Architectural History/Theory 1 introduces students to the discourse of architectural history and theory. It includes a concise chronological survey of key periods of architectural history from antiquity to the mid-nineteenth century, providing an overview of the scope of the field and establishing initial points of reference. It also includes closer investigation of the ways in which particular architectural themes and ideas traverse across history, coming to the fore in certain periods and receding in others. Students will interrogate these themes in small groups through intense study of a single significant building, which they will research, document and illustrate in a written report, and re-construct in a suite of finely crafted scale models. They will be introduced to fundamental principles and skills of scholarly research in the discipline, including locating and evaluating sources, and constructing arguments.

Architectural Technologies 1 introduces students to the roles that environmental considerations, structures and construction play in architecture. The fundamental concepts underpinning each of these key areas are presented and students demonstrate their developing knowledge of them via project-based assignments. These progressively complex tasks initiate students to the knowledge required to successfully analyse and synthesise construction and technical systems in basic buildings.

This course aims at providing students with the conceptual and technical skills required to creatively explore dynamic transactions between art and architecture. Throughout the semester, students will extend their ability to work with complex ideas while drawing on interdisciplinary practices related to the body, time, movement, structure, form and site. This course provides a space for architecture students to establish parameters and territories for exploration beyond the concerns of conventional architectural projects. From generative form making to performative action, the crossover between art and architecture has always been present within architectural design. This unit looks at developing conceptual and practical disciplines through experimentation with materials. Essential design sensitivities and skills will be developed through different modes of working including lectures, tutorials, presentations and writing as well as the physical engagement with new materials and building processes.

This studio capitalises on the skills and processes gained in the first semester studio to engage with increasingly complex programmatic and contextual issues within the built environment.Fundamental modes of representation in a variety of media will be deployed as a means to comprehend and articulate architecture from multiple integrated perspectives.Designing a small building will be the final project yet based on a series of introductory exercises that will engage with concepts of iteration in a range of scales and media.Students will continue to learn new software and other related techniques while also developing their familiarity with the technical skills necessary to realise a final design presentation including various media.The design projects will explore the necessity of experimentation as a means to communicate fundamental ideas about space, structure and form.

Architectural Technologies 2 explores the roles that environmental considerations, structure and construction play in moderately complex small-scale buildings. Emphasis is placed on developing in students an active awareness of the impact that technical and constructional decisions have on architectural design. Through project-based learning, student develop an active awareness of the important role that appropriate technical and constructional decisions play in terms of fulfilling conceptual ambitions in tangible works of architecture. Students develop and demonstrate their developing appreciation of these issues via case study analysis, a group project, individual technical drawings and a final examination.

Architecture Studio 2A requires the design of a small-scale building or space in an urban context. An architectural study of the house is coupled with an intensive process that prioritises communication techniques for articulating a design from a schematic stage through its development to final presentation drawings and models.
Exploration of multiple design communication techniques is promoted, including digital drawing, modelling and making, combined with support for engagement with multiple tools and machinery in the DMaF workshops. The design process fostered throughout the semester explores the creative tension between intuition and prescription, building skills via techniques and strategies that are also intended to assist in eliciting unexpected solutions.
Through this process, students are expected to become increasingly familiar with the complexities of architectural design and gain skill in incorporating a widening range of considerations into their projects. Examples of these aspects extend from the interpretation of programmatic requirements with respect to the opportunities and limits of site conditions to material articulation and the spatial and geometric implications of strategic decisions. They will be required to precisely and imaginatively negotiate the internal logic of a design approach and an urban strategy, searching for an overall coherence.

Architecture Studio 2B demands of students a critical engagement with modern architecture and its histories. It couples the methods of humanities research, including locating and appraising sources, and constructing arguments, with the creative processes of architectural design. Students become increasingly aware of the role of the architect as an active agent in history and negotiate some of the attendant ethical, political, technical and aesthetic challenges and opportunities. In parallel with a weekly lecture series on key modern protagonists, movements and their historical consequences, students develop an illustrated essay on a topic of their own choosing, and they design a medium-scale building in a historically charged urban context. The studio project is conducted as a `conversation¿ between contemporary programmatic concerns and architectural sensibilities, and the claims of the historically situated architecture that the students are required to reinvigorate.

Architectural History/Theory 3 surveys contemporary architectural debates through historical precedents, central texts, and present-day criticism on aesthetic design, cultural influences, mass media, and political events. Architectural discourse can be understood as a wide array of interlocking 'regimes of thought', each of which has its own multiple histories, transformations and unique effects. Students will become generally conversant in the principles of these central theories, and will understand some of their terms and references. Contemporary issues will not be taken at face value but interrogated through theoretical principles raised by the assigned readings. Paying close attention to the exchange between thought and action, students will explore the relevance of the discussed theories to the formation of current circumstances, and to the place of architecture within contemporary culture as a whole. Students take responsibility for their own learning, engaging in continuous reflection and developing skills in oral, written, and visual forms of communication to critique, create and articulate knowledge. They will be introduced to fundamental principles and skills of scholarly research, including locating and evaluating sources, and constructing arguments.

Architecture Studio 3A is oriented towards the technical dimensions of architecture, whilst remaining attentive to the deeper cultural and historical context in which such technical knowledge, particularly in regards to structures and sustainability, has arisen and is currently situated. It imparts knowledge and skills that will stimulate compelling architectural projects that are conceptually rigorous, structurally innovating and technically adept. Structural knowledge is developed through a suite of lectures and accompanying practical exercises, and is assessed through technical reports and a final examination. Students simultaneously develop an architectural project in response to a brief in which structural concerns necessarily come to the fore, such as for a habitable bridge. They are required to integrate multiple criteria, including thematic, conceptual, programmatic and technical concerns into a persuasive architectural proposition.

As the culminating design studio for the degree, students are presented with the opportunity to develop an architectural position within their projects. Architecture Studio 3B continues themes from Architecture Studio 3A, extending design understanding with respect to programmatic ambition and situating a symbolic public building proposal within a specific urban site.
Particular attention is paid to the conventions of architectural representation as `Communications¿ to doubly generate as well as conceptually clarify design opportunities.
Computational modes of modelling are a particular focus. Structural, technical and material thinking is encouraged in coherent relation to students¿ strategic design intent and through studied historical and cultural awareness. The studio consolidates students' abilities in communicating and translating architecture using advanced modes of graphic visualisation through 3D modelling software and associated fabrication potentials. Hybrid techniques for moving between computational and actual realms are promoted in parallel with clarifying attitudes toward contemporary built and un-built environments.
Depth of design development is promoted via a dual emphasis: early analysis of exemplary architectural thinking coupled with intensive speculative and projective exploration. Students aim to produce conceptually challenging, integrated and compelling pre-professional architectural design projects confronting a variety of spatial contexts.