Overview

Sustainable building design has never been more important for the future of our environment. Critically explore a wide range of approaches to building physics and design strategies that promote sustainability to develop the skills needed to address this significant global challenge.

Reducing energy consumption which contributes to global climate change and pollution is an international imperative, and the future architect must be equipped with the skills and vision to tackle this challenge both innovatively and responsibly. This course helps you master the knowledge and skills required to produce thermally comfortable, healthy, and habitable building designs while minimising energy consumptions. The curriculum embraces the interface between the environmental, economical and socio-cultural dimensions of sustainability in terms of building design and carbon neutrality.

You will join a community that is co-designing new ways of thinking and challenging architectural conventions through bold experimentation and boundless enquiry. This enquiry-led approach to education will encourage you to take creative risks and to learn from your mistakes in a way that will shape your future design choices.

We provide state-of-the-art facilities for you to realise your ambitions, with workshops offering cutting-edge digital fabrication facilities, alongside a wide range of craft workshops, where you can innovate with materials and processes. We’ll help you to graduate with the tools to take your own personal and critical position on embracing the challenges of sustainability in the globalised architectural world.

Teaching and assessments

The mode of delivery considered appropriate in individual modules will vary, as will the assessment regime, so that both are carefully matched to the learning outcomes. The course provides a learning environment that enables students to develop an integrative approach to their learning as the course develops.

The programme engages a multi-disciplinary and an integrated staff team of architects and built environment professionals. The teaching methods include lectures, seminars, tutorials, workshops, field visits, case studies, and directed reading. The academic team is committed to a rich range of teaching, learning and student support which is mainly project based giving you the opportunity to work as individuals and in groups.

Assessment and feedback is ongoing and is usually carried out during workshops and reviews. Assessment of the main projects takes place at the end of the term or the academic year and looks at your ability to analyse and implement your knowledge of sustainability in the projects and will be measured against the learning outcomes of each module.