Foundation Year – MSA 2026 – Manchester School of Architecture

Throughout the Foundation year, we aim to provoke students’ inquisitiveness, enthusiasm, and fascination. The course celebrates students' existing experiences and knowledge of spatial thinking, while also challenging and broadening their understanding of what architecture could or should be. This is explored through a variety of workshops, talks, visits, and design briefs, taking place both inside and outside the studio environment.

We think about architecture as a “doing” word, and the course encourages students to learn “How To Architecture.” Across the modules, students develop skills in drawing and making, designing and presenting, engaging others and translating ideas, learning how to be a student, and ultimately how to ‘do a project’.

Architecture is a subject with endless possibilities and multiple answers to the same starting questions. Foundation supports students not only in understanding the practices of the studio environment and learning to speak “architect,” but also in questioning those rituals and using them to imagine a better world.

Practices: Buttress, Levitt Bernstein, Simpson Hough, HTA, BDP, Hawkins Brown, EPR, 5plus, Hodders, ADP Architecture, Day Architecture, Cortorphine & Wright, 3D Reid, AEW, Triangle, MCAU. Huge thank you to these practices who provided a placement

PPD | Personal & Professional Development

In this module, students develop key academic research and writing skills through two briefs: INSIDE and OUTSIDE. INSIDE the studio, tasks include exploring the history of architecture, producing a case study of an iconic house, analysing an architect’s design process through a Serpentine Pavilion project, and attending talks from industry experts and practitioners challenging the status quo. OUTSIDE the studio, students take part in a series of visits. This year included a trip to Glasgow to visit Zaha Hadid’s Riverside Museum, the Burrell Collection, and A House for an Art Lover; a visit to a live construction site; and a one-week work experience placement within practices across Manchester.

CPT | Communication & Presentation Techniques

Students begin by building a toolkit of fundamental skills, including visualisation, drawing, collage, scale, perspective, and graphic presentation, introduced through workshop-style sessions. The module culminates in two creative briefs: EXPLORE and SURVEY. EXPLORE invites students to investigate and record the city through the lens of opposites, while SURVEY focuses on measuring, examining, and documenting a room—this year, Manchester’s Portico Library. At the end of Semester 1, students curate an exhibition, inviting friends, family, and MSA peers and staff to celebrate their work in progress.

ACT | Analytical & Conceptual Techniques

In this module, students apply their drawing and making skills through the brief ASSIST. They explore function for a specific user by designing a wearable object that attaches to the body, supporting a particular activity or need. The project emphasises understanding the relationship between body, action, and environment. Students also take part in MSA LIVE 26, collaborating in groups with peers from five other cohorts and working with external partners across Greater Manchester on socially impactful or community-focused projects.

STUDIO | Architectural Design Studio

Foundation culminates in a final project that brings together the design, research, analysis, communication, and presentation skills developed across the year. Set this year in RHS Bridgewater Gardens, FOLLY challenges students to design a bespoke structure for a specific client on a site of their choosing. Students develop individual concepts and proposals, communicated through both physical and digital outputs, including drawings and models. The resulting projects offer thoughtful, site-specific structures that respond carefully to both client needs and the surrounding landscape.

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