Chris Briggs
📃 On paper
Module breakdown
Design Studio - Design driven projects where you are generally given a site and typology. A mix of individual and group projects including vertical studios (yr2 + yr3 working together). Culminating with a final thesis prject in year 3. Mine was set in Barcelona and we could choose to work with whatever typology we wanted to.
Technology and Environment - A series of lectures and projects relating to the more scientific side of architecture. Again a mix of group and individual work creating things like a material study manual and undertaking case studies or specific defects etc. All with a focus on sustainability. Working on producing details for projects etc.
Cultural Context - Incredible lecture series about all spectrums of the history of architecure, producing a number of essays each year and culminating with a 5,000 word+ dissertation topic of your choice in year 3 (my favourite part of the degree).
Professional Studies - Lecture series with adjoined short essays about professional practice. We learnt about things like the RIBA plan of work, types of procurement, contracts and more. This was incredibly use when moving into practice and gave us all a headstart over other Part 1s.
👐🏻 General approach
There is a great balance between creative and technical aspects of architecture with the expertise of the tutors overall lying in the cultrual context aspect of the course with an incredible external lecture series with some of the best minds in architecural thought, including the likes of Alberto Perez Gomez.
After being given a good grounding in each during first year, you are given the freedom to explore your projects through whatever medium you like whether that be in the workshop making models, hand drawing or digital visualisation.
💖 Student support
The support with studies is great, on some projects you are assigned to a single tutor and each module tends to be lead by a specialist in each. Guest tutors also come in for design studio as well as for crits.
🛠️ Facilities
📄 Application Process
Single interview and Portfolio submission. The tutors want to know about you and your interests and they want to see a sesne of acuity. They do not want to see someone who is a 'fan' of architecture. The work can be vaugley related to the subject or not at all.