Compare 7 Masters of Arts in Urban Design

MA Degrees in Urban Design. Course summary In an increasingly urbanised world, there is a growing international demand for urban design graduates. These courses will equip you with the knowledge and skills you need to participate in this rapidly expanding profession. Urban design involves shaping the physical setting for life in cities. The pace of urban change, and the challenge of making cities efficient, sustainable and meaningful, demands creative solutions to design and management. The Urban Design courses at Westminster provide a coherent approach to issues that face our cities, combining structured academic study with live design projects, allowing you to develop practical skills, a theoretical understanding and an informed approach to sustainable urban development. Our Urban Design programme is one of the largest and longest established in the UK. It enjoys an excellent reputation and our graduates are highly respected in the profession. Our students are from a variety of professions and backgrounds, including architecture, landscape architecture and planning, from the UK, Europe, and across the globe. They range from recent graduates seeking to expand their skill base before commencing their career or those considering a shift from an allied profession to established professionals seeking to specialise or develop a more informed critical approach. Our central London location allows you to interact with a huge variety of practitioners and organisations, as well as drawing on the city's huge range of resources; you will be at the heart of the debate over the future of cities. Course structure ... [-]

The MA in Architecture and Urban Design (MAUD) is a wide-ranging mainstream Master's programme in architecture that gives you an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective on contemporary architecture and urban design. The programme informs you about the latest knowledge of architecture and urban design in order to prepare you to become a successful professional working on a global scale.

Overview

You are taught how to combine academic analysis with the development of creative and intellectual skills. We regard the theory and practice of architecture as equally important and believe that joint effort and excellence in both areas are necessary for communicating architecture and urban design competently and successfully. You are encouraged to develop your creative and imaginative abilities; to produce ideas and undertake work that conveys your understanding of architecture and cities in fresh and effective ways.... [-]

Overview

You examine the trajectory of cities’ development, particularly in relation to the Enlightenment, industrialization, the role of Modernisms and the conditions of the 21st century. In doing so, you draw from the wider context of humanities, cultural studies, the visual arts, drama, film, and other media that influence the formation of an urban landscape.

A cross-cultural, interdisciplinary programme, you spend your first term at our Canterbury campus with full access to its excellent academic and recreational facilities. In the spring term, you relocate to the Paris School of Arts and Culture where you study at the Columbia Global Center (known as Reid Hall) in a historic corner of Montparnasse. You visit Paris in the autumn term, where you meet our Paris staff and are taken on a tour of the city. We offer advice and support to help you relocate to Paris.... [-]

MA in Urban Design

"Urban Design - the knowledge and skills necessary to design and deliver better urban places."

The MA Urban Design is jointly run by the School and the Welsh School of Architecture and more information about this course is available at MA in Urban Design - Welsh School of Architecture.

The MA Urban Design uses design practice, theory, development and control practices to inform design processes, and uses studio teaching focused on local development possibilities to develop creative, practical and sustainable solutions to a range of typical urban design problems.

The course seeks to produce students who can:

Think three-dimensionally and creatively manipulate space at the intermediate scale between architecture and planning; Analyse the qualities of localities and places and respond to complex and often contradictory community aspirations; Critically appraise development (built and proposed) and make suggestions for improvement, and develop improved policy and control practices; Conceptualise and draw development proposals at different scales from the territorial to the block scale; Be able to recognise and add quality in all development situations; Test developments for their sustainability, economic viability and constituency; Understand how to approach implementation through inter-professional and inter-agency collaboration and consensus building. Course Recognition ... [-]

About the Programme

With a global urban population of 4 billion and 28 megacities, urban life is experiencing momentous change. New social groups are emerging, populations are ageing, family units are extending and dispersing, work is becoming casualised and whole communities have moved online. At the same time, dangerous new social divides are appearing on the periphery of cities, between different cultures, and now also between different generations.

Many of the models used to explain, design, develop and manage cities have resisted change. More recently however, new possibilities are emerging and their consequences promise to be profound: modern social movements, automated building supply chains, technology platforms, driverless transport and logistics, distributed water and energy infrastructure – all will radically reshape the city's fundamental building blocks.... [-]

Urban design brings together professionals from a range of backgrounds who share a passion for improving the design of our urban environments. Whether you have studied town planning, geography, fine art, engineering, architecture or landscape design, this course will give you the opportunity to work in a collaborative environment, questioning conventional assumptions about urban design.You will study the latest methods and design theories relating to urban environments, exploring the development and resolution of projects and focusing on achieving environmental sustainability. We will build your understanding of ecological, management, social and economic principles that contribute to environmental and sustainable development.You will be encouraged to apply your design skills to live projects. Working with landscape architecture and town planning students, you will address briefs provided by real clients, developing your ability to work as part of a team and making a significant contribution to innovative designs. Previous students have explored the potential for promoting urban agriculture and developing green spaces in collaboration with community groups in Leeds.This is a flexible studio-based course which will give you the opportunity to work with and learn from students from a range of backgrounds, sharing experiences and building professional networks. It is also accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute and will prepare you for professional membership.We are proud to be celebrating 50 years of landscape architecture at Leeds Beckett University.... [-]

Overview

A taught postgraduate course that conducts research into how global cultural and economic forces influence contemporary cities. The design, functioning and future of urban situations is explored in written, drawn and modelled work that builds on the legacy of twentieth-century urban theory and is directed towards the development of sustainable cities. Features and benefits of the course:

This course is jointly accredited by Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and the University of Manchester (UoM) with cross-disciplinary connections between the Manchester School of Architecture, the School of Environment and Development (UoM) and Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design (MMU). This is an internationally based course that actively disseminates students’ thesis work through conferences, exhibitions, competitions and publications. About the course ... [-]