Architectural Technology at UCA

A building is not just bricks and mortar – it has to work for its users and its setting. On our BSc (Hons) Architectural Technology degree course at UCA Canterbury, you’ll learn how to make buildings work, how to put them together, and how to meet statutory requirements.  

Our Architectural Technology degree will prepare you for an exciting and respected career working alongside architects in design practices. And, just like in industry, you’ll collaborate with students with other architectural specialisms while you study.

You’ll use our extensive facilities to create prototypes at a range of scales, and learn about how the human body affects and influences design details. By the time you graduate, you’ll have the skills and professional network to leap straight into work. With employers frequently approaching us to seek great candidates for roles in this sought-after field, you could find yourself getting job offers very quickly.

Please note, there is no option to study this course with the Integrated Foundation Year or the Professional Practice Year.

 

Course entry options

Select from the following options to find out more about the different study options available for this course:

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
K200
Campus
UCA Canterbury
Start date(s)
September 2025
Duration
3 years full-time
Entry requirements

112 UCAS points

International equivalent qualifications

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements
Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements
Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements
Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements
Close
Institution code
C93
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements
What you'll study

What you'll
study

The content of the course may be subject to change. Curriculum content is provided as a guide.

Launch
Launch Week is the first week of your academic journey in the Canterbury School of Architecture and Design and follows on directly from Induction Week. It is an intensive week spent gearing up for your year’s study objectives and getting to know your course staff, peer group and the school community in greater depth.

Projects 01
You’ll be introduced to fundamental issues, processes, and skills that will be relevant throughout your studies. You will investigate new ways of understanding the relationships between the human body, building components and the built environment through the design of a spatial enclosure.

Constructing for Equity 01
You’ll study the social, environmental, and cultural factors that impact contemporary architecture and construction, examining two critical topics - social justice and equitable architecture, and the climate crisis and its diverse challenges for construction.

Briefs and Positions 01
You’ll prepare a basic set of briefing materials to inform and guide your development of a small-scale design proposal, which you’ll make later in the year.

Opportunity
Opportunity Week is an intensive week of activity conceived and undertaken in collaboration with an external partner(s), and it’ll be driven by the partner’s external knowledge and area of practice – so it could cover anything from politics or law to sport and wellbeing.

Projects 02
You’ll apply what you learned in Briefs and Positions 01 to a building retrofit project, proposing the adaptive reuse or transformation of an unused or underused building to accommodate a mix of uses. You’ll have the opportunity to explore themes such as preservation, restoration, and innovation.

Building Analysis
In the Building Analysis unit you’ll learn how to analyse buildings and construction as a student in the field of Architectural Technology. You will develop a competency in building information modelling (BIM) software and learn how to use it to create digital models of buildings. Using these models, you will learn how to perform analyses related to building environmental efficiency and embodied carbon, two important considerations in today's architecture and construction industry.

Material and Digital Practices
This unit will introduce you to basic ideas around representation as a critical practice, and core theories of the design and production of small-scale objects in 2D print and 3D physical form. Working between the physical and virtual worlds, you will establish a range of techniques in digital and physical representation, building the foundation on which you begin to develop your visual communication skills and technological competence.

PLE Digital Outcomes
The PLE Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive engagement with and presence on digital media platforms across the year.

ATOM Activities
ATOM activities are tiny pieces of diverse individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across the university’s curriculum and beyond. They are chosen by you according to your personal interest.

Launch
Launch Week for your second year is all about getting you ready for your next year of study, and re-orientating after your first summer break.

Projects 03
You’ll expand upon the knowledge and skills you gained in the Building Analysis unit by exploring and interrogating a heritage urban context and designing small-scale architectural/technological interventions within it.

Constructing for Equity 02
For this unit, you’ll focus on the role of cultural diversity, non-Western perspectives, and vernacular practices in low-carbon approaches to building. You will also critically examine the tools and techniques used to assess environmental impacts, developing a comprehensive understanding of embodied energy, carbon sequestration and the potential for adaption, destruction and reuse of the buildings that you design for.

Briefs and Positions 02
In this unit, you’ll prepare a developed set of briefing materials to guide your development of a medium-scale design proposal in a subsequent design unit.

Opportunity
Opportunity Week is an intensive week of activity conceived and undertaken in collaboration with an external partner(s), and it’ll be driven by the partner’s external knowledge and area of practice – so it could cover anything from politics or law to sport and wellbeing.

Projects 04
You’ll design a medium-scale building skin project, building on existing knowledge to explore complex relationships between building envelopes and their role in creating comfortable indoor environments, embodied carbon, energy efficiency, and aesthetic appeal.

Pathways and Mentors
In Pathways and Mentors, you will reflect on the design skills, knowledge and techniques you are acquiring and identify potential alternative career paths that you might not yet have considered. In the course of this unit, all students will have the opportunity to engage with a design professional in a structured series of engagement and mentoring sessions.

Critical Analysis 02
This unit builds on understanding and issues introduced in the preceding Briefs and Positions 02 unit, to consider how ideas are socially, historically and culturally located. The unit is primarily concerned with theory and represents a step-up in challenging you to interrogate spatial and technological ideas, designs and actions.

