Zero Carbon Buildings and Technologies

Our MSc Zero Carbon Buildings and Technologies (Work Experience) course provides industry links to equip you with the skills and vision to tackle the climate emergency. With decarbonisation strategies and resilient design practises, you’ll use data to explore complex construction challenges in a variety of contexts.

How you learn The course brings together environmental and innovative technologies to achieve practical and sustainable goals in design, construction and operational practices. You’ll gain a strong theoretical and technical foundation in environmental architecture through experimentation and modelling, using data technologies to help you meet the needs of practice.

Sustainable development is at the core of the course. You’ll study modules that are developed to demonstrate knowledge and the practice of innovation, clean energy production, responsible energy consumption and healthy environments. The course has three integrated pillars covering design and construction, environment and performance, and digital and data technologies.

You’ll develop your knowledge, understanding and skills – applying them to environmental, digital and technically driven architectural design projects.

You learn through:

Key Themes You’ll develop essential knowledge and skills in trimester 1 via two 30 credit modules. These modules extend into trimester 2 to allow progression into applied design, enabling students with or without an existing design background to flourish on the course.

All core modules are considered preparatory to, and extended by, the research project module. For example, in trimester 2 professionally focused modules draw on your skills and knowledge from trimester 1, supporting engagement in professional and interdisciplinary projects. Meanwhile, you’ll complete co-curricular activities with employers in both trimesters 1 and 2, giving you time to develop your confidence.

Your final research project is a consultancy project that academic teams will develop through employer-led scholarly research. You’ll undertake real-world inquiry and investigation through the exploration of data to assess zero carbon strategies. You’ll complete a reflective written element in your dissertation, covering the work experience and/or employability skills, individual capabilities and competencies gained through the different activities throughout the course or work experience. This helps you gain further skills for your future careers, especially in providing consultancy in energy and decarbonisation of the built environment.

Applied learning Work experience We offer a work experience route of this course, please see MSc Zero Carbon Buildings and Technologies (Work Experience).

Live projects The course promotes innovation and creativity in architectural investigation and design, advancing beyond typical architectural practice by implementing research-informed teaching.

Research skills are supported throughout the course. The course is delivered through a range of industry-aligned modules that allow you to deal with real-world problems and solve them through research and development.