BA (Hons) Architecture

Architecture is about people and how we interact with our environments. This course embeds racial, social and environmental justice through a curriculum that centres on care, climate, cooperation and agency. BA Architecture will equip you with the real-world skills and understanding to develop new forms of architectural practice.

Our vision is framed by a culture of critical care. We promote responsibility beyond the client and understanding the consequences of actions for people and planet. We locate ethical values beyond the personal into local and global contexts. 

The climate and bio-diversity crises present significant challenges to which architecture and spatial practice must respond. We see the tensions and inequalities surrounding the built environment and environmental conflict. We foreground regenerative design, systems thinking and climate literacy to shift from doing less damage to making a positive and regenerative impact on planetary health.

The practice of architecture has always been collaborative. Our course goes further than this, to promote co-operation above competition. You will have the opportunity to explore making together as a social act. The course re-imagines professional roles beyond disciplinary limits because architects are increasingly called upon to design across a broad range of practices: from arts to urban development, landscape design to engineering; and working with ecologists, scientists, activists and more.

Rapidly changing modes of representation and production, and a changing work environment are our new constants. BA Architecture encourages you to embrace change as a value. We aim for you to become a proactive and agile self-learner as these are valuable workplace skills of the future. This demands both resilience and an openness to new and other forms of knowledge and skills that support invention, originality and diversity. The course integrates both digital and traditional knowledge, skills and technologies. We encourage you to engage in new forms of communicating, learning and making.

The relationship between making and thinking is central to understanding how architecture can engage with a range of scales and practices. As an architecture course based in an arts school, we will support you to explore of a broad range of ideas and knowledges to open alternative forms of space making. We will encourage you to develop your own critical and situated approach to architectural design and practice.

The course collaborates with external partners including social initiatives, cultural institutions, public and private sector bodies. There will also be opportunities to engage with other disciplines in the College. This creates a rich interdisciplinary learning experience, with opportunity to work on live projects, engaging with communities and clients. This will allow you to gain an understanding of spatial practice and your role as designer within it.