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.
The Emergent Technologies and Design (EmTech) Programme is open to architecture and engineering graduates seeking knowledge and skills in architectural design science, who want to experiment with how these can be applied within new production paradigms.
It investigates new synergies of architecture and ecology at the intersection of computational design and advanced fabrication, with a focus on the potential these offer for new architectural, urban and ecological design solutions within emerging biomes. The programme stimulates critical thinking through research-driven design projects developed in a rigorous and creative studio environment. Its projects evolve iteratively through hypothesis, experimentation, fabrication and evaluation; students reflect upon this work in verbal presentations and group discussions, and document their findings in analytical papers.
The programme, which offers MArch and MSc options, has two distinct phases: the Studio and Dissertation. Both phases are supported by the research of the programme team and by the expertise of EmTech alumni, alongside an extensive network of research colleagues in practice and industry. As well as building strong technical and theoretical foundations, students develop valuable teamwork skills throughout the programme. During the Studio phase, they work in teams while contributing individually at key stages of each project. In the Dissertation phase, students have the opportunity to collaborate with peers who share similar research interests, further enhancing both their academic and professional experience.
Design research is central to the programme’s agenda. The work develops from the understanding that nature and artifice are connected; that the cultural production of artefacts and systems exists as part of other active systems, and that these systems are subject to change. EmTech acknowledges that the causality of change is complex and multi-scalar, and that its dynamics are disrupted and accelerated by human activity. It is concerned with the consequences of these changes within society and the natural world.