The Department offers two professional postgraduate programmes: an honours and a master’s programme specialising in Architecture, Landscape Architecture or Interior Architecture.
The one-year professional honours programme is followed by a one-year professional master’s degree. Combined, these qualifications are the equivalent of the two-year professional master’s degree offered by other institutions. As the University of Pretoria is a research-intensive university, the Department’s professional postgraduate programmes are premised on a research-led approach to design and construction.
Relevant qualifications that ensure eligibility for admission to the professional honours programme include the BScArch or BAS, BScLArch or relevant and equivalent BA or BTech or a similarly recognised qualification at NQL Level 7. A limited number of candidates can be admitted to the programme. Admission entails a comprehensive selection process to identify the strongest prospective students. Apart from academic merit, an applicant’s experience, interests, skills and opinions are also considered.
Admission to the professional master’s programme is granted to candidates who have completed one of the Department’s professional honours degrees with a minimum average of 60% for all courses, on condition that all honours courses are completed in the same academic year.
Download the professional postgraduate programme brochure.
The honours programme exposes students to complex social, cultural and environmental problems at multiple scales and encourages them to follow a holistic and regenerative design approach. It is a full-time, studio-based programme that fully uses the Department’s interdisciplinary focus. Through national and international collaboration, it offers students an experience embedded in real-life research and practice. Its outcomes promote knowledge exchange within the academic and professional contexts.
The master’s programme entails a personal yet critical, design-led, research-based investigation. It is a full-time, studio-based coursework programme. The Department’s research focus areas provide the impetus for students’ design investigations, encompassing the production of designs that respond to research findings and considering the inhabitants of the design and surrounding communities to ensure local relevance. Students engage with theory and case studies to develop an approach to making space and form, incorporating systems and technology. A rigorous, iterative, creative process of design postulation and enquiry, testing, evaluation and refinement seeks to push the boundaries of architectural convention.
WHY STUDY INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA
Interior architecture exists at the intersection of human behaviour and spatial structures. It is an evolving practice that considers social, cultural, technological and environmental conditions. As part of the Department of Architecture’s ethos, we place emphasis on human-centred and inclusive design to co-create a better future for the environment and societies in which we live and work.
The interior architect is responsible for human health, safety and welfare through design that is responsive and sensitive to human-environmental relationships through the structural adaptive reuse of existing buildings and the design of new buildings and temporal structures.
We focus on how people use space, the meaning of things and our relationship to the environment to design for diverse user needs and requirements. We design for human scale.
We value culture, ritual and diversity in the discoveries of places to design spaces where people can belong and express their identity.
We consider the importance of integrating heritage with the adaptive reuse of buildings, including the connection between old and new and the cultural and social histories of the context.
We integrate architectural design, technology and specialised interior construction by assimilating the lifecycle of materials and structures to create responsible and responsive environments.
We explore the influence of temporality and time on human experience and interaction to create adaptable spaces in which people and the environment can flourish.
Our programmes are suited to students and professionals in architecture, interior architecture, or other spatial design fields engaging with design at a human scale.
WHY STUDY LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA
At the Department of Architecture, UP, we place great emphasis on community engagement, well-being and environmental responsibility. Driven by ecosystemic thinking, we prepare our students for responding to the challenges of the 21st century.
As part of this ethos, our landscape architecture programmes focus primarily on designed ecologies. This can be understood as the design of green infrastructure to help combat challenges of biodiversity loss, climate adaptation and food security. Designed ecologies also incorporates human-nature relationships, and the value that design has for bringing people closer to their natural environments.
Landscape Architecture is described as the science, technique and art of ecological, functional and aesthetic planning and design of exterior and open spaces for human use and enjoyment and for environmental conservation and rehabilitation.
We focus on the relationships between people and nature. This means that as designers, we facilitate rich experiences related to nature, plants and public open space.
We value the diversity of ways that people interact with and enjoy nature, and use architectural design skills to help people access the benefits which nature provides.
We consider the cultural activities and uses that public open spaces support and seek to make these experiences accessible to everyone.
We integrate horticultural knowledge, architectural technologies, and poetics to create beautiful and resilient places.
We explore unique ways to make exciting and ecologically sound places, including sculpting the earth, designing with plants, co-creating with communities and considering the poetic.
Our programmes are suited to students and professionals with backgrounds in architecture, landscape architecture and design, town and urban planning, environmental studies and horticulture.
Click here for the Landscape Architecture Brochure.
WHY STUDY ARCHITECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA
Architecture is an endeavour in holistic, integral thinking to develop approaches appropriate for our growing and changing cities and built environment. At the University of Pretoria’s Architecture Department, we focus on a well-rounded education that produces technically competent graduates to serve as change agents in a rapidly changing 21st-century world.
We focus on ecosystemic solutions that balance society’s needs with local ecological considerations whilst being cognisant of both historic context and future opportunities.
We value critical, independent thinking grounded in scientific reasoning and being research-based to encourage individuals to develop responsive and responsible approaches that contribute to the betterment of society and the environment.
We consider communities as important participants in problem-solving, our tangible and intangible heritage as critical informants, and ecosystems are vital entities to inform our design thinking.
We integrate architectural design and construction technology to create appropriate, responsible and responsive built environments.
We explore architectural research and design approaches that are people and place-centred, address real-world problems and function as regenerative agents within a large complex system.
Our programmes are suited for students and professionals in architecture.
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