Our Values
The three concerns underpinning everything we do at Lancaster School of Architecture are Future Practice, Digital Crafts and the Climate Crisis.
Future Practice: Issues such as future cities and rapid urbanisation, changing societal and family structures and patterns of working, new materials and accelerating digitalisation necessitate a new kind of architectural professional, equipped to address such challenges.
Digital Crafts: Digital fabrication, agile production, rapid prototyping, disruptive technologies, advanced manufacturing, learning-by-doing and the maker movement: our students will not just be familiar with these ideas but will go on to become future pioneers.
Climate Emergency: Addressing the climate crisis is an imperative. Climate change will be seamlessly integrated into to everything we teach and we will strive for it to become utterly normalised so as to be part of our everyday conversation in studio, all the time.
Five additional, facilitative themes help us address these.
- First is Radical Creativity, since they can only be tackled via highly creative, innovative and socially embedded, solutions.
- Next is Ethics: we are becoming a more unequal society and so applied ethics is integrated in our professional practice.
- Furthermore, People lie at the heart of the design process and human-centred design is part of all our teaching.
- Place is important to us since our school is located next to the Lake District and we take full advantage of this uniquely exceptional setting to address issues of place, landscape and context.
- And finally, how is all of this achieved? Through integrating education and Research
Professional Accreditation
Architects Registration Board (ARB)
Both the BA (Hons) Architecture (Part I) and the MArch Master of Architecture (Part II) are fully accredited by the ARB (Architects Registration Board).
Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)
The BA (Hons) Architecture is accredited by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
Professional Accreditation Path
Architecture in the UK is a regulated profession which means that you must be registered with the Architects Registration Board (ARB) to practise using the title ‘architect’. ARB is the statutory regulator and competent authority for architects in the UK. As a regulator it is ARB’s role to maintain the Register of Architects and to ensure that standards within the profession are consistently maintained for the benefit of the public and for architects.
There are three main routes to registration, but typically, if you are studying in the UK, you will take a three-year full time first degree in architecture (often referred to as ‘Part 1’) followed by a year of appropriate professional experience. Then a two-year full time second degree or diploma in architecture (often referred to as ‘Part 2’) followed by a further year of professional experience. Then the Professional Practice Examination – or Part 3.
You will need to have all three qualifications in order to apply for registration together with a minimum of 24 months appropriate practical training experience.
LICA Festival '24
Discover creative works from Architecture, Design, Film, Fine Art and Theatre.
View their outstanding work here
Why Choose Lancaster School of Architecture?
A place to call home
The Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts (LICA) is the home of our new architecture programmes. The Institute encompasses art, design, film, theatre and architecture. LICA is housed in an award-winning building with impressive facilities and equipment. It won the BREEAM Higher Education Award and the Green Apple Environment award in 2012.
Meet the Architecture team
Lancaster University School of Architecture brings together academic and practicing architects whose interests, specialisms and experience ensure the School benefits from a rich and diverse set of views on architecture.
Des Fagan
I am the Head of Architecture at Lancaster - my research interests are in future methods of practice. Prior to working in academia, I worked on several international award‐winning projects, including as Project Architect for the London Olympic Village and Glasgow Transport Museum for Zaha Hadid Architects, winner of European Museum of the Year. I also am currently director of an architecture practice inside University that works with clients across the UK.
Dr Adam Blaney
I am a Lecturer in Responsive Architecture. I have worked in industry for several years at various architectural practices in Manchester. My research interests mainly focus on rethinking and developing digital design and fabrication processes, through prototyping, to create responsive, adaptive and self-healing objects, products and architectural structures. Additionally, based on principles and properties from these prototypes, I am also interested in developing speculative visions of materially adaptive architecture and cities.
Dr Mirian Calvo
I am a Lecturer in Participatory Architecture and a member of the ImaginationLancaster design research group at Lancaster University (LU). My research explores the interaction between residents and the Public Sector in urban contexts and, in particular, how co-design can be a driver for change in architectural processes. My doctoral thesis explored the relationship between community-based co-design and the associated mutual learning process. Currently I teach in Architectural Design Studio 1. The module is conducted as an intensive design studio.
Dr Andrea Canclini
Dr Andrea Canclini is a Lecturer of Architecture. He has previously taught at the Politecnico di Milano and the Beirut Arab University and he is an international practising architect, ARB and RIBA Chartered Member. He has participated in and organised international conferences and published articles, book chapters and conference proceedings on the relationship between modern and contemporary architectural design and its cultural foundations. Current research interests include architectural sustainability theory and the architecture of emergencies, borders and refugees.