PLE Digital Outcomes
The PLE Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive engagement with and presence on digital media platforms across the year.

ATOM Activities
ATOM activities are tiny pieces of diverse individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across the university’s curriculum and beyond. They are chosen by you according to your personal interest.

Launch
For your final Launch week you’ll be gearing up for your final year of study through a range of activities, which could include a multi-story guest lecture super session, an all staff pecha kucher, Canterbury and surroundings walking orientation tours or a studio launch collaborative making project.

Projects 05
In Projects 05 you’ll develop detailed proposals for the design of a housing scheme and use your design as the basis for a professional practice report related to the realisation of the project. The unit has 2 components, a portfolio and a report.

Your portfolio will focus on architectural technologies and systems in relation to the home at a variety of scales, while your report will explore the legal and procedural characteristics of practicing as an architectural technologist in the UK, based upon your emerging designs.

Critical Analysis 03
This unit provides a framework for you to establish your own personalised research trajectory. You’ll produce a piece of self-directed research on a subject that is related to the historical, theoretical and critical concerns of your subject discipline. The subject matter will be informed by the specific interests that you have developed.

Briefs and Positions 03
In the Briefs and Positions 03 unit, you will prepare an advanced set of briefing materials that will inform and guide your development of a medium-scale design for your final Projects unit.

Opportunity
Opportunity Week is an intensive week of activity conceived and undertaken in collaboration with an external partner(s), and it’ll be driven by the partner’s external knowledge and area of practice – so it could cover anything from politics or law to sport and wellbeing.

Projects 06
In this final unit you will undertake a large scale building retrofit design project. You will establish a sophisticated dialogue between topography, local, social and political issues, city scale structures, regional objectives and the way that all these impacts the lives of individuals.

You will engage pre-existing, disparate functions in new ways to generate cultural outcomes, agendas and patterns of use.

This course is designed to offer you (if eligible) the opportunity to study part of your degree aboard at a UCA partner university, while still earning credits towards your UCA degree.

For more information please visit the Study Abroad section

Industry placement
offer

Preparing graduates for successful careers underpins everything we do, and all students on this course may be offered support to identify and prepare for an industry placement according to their individual needs. We’ll draw on our wide range of contacts within the creative industries to help provide you with opportunities that align with your interests and future career aspirations.

Course specifications

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change in line with our Student Terms and Conditions for example, as required by external professional bodies or to improve the quality of the course.

Explore our gradshow

Each year, we’re privileged to be able to share our graduates’ incredible work with the world. And now’s your chance to take a look.

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Fees & funding

Fees & financial support

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • BSc course: £9,250

Tuition fees - 2025/26

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • BSc course: £17,500

Please note: The fees listed on this webpage are correct for the stated academic year only, for details of previous years please see the full fee schedules.

UCA scholarships and fee discounts

At UCA we have a number of scholarships and fee discounts available to assist you with the cost of your studies.

Financial support

There are lots of ways you can access additional financial support to help you fund your studies - both from UCA and from external sources. Discover what support you might qualify for please see our financial support information.

Additional course costs

In addition to the tuition fees there may be other costs for your course. The things that you are likely to need to budget for to get the most out of a creative arts education will include books, printing costs, occasional or optional study trips and/or project materials.

These costs will vary according to the nature of your project work and the individual choices that you make. Please see the Additional Course Costs section of the Course Information Document for more details of the costs you may incur.

Facilities

There are open plan studio spaces for each year of the course, used for group tutorials and personal working. Facilities for the course include: laser cutters, 3D printers, a virtual reality lab, a 3D workshop with machines for working in wood, metals, plastics and ceramics, and fully-equipped computer studios with Macs and PCs running software for design and animation.

View 360 virtual tour

Studios, UCA Canterbury

Fabrication Lab, UCA Canterbury

Digital suites, UCA Canterbury

Architecture TrakLab, UCA Canterbury

Career opportunities

You’ll be fully immersed in the architecture and design industries through live projects. In the past these have included work with the leading London architecture firm AKT II, global design and architecture firms such as HOK and SOM, local government organisations and architecture companies in Margate and Folkestone. You’ll also have the opportunity to enter industry competitions.

Graduates of the course have gone on to work at the following leading design practices:

  • Platform
  • Bompas and Parr
  • Piercy and Co
  • Harvey and John
  • Grimshaw
  • Hawkins Brown
  • Jason Bruges Studio

Graduates of an Architectural Technology degree often go on to continue their studies at a Master’s level or complete a year's apprenticeship. While a postgraduate qualification is not always necessary, studying a CIAT (Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists) accredited programme is beneficial and a CIAT membership is free to students during their students. More information on becoming a CIAT member can be found here.

Graduates can expect to work to a high standard of both technical knowledge and creative vision within an architecture firm or as a freelance architect.

What’s it like being a student at UCA?

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Entry & portfolio requirements

We’ll need to see your portfolio for review. We’ll invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. International students will be asked to submit an online portfolio. Further information will be provided once you have applied.

View more portfolio advice

 

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