Doctor (PhD) of Architecture and Urban Planning

Program Aims

The Doctor (PhD) of Architecture and Urban Planning focuses on advanced research and knowledge on scientific and methodic areas that can be considered specific within local and international architecture and urban studies in five categories:  theory and history,  design, computation and education, interdisciplinary socio-cultural studies, technologies, spatial studies.

This program expands the knowledge in architecture by researching various ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies to changing researchers contexts and situations.

Program Learning Objectives (PLO)

By the end of the program, graduates are expected to be empowered of:

Theory and Knowledge 

PLO1: Discussing the main substantive and procedural theoretical approaches in architectural subdisciplines and the assumptions inflected on research situated within any of the approaches.

PLO2: Developing the knowledge in a significant architectural subdiscipline and substantial knowledge in a minor field except for architecture.

PLO3:  Identifying and characterising the fundamental theories, concepts, and issues in architectural subdiscipline.

Research

• PLO4: Identifying the local and international gaps and problems in research conducted by other scholars in a particular area of Architecture.

• PLO5: Realising the quantitative and qualitative research methods employed in the systematic spatial study of the built environment.

• PLO6: Learning about the research ethics related to their architectural subdiscipline.

• PLO7: Designing a novel research project that contributes new knowledge to the discipline.

• PLO8: Discussing the value of including architectural perspectives in interdisciplinary research.

• Dissemination of Scholarship

• PLO9: Recognising the value for scholars to engage in all aspects of the peer-review process.

• PL10: Engaging in peer-review conferences and journal venues where the students disseminate their research.

Professional Development

• PL11: Exploring academic and professional post-graduation possibilities for applying the expertise in productive employment.

• PL12: Recognising the various types of academic institutions and the expectations of faculty and staff in these different institutional settings.

• PL13: Designing and delivering a lecture.

• PL14: Identifying different academic instruction methods and explaining their differential goals and objective.

Career Outcomes:

After graduating with a PhD Degree in Architecture, students will be granted a PhD (doctorate) title.  Indeed the title plays a substantial factor in graduates’ career growth. Often graduates of Doctorate in Architecture and Urban Planning seek work in an academic environment as researchers or university instructors. Nevertheless, graduates have the chance to pursue their careers at governmental agencies, universities, non-profit organisations, private sectors, policymakers, architectural consultants, business entrepreneurs, etc.

Program Courses

Doctor of Architecture

Core Courses

• Architectural Design and Learning Style

The course “Architectural Design and Learning Styles” investigates design research, design theories and practices, design processes and methods, and cross-sectioning architectural education schools and styles.

This course discusses the relationship between education (learning), practice and research.

• Architectural Theory and Interpretation

The course “Architectural Theory and Interpretation” explores the relationship between theory and architecture. This includes studying the philosophical and architectural underpinning theories. Students will examine how the theory can challenge assumptions and offer new ways of thinking about the critical problems in architectural studies. This is through reviewing theoretical references in western architecture and Iranian-Islamic architecture.

This course enables students to discover the relationship between architecture and other areas of culture. It will also provide the students with a framework to understand and interpret architectural production. Furthermore, this course covers various theories, including deconstruction, phenomenology, feminist theory, environmental philosophy, continental philosophy and more. Students will also develop critical perspectives about contemporary social issues.

• Philosophy and Architecture

The course “Philosophy and Architecture” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course discusses the relationship between philosophy and architecture, types of philosophy (colonial and analytical), the PhD concept as a doctor of philosophy, philosophy of arts, and philosophy of architecture.

The course “Philosophy and Architecture” also clarifies philosophical components and their interpretation in architecture (ontology, epistemology and methodology). It covers some of the philosophical studies and approaches as interdisciplinary studies.

• Theory Making in Architecture

The course “Theory Making in Architecture” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course uses scientific and philosophical approaches in architecture to present a wide range of theory making, creating theories, testing theories, and theorising architectural studies and research. In this course, various topics are presented.

