Housing and Urbanism (HU) focuses on the key contemporary issues that drive urban transformation, and the role of architecture in promoting and supporting critical change. The programme addresses the lived city and the central role of residential life in the urban process. We treat housing as the cornerstone of urban vitality, and consider its design as central to the modification of wider and more complex urban systems. Design learning and investigation form the core of our programme, with the broader aim of deepening students’ grasp of the politics of the city. We integrate the study of form and process in all our work and across a range of scales, from detailed plans of contemporary housing to the mobility infrastructure of the regional metropolis. Our aim is to nurture graduates with strong design leadership skills and critical judgement.
The programme offers 12-month MA or 16-month MArch options, and its curriculum focuses on design-led research that develops into individual theses. The central element of the coursework is driven by a collaborative Design Workshop running across three terms, supported by lectures and seminars which inform students’ design work and broaden their scholarly understanding of urban trends and histories. The final term is devoted entirely to the development and completion of students’ individual design thesis.
Each year, HU focuses on a set of research themes which organise the programme’s workshops and international collaborations. In 2025–26, we investigate the foundations of urban resilience and complexity, and research how design excellence supports decision-making involving both government and private actors across multiple sectors. Student work examines opportunities for leadership, responsibility and innovation within the current urban situation and demonstrates how architecture encourages ambitious action by decision-makers and civic leaders.
Design Workshop
Terms 1–3
Sitting at the core of the HU curriculum, this course teaches students to investigate, explore and respond to the urban process through design reasoning. Students work in teams, in close collaboration with staff, and are introduced to a specific but complex set of challenges faced in London today. Through these, they learn to understand, envision and initiate urban transformation and to implement these principles within their own projects. The course highlights how an argument can be made through design and explores methods of comparison and evaluation. Students develop research, drawing and writing skills, and are encouraged to work collaboratively and discursively.
The Design Workshop incorporates two lecture series, Critical Urbanism and Sustainable Urbanism. The former establishes the conceptual and theoretical foundations from which architecture contributes critical and synthetic reasoning to design and the urban process. It also introduces students to a wide array of exemplary projects and initiatives through which urban transformation can be studied and understood. Sustainable Urbanism introduces students to emerging responses to the contemporary climate crisis, outlining projects and institutional arrangements emphasising adaptation, reuse and environmental stewardship.
Transnational Cities
Terms 1–2
There is a social and economic context to housing and urban change, and this course introduces students to the key themes and debates that the social sciences can contribute to our understanding of this context. The course places emphasis upon policy, planning and urban governance, enabling students to understand how developments are shaped by transnational economic forces and political debates.
Housing Form
Term 1
There has been renewed interest in architect-designed mass housing over the past three decades. While the exterior of these houses has dominated architectural focus, the interior of dwellings has been relatively neglected. Housing is not constituted as an envelope to receive typical unit plans, and form and experience cannot be conveniently dissociated from one another. On the contrary, the most committed architects conceive of housing form from the inside to the outside in order to generate meaningful experience. This course will review the best housing projects built in the last 100 years and consider what constitutes excellence in the field.
Urbanity and Democracy
Term 1
Urbanism is much more than the design of cities – it is instead a way of organising our knowledge of them, in order to understand their governance and their collective transformation. Urban institutions arose alongside the forms of modern democracy, and this course studies the genealogy of urbanism in the context of this connection. Urbanism is organised and pursued through the associational life of the city and is directed towards specific problems and challenges that demand a practical and political response. We explore how the spatial form of the city can be studied through this pragmatic lens.
Urban Form
Term 2
Since the Second World War, the nature of cities has been a subject of growing confusion brought about by changes in demography, technology and development. This uncertainty has been matched by a prolific inventiveness by architects. This course reviews seminal works of the past 70 years, not always well-known, which address the fabric of the city in which they are situated in polemical and memorable ways. The course complements the Housing Form seminar in Term 1 and considers the criteria for excellence in an architect’s contribution to the building of cities.
Domesticity
Term 2
The inner life of the dwelling is a scene of constant tension, speculation and evolution. While the ideal of the family continues to stand at the heart of this turbulence, a broad and increasing range of alternative living modes are emerging in the present day. New patterns of shared living – including assisted care, serviced residences and beyond – demand design evaluation and development. This course explores the history and the contemporary challenge of housing design and transformation.
Thesis Seminar
Term 3
By the end of the second term, students will have decided upon their area of design research for the thesis. During Term 3, students present their initial research within seminars grouped around shared thematic interests. These seminars enable peer-based learning and discussion to complement rigorous individual research and design development.
Study Trip and Workshop Abroad
Terms 2–3
By the end of the second term, students will have decided upon their area of design research for the thesis. During Term 3, students present their initial research within seminars grouped around shared thematic interests. These seminars enable peer-based learning and discussion to complement rigorous individual research and design development.