Course content
Working in small class sizes, and from your own workspace in our friendly studio, you’ll benefit from lots of one-to-one contact. We’ll help you to think like a creative, solve problems and learn a wide range of transferable skills.
Studio projects will be creative and wide-ranging covering different building typologies, scales and settings. You will consider everything from small scale domestic architecture to larger urban settings.
You’ll have access to our fantastic new Smart Zone, a collaborative maker space with the latest rapid prototyping, milling and laser cutting equipment, plus VR, AR, Robotics and 3D scanning. You can also use traditional model making skills in our wood, plastics, resins and metal workshops, all of which will help you bring your innovative designs to life.
You’ll be introduced to core skills through structured and practical design projects, involving idea generation, drawing and rendering, model-making and CAD work. You’ll also cover architectural history, materials and environmental issues, and guidance about the architectural profession and wider applications of a training in architecture.
During your time on the course you will have opportunities to engage in ‘live’ projects whereby you will be given the chance to work with real clients on live project briefs. In addition, we will offer a range of educational visits both cultural and industrial in nature, which may include factories, building sites, completed buildings and architectural practices, both in the UK and abroad.
Professional body accreditation
Prescribed by the Architects Registration Board (ARB) at Part 1 level for the purpose of registration in the UK.
Validated by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) at Part 1 level for the purpose of eligibility for membership of the RIBA.
Modules
The tables provide an indicative list of the modules that make up the course for the current academic year. Each module is worth a specified number of credits. Our teaching is informed by research, and modules change periodically to reflect developments in the discipline. We aim to ensure that all modules run as scheduled. If for any reason a module cannot be run we will advise you as soon as possible and will provide guidance on selecting an appropriate alternative module where available.
Design Process - Studio 2
This second design module will engage in the creative consideration of a current issue, in the specific context of the terraced streets surrounding the University. In response to a pertinent proposition made by the module tutor and relating to the futureproofing of the existing housing stock in the city, you will be challenged to propose a small-scale, but radical intervention into an existing terraced house, its garden or its street, and which is capable of wider implementation. This module will invite questions about, scale, security, privacy, light, social behaviours, sustainability, materiality, and comfort, investigate key ideas around reuse, adaptation and retrofit, and further develop your skills in the consideration, evaluation, and communication of relevant and radical design ideas using a range of techniques, materials, and scales.
Module code: ARCH40002
Exploratory Design - Studio 1
In this first exploratory design module, you will be asked to reconsider your engagement and perception of the physical world. Short, dynamic design exercises will introduce you to the wide variety of techniques, both practical and theoretical, used to formulate architectural design, and will draw on the rich tradition of craft, making and manufacture in the Potteries and within the School. A series of small-scale, but interlinked, design projects will challenge you to investigate your individual relationship to a given object, activity, and environment and begin to equip you with the skills necessary to evaluate, test and communicate your design ideas using a range of techniques, materials and scales. With support from teaching in Design Representation and Design Cultures, this module will consider the history & theory of craft, making and production in architecture and the importance of scale, materiality, and environment in the realisation of successful architectural proposals.
Module code: ARCH40003
Design And Representation 1
This exciting hands-on module utilises the extensive resources of the school to support you in developing the skills necessary to explore and communicate your ideas effectively. The focus of this module will be on model making and you will be given access and support to use the school materials workshops and the SmartZone as part of this module and further instruction in specific areas or techniques will be offered where applicable as part of the University Technical (TI) Instruction programme.
Module code: ARCH40000
Materials, Environment And Technology 1
In this module you will consider to the key aspects of the design and construction of sustainable architectural proposals through the discussion and consideration of the methods, which can be employed in the realisation of the building typologies being considered in Design Studio 2. Through lectures, practical sessions, demonstrations, workshops and visits, you will learn about the relevant considerations and the appropriate strategies that can be employed in terms of structure, construction, materiality and environmental design, to design secure, sustainable and comfortable environments at this scale.
Module code: ARCH40004
Design Cultures 1
This module will engage with the key movements, styles, and theories in architecture, from antiquity to the late twentieth century, through the discussion and consideration of typologies, issues and scales relating to those being considered in Design Studios 1 and 2. Through, discussion, debates, visits, seminars, lectures and your own research, you will compare and contrast their variety; the materials of their production; the historical and cultural contexts of their realisation and the theories and debates arising from their subsequent evaluation. Doing this will reveal the dynamic evolution of architecture over time and the way in which the referencing of historical precedent in popular culture and the arts, contributes to the canon of our current architectural, precedents and thinking. Relating your understanding from this module to your projects in studio will help you to develop the skills necessary for effective conceptual and critical thinking.
