NYIT's graduate Master of Architecture in Urban and Regional Design program is a three-semester, 36-credit, post-professional degree for those holding a Bachelor in Architecture degree. The program's three advanced design studios address urban and suburban design and architecture in the context of their region. These studios explore the relationship of design at many scales from personal to global dimensions.

Cities, towns, suburbs and neighborhoods are interdependent, and to understand the viability of each requires the investigation of their interdependence. It is important to study urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods as part of a unified region of human settlement. The design studios investigate individual buildings, whole neighborhoods, civic centers, and metropolitan infrastructure together in ways that consider the impact of such intervention on the whole region's environment. There is an emphasis on the consideration and critique of the historical, physical, social, political, and philosophical context.

The program provides a theoretical and historical understanding of the origin and the socio-political function of cities. It also makes use of a range of design tools, including computer mapping of physical density, demographics, land-use, transportation and ecological information as well as dynamic, interactive, multi-dimensional modeling. Designs investigate the relationship between creating a plan of space as well as the operational issues that must also be designed or organized to implement that plan.

The graduate program is centered in Manhattan, a world capital. NYIT's two campus settings in the metropolitan region permit students to combine theory with experience by living and working in a variety of areas and conducting field study in and around New York City, including its classic suburban region, Long Island, whose extended linearity, isolation by water, age, and intense land use make it both a laboratory and a unique experience for the study of urban and regional design. This provides the opportunity for case studies to test and apply new insights, theory, and designs to contemporary issues. NYIT's distance learning facilities permit simultaneous courses and conferencing at all sites. Graduate design studio space is in Manhattan and will be allocated within architecture departments on each campus as needed. Seminar rooms are available for formal courses as well as informal events. Campus libraries are linked and material from one can be available at another through the intercampus exchange system. A study abroad program investigates existing canonical urban design and is integrated into the design studio sequence. This program allows the degree to be completed in a single year.

There is a minimum of six credits required for enrollment per semester. Studio courses will be taught in the traditional method with an average of 12 students per critic. Studios may be taught in a team format, depending on project type, intended product, and the relationship established with public agencies, civic organizations, research funding, etc. Some courses are organized as colloquia with specialists or noted people in education or practice providing a series of lectures with a course coordinator.