36 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3ES
UK
Early Applications deadline: Friday, January 29, 2021.
Bursaries and scholarships available.
More information about how to apply here.
Join us on the AA Virtual Open Day, Friday, January 15, 2021. More information about the event, here.
The MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design (Projective Cities) is a 18-month, interdisciplinary research and design programme that examines multi-scalar questions arising at the intersection of architecture, urban design and planning.
Projective Cities is a critical forum to engage with questions of governance and development in the context of global challenges of urbanisation. Its objective is to respond to current urban, environmental and social crises by rethinking the agency of spatial design and development within specific political, economic, social and cultural contexts.
Each cohort of Projective Cities examines a common theme as the starting point for individual research agendas. The current theme is the Architecture of Collective Living. The ambition is to investigate, by comparative analysis, the different organisational, formal, programmatic, and material particularities that define the Architecture of Collective Living in series of historic and contemporary case studies.
The spatial organisation of the Architecture of Collective Living is reflected on a series of informal and formal relations between subjects, between spaces, between structural and non-structural elements, between objects, and protocols of use and occupation.
The Architecture of Collective Living therefore opens up a discussion of how the urban can be understood through specific architecture and its design, and how its effect as an urban armature is not only of spatial importance, but equally organised by larger political and social discourses.
Projective Cities prepares its candidates for independent research through a framework of rigorous design and research methodologies. The first year of the programme is taught, introducing students to research methods, academic writing, architectural and urban histories and theories, advanced analytical techniques and computational design in preparation for a substantial dissertation project. At the end of the first year, students submit a research proposal. This is developed in the second year, leading to an integrated design and written dissertation.
Projective Cities seeks candidates with a desire to develop substantial and original research. It seeks exceptional thinkers, gifted designers and critical writers with an interest in the future of our cities.
Recent and ongoing research projects were developed in London, Athens, Barcelona, Bangkok, Beijing, Wuhan, the region of Silesia in Poland, Berlin, Jakarta, Leipzig, Shanghai, among others. Ongoing collaborations with academic institutions, municipalities, collectives, cooperatives, multi- and interdisciplinary practices in Barcelona, Athens and Cyprus.
Programme Staff: Raul Avilla, Doreen Bernath, Cristina Gamboa, Platon Issaias, Hamed Khosravi.
Consultants: Roozbeh Elias-Azar, Ioanna Piniara.