Stephen Connah
I am Studio Lecturer and first year Module Convenor. I worked for architectural practices in Manchester and Liverpool while working as Associate Lecturer at Manchester School of Architecture as Atelier Leader. Prior to working in architecture I worked in the construction industry before running my own exhibition design and build business. I also hold a Master’s degree in Fine Art and I am Fellow of the HEA. My research interests are on the role of making in architectural pedagogies and in the production and representation of architecture.
Professor Nick Dunn
I am Chair of Urban Design and am interested in the future of cities, architecture, infrastructure, modelling and visualisation. I have written numerous books on architecture and urbanism, including model making and digital fabrication in architecture, and had my creative work exhibited across the UK, China, and the Ukraine. I am passionate about the role of architecture in shaping a better world for future generations. I am very excited to contribute towards the BA (Hons) Architecture course at Lancaster University.
Simon McAlister
I am a RIBA Chartered practicing Architect and part-time Lecturer in Architectural Design, Technology and Professional Practice. As an Architect, I trained in the conservation, adaptation and refurbishment of existing buildings. I focus on ensuring design and detail work together to conserve and protect the existing, whilst ensuring our built environment and spaces are architecturally interesting, appropriate and meet current and future standards.
Dr Serena Pollastri
I am a designer and lecturer in Urban Futures. My research challenges the boundaries of ‘the urban’ to think of the future of cities in the context of their natural flows and multi-species habitats. Through practice-based research, I develop visualisation processes that help uncover, unpack, and speculate with these interdependencies and complexities. Within this theme I am currently focussing on biodiversity and speculative food futures. I hold a BA in product design and a MA in service design from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and a PhD in design from Lancaster University.
Dr Ana Rute Costa
I am the Course Leader for the BA (Hons) Architecture, a chartered architect and certified Passivhaus Designer, fostering to create dynamic links and knowledge exchange between academia and architectural practice. My research focus lies on accelerating material re-use in construction through material passports. I am also interested on analysing the impact of the built environment in teaching and learning through ethnographic and visual research methods.
Aissa Sabbagh
I am a lecturer in Architecture, ARB Registered architect and PhD researcher at Lancaster University. My research explores low outcome neighbourhoods in the Northwest and focuses on how urban design can promote wellbeing, and spatial equity in socially diverse contexts at neighbourhood level. My research insights and 15 year experience of commercial architecture support my capacity to critically explore innovation in urban socio-political infrastructures, sustainable strategies, architectural manufacturing, and construction methods.
Professor Deyan Sudjic
In my career as a critic, editor, researcher and curator I have always been fascinated by the place of architecture, design and urbanism in a wider cultural context. That is what attracted me to join Lancaster as it creates a new school of architecture within the setting of a long standing and distinguished record in design research. I look forward to playing a part in Lancaster’s distinctive approach, with its rigorous intellectual standards, its social concerns and its international perspectives.
Photo credit: Muhsin Akgün
Nick Tyson
I am a Senior Lecturer in Architecture and UK registered Architect. I have extensive industry experience working at a range of scales from products, furniture and interiors to bespoke buildings and set construction for television production. I have held academic roles at leading Schools of Architecture across the UK before joining LICA in 2022. These complementary fields of activity are connected by ‘design through making’ which provides a framework for open-ended experiment and radical pedagogies that can drive innovation.
ImaginationLancaster
ImaginationLancaster is an open and exploratory design research lab which conducts applied and theoretical research into people, products, places and their interactions.
ImaginationLancasterEden North
We are passionate about Architecture and exciting new developments in the North West of England.
Eden Project
Portfolio guidance
Students apply to the Lancaster School of Architecture with a variety of skills: it is not always the case that applicants have studied Art or Design at A-level or GCSE for example, nor is this necessary.
Please refer to the Lancaster School of Architecture portfolio guidance document.
An inspiring environment
Lancaster has invested over £500m in its modern campus since 2003, with a further £400m planned in the next five years. The University has many award-winning buildings and a commitment to sustainability. From our student eco-residences to our new Health Innovation Campus, you will find inspiring architecture all around you.
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Specialist facilities
Specialist facilities include workshops, studios and technology labs
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City of Lancaster
Lancaster is an ancient city with a modern outlook, and a fascinating story to tell
