This page provides a brief introduction to architectural education.  To learn more simply contact the Architecture Schools - their details are listed on the 'Schools of Architecture' page.

There isn’t a Higher or A-level in architecture.  So, as a university subject, it’s new to everyone.  To be a student of architecture, you need to enjoy the challenge of learning new things and thinking about familiar things in new ways.  Architecture is not just building.  Whilst we approach the builder to have built what we know we want, we get from the architect something that we couldn’t have thought of for ourselves,

So, architecture is a profession for imaginative people; but it’s also for practical people.  Buildings have to stand up, serve their functions and inhabit their environment appropriately in social and ecological terms.  In particular, architecture is a profession for people who want to make a difference to our living conditions.  These conditions can be on the smallest domestic or the largest urban scale.

It takes a long time to become an architect –five or six years before you get a job, and another couple of years or so before you gain professional accreditation; but that’s broadly typical of the professions.  Students of architecture enjoy learning, and they hope to be respected for it when they qualify.

Once you’ve been accepted onto one of the Scottish architectural courses you will follow three general threads: artistic, scientific and cultural.  In any week, you will be doing Architectural Design –the main activity – at the drawing board, in the workshops or with the use of computer; you’ll be attending lectures, tutorials and practical workshop sessions in Technology and Environment; you’ll be attending lectures and tutorials in Architectural History.  In subsequent years, your timetable might change, but these three threads remain unbroken.  The whole world of buildings is your field of study and confirms architecture as a uniquely challenging and important subject.

Image: Jordanhill New Teaching Block, Elder & Cannon Architects - RIAS Andrew Doolan Award 2008 shortlisted project. © Keith Hunter