The Department offers two professional postgraduate programmes: an honours and a master’s programme specialising in Architecture, Landscape Architecture or Human Centred Design.
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.
Honours
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.
Master's
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.
