OPEN CALL: Applications open for 2026 Design Practice MArch at the Royal College of Art

The MArch Design Practice is a transformative one-year programme for architects, designers, spatial and creative practitioners at any career stage—whether you’re looking to reimagine an established practice, emerging from undergraduate study, or transitioning from other creative, activist or policy-engaged fields.

Now accepting applications
The programme has options to start in January or September. Applications for January 2026 are due on December 5, 2025. Visit our website for more information about the admission process.

Leading planetary action
Planetary crisis demands new design thinking. This programme positions students at the intersection of urgent planetary challenges and unprecedented opportunity. You’ll study material processes and innovation, strategies of specification and reuse, embodied carbon and emerging technologies—from critically engaging AI and carbon accounting methods, developing interdisciplinary design strategies and methods of representation, to bio-based materials, and more. You’ll explore how these sites of opportunity intersect with economics, politics, and identity to reshape design practice.

We examine how renewable energy systems, green technologies, and social movements are transforming the built environment. Through critical engagement with construction’s planetary impact, you’ll develop bold, rigorous design propositions for more equitable futures, for people and planet.

Global perspectives
Drawing on methods and theories from diverse international contexts, we prepare you to deliver renewable and equitable futures around the world. You’ll bring your unique cultural perspective and existing practice into dialogue with peers from across the globe.

Students work across a range of media and contexts, including drawing, model-making, moving image, performance, material experimentation, prototyping, digital media, carbon accounting, policy engagement and design detailing.

Individual pathways
This is not a RIBA/ARB validated Part II programme. Our structure offers flexibility for practitioners to tailor their learning to specific goals, whether you’re working towards a specialism, developing a research-led practice, or pivoting your career. Students are encouraged to draw on existing practices and experiences, and to use the skills and exposure of the programme to propose interventions into existing architectural models or develop new forms of practice.

Reimagining our worlds
This programme offers a rare opportunity: dedicated time and mentorship to analyse the crises facing the built environment and develop your own tools, methods, and practice models for engaging them. Whether you’re two years or twenty years into your career, you’ll graduate equipped to lead design toward just futures.