BSc (Hons) Architectural Technology

UCA’s Integrated Foundation Year is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and more.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated Foundation Year

For our students coming from a non-UK educational background, UCA has launched an Integrated International Foundation Year.

This year of preparatory study is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and the English speaking and writing skills you’ll need to succeed.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated International Foundation Year

Launch
Launch Week is the first week of your academic journey in the Canterbury School of Architecture and Design and follows on directly from Induction Week. It is an intensive week spent gearing up for your year’s study objectives and getting to know your course staff, peer group and the school community in greater depth.

Projects 01
You’ll be introduced to fundamental issues, processes, and skills that will be relevant throughout your studies. You will investigate new ways of understanding the relationships between the human body, building components and the built environment through the design of a spatial enclosure.

Constructing for Equity 01
You’ll study the social, environmental, and cultural factors that impact contemporary architecture and construction, examining two critical topics - social justice and equitable architecture, and the climate crisis and its diverse challenges for construction.

Briefs and Positions 01
You’ll prepare a basic set of briefing materials to inform and guide your development of a small-scale design proposal, which you’ll make later in the year.

Opportunity
Opportunity Week is an intensive week of activity conceived and undertaken in collaboration with an external partner(s), and it’ll be driven by the partner’s external knowledge and area of practice – so it could cover anything from politics or law to sport and wellbeing.

Projects 02
You’ll apply what you learned in Briefs and Positions 01 to a building retrofit project, proposing the adaptive reuse or transformation of an unused or underused building to accommodate a mix of uses. You’ll have the opportunity to explore themes such as preservation, restoration, and innovation.

Building Analysis
In the Building Analysis unit you’ll learn how to analyse buildings and construction as a student in the field of Architectural Technology. You will develop a competency in building information modelling (BIM) software and learn how to use it to create digital models of buildings. Using these models, you will learn how to perform analyses related to building environmental efficiency and embodied carbon, two important considerations in today's architecture and construction industry.

Material and Digital Practices
This unit will introduce you to basic ideas around representation as a critical practice, and core theories of the design and production of small-scale objects in 2D print and 3D physical form. Working between the physical and virtual worlds, you will establish a range of techniques in digital and physical representation, building the foundation on which you begin to develop your visual communication skills and technological competence.

PLE Digital Outcomes
The PLE Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive engagement with and presence on digital media platforms across the year.

ATOM Activities
ATOM activities are tiny pieces of diverse individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across the university’s curriculum and beyond. They are chosen by you according to your personal interest.

Launch
Launch Week for your second year is all about getting you ready for your next year of study, and re-orientating after your first summer break.

Projects 03
You’ll expand upon the knowledge and skills you gained in the Building Analysis unit by exploring and interrogating a heritage urban context and designing small-scale architectural/technological interventions within it.

Constructing for Equity 02
For this unit, you’ll focus on the role of cultural diversity, non-Western perspectives, and vernacular practices in low-carbon approaches to building. You will also critically examine the tools and techniques used to assess environmental impacts, developing a comprehensive understanding of embodied energy, carbon sequestration and the potential for adaption, destruction and reuse of the buildings that you design for.

Briefs and Positions 02
In this unit, you’ll prepare a developed set of briefing materials to guide your development of a medium-scale design proposal in a subsequent design unit.

Opportunity
Opportunity Week is an intensive week of activity conceived and undertaken in collaboration with an external partner(s), and it’ll be driven by the partner’s external knowledge and area of practice – so it could cover anything from politics or law to sport and wellbeing.

Projects 04
You’ll design a medium-scale building skin project, building on existing knowledge to explore complex relationships between building envelopes and their role in creating comfortable indoor environments, embodied carbon, energy efficiency, and aesthetic appeal.

Pathways and Mentors
In Pathways and Mentors, you will reflect on the design skills, knowledge and techniques you are acquiring and identify potential alternative career paths that you might not yet have considered. In the course of this unit, all students will have the opportunity to engage with a design professional in a structured series of engagement and mentoring sessions.

Critical Analysis 02
This unit builds on understanding and issues introduced in the preceding Briefs and Positions 02 unit, to consider how ideas are socially, historically and culturally located. The unit is primarily concerned with theory and represents a step-up in challenging you to interrogate spatial and technological ideas, designs and actions.

PLE Digital Outcomes
The PLE Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive engagement with and presence on digital media platforms across the year.

ATOM Activities
ATOM activities are tiny pieces of diverse individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across the university’s curriculum and beyond. They are chosen by you according to your personal interest.

If you opt to complete a professional practice year, this will take place in year three. You will undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.

While on your Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.

