The MA program in Habitat Studies is a post-professional degree, designed for those to those who have completed a professional Bachelor’s degree in architecture and its allied fields, or scholars from other discipline, such as Law, Anthropology, English, and History etc. who are interested in enquiry into questions surrounding the built environment.
The program seeks to develop an advanced theoretical understanding of the built environment and its intersections with diverse fields such as culture, politics, economics, and legality especially within postcolonial and subaltern context(s). The emphasis on research and theory primarily supports students who wish to prepare for careers in scholarship, research or education, or who wish to establish a more intellectually reflective basis or a more specialized direction for their professional work.
The course is conducted over four semesters. In the first and second semesters, the students are required to take a combination of Pro-seminars which are part of their core curriculum, intended to build their research skills. Along with this students also need to undertake an independent study seminar which is supervised by a qualified professional from their area of interest, and is decided in consultation with their supervisors. Throughout this process students work with their supervisors to select the courses and seminars that best suit their research interests and to prepare a clear and focused thesis topic. They begin to investigate their thesis topics in the third semester, along with one core colloquium and one independent seminar. Their final research thesis is presented at the end of the fourth semester.