Sustainable Urban Design MArch

This course focuses on the creative design of the public realm, urban areas and cities, combining innovative design, issues of sustainability and the latest research.

Overview

The University of Nottingham is proud of its long history and tradition of leading successful urban design education. Indeed, its Department of Architecture & Built Environment has been delivering high quality postgraduate programmes in urban design for over 25 years. One of the highlights of the course is the opportunity to work under the leadership of eminent urban design researcher and practitioner Professor Tim Heath.

The 12-month MArch Sustainable Urban Design focuses on the design of the public realm, urban areas and cities and is a research and project-based programme. The course is designed to enhance the quality of our cities by bringing innovative design into a new relationship with the latest theoretical research with regard to the structure of urban form and the creation of urban places in order to respond to the major opportunities and challenges.

The programme covers urban regeneration issues, public realm design, urban design theory and practice and sustainable urbanism theory and applications in place-making with advanced technology and design tools. You will acquire the knowledge and develop the necessary skills to face the contemporary cultural, historical, social, economic and environmental challenges in terms of achieving holistic sustainability in those realms.

You will be encouraged to develop your problem-solving skills through creative urban design proposals. You will be provided with an understanding of the complex relationship between spatial and design issues, and social and economic urban crises. The course addresses urban design as a mode of research and practice that shapes urban environments and responds to urban issues.

You will develop the mechanisms and design tools which when effectively implemented, can secure and deliver projects for the long-term benefit of a city and its people. The course emphasises the importance of design creativity, analytical skills, critical thinking and focuses on drawing and physical and computer modeling as tools for analysis, exploration, communication and design in order to achieve social, cultural and environmental sustainability.

Careers

This MArch programme is project oriented – it explicitly calls for design proposals rather than purely theoretical work. The course stresses the importance of connecting design projects to the broader decision-making context of real and complex projects.

Graduates of the MArch Sustainable Urban Design typically go on to work at the interface between architecture and urban design in architectural or multi-disciplinary practices and design institutes around the world with some progressing onto PhD study either at Nottingham or other leading universities.

This programme has been specifically designed with the profession's needs in mind and most of the graduates from the MArch courses return to work as professionals within both the private and public sector in their own countries. Many do however continue to PhD programmes either at Nottingham or other leading universities.