PhD Programme

Entry requirements

Candidates for MPhil/PhD research degrees must already hold an appropriate post-professional Master’s degree in their proposed area of MPhil/PhD research. Candidates for PhD in Architectural Design must also hold a five-year professional degree in architecture and will be expected to submit a design portfolio.

Months of entry

September

Course content

The PhD Programme at the AA is a full-time, three-year course that trains scholars and researchers in the fields of architectural history and theory, urban studies and technology. Its ambition is to learn from architectural knowledge and its history in order to understand the built environment at large. The programme is not based on the application of one specific research method, but instead provides a platform for candidates to develop their own methods. Beyond their individual lines of inquiry, however, all candidates and staff share an understanding of architectural form as the index of sociopolitical processes. This attitude provides a springboard for research that engages both with the materiality of the built world and with its cultural dimensions. We question the traditional separation of theory and design, and see thinking and practicing as activities that are intrinsically connected. This connection becomes ever more important as we face new social and environmental crises.

The programme supports challenging, speculative dissertations that interrogate architecture and its history, as well as its professional and disciplinary mandate. Each candidate is tutored by a director of studies and a supervisor throughout the duration of the programme, and their work is evaluated by both internal supervisors and external experts. Every year, candidates must present the results of their research in an open forum, allowing guests and staff to discuss its methodology, content and argument.

In parallel with the development of an individual thesis, each participant will be provided with a background of historical and theoretical thinking through weekly discussions with their director of studies and supervisor, regular seminars with guest scholars and an annual symposium that encourages discussion between invited guests, students and staff. Participation in collective activities and school-wide debate is a crucial component of the PhD experience, and is monitored and assessed as part of the students’ yearly review process. Candidates are also encouraged to test their research by teaching in the Intermediate, Diploma and Taught Postgraduate programmes at the AA.

PhD candidates at the AA include researchers in architecture, urbanism and other subjects related to the built environment, and the programme requires that prospective candidates have experience in conducting independent investigations and study in their respective fields. Priority will be given to applicants who propose original, well-defined and provocative research hypotheses, and prospective researchers must all be able to support their hypothesis with a mature and coherent existing body of work in their chosen field. Upon acceptance to the programme, candidates prepare a thesis abstract, preliminary table of contents and bibliography that is submitted to the Open University for registration. This first proposal becomes the core of the thesis that they then develop in the following years.

Fees and funding

The PhD programme takes place over three years (36 months). The annual fee for the programme is £30,930.