Architecture at the RCA seeks to encourage individual speculation, experimentation and innovation. At MA level we prepare students for a critical ideas-driven approach to architecture, underpinned by a strong sense of material reality and making. Not only do we aim to harness and extend students’ knowledge, design skill and creativity, but also we want them to know how to communicate it. We seek to prepare students to design cleverly and provocatively, but also to be critically engaged in the real world.
The pursuit of these aims in architecture makes particular sense in the broader context of the College, where proximity of sophisticated practice across the art and design spectrum encourages a wide, multidisciplinary view of design. All of the teachers in the programme are engaged in practice, and see this as an essential undercurrent to a successful teaching environment. Through our practical experience we offer unexpected challenges, sparking creativity and supplying critical analysis, and we provide an environment where students can pursue, debate and prioritize these issues as individual designers to create original and rigorous architecture.
The programme offers:
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a strong culture of critical, sociopolitical architectural discourse
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a strong culture of tactility and making in architecture
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a pedagogy that encourages experimentation and innovation
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a mature, open, communicative teacher-student environment
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a programme that draws out and builds on student individuality
- a strong individually guided fifth-year thesis programme
- a college-wide multidisciplinary context
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access to extensive workshop facilities
Download Architecture Programme Information Pack (PDF).
Open Days are held at the College between October and February of each academic year, to enable applicants to explore teaching programmes and meet staff and students.
Please note that RCA Architecture Students wishing to apply to our MA Architecture (ARB/RIBA Part 2) will not be eligible for Student Loans or funding from SLC/SFE.