Architecture BA(Hons)

Why choose this course?

Architecture at Kingston University is centred on design, reflecting the course's context within an art and design-based faculty. The curriculum builds on the fundamental creative processes of observation and making, and its ethos could be summarised as 'thinking through making'.

This course is validated by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and prescribed by the Architects Registration Board (ARB). Completion of this degree automatically gives RIBA Part 1 exemption – the first step on the road to becoming a professional architect. The course is also recognised as a portable first degree, which enables graduates to move into a wide range of other fields.

What will you study?

At Kingston, architecture is emphasised as a material practice, paying particular attention to how buildings are made and how tectonic components are fundamental in defining architectural character.

Studio projects are an integral element of each year, forming 50 per cent of the course and equipping you with the skills and knowledge to tackle design issues in the built environment. Drawing and making skills are taught through workshops in techniques such as casting, pencil and charcoal rendering, detailed large-scale model-making, and computer-based graphics and CAD drawing. You will also study theoretical, cultural, historical, social, sustainable, material and technical issues.

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.

Year 1

• Design Principles: Subject and Context

• Design Principles: Subject and Context

  Architecture exists at the root of culture. In an immediate sense, this is in relation to a particular place, site or programme. More fundamentally it refers to the breadth and continuation of building forms and archetypes across history.

  This module asks you to begin to acknowledge the fundamental importance of subject and context in making an appropriate architectural response.

  
   
• Design Principles: Process and Proposal

• Design Principles: Process and Proposal

  The design of an architectural proposition involves an iterative process, whereby ideas are continually tested and refined. This module:

  • involves the making of propositional work, which begins to synthesise the research undertaken within subject and context as part of the conceptual approach to the project; and
  • introduces the idea of critical reflection about the process of design.
  
   
• Design Principles: Resolution

• Design Principles: Resolution

  To conclude an architectural project, the final design proposals need to be represented using a range of conventional, scaled and communicative formats to declare its intentions. This module asks you to:

  • convey the spatial, material and tectonic qualities of the final studio project;
  • document its contextual relationships; and
  • speculate upon how the proposed building is inhabited, showing how this influences the scale and design of spaces.

  It is also the point at which you can reflect back upon the whole project and make a connection to the initial research undertaken at the start of the project.

  
   
• Design Representation

• Design Representation

  The ability to communicate an idea or proposition is key to the experience and role of an architect.

  This module is a core element in the first year of architectural study as it introduces and encourages a range of representational skills and media that enable the design process. Drawing and model making are the means by which the architect visualises, tests and orders proposals.

  
   
• Professional Principles

• Professional Principles

  You will take management, practice and law modules at levels 4, 5 and 6 of the course. This suite of modules provides you with a progressively in-depth understanding of:

  • the role and responsibilities of the architect; and
  • the issues within architectural practice, the profession and the construction industry.

  These modules will also support you in identifying and developing the study, professional and transferable skills you will need to progress and succeed through the course and beyond.

  This particular module requires you to produce a professional skills development log. This will meet the requirement for personal development planning at level 4 of the course and some aspects of the University key skills framework.

  
   
• Sustainable Principles

• Sustainable Principles

  Sustainability is a fundamental issue for our contemporary world. This module introduces sustainable principles – from the micro to the macro, from individual behaviour patterns, through to societal change.

  It will provide an overview of the history of the ecological crisis, as well as the development of concepts and theories informing sustainable development and the response(s) of the design world.

  
   
• Tectonic Principles

• Tectonic Principles

  Architecture is a material practice. This module begins to ask you to consider the making of a building in relation to a wider architectural conversation.

  This will operate at two scales, starting at the scale of the material and then expanding to consider how material informs the wider scale of the building.

  
   
• Studies in the History of Architecture

• Studies in the History of Architecture

  The study of history reveals the connections between the past and present. The way that ideas, ritual and practical requirements have always been embodied in buildings reveals to us past world views and the way in which they influence the way we ourselves are positioned in the world.

  This module introduces this thematic of continuities through a chronological survey of architectural history, focusing on illustrative case studies.

  
   

Year 2

• Design Practice: Subject and Context

• Design Practice: Subject and Context

  Architectural design involves an ongoing process of contextual analysis, which encompasses:

  • the physical conditions of a site and its surroundings;
  • proposed programmatic relationships; and
  • wider social and cultural concerns.

  Considering relationships to precedent and wider issues of architecture further assists in defining a coherent and sustainable design proposition. Together, these elements of research inform the development of a design project.

  This module expands the strategies for researching the subject and context of a design proposal and emphasises the importance of analysis, following on from observation, within this work.

  
   
• Design Practice: Process and Proposal

• Design Practice: Process and Proposal

  The production of complex architectural propositions requires reflective and iterative analysis throughout the design process.

  This module develops your design skills by introducing projects which require the production of increasingly complex propositional work, within which issues of construction and environmental, sustainable, structural, and tectonic concerns need to be considered in relation to one another.

