MArch in Architecture

An exciting, creative Master’s degree with accreditation from the ARB and RIBA, for students with a first degree in architecture who wish to progress their studies to final qualification as a practicing architect.

Your focus will be to investigate the relationships between critical practice, design, and research in the making of architectural proposals. The work produced throughout this two-year Master’s is a collaborative effort between you, award-winning practicing architects, and our academic staff.

Our studio is divided up into several thematic studio groups, each led by a pair of tutors. Each of the groups also features an expert external ‘consultant’ who will contribute to teaching throughout the year.

This course encourages lateral thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and engagement with issues in a self-critical design-led process. It is broad in its engagement as is architecture addressing societal issues as diverse as our survival on the planet and local engagement with culture and craft - from the making of an entire city to the design of a door handle.

Through exposing you to many ways of seeing the world as a designer, ultimately the master’s program challenges you to define your voice as an architect enabling you to be critically self-aware of your future practice.

What Will Excite You

You’ll be engaging with real projects, real clients, local communities, and international collaborators and conversing with renowned architects in the development of your projects alongside embarking on worldwide field trips. Our students have gone to places such as Munich, Genoa, Barcelona, Istanbul, and Oslo to look at how other cultures shape their built environment.

The Environment

You will be based in Belfast, a textbook and laboratory for architecture. It is a city the size of a town, full of compelling history and steeped in traditions of craft and making.

You’ll enjoy a healthy staff-to-student ratio, and good studios, where you’ll each have your own space with excellent workshops and technicians to support you in developing your work.

Academic Literacy Module

An optional, complementary module for non-native speakers of English. Designed to support English language and academic skills development with a focus on specific academic skills related to the student's area of study.

The Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences

The comfort and security of our modern world are provided by amazing advances in science and technology, focused on improving our lives.

The Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences spans disciplines that impact lives today and will shape our future. Our international mix of staff and students make up a vibrant community that is home to some of the most innovative and globally significant research and teaching. It works where industry and research meet, providing the platform to spin out research into commercial opportunities and engage with industry on cutting-edge research with real-world projects such as the work with Wrightbus to produce the cleanest hybrid bus technology that powers the London Routemaster, or the pioneering work in The Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology, securing our digital future through their Centre for Secure Information Technologies.

With strength in traditional engineering disciplines, the Faculty brings together diverse topics, such as carbon dating and astrophysics, to create a dynamic multidisciplinary setting for students and academics to thrive. Underpinning our research is the drive to solve the big challenges that society faces, whether it is understanding the human brain’s perception to aid Parkinson’s sufferers, or clean energy production through CenTACat, our research is leading the world in an environment rooted in the ideals of Athena SWAN where we actively promote Women in Science and Engineering.

The leadership provided by our academics creates opportunities for all students to satisfy their ambitions through taught and research programmes. Come and join us, and help change the world!

Professor Mark Price

Faculty Pro-Vice-Chancellor

Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences

A World Class Education and Student Experience

Our inspiring alumni comprises outstanding scholars, Nobel Prize winners - such as Seamus Heaney and David Trimble - and influential leaders who are making an impact in Northern Ireland and across the globe.

Our students enjoy being educated by world-leading academics working at the forefront of their disciplines and a significant investment in the student experience has resulted in high levels of student satisfaction.

Over 94% of Queen’s graduates are in employment or further study six months after graduation; our graduates are dominating senior leadership positions in 80 of Northern Ireland's top 100 companies and making a difference in over 120 countries.

At the Forefront of Tackling Global Challenges

Together, we are changing lives across Northern Ireland and further afield: our discovery of a new molecule has the potential to prolong the life of people living with cystic fibrosis; we are at the forefront of a major breakthrough in the fight against bowel cancer, and we’re striving to help people with MS recover nerve function.

We are at the forefront of developing new thinking and technologies in key areas such as Health, Reconciliation, Peace and Justice, Information Technology, Food Security, and Energy.

Northern Ireland's Legendary Beauty

A city with innovation at its heart, technological advances infiltrate every sector helping to build our competitiveness on the global stage. There are almost 900 international companies located in Northern Ireland, making Belfast the second most successful city in the UK (after London) for attracting US trade.

There’s plenty happening outside the city, including the famous filming locations for the HBO series Game of Thrones, the awe-inspiring Giant’s Causeway, voted the UK’s best Heritage Attraction, and the Mourne Mountains, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty canonised as CS Lewis’ Narnia.

*Lonely Planet, 2017