MA in Architectural Design
As programme leader of the MA in Architectural Design course I am really looking forward to starting the new term.
Our work at the University allows us to engage with the world through our teaching and research. Every year, we really look forward to exploring the plural approaches to architectural design to engage meaningfully with contemporary challenges facing the planet. We will work with community and research partners in the studio-based programme on real life projects across the year.
The MA in Architectural Design is critical, innovative and creative. You can expect a supportive and intellectually challenging learning environment, friendly and helpful staff, where you will develop novel and stimulating approaches for becoming socially engaged design-researcher.
Welcome Week
Welcome Week (information here) is essential for your introduction to the school - and you'll want to attend so you can start your first module promptly. Live Projects starts on the Monday following Welcome Week.
During Welcome Week you will be introduced to members of staff who will support you during your time studying here, and to the essential arrangements for Live Projects. Please take a look at the Live Projects and Live Works websites in preparation.
During this week you will also be encouraged to gain basic familiarity with the city of Sheffield - we will give you hints about how to do that. It is an exciting start and we are looking forward to meeting you!
Climate and social emergencies, and the ‘Speculative Ecologies’ theme
As a School of Architecture and Landscape, we continuously search for ways of engaging with the climate and social crises that our world is currently experiencing through creative and transformative methods of enquiry.
In the MA in Architectural Design, we approach this challenge through our umbrella theme of, ‘Speculative Ecologies’ – a call for collective enquiry into relational and generative research through architectural design situated in real life challenges while acting propositionally and collectively with others such as citizens, civic organisations, communities, research partners and other actors. We will discuss this throughout the year as we will collectively learn to engage with design research, but you may want to do a few readings in preparation, including:
- Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt (2015) The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (Princeton University Press, 2015)
- Simone, AbdouMaliq (2004). ‘People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg’. Public Culture 16(3), pp. 407-429
- Tyszczuk, Renata (2018) Provisional Cities: Cautionary Tales for the Anthropocene (Routledge)
- Doucet, Isabelle, and Frichot, Hélène (2018) ‘Resist, Reclaim, Speculate: Situated Perspectives on Architecture and the City’, Architectural Theory Review, 22.1 , pp. 1–8
Buying computer equipment
General IT Information can be found on the Virtual Reception. The software commonly used on the MA in Architectural Design course includes:
- CAD software such as AutoDesk Revit 2021, Rhino 7 (including Grasshopper), SketchUp
- Miro: An Online Whiteboard & Visual Collaboration Platform
- Image editors like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign
- Video editors like Adobe Premiere
- Mapping tools like Google Earth Pro, Promap and Arcview
Most of this software runs under both Windows and Apple computers. You may need to use rendering softwares to represent your design development.
We are extremely excited for the start of term and can’t wait to meet you and get started.
Emre Akbil
Programme leader for MA in Architectural Design
I am an architect and urbanist and University Teacher exploring decolonial, feminist and ecological methods and tactics in critical spatial pedagogies, practices and research. I am currently the leader of the MA in Architectural Design programme.