Please note: If you are an international applicant, you will need to enrol onto the course ‘with Professional Practice Year’. It will not be possible to transfer onto the Professional Practice Year after enrolment.

Launch
For your final Launch week you’ll be gearing up for your final year of study through a range of activities, which could include a multi-story guest lecture super session, an all staff pecha kucher, Canterbury and surroundings walking orientation tours or a studio launch collaborative making project.

Projects 05
In Projects 05 you’ll develop detailed proposals for the design of a housing scheme and use your design as the basis for a professional practice report related to the realisation of the project. The unit has 2 components, a portfolio and a report.

Your portfolio will focus on architectural technologies and systems in relation to the home at a variety of scales, while your report will explore the legal and procedural characteristics of practicing as an architectural technologist in the UK, based upon your emerging designs.

Critical Analysis 03
This unit provides a framework for you to establish your own personalised research trajectory. You’ll produce a piece of self-directed research on a subject that is related to the historical, theoretical and critical concerns of your subject discipline. The subject matter will be informed by the specific interests that you have developed.

Briefs and Positions 03
In the Briefs and Positions 03 unit, you will prepare an advanced set of briefing materials that will inform and guide your development of a medium-scale design for your final Projects unit.

Opportunity
Opportunity Week is an intensive week of activity conceived and undertaken in collaboration with an external partner(s), and it’ll be driven by the partner’s external knowledge and area of practice – so it could cover anything from politics or law to sport and wellbeing.

Projects 06
In this final unit you will undertake a large scale building retrofit design project. You will establish a sophisticated dialogue between topography, local, social and political issues, city scale structures, regional objectives and the way that all these impacts the lives of individuals.

You will engage pre-existing, disparate functions in new ways to generate cultural outcomes, agendas and patterns of use.

This course is designed to offer you (if eligible) the opportunity to study part of your degree aboard at a UCA partner university, while still earning credits towards your UCA degree.

For more information please visit the Study Abroad section

You’ll be fully immersed in the architecture and design industries through live projects. In the past these have included work with the leading London architecture firm AKT II, global design and architecture firms such as HOK and SOM, local government organisations and architecture companies in Margate and Folkestone. You’ll also have the opportunity to enter industry competitions.

Graduates of the course have gone on to work at the following leading design practices:

• Platform
• Bompas and Parr
• Piercy and Co
• Harvey and John
• Grimshaw
• Hawkins Brown
• Jason Bruges Studio

Graduates of an Architectural Technology degree often go on to continue their studies at a Master’s level or complete a year's apprenticeship. While a postgraduate qualification is not always necessary, studying a CIAT (Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists) accredited programme is beneficial and a CIAT membership is free to students during their students. More information on becoming a CIAT member can be found here.

Graduates can expect to work to a high standard of both technical knowledge and creative vision within an architecture firm or as a freelance architect.

BSc (Hons) course
BSc (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

• 112 UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
• Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
• Distinction, Merit, Merit at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
• Merit at UAL Extended Diploma
• 112 UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
• 27-30 total points in the International Baccalaureate Diploma with at least 15 IB points at Higher level, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply.  

Portfolio requirements

For these courses, we’ll need to see your portfolio for review. We’ll invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. Further information will be provided once you have applied. View more portfolio advice

BSc (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year
BSc (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

• 32 UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
• Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
• Pass, Pass, Pass at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
• Pass at UAL Extended Diploma
• 32 new UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
• 24 points from the International Baccalaureate, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply. 

Portfolio requirements

For these courses, we’ll need to see your portfolio for review. We’ll invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. Further information will be provided once you have applied. View more portfolio advice

*We occasionally make offers which are lower than the standard entry criteria, to students who have faced difficulties that have affected their performance and who were expected to achieve higher results. We consider the strength of our applicants’ portfolios, as well as their grades -  in these cases, a strong portfolio is especially important.

BSc (Hons) course
BSc (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The entry requirements for these courses will depend on the country your qualifications are from, please check the equivalent qualifications for your country:

• Non-UK equivalent qualifications

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

You will be required to submit a portfolio for review. Further information on specific portfolio requirements and how to submit your portfolio will be sent to you after we have reviewed your application. View more portfolio advice

BSc (Hons) course with Integrated International Foundation Year
BSc (Hons) course with Integrated International Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

For these courses you need to have completed 12 years of schooling (with good grades) and show strong evidence of your ability to successfully complete the programme and progress onto your chosen degree.

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

These courses don't require a portfolio.

English language requirements

To study at UCA, you'll need to have a certain level of English language skill. And so, to make sure you meet the requirements of your course, we ask for evidence of your English language ability, please check the level of English language required:

• English language requirements