• Research Methods for Architecture I & II

The course “Research Methods for Architecture” discusses documentation, knowledge dissemination, knowledge mapping, and the research result applications in architectural design and practice. This course also provides guidelines for integrating research into practice and uses extensive case studies and relevant presentations and examples to illustrate the main concepts, procedures, and applications of knowledge in practice.

• PhD Dissertation

The course “Research (PhD) Thesis” is a final product of the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. Students must take this course after they have completed the comprehensive exam. By carrying out a substantial research project on a topic of interest, students will contribute to the body of knowledge in the field of study.

This course allows the PhD students to produce and defend a thesis in Architecture and Urban Planning. Students will conduct the research, collect data, analyse data based on the research proposal they have already developed. Students are required to submit and defend the final thesis.

Core Elective Courses

• Contemporary Architecture (Theories and School of Thoughts)

The course “Contemporary Architecture (Theories and School of thought)” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course focuses on the Renaissance and humanism era in Europe and their schools of thought and theoretical studies. It develops modern architecture theories roots and origins and their effects on Iranian and world architecture. This course develops students’ understanding of the subject matter through a comprehensive review, analysis, and criticism of philosophical and historical origins.

• Nature and Architecture

The course “Nature and Architecture” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course explains the human being and nature relationship in a wide range of philosophical, physical, cosmological and ecological approaches to develop a sustainable artificial environment. It constructs deep and wide concepts and methods on the interrelation of architecture and environment (natural and artificial).

• Reviews on Architecture Literature

The course “Reviews on Architectural Literature” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course focuses on reviewing and criticising a critical text, essay, or document in each student’s field of interest. Critical thinking, finding the new problem, and new ideation is the central part of this course. This course reviews an anthology of architectural literature and issues.

• Common Language in Arts and Architecture

The course “Common Language in Arts and Architecture” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course concentrates on philosophical reviews on arts and architecture, their resemblance and their origin. It covers thematic subjects in aesthetics and relationship to architecture as a process, product and manner of living. This course builds up a research base to types of arts (plastic arts, applied arts, performing arts, visual arts) and architecture interrelationship. This course includes philosophical studies in architecture and arts.

• Religious Architecture

The course “Religious Architecture” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course focuses on architecture and religious relationships in comparative and analogic studies to show their effects and changes.

This course includes religious studies, religious architecture and theories of meaning in architecture.

• Architectural Design and Learning Style

The course “Architectural Design and Learning Styles” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course investigates design research, design theories and practices, design processes and methods, and cross-sectioning architectural education schools and styles.

• Islamic Architecture (Theories and Methods)

The course “Islamic Architecture (Theories and Methods)” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course explains Iranian and worlds Islamic architecture philosophy, including ontological, epistemological and methodological studies. This course also compares case objects in Iranian Islamic architecture to theorise a transcendental model to differentiate, criticise, and develop today’s profession and education in the local context.

• Climate and Architecture

The course “Climate and Architecture” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course focuses on climatic attitude in architecture from past to present and develops adaptive architecture to environment concepts.

• Scientific Methods in Spatial Design-Critiques Process

The course “Scientific Methods in Spatial Design-Critiques Process” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course focus on three fields: (1) scientific and research methodology, (2) design studies and critiques in architecture, and finally (3) space and spatial oriented design and critiques as mainstream in architecture.  This course extends science’s scientific methodology and philosophy to space-oriented design processes and critiques.

• Comparative Studies in Architecture

The course “Comparative Studies in Architecture” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course develops comparative studies concepts, theory and methods in architectural knowledge. It is a part of interdisciplinary studies focused on sociology and extends socio-cultural roots in architectural researches, and compares architectural objects and processes in a between cultural situation. This course derives a specific framework for cultural and social concepts, theories and methods in architectural studies.

• Analytical History of Technology

The course “Analytical History of Technology” is designed for the PhD students of Architecture and Urban Planning at the IAU-UAE branch. This course concentrates on two main parts; the first is a methodological approach in analytical comparison, and the second focuses on the historical events in technological and technical progress in human beings’ lives. Technology is a central part of “architecture” as a concept and a comprehensive view of its profession.