Core modules include:
Optional modules include:
Recommended
Stream 1: Contaminated and Urban Environments
Stream 2: The Changing Environment
Stream 3: Agriculture and Rural Environments
Please see our modules outline for further information.
Please note that all modules are subject to change. Please see our modules disclaimer for more information.
Our students go on to work in a wide variety of academic and research posts, as well as in public and private sector organisations within the UK and internationally.
Graduates are highly employable in the growing market for environmental managers and consultants. Our programmes also provide in-service training for those already working within the profession.
This Master's programme focusing on "Architecture: Resilient and Sustainable Strategies" explores architecture from a research-by-designand design-by-research perspective. Students are educated and trained in a multicultural and international context. The programme combines an academic approach with creative- experimental approach. It is characterised by a fully-integrated design methodology, providing students with solid skills in the contemporary discipline of architectural design and research.
The Master of Architecture programme is organised at both of the faculty's campuses in Brussels and Ghent, though each campus offers a different orientation:
This is an initial Master's programme and can be followed on a full-time or part-time basis. The programme consists out of a minimum of four semesters.
The Faculty of Architecture takes its international dimension as the basis for its own quality assessment. It positions itself squarely within the international field of qualitative academic education. The faculty's international activities are extensive and diversified: student mobility and staff exchange on a European and intercontinental level, internationally oriented programmes for incoming students, international workshops and competitions, international research projects, international internships, development cooperation, etc.
The faculty continues to build on its tradition of academic integration of teaching and research to maintain and enhance its standard of quality and international standing.
The faculty works hard to consolidate and enrich its network of cooperative associations with professionals and universities all over the world and strives to leverage this international network for students' benefit. Its international dimension is a strong catalyst for creativity and an added value to students' future professional career.
"The intended academic quality, is the core of the program (architecture, urban planning), i.e. academically based 'professionalism'.
The broadening of the profile focuses on basic disciplines (architecture and urban planning), however without compromising the appropriate focus on the professional profile of the architect (in multiple forms).
In the profile of master, one should obtain extreme concentration and specificity (however, no specialisation).
On the one hand, the master focuses on the content and area-specific level of the bachelor phase, and on the other hand on the acquirement of access to the professional or doctoral field (advanced masters, PhD,...).
The core competences of the master are:
The master program should guarantee the acquirement of scientific depth. The offered frontier disciplines focus on the current state of research and development within the competence field. The technical qualification to be acquired, focuses on the high quality problem solving of complex tasks.
At our campus in Ghent, the International Master of Science in Architecture is concerned with the current theory and practice of architecture and sustainability.
The Brundtland report (United Nations, 1987) defines sustainable development as 'development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'. The United Nations in 2005 referred to the 'interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars' of sustainable development as economic development, social development and environmental protection.
Translating these three pillars for sustainable architecture, they would entail: providing access to high quality and healthy living and working environments for all, finding ways to create socially sustainable environments at different scales and a wise use of natural resources. Technical considerations, together with more conceptual or strategic issues, are dealt with in this two-year program about architecture and sustainability.
Central in the program of the International Master of Science in Architecture is a critical reflection about architecture and its social, cultural or environmental role for society.
Based on a highly interdisciplinary learning process of integrated research and 'research by design', students are expected to determine a theoretical stance on current issues with particular emphasis on how aspects of sustainability, universal design, urban ecology and energy-efficient technologies may contribute to the development of more sustainable human settlements.
Apart from the theoretical courses, the program includes 3 design studios (during one semester) and 1 final master dissertation studio (during one year). Each semester, there is a focus on a specific attitude, related to the main theme of the programme. All studios are organised through a pool of studio groups (Academic Design Offices and Design Studios) where the teaching staff provides a series of specific themes, methods and intervention areas for the students to develop an architectural project:
Themes sem 1
Themes sem 2 (specific focus on the city of Ghent)
Themes sem 3
Themes sem 4
Graduates are trained to lead multidisciplinary teams of engineers, interior architects, landscape architects and artists. In addition to working as independent (self-employed) architects, our graduates also work as professionals in government agencies and international design firms. Some graduates go on to roles as researchers serving local or international governance bodies, NGO's or other institutes.