  
   
• Design Practice: Resolution

• Design Practice: Resolution

  A successful resolved architectural project needs to demonstrate how decisions made at the strategic scale are integrated into detailed thinking and vice versa. This module considers how the many detailed aspects of architectural propositions can be drawn together and documented through the production of appropriately scaled, two and three dimensional representations.

  Collectively these will begin to integrate key constructional, environmental, sustainable, structural and tectonic concerns at a detailed level, whilst the resultant investigations will be placed back into relation with the wider issues of subject and context.

  
   
• Design Representation and Communication

• Design Representation and Communication

  Architects use different modes of representation to communicate with varied audiences for a range of purposes.

  This module builds on the Design Representation module to support your further development of a broader range of representation skills and techniques. These will enable you to engage more fully and directly in the subject and to communicate to a wider audience.

  
   
• Professional Practice

• Professional Practice

  Architecture is generated within a social, professional, regulatory and procedural context.

  This module provides the foundations for the knowledge, techniques and skills that you will need to acquire to develop a project from inception to completion and current and future use.

  
   
• Environmental Practice

• Environmental Practice

  This module aims to build upon the understanding you have gained so far on the course by focusing on the principles and decisions needed to make a suitable environment in which humans might live comfortably and in harmony with ecosystems.

  The built environment is a huge consumer of natural resources and, in industrialised countries, is the sector that is by far the largest consumer of energy – for construction and demolition, as well as for heating, lighting and cooling.

  To address this concern, we will focus on passive versus active environmental building service systems, as well as other environmental design issues, such as comfort and wellbeing. We consider all of these concerns in the light of existing and potential regulation and legislation.

  
   
• Tectonic Practice

• Tectonic Practice

  The material components of a building are fundamental in defining its architectural character. This module provides the foundations for the knowledge, techniques and skills that you will need to master to construct and structure a holistic architectural proposition.

  
   
• History of Modern Architecture

Year 3

• Design Thesis: Subject and Context

• Design Thesis: Subject and Context

  The 'thesis' of an architectural project constitutes a concise and considered proposition, which:

  • can be clearly articulated; and
  • has its origins in contextual, historical and theoretical research and analysis.

  This module supports the acquisition of a developed body of research and analytical skills. These will assist both in:

  • the formulation of research material; and
  • the final definition of the 'thesis' for the project (continually refined through consideration at each stage of the design process).

  The resultant architectural proposition should embody this process of thinking and research, resulting in a convincing and sustainable response to its immediate site, the wider physical environment and the needs of its inhabitants.

  
   
• Design Thesis: Process and Proposal

• Design Thesis: Process and Proposal

  The development of a 'thesis' project demands an ability to build upon a conceptual approach, drawing together a complex range of issues to ultimately produce a coherent, holistic architectural proposal of appropriate scale.

  This module examines how the developing issues of subject and context are integrated with constructional, environmental, sustainable, structural, tectonic and professional concerns. It involves significant critical reflection on the developing propositional work, testing your ability to integrate a complex set of issues and encouraging an iterative testing of the thesis proposition.

  
   
• Design Thesis: Resolution

• Design Thesis: Resolution

  The successful conclusion of the Level 6 design thesis project is a significant demonstration of your readiness to enter the architectural profession.

  This module asks you to produce a coherent and appropriately resolved architectural proposition, which integrates constructional, environmental, sustainable, structural, and tectonic concerns, within physical, social and regulatory contexts.

  The resulting building should demonstrate how issues established in subject and context and developed through process and proposal are translated into physical, material form, both at a strategic and at a detailed level, with a degree of intellectual rigour. It should attempt to concisely embody the ‘thesis' of the project.

  
   
• Design Thesis Communciation

• Design Thesis Communciation

  Architects use representational techniques to communicate with themselves, to develop their design work and to communicate to others in a professional context.

  This module enables you to gain a greater understanding of the common language used in the architectural profession and to develop methods of representation that underpin a more personal approach to design.

  
   
• Integrating Professional Practice

• Integrating Professional Practice

  Professional practice entails the integration of ethical, social, regulatory, financial and procedural issues into the design process. It also involves continuing professional development to expand existing skills and knowledge.

  This module develops your ability to apply professional knowledge, techniques and skills to your own work and prepares you for your initial period of monitored professional experience.

  
   
• Integrating Technology

• Integrating Technology

  The ability to integrate the technological aspects of a building, as part of an ongoing and iterative process of design is a core skill of an architect. This module develops your ability to simultaneously consider all aspects of a building's technology in relation to its wider design aims at the scale of both strategy and details.

  
   
• Dissertation

• Dissertation

  The coherent expression of ideas is a necessary skill for the practice of architecture. The formal and tectonic aspects of architecture need to be understood in close relation to its cultural and practical context.

  This module develops your ability to understand and intellectually engage with historical precedents in architecture, and articulate your observations through writing a dissertation.