MArch in Architecture
Belfast, United Kingdom
DURATION
2 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
Request application deadline
EARLIEST START DATE
16 Sep 2024
TUITION FEES
GBP 25,800 *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* for EU and international
Introduction
An exciting, creative Master’s degree with accreditation from the ARB and RIBA, for students with a first degree in architecture who wish to progress their studies to final qualification as a practicing architect.
Your focus will be to investigate the relationships between critical practice, design, and research in the making of architectural proposals. The work produced throughout this two-year Master’s is a collaborative effort between you, award-winning practicing architects, and our academic staff.
Our studio is divided up into several thematic studio groups, each led by a pair of tutors. Each of the groups also features an expert external ‘consultant’ who will contribute to teaching throughout the year.
This course encourages lateral thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and engagement with issues in a self-critical design-led process. It is broad in its engagement as is architecture addressing societal issues as diverse as our survival on the planet and local engagement with culture and craft - from the making of an entire city to the design of a door handle.
Through exposing you to many ways of seeing the world as a designer, ultimately the master’s program challenges you to define your voice as an architect enabling you to be critically self-aware of your future practice.
What Will Excite You
You’ll be engaging with real projects, real clients, local communities, and international collaborators and conversing with renowned architects in the development of your projects alongside embarking on worldwide field trips. Our students have gone to places such as Munich, Genoa, Barcelona, Istanbul, and Oslo to look at how other cultures shape their built environment.
The Environment
You will be based in Belfast, a textbook and laboratory for architecture. It is a city the size of a town, full of compelling history and steeped in traditions of craft and making.
You’ll enjoy a healthy staff-to-student ratio, and good studios, where you’ll each have your own space with excellent workshops and technicians to support you in developing your work.
Academic Literacy Module
An optional, complementary module for non-native speakers of English. Designed to support English language and academic skills development with a focus on specific academic skills related to the student's area of study.
Admissions
Scholarships and Funding
Applicants are advised to explore fully the funding opportunities for studying in the UK, for example, international students may find funding is available from sources within their own countries.
The funding set out in this section includes funding available from the University and from some external sources. Information provided in this section is intended to highlight some sources of funding: it is not a comprehensive list of funding sources.
Applying for funding which is available from the University is part of an integrated, online, postgraduate admissions process. An offer of a place at Queen’s does not constitute an offer of financial support.
For 2023 entry, Faculties and Schools in the University will be setting their own deadlines for postgraduate applications for admissions, studentships and scholarships. Applicants who wish to apply for postgraduate funding available from the University for 2023 entry should refer to the relevant Faculty and School websites for information.
- The Department for the Economy will provide a tuition fee loan of up to £6,500 per NI / EU student for postgraduate study.
- A postgraduate loans system in the UK offers government-backed student loans of up to £11,836 for taught and research Masters courses in all subject areas.
Curriculum
The focus of the MArch is to investigate and develop the relationships between critical practice, design and research through the making of unique and challenging architectural propositions.
The studio is divided up into thematic groups which collectively encompass a broad range of approaches to architectural design. The groups reflect the expertise and preoccupations of the tutors and expert consultants involved. Accordingly, the briefs developed and the work produced become a collaborative investigation between practitioners, students and academics into some of the pressing spatial issues affecting the production of the contemporary built environment, both on this island and elsewhere.
Students are offered a choice of group at the beginning of MArch I and then again at the beginning of MArch II, their thesis year. It is imagined that they will choose a different group each year to make the most of the breadth and the depth offered by the studio system. Choices are also offered for humanities and technologies dissertations.
The four semesters of the Masters programme are thought of as a single entity, within which diverse challenges allow the student to identify core strengths and to develop these through open discussion with a strong emphasis on self-directed study and ambitious agendas.
Ultimately the purpose of this diversity and choice is to expose you to different ways of seeing and engaging with the world as an architect. Our course is structured to provoke you in becoming critically self-aware as a designer and to establish your own voice as an architect. Our intention that this will provide you with the firm foundations for your future practice.
Year 1 Modules
- M.Arch Studio 1 (30 CATS)
- M.Arch Studio 2 (30 CATS)
- Architectural Research: Humanities
- Dissertation (30 CATS) (project work)
- Architectural Research: Technology
- Dissertation (30 CATS) (project work)
Year 2 Modules
- M.Arch Studio 3 (30 CATS)
- M.Arch Studio 4 (30 CATS)
- Thesis Research (30 CATS)
- Professional Skills (30 CATS)
During my time at Queen’s, the MArch programme has allowed me to define the direction in which I take my studies and architectural projects, which in turn allows me to develop myself into the designer and Architect that I wish to be. The variety of projects, from design and conceptual work, to technology driven or even academic writing has given me a broad scope of skills which has given me the opportunity and ability to pursue a future in architecture that I am passionate about.
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
Completion of the MArch constitutes Part II of the RIBA/ARB criteria leading to eligibility to sit Part III, the Professional Examination and registration as an architect in the UK.
Where Might You Be In Five Years
Contributing to our society anywhere in the world, as an architect or in one of its many parallel disciplines
Our graduates are currently working alongside world leading architects in the construction of significant cultural buildings, designing skyscrapers in Hong Kong and the Middle East, emergency housing for refugees in Africa, film sets for Hollywood productions and computer games, as well as working as urban planners worldwide, teaching in universities or becoming artists and photographers.