We are living in a time of planetary crisis. The built environment, in its entanglement with global structural systems and its complicity in their social, cultural and environmental impact, must also be the site of profound solutions and transformative spatial practices. This course champions a reparative and regenerative approach to the built environment, providing a platform for critical engagement with the past and radical speculations of better futures. You will question existing models and practices through an intersectional lens, engage with interdisciplinarity, and develop diverse, creative and critical approaches for multiple scales of the urban environment.
Using London as a laboratory for learning, you will investigate how histories of environmental, social and spatial inequities continue to shape contemporary cities, and explore how these issues can be addressed through architecture and spatial practices.
Supported by a dedicated team of experienced tutors, you will learn how to develop innovative strategies of research and practice, engaging with key issues concerning urban and cultural heritage, alongside the theory and practice of surveying, recording, mapping, analysing and designing. This culminates in a final project that critically addresses complex histories of the built environment and speculates more equitable futures.
This master’s equips you with the advanced knowledge and skills required to operate across the areas of urban research, design, management, implementation, policy and advocacy, combining subject expertise with design creativity, and linking theory, history and practice.
With experience of different cities and urban conditions in a global context, graduates are highly skilled in working flexibly, collaboratively and resourcefully in different cultural, geographic and professional environments, either in the public or private sector.
You will develop confidence in diverse communication, presentation and engagement skills, through different media and with different audiences, applicable to the built environment sector and beyond.
Graduates typically pursue careers in professional practices associated with the built environment in a variety of award-winning practices such as Fosters and Partners, John McAslan + Partners, Haworth Tompkins and DSDHA in the UK, as well as policymaking or heritage management in organisations such as Public Practice and UNESCO.
Graduates who wish to pursue academic and research pathways go on to join internationally renowned PhD courses, such as those at the Bartlett School of Architecture, ETH Zurich, and the University of Hong Kong*.
Our alumni have also founded campaigns for at-risk heritage sites, and the peer-reviewed international journal ‘Urbanogram’.
Graduate Outcomes survey carried out by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), looking at the destinations of graduates in the 2018–2024 cohorts, LinkedIn