Module code: ARCH40001
Collaborative Practice - Studio 3
This module acknowledges that architectural design is often a collaborative endeavour and asks you to work in groups with other students on the course and where possible from elsewhere in the school, on a project developed in response to an emerging issue or need in the city. You may also be asked to work alongside external stakeholders such as building professionals, representatives from the university, local government, or from external groups and organisations, on a project that will necessarily be dynamic in its realisation, meaning the brief may evolve as the project progresses, and sufficiently complex in its ambition to allow for meaningful input by the students and disciplines involved.
Module code: ARCH50000
Design And Representation 2
In this module, you will develop skills to communicate your designs and ideas effectively, applying subjects outside of the immediate context architecture to architectural design and representation. Through short projects, you will explore the influence and knowledge of fine arts and how they can be applied to architecture to develop architectural design and representation skills. This module utilises the extensive resources of the school to support you in developing the skills necessary to explore and communicate your ideas effectively. You will be given access and support to use the school arts' workshops, CAD rooms and the SmartZone as part of this module, and further instruction in specific areas or techniques will be offered where applicable as part of the University Technical Instruction (TI) programme. A series of short learning assignments will help to further develop your skills in digital drawing (CAD), graphical representation, model making, 3D modelling software and photography.
Module code: ARCH50001
Design Cultures 2
In this module you will continue to engage with the key movements, styles and theories in architecture, from antiquity to the late twentieth century, through the discussion and consideration of the seminal buildings relating to the specific typologies being considered in Design Studios 3 & 4. Through, discussion, debates, visits, seminars, lectures and your own research, you will compare and contrast their variety; the materials of their production; the historical and cultural contexts of their realisation and the theories and debates arising from their subsequent evaluation. Your engagement in this module will expand your understanding of the evolution of architecture through time and the way in which it is referenced in popular culture and the arts and in your own work to inform your emerging architectural position.
Module code: ARCH50002
Materials, Environment And Technology 2
This module engages theoretically and practically with key aspects of the design and construction of sustainable architectural proposals. Through, discussion, debates, visits, seminars, lectures, model-making and the construction of full-scale projects and prototypes, you will learn about the relevant considerations and the appropriate strategies that can be employed to design secure, safe and comfortable environments at a scale and typology relating to those being considered in the Design Studio.
Module code: ARCH50004
Design Resolution - Studio 4
This third design module considers the role of architecture in the wider context of urban design theory and specifically as part of the ongoing transformation and regeneration of post-industrial towns and cities such as Stoke-on-Trent. Testing ideas through a series of short design exercises focused on specific sites in the city, and culminating in a more substantive intervention which will include a small public building and an associated urban space, you will be introduced to urban catalyst theory and then engage with the principle of organic regeneration through small scale local intervention by communities and small groups.
Module code: ARCH50003
Advanced Design - Studio 5
This module represents the summation of the course and affords students an opportunity to deploy the understanding, knowledge, and skills they have developed throughout their studies in the realisation of an ambitious and well resolved architectural design. Students will be asked to explore and investigate in detail, the theoretical, contextual, environmental, and tectonic design issues, arising from an overarching thematic proposition set by the module tutor and drawn from the context of the city they have studied over the preceding years of the course.
Module code: ARCH60000
Professional Practice
The module programme will include lectures and seminars independent study and research. Lectures will cover the basic information, and the seminars will provide discussion and practical exercises (problems, Q&A and case studies) to emphasise the application of principles of practice and the law studied in lectures, and during self-guided & guided study. Specialist lecturers including practitioners and graduate students will input into lectures and seminars as appropriate. The module will also offer advice and preparation for year-out placements following graduation, with seminars and workshops covering CV writing, portfolios, writing applications and interviews skills. CV and portfolio workshops and mock interview sessions with practicing architects will also equip you to make applications for a year-out placement following your graduation.
Module code: ARCH60003
Critical Research
This module will require you to undertake a sustained and in-depth investigation into a specific subject area as part of a learning agreement made with the Module Tutor. Drawing on your growing knowledge of architectural history, theory, technology, urbanism and the arts, it will seek to expand and strengthen your competencies in intellectual inquiry, research, writing and presentation, and will encourage you to develop your own informed design agendas.
Module code: ARCH60001
Materials, Environment And Technology 3
In this module you will consider the key aspects of the design and construction of sustainable architectural proposals through the discussion and consideration of the methods which can employed in the realisation of the building typology being considered in Design Studio 5. You will learn about the relevant considerations and the appropriate strategies that can be employed in terms of structure, construction, materiality and environmental design, to design secure, safe and comfortable environments at this scale. A number of inputs to this module will be specific technology-based tutorials directly relating to your design work in studio and this may wholly or in part be delivered by visiting specialists or with input from other courses in the school.
Module code: ARCH60002