MA Fine Art, MArch: Architecture

Unit One: Methodologies for Architectural Engagement (60 Credits)

This unit consists of a series of projects intended to allow you to experiment with multidisciplinary approaches, as a means to develop your own design process, and also to test methodologies which can engage the public in architecture and spatial practice: approaches that expand and challenge the conventional role of the architect. These are tested and refined through design propositions. Through this process you are introduced to a variety of research methods and issues relevant to the discipline, which are then directly implemented in the creation/realisation of design work. While developing work for Unit 1 you will be researching and securing an industry placement to be undertaken in Unit 2.

Unit Two: Innovating in Architectural Practice (120 credits)

This unit begins with your Industry Placement. Working with your Mentor you will engage with your chosen practice in order to analyse the ways in which the nature of the practice informs their work. Following your placement you will begin on your Major Project. This is designed to allow you more freedom to explore the way that architectural practice can engage the public through action and intervention. You will define your own brief, based on research and analysis of a chosen site, and develop a real intervention in order to engage the public in a design process and outcome.

Unit Three: Constructing in Detail (20 Credits)

This unit provides an opportunity to explore technical aspects of making and construction in close detail, at 1:1, and with your own hands. You will engage with the conditions and constraints of structural, constructional and material systems through direct physical experience in a constructional prototyping project. The Unit will involve research and testing, collaborative teamwork and constructional implementation, and will primarily involve working as part of a team.

Unit Four: Reflecting on Professional Practice (40 Credits)

As a culmination to the course, and following the completion of your major project, this unit will rehearse the integration of key areas of subject knowledge by asking you to engage in professional reporting. This Unit is integrally linked to Unit 2 Innovating in Architectural Practice and will ask you to apply the technical and professional knowledge and understanding that you have gained so far, demonstrating your understanding of the complexity of practice through a retrospective reflection on the detail professional context of your own major project. This Unit seeks to simulate the multiple demands and regulatory controls that professional practice is subjected to – including Planning, Building Control, Cost, Contract, Consultancy and Constructional Documentation.

You have to pass all Units to gain your M Arch. However, your award classification is based on your achievement in Units 2 and 4 only.