Taught MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design (Projective Cities)

Entry requirements

For candidates with a four or five-year degree (BArch/Diploma equivalent) in architecture or other relevant disciplines, such as urban design, planning, urbanism, and landscape design.

Months of entry

September

Course content

The MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design (Projective Cities) is an 18-month research and design programme that examines questions at the intersection of architecture, urban design and planning. The programme undertakes systematic analysis, design experimentation, theoretical speculation and critical writing, all of which focus on the contemporary city. Student projects combine design with traditional forms of research, while challenging disciplinary boundaries and contributing to emerging spatial design practice and knowledge. The programme recognises the need for multidisciplinary understanding and new design research training to meet the demands of contemporary architectural and urban practice. Each cohort of students addresses a shared theme which they take as the starting point for individual research agendas. The ambition of this agenda is to use comparative analysis to investigate the different organisational, formal, programmatic and material structures that govern how we live together, and to develop new design proposals in response to these investigations. Our intention is to rethink the informal and formal relations between subjects, spaces, structural and non-structural elements, objects and protocols of use and occupation in cities; doing so will enable us to understand specific architectures and the broader political and social discourses that define them.

Projective Cities has initiated a series of external partnerships that introduce students to relevant contemporary case studies, encourage design experimentation and broaden the ambitions of their research. In the 2023–24 academic year, Phase 2 students developed their dissertations in sites in cities worldwide, from Istanbul to Suzhou, Accra, Beijing, London, Chongqing and rural Korea; addressing a variety of urban, rural, typological, architectural and social questions through research-by-design.

Fees and funding

The Taught MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design is an 18-month programme of full-time study. The tuition fee for the programme is £44,826, of which £26,896 is paid in the first year of study and £17,930 is paid in the second and final year of study.

Taught Postgraduate students may apply for a Bursary to support the duration of their studies in their programme. Further information can be found here.