The Foundation Programme is a one-year full-time course that focuses on observation, conversation and the development of key skills. This course is aimed at students who are at the very start of their architectural studies, and facilitates individual and group project work.
The Intermediate Programme (BA(Hons)) is a three-year full-time programme. The First Year is characterised by its shared, open studio, where students work individually and together across a series of projects. Years two and three introduce students to the unit system, in which small design studios (12–14 students) operate a vertical structure of Second and Third Year students.
The Diploma Programme (MArch) is a two-year full-time programme that accepts students who have completed the Intermediate Programme at the AA, as well as eligible new students who have studied elsewhere. The programme leads to the AA Final Examination (ARB/RIBA Part 2) and is structured around a unit system, in which small design studios (12–14 students) operate a vertical structure of Fourth and Fifth Year students.
The AA offers ten Taught Postgraduate Programmes for students with prior academic and professional experience. Most of the programmes are full-time courses of advanced study, except for Conservation and Reuse, which provides a part-time study option.
Professional Practice is a RIBA Part 3 course and examination that allows successful candidates to register as architects with the Architects Registration Board (ARB). The course is open to AA RIBA Part 2 graduates and eligible non-graduates.
The Visiting School encompasses diverse learning programmes, workshops and site-based agendas shaped by participants working intensively in small groups over varying periods of time from one to two weeks. Central to each programme is the idea that experimental, new and provocative forms of architecture are best learned by doing.
Design and Make is based at the AA’s satellite campus at Hooke Park, a rich context which serves as an immersive laboratory for architectural research. Students study within a working forest, inhabiting a unique environment in which landscape, studio, workshop, forestry and 1:1 fabrication are interwoven. The landscape, as both material library and site, is critical to the design process and our experimental constructs are nested carefully into the tissue of the working forest.
Design and Make investigates the sustainable and innovative use of timber and other locally sourced materials to drive new forms of architectural research through 1:1 built prototypes. We materialise built work through curiosity, craft and creativity. Direct physical engagement with material, site and making processes is central to the programme and we thrive on the unexpected revelations this can bring.
The campus contains a diverse array of resources for design and fabrication. We use a hands-on approach and students are expected to spend most of their time in the workshop developing an in-depth material understanding. Technology – such as 3D scanning, modelling and CNC production – is deployed to augment traditional craft and material knowledge, with the aim of striking an agile balance between the computational and the physical.
Hooke Park is a campus in development: a continual prototype for building, unbuilding and rebuilding. Inspired by the possibilities and challenges of crafting a work of architecture that contributes to the making of this place, students build on the work of those who have come before them, adding their research to the site. This forest laboratory is a space of intense investigation, a wildwood of creativity and a home for architectural adventurers.
Design and Make focuses on architectural design driven by fabrication and students are expected to situate making at the centre of their process.
The MArch and MSc programmes share taught components and are structured around a series of hands-on group projects, leading to the production of architectural prototypes. MSc students complete their project and technical dissertations over the summer for submission in September, while MArch students develop their thesis in Term 4, with their final project submission in January.
Term 1 introduces the theoretical and technical contexts, key design methodologies and fabrication practices central to the programme, setting the agenda for the year ahead. Students learn the fundamentals of timber technology, a theoretical grounding in design and make practices and are involved with hands-on making from the start to develop a core fabrication skillset. They build on this in Term 2 by working in groups on a large-scale fabrication project; then, in Term 3, they develop a focused design research project that results in a series of well-documented built prototypes and models. Term 4 focuses on the development of a project portfolio and written thesis or dissertation.