studies, glass, graphic and interactive design, metals/jewelry/CAD-CAM, painting and drawing, photography, printmaking, and sculpture.  

The Photography MFA program is housed in a 9,000-square-foot facility with cutting-edge digital labs and studios with ample computer workstations as well as two large wet labs; film and print scanners; color-calibrated displays; large-format pigment printers; a laser cutter and a 3D printer; dedicated lighting studio and print-finishing area with cold and dry-mount presses; and first-class darkroom spaces where students can work with black-and-white film, or work with some of photography’s earliest forms, such as cyanotype, platinum-palladium printing or tintypes. Students have access to a substantial equipment library, including tripods, cameras, medium-format digital backs, LED lighting kits and other specialized high-end equipment. The facility also includes a critique room, a small exhibition gallery and graduate studios with a separate wet lab.  

Loretta C. Duckworth Scholars Studio

The Loretta C. Duckworth Scholar’s Studio at Temple’s Charles Library provides a space for collaborative work and individual research, offering technology for textual analysis, mining big data, working in and creating 3D spaces, geospatial technology, gaming, visualizations, and more. Its makerspace, VR Lab, Specialized Computing Lab and Tech Sandbox provide students with tools to stretch their creativity.

Research Opportunities

Tyler graduate students have access to the abundant resources of a large, tier-one public research university and accomplished faculty who model a culture of inquiry through their own research and professional practice. 

Graduate students can participate in research opportunities in areas as diverse as sculpture, art history, architecture, environmental design, city/regional planning and community development, and visual studies.

Faculty research spans diverse categories, including climate change, cultural landscapes, ecological recovery, seed germination, social equity in urban design, urban ecology and health, virtual and augmented reality, and visual representation. Learn more about faculty at Tyler. 

Tyler and Temple University are closely tied to the city of Philadelphia, providing opportunities for graduate students to participate in hands-on, collaborative opportunities in the city. The richness of arts practice, architecture, landscape architecture, planning and allied professional fields across the Philadelphia region offers limitless possibilities for experiential learning. Learn more about research opportunities for Tyler students.  

Research Funding

In 2016, the National Science Foundation placed Temple University among the top 100 in terms of research expenditures, which amounted to $242 million. Learn more about the university’s research support efforts.

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