Architecture BA (Hons)

This unit forms part of a shared first-year curriculum for Architecture and Interior Design students, establishing a broad and integrated foundation in spatial and design thinking. It aims to introduce you to the fundamentals of architectural and spatial practice as you begin your studies, supporting the development of core skills and ways of thinking common to both disciplines. Through a series of carefully structured projects and exercises, you will explore key concepts such as scale, material, site, and context, and how these influence and inform the design of the built environment.

You will learn to observe, understand, and make architecture using a variety of media—including drawing, writing, and model-making—while engaging with cultural, sustainable, and ethical ideas that shape contemporary design. This process will help you to develop a critical and creative approach to spatial design, as well as confidence in your ability to represent and communicate ideas effectively.

40 credits

This unit continues your exploration of creative spatial design, emphasising the interrelationship between body, surface, and space. Through a series of carefully structured design projects, you will engage in spatial experimentation using both drawing and making as investigative tools. You will examine how space and place are formed and experienced, supported by the integration of technical and environmental design strategies. Emphasis will be placed on sustainable and responsible approaches to making—considering climate, comfort, light, material use, and carbon impact.

The unit also supports the development of key professional competencies, including planning and organisation, visual, written, and spoken communication, and effective teamwork. These skills will be developed within the shared context of Architecture and Interior Design, encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration and a broader understanding of spatial practice.

80 credits

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus. The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.

In this unit, you will encounter architectural design in collective space beyond a simple situated habitat, considering the wider impact of technology, environment and purposeful spatial design. You will consider the strategic considerations that impact the architectural outcome; most will be intangible considerations involving sociology, anthropology, cultural histories, the economy, and the contemporary conditions of collective living. You will develop and refine your propositions through increasingly complex design briefs that will address the question of architectural connectivity in collective inhabitation. You will be introduced to wider technical concerns like varied climates and topographies. Professionally, you will be introduced to the constituency of the profession, related agencies, and work methodologies.

40 credits

This unit will continue the sequence of your learning pathway. You look at architectural design and thinking within the legacy of contrasting systems: rural/urban, political/private, and personal/cultural. You will explore networks in design, the humanities, and technical and environmental studies, considering the frameworks and paradigms that shape architectural output. You will study historical and theoretical studies and contemporary issues and debates. There will be opportunities for collaborative study, but projects will increasingly be completed as individual studies, fostering the development of the individual thinker, operator and designer. You will expand your knowledge to achieve a heightened ability to design articulate spatial order and demonstrate the ability to creatively mix material, environmental control and structure.

80 credits

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus. The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.

This first unit of your third year is concerned with the public realm. One major city will be chosen for spatial exploration and research; the design project will involve either an intervention within an existing neighbourhood or the design and master planning of a new neighbourhood. . You will learn about urban design in historical and contemporary contexts and produce a collaborative project culminating in a creative proposition for an urban sector or city with an accompanying set of parameters and design goals defined by your teaching staff. You will also develop a 5,000-word Research Report that engages critically with current architectural and cultural theory and enriches your understanding of architecture’s potential as a valuable and meaningful cultural activity.

40 credits

Your final unit synthesises all the constituent, elemental and contributory streams and builds on everything you’ve learnt so far. You’ll demonstrate your understanding of materiality and spatial design through a holistic design project that will address overlapping agendas and issues present in the contemporary metropolis with the expectation of working on the project with a high degree of resolution. Your projects are expected to be considerate of culture, public life, technology, climate and environment and be situated in contextual understanding. At the end of your year, you’ll be invited to display your work as part of Norwich’s end-of-year degree show, GradFest, which allows you to showcase your work to our network of industry professionals and prospective employers.

80 credits

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus. The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.