The school’s new programme is a doctoral route for those wishing to study for a PhD based on the work they are already doing in their professional practice. Building upon the school’s successful Architectural Design MPhil/PhD programme, Architectural Practice MPhil/PhD is specifically framed to use real-world projects as doctoral research.
Professor Murray Fraser, the Programme Director comments:
For busy architects who are keen to develop their theoretical approach, they will be able to use their projects for a PhD at The Bartlett – widely acknowledged as a global leader in design research.
The first candidate taking this new route is Cindy Walters, a director of the award-winning practice Walters & Cohen. She notes:
Due to the pressures of running a busy London practice I am not sure I could have completed a PhD had it not been possible to take the Architectural Practice programme. For my thesis, I am using a new building typology, the Vajrasana Buddhist Retreat in Suffolk, to articulate my original contribution to knowledge. Doctoral research enables me to develop my theoretical approach in the context of the work of my own practice."
Candidates can opt whether to study full-time or part-time depending on their circumstances, and in both cases, it will be undertaken within their practices, not a university setting.
“Specialist supervision will help them to their shape their research in an academic manner, and to develop their professional knowledge and skills. In turn, the programme will help The Bartlett to strengthen links with outstanding practices in London and further afield”, Professor Fraser points out. “We see this entirely as a win-win situation”.
For further details, please contact Professor Fraser on murray.fraser@ucl.ac.uk.
More information
Image: Courtyard of the Vajrasana Buddhist Retreat [Courtesy of Walters & Cohen Architects]
£8 million gift to create quantum institute at UCL
The new David Potter Institute for Quantum Information and Spacetime, established thanks to a landmark award from the David and Elaine Potter Foundation, will seek to reconcile quantum mechanics.
10 Aug 2026
RESILIENCE wins Gold Award at Learning Technologies 2025
The RESILIENCE project, established by UCL Biochemical Engineering, was recognised by the Learning Technologies Awards as the best learning technologies project in the public and non-profit sector
29 Jul 2026
New PhD training programme aims to bridge the biomanufacturing scale-up gap
UCL is one of three universities joining with industry to give graduates the skills and knowledge needed to scale up the benefits of engineering biology.
29 Jul 2026