Develop an innovative approach to planning grounded in theory and lively academic debate, and focused on the knowledge, skills and competencies required for employment in the area.
You base your studies on real life issues and case studies. This allows you to develop the range of skills and competencies to enter into a planning career. The course also allows you to develop your own interests and specialist areas of study. The course provides you with key knowledge and skills for a planning or planning-related career.
It covers topics and issues such as
The course also enables you to develop key skills for your future career. These are gained through the modules and the assessment approach and include
The course has been running for over 25 years attracting students from a range of backgrounds including
This course is accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Core modules
Optional modules
Choose one option module from
Assessment
Coursework and professional practice focused assignments.
You can find opportunities in both private consultancy and public sector planning in planning and related careers including strategic planning and policy development • development implementation and management • environmental protection •infrastructure planning, housing development • regeneration • economic development • heritage and the historic environment • health • transport and accessibility planning.
Planners are also employed across a range of public and private sector bodies in wider roles, for example in wider policy development and in campaign bodies and pressure groups.
As an internationally recognised qualification the course also opens up wider career opportunities in the global job market.
This Master's programme "Architecture: Urban Projects, Urban Cultures" explores architecture from a research-by-design and design-by-research perspective. Students are educated and trained in a multicultural and international context. The programme combines an academic approach with a creative-experimental approach. It is characterised by a fully-integrated design methodology, providing students with solid skills in the contemporary discipline of architectural design and research.
The Master of Architecture programme is organised at both of the faculty's campuses in Brussels and Ghent, though each campus offers a different orientation:
This is an initial Master's programme and can be followed on a full-time or part-time basis. The programme consists out of a minimum of four semesters.
The Faculty of Architecture takes its international dimension as the basis for its own quality assessment. It positions itself squarely within the international field of qualitative academic education. The faculty's international activities are extensive and diversified: student mobility and staff exchange on a European and intercontinental level, internationally oriented programmes for incoming students, international workshops and competitions, international research projects, international internships, development cooperation, etc.
The faculty continues to build on its tradition of academic integration of teaching and research to maintain and enhance its standard of quality and international standing.
The faculty works hard to consolidate and enrich its network of cooperative associations with professionals and universities all over the world and strives to leverage this international network for students' benefit. Its international dimension is a strong catalyst for creativity and an added value to students' future professional career.
"The intended academic quality, is the core of the program (architecture, urban planning), i.e. academically based 'professionalism'.
The broadening of the profile focuses on basic disciplines (architecture and urban planning), however without compromising the appropriate focus on the professional profile of the architect (in multiple forms).
In the profile of master, one should obtain extreme concentration and specificity (however, no specialisation).
On the one hand, the master focuses on the content and area-specific level of the bachelor phase, and on the other hand on the acquirement of access to the professional or doctoral field (advanced masters, PhD,...).
The core competences of the master are:
The master program should guarantee the acquirement of scientific depth. The offered frontier disciplines focus on the current state of research and development within the competence field. The technical qualification to be acquired, focuses on the high quality problem solving of complex tasks.
In the field of Architecture and Urban Design, a global awareness is growing, questioning established development and settlement patterns regarding future societal needs and ensuing planning strategies and architectural interventions.
The current fast-forward global development increasingly strains the Western and European model, inducing a whole range of urban planning and architectural challenges to update the academic and professional practice.
Facing the consequences of a changing society and a post-industrial and knowledge-based economy, Western developments stand in stark contrast with rapidly developing economies and a still expanding population worldwide. Instigating important and unchartered societal shifts, our conception of urbanity and the city is fundamentally affected.
Traditional urban planning methods and architectural strategies might not offer the necessary tools to recognize and address these future challenges and therefore need to be reconsidered.
Within these changing context and transition processes, the Urban Projects, Urban Cultures Programme seeks to research, develop and teach alternative architectural and urban design tools, not so much aimed at reinventing urban landscapes, but as it were to edit the given condition from within.
A critical and coherent attitude towards recent urban phenomena is considered the base for research and design at different levels.
Apart from the theoretical courses, the program includes 3 design studios (during one semester) and 1 final master dissertation studio (during one year). Each semester, there is a focus on a specific attitude, related to the main theme of the programme. All studios are organised through a pool of studio groups (Academic Design Offices and Design Studios) where the teaching staff provides a series of specific themes, methods and intervention areas for the students to develop an architectural project:
Themes sem 1
Themes sem 2 (specific focus on the city of Brussels)
Themes sem 3
Themes sem 4
Graduates are trained to lead multidisciplinary teams of engineers, interior architects, landscape architects and artists. In addition to working as independent (self-employed) architects, our graduates also work as professionals in government agencies and international design firms. Some graduates go on to roles as researchers serving local or international governance bodies, NGO's or other institutes.
