Portfolio

All portfolio submissions are electronic and uploaded to our server. Submission instructions, including password and log-in details will be sent to you at the time.

The portfolio should be five sheets of work, plus cover sheet with your name, in a single PDF file and a maximum file size of 32Mb. We are primarily interested in representational drawings, alongside fine or applied art or other creative media, but discourage submission consisting solely of photography, AutoCAD drawings or digitally rendered 3D images. One sheet must be a ‘two dimensional representation of a favourite architectural room or space’ and you must also provide separately a brief explanation of why you like the chosen space.

To help you with your portfolio submission, we have put together a short presentation on how to plan and produce a successful portfolio.

In addition, we have summarised some of the main points below.

Your portfolio should contain no more than 5 sheets (plus a cover sheet with your name) but you are welcome to submit numerous drawings/pieces on one sheet. If you decide to do this, we would ask you to plan the layout and composition of each sheet and consider the sequence in which the images are presented/viewed.

You are welcome to submit a range of works/examples and are not restricted to drawings but can include other media to demonstrate a range of skills and abilities. Furthermore you are also not limited to the ‘depictions of buildings’ and free to choose any example from your work, which you consider to be the best and most appropriate. However, we are particularly interested in work that shows your ability to draw and you should consider the relevance of the work to an education in architecture. When you are including photographs of sculptures/models/three-dimensional pieces, please remember that these photographs are an important record for you and a piece of work in their own right. Therefore you should ensure they are of good quality with proper lighting and background.

We do specifically ask for one of the sheets to be a two-dimensional representation of a favourite architectural room or space:

At its simplest this could be a perspective sketch of room or a painting of a street. But it could also be something like an axonometric or isometric drawing or perhaps a series of orthogonal projections using a range of media.

Amongst other issues, this piece of work should allow us to examine:

  • your ability to convert 3-dimensional information into a 2-dimensional representation
  • your ability to draw/sketch/represent the built environment and capture architectural qualities about a space
  • your understanding of and particular areas of interest in architecture

The space does not have to be internal and could be a town square, a street or other external space. Please do keep in mind that a building exterior is not a space, so the representation should not just be a simple sketch of a building. It is up to you to decide on the type, character and scale of the space and what is the most appropriate form of representation and media.

We hope the above thoughts are of some assistance and we look forward to receiving your portfolio.