25.03.25 Technical Director, Dimitris Argyros, hosts the MSci Year 5 Open Studio as Course Director

Fantastic day at the MSci Y5 Open Studios yesterday at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where academia and practice came together to discuss research in practice.

This year the Y5 student cohort has increased to 21 students and with that 17 brilliant practices across a whole range of scales and expertise that are partaking in the placement program and have been nurturing the students and supporting them with their exciting research projects.

The MSci course combines ARB Part 1 and Part 2 in a 5-year programme with 4 years in full time academia and the final year in a practice placement. During their paid placement students work on project work for 4 days a week and for 1 day a week on a research topic that is of benefit to the practice. Students can use the UCL workshops and facilities during their placement.

The MSci Open studios happen twice a year and is an opportunity for students across all years to present their work to fellow students and tutors and gain positive feedback on their design work. The MSci Y5 Open studios yesterday sparked an excellent debate between students and practices across a variety of research subjects that are relevant in the industry. Some of these included adopting circular economy principles, designing regenerative masterplans, integrating biophilia into schools, approach to social value and working with AI.

Many thanks to all the practices that attended the Open studios and have been taking part at the placement program. A big thanks and well done to two wonderful academic mentors, Doron von Beider and Finbar Charleson of course all the students! Look forward to seeing the conclusion of the research topics and the summer show!

At the MSci evening event that followed visiting practices interested in the placement were able to see some of the work from last year and some snippets from this year as well as opportunity for networking. We had short presentations from myself, Felicity A.   , Director of Practice and Director of Design of Practice, Sara Martinez Zamora, MSci Programme Co-Director.

UCL is actively looking for practices to partner up with on the MSci placement programme for students graduating in July 2026 and who will be looking to secure placements in August 2026. If you think your practice might be interested in participating do please get in touch and I can explain more about the programme, the placement and share supporting information.