Architecture (Design) MArch

Facts about Architecture (Design)

Qualification	MArch
Duration	Full time: 1 year
Attendance	Full time: 3 days a week
Assessment	Continuous assessment of your design work; design thesis
Course structure

Choose Kingston's Architecture (Design) MArch

Design is the core skill of the architect. This course provides students the opportunity to develop their design skills, through thoughtful engagement with site, precedent and materials. It also introduces internationally-educated students to UK professional registration criteria and projects which encompass the range of issues against which those criteria are measured.

If you are a practitioner looking to reinvigorate your design ability and design thinking, this course is ideal.

What will you study?

Drawing on the particular strengths of Kingston in teaching and learning design through making, you will focus on the relationship between architecture and its physical, cultural and temporal context. You will study theoretical studies which are embedded as integral elements of the design projects.

You will be given the space and time to explore current architectural theories, inform yourself on the key issues and trends impacting upon your work, reground your design skills and research, and explore and test design strategies.

Research areas

Many of the staff in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture are research active. This ensures they are in touch with the latest thinking and bring best practice to your studies.
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Course structure

Please note that this is an indicative list of modules and is not intended as a definitive list. Those listed here may also be a mixture of core and optional modules.

Core modules

Research Contexts for Architecture
Design Research: Context
Design Research: Process
MArch (Design) Thesis: Design Resolution
Material Research
MArch (Design) Thesis: Environmental Integration
MArch (Design) Thesis Project

Option modules (choose three)

Computing for Design
Computing for Design

This is a self-led research and project-based module. It allows you to develop your skills in, and further your understanding of, digital technologies. Part of this process is to raise awareness about:
- the impact of the use digital media in architecture; and
- how it is changing and informing the design and production process.
History and Theory
History and Theory

Architecture is a creative act dependent upon deep, culturally embedded continuities. It is part of a cultural discourse that evolves through history and from which it draws meaning. History however is not simply a collection of facts but an ongoing process of interpretation and understanding. This process forms the necessary basis for a practice that hopes to fulfil its potential and make a meaningful contribution to culture.

The main aim of this module is to:
- introduce the history of ideas and its relevance to architecture; and
- provide a critical mapping of the development of architecture from antiquity to modernity, through the investigation of major turning points.
Philosophy and Critique
Philosophy and Critique

This module introduces the relevance of philosophical and theoretical discourses for architecture. It provides a basic understanding of the key processes and phenomena which have contributed to the idea of modernity.

Assessment consists of a verbal presentation of approximately 20 minutes, with visual aids if appropriate.
Context of Sustainability
Context of Sustainability

This module offers the opportunity to understand the wider historic and cultural context for the contemporary debate on sustainability. Drawing from a wide range of sources, you are required to demonstrate a critical understanding of the contemporary debate.

Delivery is through lectures, seminars and group and individual action learning. Assessment is by seminar papers, presentations, and the collation and critique of a portfolio of current reviews.
Conservation and Heritage
Conservation and Heritage

The module investigates the culture, legislation and technologies associated with working with the historic environment. Delivery includes visits to a range of listed buildings and sites in the local area, and lectures and seminars by expert practitioners.

Assessment is through a case study and a project proposal for the future use of an existing building of historic significance.
Material Resolution
Material Resolution

This module aims to introduce the relevance of making things to the process of architectural investigation, development and resolution.

The module structure allows for a number of different types of making to be investigated each year. Some creative outcomes relate directly to the projects that are being undertaken in studio (such as model-making) and others engage with completely different types of making (such as concrete casting, stone carving or bronze casting).

The primary function of the module is to allow you to reflect upon the nature of making and its relation to creativity.
Design Control and Management
Design Control and Management

This module explores the issues which impact on design from the perspective of the managerial and operational processes within architectural practice. It uses case-studies to help evaluate the effectiveness of different organisational structures. You then apply this learning to proposals for a current project.
Sustainable Cities
Sustainable Cities

This module is a critical appreciation of urban society and its future – as it becomes the norm for the majority of the world's population, it is an essential requirement for the built environment professional.

The module provides an opportunity to debate the theoretical concepts of sustainable cities, allowing critical analysis of the drivers, legislation and processes governing sustainable urban environments. The ability to consider issues from a variety of perspectives and evaluate strategies for spatial planning is engendered.

The module intends to encourage a commitment to social, economic and environmental issues, which influence the creation, delivery and maintenance of sustainable cities.
Landscape and Urbanism Theory
Landscape and Urbanism Theory

The module seeks to develop a theoretical grounding and literacy in landscape design and urbanism. The subject area overlaps with others such as architecture, urban design and planning, landscape architecture – texts are drawn from each of these disciplines.

Much of the synthesis of the material will rely on seminar discussion and independent study. The module focus is the bringing together of different disciplines with the 'landscape' (rather than the 'built form') as forum for discussion.

You participate in seminar presentations and reviews of critical texts, and prepare an individual manifesto or essay for presentation.

We also aim to develop this module as a short course/public lecture programme.
Applying Technology
Applying Technology

The role of the contemporary architect is increasingly that of the specifier, needing to:
- solve specific problems relating to particular conditions through the application of systems and standardised components; and
- use the products of universalised, mass production in response to the increasingly stringent parameters of regulation and economics.
Technically resolving a building therefore involves a series of iterative and developing levels of detail, where complex and often overlapping systems and components are integrated across a range of scales.

This module develops your ability to think strategically about the relationship between building elements and systems encompassing:
- structure;
- mechanical and electrical services;
- environmental controls;
- materials and components;
- the building envelope; and
- interior finish.
You develop a given building and, in doing so, the selection of systems, moments of junction, issues of tolerance and dimensional coordination become the subject of design.

The module goes on to develop your ability to measure the effectiveness of the result, through the application of techniques for testing building performance and with regard to issues of human comfort and sustainability.
Live Project