Program Overview

Our MA Architectural Design programme will help you kickstart a career in digital areas of the architecture industry; you will be able to choose from electives focused on emerging and contemporary trends in the creative and design sectors such as immersion and digital fabrication. With the support of our academic team, you will deliver creative responses to societal challenges achieving both experimental and technically proficient proposals.

You will undertake architectural design work in our studio spaces, while joining elective modules in the specific areas of digital production, low carbon design, and immersive media. Supporting your work in the design studio, you will engage with emerging research in architecture, connecting sustainable practices and integrated technology. You will complete the course with a piece of research by design or dissertation which emphasises your chosen specialism and future career and employability plans. The studio culture fosters a unique design-led research practice, converging theory, design and technology.

Each year, students can choose from a portfolio of research-led elective courses available in the School of Art, Design and Architecture. These electives cover a range of areas including digital skills such as digital fabrication or immersive media, and their availability might change year-on-year. Students will choose electives at the beginning of the academic year. Some electives available for this programme are listed below.

Key features

• Personalise your masters. Study contemporary and emerging areas of architectural design by choosing among a portfolio of elective modules, and develop skills in areas such as digital fabrication and immersive media.
• Learn from experts. The programme is led by academics with nationally and internationally recognised expertise in urban regeneration, architectural media, and digital architectural design.
• Cutting-edge technology. You will have access to state-of-the-art facilities and technical support in emerging areas such as Digital Fabrication (e.g. architectural production, tectonics, innovative building systems) and Immersive Media (e.g. building simulation, architectural AR/VR, creative spatial media).
• Collaborate. You will work in collaboration with students from courses such as Master of Architecture, MDes iMaster of Design and MSc Low Carbon Architectural Engineering. Project based learning alongside colleagues in the studio is a central feature of the programme.
• Learn by doing. Working on project briefs will develop your understanding of the application of technical knowledge to creative situations, and explore how theory and action inform each other.
• Connect with industry. Our programme benefits from our active involvement with professional bodies, research networks, and professional practices from across the region.