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Student Experience

Studying architecture in Dundee is an exciting, mind-expanding, and challenging opportunity of a lifetime!

Year One - Day One

We go to the beach! Along with our year two students we spend the day at the beach creating a 'place which did not previously exist... ' We continue throughout year one to investigate 'place' in rural or semi rural conditions. We visit sites within the surrounding countryside or by the river and investigate some things which are familiar, such as the house, but also introduce other issues relating to construction, scale, texture, materiality or the relationship of interior and exterior, the tangible or intangible.

Dundee is surrounded by some of the most beautiful countryside in the UK. Check out some of wonderful locations in our gallery.

Photo montage of student work by ,Charlotte Torck, M.Arch Degree, Year one

Charlotte Torck, MArch Degree, Year one

Year Two

Year two begins to investigate the City and also Making.

Photograph of staff and students from above in the Matthew building, University of Dundee

Staff and students at the annual material exhibition

Projects include dealing with timber constructions, involving hands on experience and also engaging with new uses for existing buildings. Students discover what it means to draw something as a sketch on a piece of paper and then build it at full size.

Students also take part in a study trip to Holland for a week to investigate contemporary architecture. In year two a selection of our students take part in an ERASMUS or student exchange for a semester and attend Schools of Architecture in France, Germany, Poland, and Australia,

Year Three

Year three students have the opportunity to bring together the knowledge gained over the first two years.

Photograph of staff and students participating in an architectural crit in studio space

Year three architectural crit in one of our studio spaces

Putting Skills into Practice

Our students have taken part in an overseas visit since 2006, involving an urban study of Krakow in Poland investigating "Identity" and how cultures are represented through their built environment.

On returning to Dundee the students produce proposals for the urban repair of a part of a City, and produce comprehensive designs for a building within it.

Year Four

Year four students build an extensive design portfolio which includes a complex design project on a challenging urban site.

Projects in this year are structured to allow students to consider the design of a building from interception to resolution, and also to encourage an exploration of architectural ideas.

In parallel to the design studio, students work in seminar groups to investigate themes in contemporary architectural theory and practice through text and "making".

Year Five

Year five gives our students huge scope and flexibility in defining their own trajectory. The discipline of year four and the design work it encompasses means that students can choose to pursue a far more open-ended thesis project if this is appropriate. Units are self-selecting and structured around themes and ideas which grow from staff interests.

Photograph of Dalius Ripley's thesis project, architectural model

MArch student, Dalius Ripley, thesis project

Join Students from Across the Globe

Students in the school of architecture come from all parts of the UK and Ireland and also from various parts of the world. These include:

  • Austria
  • Bulgaria
  • Latvia
  • Lithuania
  • Estonia
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Holland
  • S Korea
  • Poland
  • Malaysia
  • China
  • Singapore
  • South Africa
  • UAE
  • Qatar

Most students commencing with us are 17-18 years old, but we do also have a sizeable number of students which are older and may have completed other courses and life experiences before joining us in Year one.

Find out more on University of Dundee Architecture excellent studio culture →

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