Outline
The MSc Architecture, Landscape, and Environment offers you the opportunity to advance your studies in the dynamic teaching and learning environment of Edinburgh College of Art. As an Architecture, Landscape and Environment - MSc student, you will explore and work with an expanded understanding of critical theories and practices at the forefront of contemporary environmental and societal challenges, delivered by an experienced group of research-led senior staff at the University of Edinburgh
Interdisciplinary in nature, the MSc Architecture, Landscape and Environment will offer you a unique opportunity to explore the interconnected nature of architectural and landscape history and theory with environmental concerns. The programme is not design-based, but instead has a generalist structure. It delivers individual student experiences through a flexible framework that focuses on student-led choice in the shaping of a learning experience, allowing you to appreciate and develop a wide range of specialised and experimental approaches relevant to the field of situated, spatial and site-related theory and practice.
Your learning experience will be defined by your choice of option courses and the focus of your final research projects. You will draw on a wide range of courses addressing architectural, landscape and environmental themes, while compulsory courses address the sites and methods of creative research. You will:
- work closely with academic staff in seminars
- engage with sites in Edinburgh and Scotland, and the UK through fieldwork
- undertake a supervised situated research project following two semesters of coursework.
Programme Structure
The MSc Architecture, Landscape, and Environment is a one-year postgraduate taught programme delivered over three semesters. The programme structure includes:
- compulsory courses which provide theoretical understanding of site-based/situated knowledge
- experimental approaches to research
- expanded conceptions of fieldwork
- humanities-based methodologies.
Running through semesters 1 and 2, the aim of compulsory courses is twofold:
- To allow you to develop a methodological approach to your final research project (60 credit compulsory course in semester 3).
- Provide a theoretical foundation to which compulsory course options and recommended elective course options add specialist areas of practice and knowledge.
Compulsory course options include a suite of courses specifically aligned with the programme as specialist pathways, covering key thematic areas of:
- environmental humanities
- landscape theory and practice
- climate action
- critical heritage studies
- and/or architectural history
Additionally, recommended elective course options include a suite of existing courses within ESALA, ECA and across the University of Edinburgh, offering you the opportunity to either diversify your interests or underpin your area of specialism.
Teaching
Based on critical and participatory pedagogy, the programme encourages students to develop their critical thinking skills, collaborate and learn from each other, co-produce knowledge in the classroom and inform the curriculum. The programme aims to provide you with a critical understanding of how the landscape and environment are situated in and produced through particular social realities, histories and practices.
Individual supervision by research-led senior staff is built into the programme structure, and will help you achieve the learning outcomes of the major situated research project in semester 3. The range of methods you will encounter on the programme, especially situated methods and engagement with everyday practice, are highly tangible and you will find this reinforces and underpins the written and project work you will work on. The experimental approaches you might use will therefore also be firmly grounded in tangible spaces.
You will also be expected to work in an independent and self-directed manner between points of contact with tutors.
The overall teaching mode for this programme is delivered through:
- Field trips
- Group and individual tutorials
- Seminar discussions
We promote a safe, inclusive and supportive peer-based learning environment in which helpful and constructive feedback can be shared across staff and students.
Assessment
The programme’s two core courses in semesters 1 and 2 have their own individual summative assessment based on reflective, experimental and situated research methods.
You will engage with different textual forms to communicate your work (such as reflective diary and report). For your final situated research project in semester 3, you will develop a portfolio and written reflective report of 8,000 words based on your own fieldwork.
Learning outcomes
Joining our MSc Architecture, Landscape and Environment programme will enable you to:
- Draw from an experienced group of research-led senior staff at the University of Edinburgh, to appreciate and develop a wide range of specialised and experimental approaches relevant to the field of spatial and site-related theory and practice.
- Work closely with other disciplines to demonstrate and work with an expanded understanding of interdisciplinary theories and practices at the forefront of contemporary environmental and societal challenges.
- Use sites in Scotland and abroad as contexts of enquiry, apply critical approaches to fieldwork that identify, conceptualise and define contemporary environmental and societal concerns, while developing creative responses through site-related investigations.
- Apply knowledge and skills in applying a range of advanced spatial theories, concepts and methods of enquiry, while demonstrating originality in planning and executing a significant investigative site-related project.
- Demonstrate initiative in articulating ‘situated’ projects as outcomes that respond to current environmental and societal challenges and situations, while theorising these as identifiable contributions to critical spatial theory and practice.
