Architectural and Urban Design MA (PGCert PGDip)

International requirements and visas

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visas and immigration advice

Portfolio advice

Admission to this course involves reviewing your portfolio. After you apply, we will ask you to share a link to an online portfolio of your work. This enables us to see your potential and understand your approach and motivations. 

We will ask you to log on to Student View to share your portfolio link. We will not be able to progress your application to Brighton until you share your portfolio.

• Find out about the specific requirements for your course.

Creating your portfolio
We’ve put together advice and guidance to help you create and share your portfolio and we run regular online portfolio advice sessions where you can get help from our expert team.

Top reasons to choose this course

• Specialist facilities – work with the latest technology, including our VR Lab, Digitisation Suite and Igloo Immersive Display space.

• Interdisciplinary collaboration – engage with computing students to explore emerging digital landscapes, including augmented reality and AI-driven design.

• Showcase your work – take part in prestigious competitions such as the National Urban Design Student Awards.

• Hands-on, real-world experience – work on live projects with partners like the City Council and South Downs National Park Authority, applying your skills in professional settings.

• Global learning opportunities – collaborate with students from leading universities across Europe and beyond, expanding your international perspective.

• Learn with practicing architects and urban designers, ensuring your education is industry-relevant and future-focused.
• Inspiration from industry leaders – workshops and guest lectures from professionals such as Karl Kropf, Director of Built Form Resource; Dr Paolo Sassi, Sow Space & Sassi Chamberlain Architects; Rob West, Robert West Urban Design; and Sobbah Abbas Petersen, Norwegian University of Science and technology NTNU.

Areas of study

The course is taught in three semesters over 12 months. There are six core modules.

Modules

• Design Research Practices

  In this module you will learn to understand research in a way that’s specific to design. It starts from the idea that research, including scientific research, is a specific form of design activity and that design can influence research and vice versa. You will rearticulate the design expertise you’re already developing and apply this to research. You will also learn how to combine design research and practice in your own way.

• Situate

  This module introduces established and emerging principles, theories and themes in design. It will help you to situate your work within modern design trends and global issues and discover and develop what motivates you in your field. Themes covered may include sustainability discourses, power and politics, decolonising design, equity and equality, systemic complexity and creating change through design.

• Urban Strategies

  This design module introduces you to urban design strategies, methods and challenges while you develop your own critical perspective. You will explore a range of textual and material examples and analyse a specific city space using the methods discussed in the studio. You will then generate a site-specific design based on a brief which demonstrates how an individual would experience the space.

• Design Lab

  In this module, you will develop your approaches to design within your specialisation through experimental practices. The module provides a reflective and productive environment within which you can develop, realise and critique new and innovative design concepts, theoretical positions and practice-based research methods. This will support you in confidently and critically developing individually defined and research-informed design practices.

• Critical Readings in Spatial Design

  In this module you will explore historical, theoretical and practical issues in architectural, spatial and urban design. You’ll reflect on your own ideas and experiences while considering how these issues relate to different cultural contexts. Seminars will address issues of disciplinary context, including the interrelationship of architecture with technical, political, social and cultural fields.

• Design: Masterwork

  This module takes the form of a self-directed design research project which requires you to employ the experiences, methods, skills and mastery gained throughout your studies so far. The research-led design process will enable you to create new directions for your design specialisation, challenge existing expertise and develop insights relevant to your professional ambitions. A key feature of this module is to prepare you for professional life after graduation.

Making sure that what you learn with us is relevant, up to date and what employers are looking for is our priority, so courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis. When you have applied to us, you’ll be told about any new developments through Student View.

Amy Yu: Reviving Brighton’s Seafront

 Matt Reed: Meet Yourself As You Really Are

Facilities

• You will benefit from a new masters centre including studio space, tutorial areas and shared creative spaces.

• Modelling and construction workshops: timber and metal, dedicated ‘wet’ modelling bay, plastic dying facility, drill press, spray booth, vacuum former, strip bender, plastics oven, hot wire cutter and spot welder; further workshops available by arrangement with rapid prototyping and laser cutter.

• IT facilities include 3D paper and printer, plotters, scanners and a reprographics suite.
• Work with the technology, including our VR Lab, Digitisation Suite, and Igloo Immersive Display space.

• Software includes Adobe suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat Professional), VW2010, Cinema 4D, Premiere, Blender, AutoCAD, Maya and Rhino.

• Library facilities include additional computing equipment, digital and hard copy specialist library facilities and specialist collections.

Meet the team

Sarah Stevens, course leader

Sarah is an ARB registered architect with a decade of practice experience across architectural and urban design as a senior design architect. Her work in practice included Urban Design Group National Award-winner Moat Lane Toaster and Newhall with Studio REAL. Her research in practice included design research into zero carbon housing prototypes, and as a freelance consultant her work has included contributions to the BRE Green Guide to Specification for Housing and Green Guide to Specification for Offices.

She has 20 years experience of teaching architectural design and previously taught at Oxford Brookes University and The Bartlett, UCL. Her students have gone on to win prizes and have successful careers such as at Heatherwick Studio, Grimshaw Architects, Fielden Clegg Bradley Studios, or to run their own practice in architecture, urban design, augmented reality or immersive art installation.

Read Sarah’s full profile.

Other staff who teach on the course include:

Tom Ainsworth, Sally Sutherland, Ben Sweeting, Tilo Amhof, Damon Taylor

Studio work

Our studio produces an astonishing variety of work, but the core values remain the same: critical engagement and creative response.

Graduate view

Matt Reed, graduate

My main project focused on augmented reality and its use in the lived environment. I had no previous experience using this technology before beginning the course, and my project work opened this door for me, creating a new area of interest. It used AR and is a free-to-use public artwork that allows people to travel back in time using augmented reality technology via time portals.

My course leader and personal tutor was instrumental to my success in the course. She really helped me to explore my own interests and helped me to develop my ideas, and I’m very grateful for that and the confidence it has given me to take my ideas forward.

I really enjoyed the course and I highly recommend it, especially for someone looking to do something a bit more experimental within the field of architecture.

Read more about Matt’s experience

Read other student experiences on the school blog

Course fees

Scholarships, bursaries and loans

We offer a range of scholarships for postgraduate students. Bursaries and loans may also be available to you.

Find out more about postgraduate fees and funding.

The fees listed here are for the first year of full-time study if you start your course in the academic year 2025–26.

You will pay fees for each year of your course. Some fees may increase each year.

UK undergraduate and some postgraduate fees are regulated by the UK government and increases will not be more than the maximum amount allowed. Course fees that are not regulated may increase each year by up to 5% or RPI (whichever is higher).

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

Find out more

• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international postgraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• About the university’s fees by checking our student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Local area

Maps

Support and wellbeing

Sport at Brighton