M.Arch Introduction Master of Architecture (MArch RIBA Part 2)

Course Leader: Richard Difford

The Master of Architecture (M.Arch) has always been a forward-looking course; embracing emerging technologies and addressing the most pressing contemporary issues. Through the design studios, we pride ourselves on offering a diverse and challenging range of design methodologies. And, as ever, our students continue to capitalise on the high-quality teaching and excellent facilities that we offer to win international awards and to find employment in some of the most prestigious architectural practices. Many have also established innovative and successful practices of their own and play an influential role in the architectural culture of London and beyond.

Last year’s winning combination of design studios continued this year, with the introduction of an additional studio run by Jane Tankard and Jake Parkin. The new studio explores architecture through film, porosity, the interstitial and the Uncanny. All the studios also retain the commitment to regenerative design and systematic thinking that is at the heart of the school’s ethos. In the design briefs and in every aspect of teaching across the course, we seek to address questions relevant to the world beyond the institution and to prepare students to engage with the ethical and professional challenges presented by architectural practice in the 21st century. The design projects, along with other components of the course such as the Strategic Report and the Dissertation, tackle topics such as housing, adaptive reuse, the climate emergency and resource resilience.

The success of the course is testament to the dedication of the staff and the talent of the M.Arch students, and this year’s OPEN exhibition demonstrates this once again, hosting an amazing collection of work that represents the diversity and imagination of all the M.Arch studios. We can also take this opportunity to celebrate the success of Alexandra-Clara Popescu, whose project Emptiness in the Forbidden City received a commendation in the RIBA President’s Medals in the silver medal category. The project, which was completed this time last year, re-imagines the emptiness in Bucharest’s Palace of Parliament site and honours the ghost of Uranus – a once-vibrant community erased by authoritarian power under Ceausescu’s communist regime. This community was also the basis for Clara’s prize-winning dissertation, Memory as an Act of Spatial (Re)production, which traces the architecture and memories of Uranus, and won the Architectural Historians dissertation prize.