Index
Undergraduate - Bachelor of Architectural Design
Bachelor of Architectural Design Program Guide and applying for entry
New in 2008
In line with international trends for architectural education and future professional requirements, RMIT University will offer a three year Bachelor of Architectural Design with a two year Master of Architecture (Professional Coursework) degree in 2008 to replace the current five year Bachelor of Architecture degree. The Master of Architecture will become the widely accepted professional qualification in architecture as a pathway to professional registration.
Students will still need to undertake five years of accredited architectural study and at RMIT. This will start with the three year Bachelor of Architectural Design. Graduates of this degree with a credit average (Grade point average 2.5) will automatically be selected for the Master of Architecture.
RMIT University’s Bachelor of Architectural Design is not a generalist degree but the beginning of the educational process to becoming a registered architect.
The change to a Masters qualifying degree maintains RMIT’s international reputation for excellence in architectural design education, as it is in line with trends in Europe and the United States.
Bachelor of Architectural Design Program Structure
The main focus of the Bachelor of Architectural Design degree at each semester level is the design studio, in which students investigate architecture through design, integrating the knowledge gained in history, communications and technology into a total design project.
The Architecture program at RMIT is differentiated from other architecture degrees by the design studio structure and selection process.
Students in semesters two to five are grouped into a vertically integrated Lower Pool Design Studio cohort. They ballot for a thematic design studio and tutor each semester from around fourteen studio offerings. Staff student ratios are kept at around 1:14. The range of studio topics reflects a diversity of architectural practice and design research. Tutors are drawn from the RMIT Architecture program and visiting academics, and from innovative practices in Melbourne.
During the sixth semester, a portfolio course provides a critical reflection on your emerging body of design work. The design studios in semester six is vertically integrated with the Master of Architecture (Professional Coursework) degree and are more specialised and engage with a more complex design questions involving emerging practice and research concerns and a larger scale of projects.
History, communications and technology courses support the lower-level design studios along with Design Electives that allow for a range of study options relating to these course areas as well as introductory elective courses in urban design and digital design research areas, fostering pathways into the Urban Architecture Laboratory and the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (Opens in a new window) streams offered within the Master of Architecture (Professional Coursework). Elective courses are also offered by other programs such as Landscape Architecture, Interior Design and Industrial Design, and students are free to enrol in Student Electives offered by disciplines across the university.
There are public exhibitions of student work at the end of each semester to celebrate the work undertaken by students across the design studios offered by the program.
Program Features
The Urban Architecture Laboratory undertakes urban architectural research, and postgraduate research supervision, and offers urban architecture elective and design studio teaching courses in the Bachelor of Architectural Design and the Master of Architecture (Professional Coursework) degrees.
The Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (Opens in a new window) undertakes architectural research on the application of digital technologies, and offers postgraduate research supervision, and Spatial Information Architecture elective and design studio teaching courses in the Bachelor of Architectural Design and the Master of Architecture (Professional Coursework) degrees.
International Linkages
RMIT Architecture is committed to engaging with and contributing to emerging architectural practices, research and debate in an international context. The program features regular international visiting academics and practitioners who offer public lectures, design studio and research workshops, seminars and act as postgraduate examiners and critics.
Exchange
RMIT Architecture maintains an exchange program with other leading architecture schools around the world, enabling our students to study overseas and for international students to study Architecture at RMIT for one or two semesters.
International exchange and study abroad
International Study Tours
RMIT Architecture offers international study tours that currently focus on Northern European modernist and contemporary design projects and urban contexts. Design studios that travel to other countries are regularly offered. Recent studios have travelled to Vietnam, Taiwan, France, the Netherlands and Japan.