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Housing and Urbanism MA/MArch

Architectural Association School of Architecture

London, United Kingdom

  • Tuition Fee £ 37,341
  • Country Rank#155
  • Duration12 Months
  • Score

Program Overview

Housing and Urbanism (HU) focuses on the key issues driving urban transformation, and the role of architecture in enacting critical change. Each year, the programme addresses the most pressing issues confronting cities, which form the starting points for our studio, lecture courses and student research. While design learning and investigation form the core of our programme, a complementary aim of this work is to deepen students’ grasp of the politics and practicalities shaping the cities of today. Our primary interest is in specific projects that are strong enough to initiate or further the positive transformation of urban areas. The programme works across multiple scales, from detailed plans of contemporary housing to the mobility infrastructure of the regional metropolis. While many courses in urbanism grasp the broad overview of cities and regions, HU investigates the way design reasoning enables actors and decision-makers to take essential next steps in effecting change.
 

Offered as a 12-month MA or a 16-month MArch, the programme’s curriculum centres on design-led research that leads to an individual thesis. A collaborative Design Workshop forms the central element of the coursework, and during the first three terms, lectures and seminars inform students’ design work and broaden their scholarly understanding of urban trends and histories. The final term is devoted entirely to the development and completion of the individual design thesis.
 

Each year, HU focuses on a set of research themes which organise the programme’s workshops and international collaborations. This year, we will be investigating the foundations of urban resilience in the face of global uncertainties. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated many pre-existing patterns of change in our cities: our cultures of work and residential life are shifting; our expectations of health services are changing; and our mobility patterns and shopping habits are similarly evolving. Taken together, the pandemic has furthered calls for a new urban localism as a critical response to the failures of centrally-planned government policies. We will be examining the new forms of leadership, responsibility and innovation that may emerge from the current situation of uncertainty, and the role that architects and urbanists might play in encouraging a high level of ambition among our political actors and civic leaders. We will be working with a range of international universities and cities to compare and assess situated urban responses across the globe. Above all, we will aim to define the projects that encourage future resilience in our cities around the world.

Cost Of Studying At Architectural Association School of Architecture

Interest rates as low as 8.9% *

250K+

Students Assisted

800Cr+

Loan Amount Disbursed

5000+

Loans Sanctioned