Design Practice Royal College of Art

Overview

The MArch Design Practice from Royal College of Art positions students at the intersection of urgent planetary challenges and unprecedented opportunity. You’ll study material processes and innovation, strategies of specification and reuse, embodied carbon and emerging technologies – from critically engaging AI and carbon accounting methods, developing interdisciplinary design strategies and methods of representation, to bio-based materials, and more. You’ll explore how these sites of opportunity intersect with economics, politics, and identity to reshape design practice.

Key facts

We examine how renewable energy systems, green technologies, and social movements are transforming the built environment. Through critical engagement with construction's planetary impact, you'll develop bold, rigorous design propositions for more equitable futures, for people and planet.

Global perspectives

Drawing on methods and theories from diverse international contexts, we prepare you to deliver renewable and equitable futures around the world. You'll bring your unique cultural perspective and existing practice into dialogue with peers from across the globe.

Students work across a range of media and contexts, including drawing, model-making, moving image, performance, material experimentation, prototyping, digital media, carbon accounting, policy engagement and design detailing.

Individual pathways

This is not a RIBA/ARB validated Part II programme. Our structure offers flexibility for practitioners to tailor their learning to specific goals, whether you're working towards a specialism, developing a research-led practice, or pivoting your career. Students are encouraged to draw on existing practices and experiences, and to use the skills and exposure of the programme to propose interventions into existing architectural models or develop new forms of practice.

You'll take core units in the School of Architecture while choosing from interdisciplinary electives across the Royal College of Art – from digital storytelling to creative pedagogy, investigating the politics of housing, exploring sound design and new media, and more.

You'll develop an independent research project with dedicated one-to-one supervision, supported by intensive research workshops, career development sessions, and CV/application guidance to launch your next chapter. No two student journeys are identical. Each graduate is supported to carve out their own individual trajectory following their time with us on the programme.