The architectural studies comprise an integrated five-year curriculum. In the Architecture and Urban Design curriculum, it is possible to acquire in-depth knowledge and specialise in the fields of restoration, landscape architecture, or planning.
Architectural studies at EKA are studio-based in form and interdisciplinary in content. Most of the work is done in a studio, which is essentially an environment similar to an architectural office, where your sketches create an actual project. The most important subject of the curriculum is architectural and urban design, which deals with processes taking place in society. Each semester, a building of different sizes and the surrounding urban space or plan is created according to a theme. In addition to the professional studio, the architecture student participates in general and specialised theory and engineering subjects and painting, drawing and specialised experimental studios (see our professors). The last so-called vertical studios are cross-course and related to the laboratories of the Faculty of Architecture (3D Laboratory, VR Laboratory, PAKK) and the research work carried out in them, which explores the fringes of spatial creation. All EKA laboratories and workshops allow students to realise their ideas and designs.
The Faculty of Architecture organizes the traditional “Open Lecture Series” in which EKA is visited by the world’s top architects and internationally renowned professors. In addition to giving lectures, guest speakers always give feedback on students’ professional projects in critical seminars. Within the Erasmus program, EKA has student exchange agreements with many architecture schools around the world, and thanks to the initiative of students, the list is constantly updated. Our students have easy access to the best universities in the world for exchange studies.
The study of architecture and urban design ends with completing a master’s thesis, which is dedicated to the entire fifth year of study. The Master’s student has a choice between five studios related to building design or adaptation, existing environment and materials, urban planning, landscape or digital tools in architecture. The master’s thesis is a professional project with visual material, models, and text that describes the master’s thesis process and its theoretical and practical background.
A student who completes the curriculum receives a Master of Architecture (MSc) degree.
What are the career prospects?
A graduate of the EKA Architecture and Urban Design curriculum can work in private practice as a designer of buildings and planning projects, both as a member of a larger design team and as a leader. It is also possible to find an application in cities and municipalities as a visionary and planner directing local spatial development, to continue studies at the doctoral level, to work in research institutions developing various digital and material processes or offering applied research, for example, dealing with large-scale national plans or particular production companies.
The graduates of the curriculum of Architecture and Urban Design of EKA can work in the private sector as a designer of buildings and planning projects as a manager or a member of a larger project team, similarly as a public official or ideologist channelling the spatial development on the local government level, and also at universities or research centres developing various digital and material processes and providing applied research studies to a broad section of the society starting from large-scale planning to particular problems related to production.
EKA is the only university in Estonia where the Curriculum for Architecture and Urban Design belongs to the Qualification Directive no. 2005/36/EC in Annex V Of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union (see more details), and the five-year training provided here is in accordance with the framework requirements for architectural studies offered by the Government of the Republic Regulation (see more details).
It provides the graduate of EKA with a degree in Architecture and Urban Design and a diploma architect level 7 professional qualification (see more details), which allows you to work as an architect anywhere in the European Union.
