Urban Design and Planning MA

Course description

A Specialist Planning Programme partially accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI)

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 course draws on leading teaching and research at the University, combining the urban design expertise of the School of Architecture and the international planning expertise of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. This interdisciplinary approach enables you to develop a distinctive approach to urban design and development that is ideally suited to the challenge of managing rapid urban growth and change.

Driven by innovation in both research and teaching, the course will help you learn the principles, techniques and skills required to harness new and emerging technologies for design visualisation. We integrate virtual and augmented reality into our learning and teaching in order to fully prepare you for a career in urban design in the 21st century. These technologies will allow you to create immersive visualisations of designs, viewed through virtual reality headsets, to accurately simulate solutions for real life planning issues.

The course is recognised as a Specialist Planning Programme and partially accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute. This means that the course is accredited by the RTPI but once you've graduated you will need to complete further spatial study and/or gain requisite professional experience before you can become a chartered planner.

Costs for field classes are not included in the tuition fee.