MA Architectural Design

• Year 1

• 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.

  Core modules

  • Situated Practice and Knowledge Exchange (ADA7200)

    This module supports students’ employability and career prospects by engaging with local communities, industrial partners and their broader professional field. Students will be able to situate their ideas within real world contexts, develop entrepreneurial skills, and deliver an external engagement proposition outlining the broader social, environmental, or economic extensions and impacts of their work.

  • Research Project / Dissertation (ADA7300)

    This module supports students’ delivery of their final research project / dissertation through combinations of group and individual work. It includes broader disciplinary research skills, methods and ethical practices, as well as subject-specific supervisory arrangements for each students’ research interests. This can include practice-based, text-based or entrepreneurial research outputs.

  • Cities and Infrastructures (MAAD7101)

    This module provides students with a critical understanding of discourses underpinning urban and architectural development. Beyond physical urban infrastructure, the module addresses broader socio-environmental debates that underpin architectural innovation. Students will be able to collaboratively ideate, prototype and (co)imagine architectural visions setting a research-informed foundation for their projects.

  • Design Project (MAAD7201)

    This module allows students to develop actionable, impactful project propositions in the fields of architecture and built environment. By introducing a diversity of methodological strategies, the module will enable students to experiment with technologies on the prototyping, resolution and demonstration of a project ranging from building design, to advanced data-driven, place-based interventions.

  Optional modules

  • Digital Fabrication (ADA7101E)

    This Module provides students with the advanced technical knowledge to develop their skills based on experimentation with novel materials, and cutting edge digital fabrication processes. Through a combination of technical inductions, lectures, and self-directed work in our Digital Fabrication Laboratory, students will be able to experiment with technologies such as advanced 3D printing and industrial CNC milling.

  • Immersive Media and XR (ADA7102E)

    This module will provide students with the creative and technical skills to develop their projects based on experimentation with immersive media and extended reality (XR) technologies. Through a combination of technical inductions, workshops, lectures, and self-directed work in our Immersive Media Lab, students will be able to experiment with 360 Video, sonic environments, AR/VR, sensors, and game engines.

  • Low Carbon Material Systems (ADA7104E)

    This Module will provide students with technical knowledge and understanding of the emerging low carbon agenda including concepts such as embodied carbon, sustainable supply chains, and circular economies, and will support students’ learning across a range of design, architecture, and built environment subjects.

  • Interaction Design (ADA7106E)

    This module will provide students with the creative and technical skills to apply interaction design strategies to develop and support their practice across a range of disciplines. Drawing from the technologies, techniques and tools typical of the Smart City, ubiquitous, mobile and wearable computing and Internet of Things (IoT), students will design and develop prototype systems that allow them to explore key issues relating to our lived environment.

Every postgraduate taught course has a detailed programme specification document describing the programme aims, the programme structure, the teaching and learning methods, the learning outcomes and the rules of assessment.

The following programme specification represents the latest programme structure and may be subject to change:

MA Architectural Design programme specification 7651