Masters in Architecture & Urban Environment in UK

Smart urban futures is a unique and innovative new MA programme that will equip you to address design challenges at the boundaries between smart technologies and urban design and planning. You will gain skills in IoT, smart technologies, open data, 3D fabrication, augmented reality and virtual reality complimented by core teaching in urban design, planning and placemaking.

Through a design lab approach, you will develop digital prototyping and place-making projects that respond to the opportunities and needs of digital living, transport, health, mobility, governance and sustainability in a holistic approach to smart urban futures.

Recent data and predictions on the forthcoming rate of urbanisation make cities the most common living environment now and in the future. What kind of life will it be for the seven billion people who will live in existing or developing cities? Cities hold tremendous potential, but at the same time are sources of stress, inequalities and pollution.

In 2015, the United Nations recognised this through the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which included 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Goal 11 is dedicated to urban settlements, with the aim to 'Make Cities Inclusive, Safe, Resilient and Sustainable'.

This means that getting the design of cities right has never been so important. The questions are: what kind of design should we adopt, and who should be in charge? Our course explicitly addresses these questions, and teaches how to design responsive, resilient, sustainable cities for all their inhabitants, thus preparing socially responsible urban design professionals of the future.

This innovative course is based on the Urban Design Studies Unit's cutting-edge research in design, urban analytics, morphology and theory.

This Urban Design master's prepares you to contribute towards an improvement in the quality of the built environment.

We've structured the course around three main urban projects. Each explores key contemporary issues in urban design:

• urban regeneration
• housing
• public space and engagement

Theoretical and practical lectures, seminars and workshops underpin these projects. The course is primarily studio based. There is an emphasis on independent learning. You're encouraged to cultivate a studio atmosphere within your year group. You'll learn from each other's diverse disciplinary backgrounds. 

The course promotes an integrated understanding of processes of spatial change in the built and natural environments and of the ways in which and reasons why societies manage and regulate those changes. The course aims to promote critical thinking about ‘space’ and ‘place’ as the basis for action or intervention in order to secure an agreed range of social, economic and environmental objectives.

Although the programme design doesn’t explicitly assume any specific prior learning, it would be particularly suited to those who have previously studied surveying, architecture, landscape architecture, civil engineering or urban studies. Or for graduates from cognate social or environmental science disciplines, such as geography, economics or environmental studies.

This innovative one-year masters is run jointly by the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the School of Architecture. The course will prepare you for a career in the planning and urban design professions and includes opportunities to learn about development and design issues faced in the Global South.

You'll learn about the factors that shape cities and rural areas, and gain a deeper knowledge of a selected specialist aspect of planning. The course will develop your research, policy making and design skills, and your understanding of how to apply research to public policy making and evaluation.

The postgraduate course in Urban Strategies and Design is delivered jointly by the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA) of the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University.

This course addresses the current need for interdisciplinary knowledge. It encourages the adoption of a comprehensive approach towards the delivery of socially-sustainable urban transformation, from local-specific to strategic metropolitan and regional interventions. Students study the wide and diverse range of social, economic, and political processes that determine the contemporary urban environment, and acquire the tools and skills to propose urban projects of diverse scales and specificities.