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Join our 'City Design MA in-conversation' free online discussion sessions

Key details

Date

  • 1 November 2024

Read time

  • 2 minutes

Apply now to be here in 2025

Find out about our application process, eligibility requirements and key dates.

The round 2 application deadline for Master’s and MPhil/PhD programmes is 26 March 2025, 12 noon GMT.

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Featured programmes

City Design MA

Embrace an interdisciplinary approach to creating new spaces. Benefit from our studio-based teaching, justice-oriented thinking, and transformative design approach. Explore urban design principles and practices, including policy, planning, and digital tools. Become part of a community advocating for environmental and spatial justice.

City design is more than just designing physical structures. It’s about how we live together, work, and move. And, at a time of multiple crises, we need to design not just practical responses but reimagine the future. Studying at a leading art and design college, you’ll be perfectly placed to do exactly that.

1 year full-time

See full programme details for City Design Postsparkasse building and Façade Detail, – Otto Wagner

Design Practice MArch

Engaging with the built environment in a sustainable way. We’ve created this new one-year MArch Design Practice for architects and designers who want to study spatial practice in a broader sense. While this isn’t a RIBA/ARB validated part II programme, it’s a unique opportunity to develop tools to deliver renewable and equitable futures.

Develop your practice in a flexible way. You take core units such as material processes and carbon economies and choose from a range of electives, including housing & social reproduction, digital storytelling or soundscapes.

1 year full-time or 2 years part-time programme

See full programme details for Design Practice School of Architecture studiios

Environmental Architecture MA

Our MA Environmental Architecture creates a new field of knowledge production and practice for the design of alternative forms of co-dependence between life forms and earth systems. Studying with us, you’ll gain insight from leading figures in Environmental Architecture as you explore histories and theories of environmental change, multispecies and more-than-human design, environmental law and climate justice.

1 year full-time

See full programme details for Environmental Architecture Puquio de Quilligua in Salar de Llamara, MA Environmental Architecture Field Trip 19-20, Royal College of Art, London

Graduate Diploma Art & Design (Design specialism)

The Graduate Diploma prepares you for Master’s study at the RCA. The Design specialism supports students aspiring to a Master's in the School of Architecture. Applications for the Graduate Diploma Art & Design intake in May 2025 will open in January. Register for updates and reminders about applying to the Graduate Diploma.

30 weeks | On-campus, online or dual-learning modes of study

Online Open Day

Watch the recording of the Graduate Open Day here

See the full programme details for the Graduate Diploma Tian Gao, Graduate Diploma

Upcoming events

Register for Open Days, Portfolio Q&A sessions, Campus Tours and the chance to meet the RCA globally and in the UK.

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School of Architecture

The School of Architecture offers an unparalleled interdisciplinary context to pursue design research in the spatial disciplines. Located in Kensington, the School of Architecture provides a stimulating and vibrant cultural context for study in one of the world’s leading cities. Realise live projects and work alongside leading designers and artists in a postgraduate-only environment.

Find out more about the School of Architecture

Explore Student Profiles

View the work of graduating Fashion and Textiles students at RCA2024 through our online Student Profiles.

Explore RCA2024 Student Profiles

Our alumni

School of Architecture alumni form an international network of creative individuals who have shaped and continue to shape the world. These include former students such as Ben Kelly (MA Interior Design); Ed Barber & Jay Osgerby (MA Architecture); Maxwell Ayrton; Paul Karakusevic; Yussef Agbo-Ola (MA Environmental Architecture), Sadie Morgan and Alex De Rijke (MA Architecture); Sir Edwin Lutyens; Sir James Dyson (MA Furniture Design); Tom Coward AOC (Architecture & Interiors); Tom Emerson and Stephanie Macdonald (MA Architecture); Mingxin Li (MA Environmental Architecture).

Why choose the RCA?

The opportunity to learn from world-leading academic staff. We’re the only specialist art and design university where all of our permanent teaching and research staff are also research active and included in the RCA’s submissions to the UK Research Excellence Framework.

Our 33,000+ alumni are leaders in their disciplines, making national and international headlines. Alumni include:

  • Hoor Al Qasimi
  • Hurvin Anderson RA
  • Christopher Bailey CBE
  • Sir Peter Blake
  • Sir Frank Bowling
  • Sir James Dyson OM
  • Dame Tracey Emin RA
  • Sir Anthony Finkelstein
  • Thomas Heatherwick RDI, CBE
  • Dame Barbara Hepworth
  • Lubaina Himid RA CBE
  • David Hockney OM
  • Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq
  • Asif Kapadia
  • Julian MacDonald OBE
  • Henry Moore OM
  • Erdem Moralioglu MBE
  • Morag Myerscough
  • Dame Magdalene Odundo
  • Chris Ofili CBE
  • Bridget Riley
  • Peter Schreyer
  • Sir Ridley Scott
  • Douglas Stewart
  • Philip Treacy OBE
  • Dame Zandra Rhodes

The RCA is the world’s largest postgraduate-only art and design university, representing an exciting talent base and opportunities to build your network and collaborate. An RCA student might be working in industry or the arts, a career-changer, or come straight from an undergraduate course. We typically welcome students from over 70 countries.

Our College and School-wide projects, activities and challenges help our students find like-minded creatives to solve major global problems, grow their networks, or find future business partners. Find out more about AcrossRCA.

Find out more about how the RCA can help move your career to the next level with our Graduate Careers Report.

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