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The MSc/Dip Sustainable Urbanism provides students with both the skills to conceptualise a sustainable city and the ability to design one.
About the course
Our programme offers:
- a theoretical understanding from a diverse range of disciplines, including sociological, environmental, political and economic theory
- knowledge of key disciplinary areas including urban design, spatial planning, property development and ecology
- the aptitude to enable implementation such as creative thinking, negotiation and advocacy
Increasingly, urban professionals are being asked to create sustainable urban environments. This is both conceptually and technically difficult to achieve and requires expertise and skills that are in critically short supply.
The MSc Sustainable Urbanism brings together three critical dimensions of sustainable urbanism:
- Sustainable thinking: the latest thinking and debates on urban sustainability from policy, research and practice perspectives
- Sustainable places: the study of what this actually means on the ground through the creation of real projects and places
- Delivering sustainability: a focus on the skills and knowledge required to actually deliver sustainable development
The programme develops the necessary skills and knowledge necessary in the types of large and complex sustainable urban projects that are increasingly being planned across the world.
Graduates will also be equipped to engage in research, policy and regulatory activities relating to the field.
Who should apply?
Urban professionals from a range of fields – planning, property, design, landscape and transport – who want to gain understanding of sustainable processes and practices. It’s also valuable for those completing their initial professional training who wish to specialise in this field.
Accreditation
The MSc in Sustainable Urbanism is fully accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). It’s also accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), but only when taken as a specialist year after an accredited three-year planning degree.
More information
- For key information, including how to apply, visit the UCL Graduate Prospectus
- Browse the sections below for more detailed course information
- Structure
The diagram below shows the structure of the one-year full-time MSc programme. The programme can also be taken flexibly over two to five years in which case students would normally complete the modules marked PT1 before moving on to the modules marked PT2.
Further details of these modules can be found in the UCL Module Catalogue.
Compulsory Modules
Further details of these modules can be found in the UCL Module Catalogue.
BPLN0042 Urban Design: Place Making
Credits: 15
Assessment: CourseworkBPLN0050 Critical Debates in Sustainable Urbanism
Credits: 15
Assessment: CourseworkBPLN0058 Sustainable Urban Development: Key Themes
Credits: 15
Assessment: CourseworkBPLN0106 Sustainable Urban Development: Project
Credits: 30
Assessment: CourseworkBPLN0016 Sustainable Property: Valuation, Investment, Development
Credits: 15
Assessment: Coursework and ExamDissertation
BPLN0039 Dissertation OR BPLN0052 Major Research Project
Credits: 60
Assessment: Dissertation / ProjectElective Modules
BPLN0051 Sustainable Urban Design
Credits: 15
Assessment: CourseworkOr other modules delivered in the Bartlett School of Planning. Further details of these modules can be found in the UCL Module Catalogue.
Delivery in 2022-23
For the 2021-22 academic year, we have been delivering this programme through ‘blended’ delivery, incorporating some elements face-to-face and some elements online, allowing us to respond to the continuing Covid-19 pandemic, for example in case we need to have social distancing in place on the UCL Campus. Elements delivered in person have not been replicated online. Delivery in 2022-23 may also be impacted by the pandemic, however applicants should not expect to be able to complete the programme remotely. Given the practical nature of the programmes we deliver at the Bartlett School of Planning, we do expect the delivery and achievement of core learning outcomes on this degree course to require students to attend in person teaching activity in London.
Field trips
We are hoping to run field trips as part of the programme in 2022-23, however these may be subject to restriction due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, for example we might be able to offer a UK field trip more readily than one to elsewhere in Europe albeit this would normally be our intended destination. Offer holders / enrolled students will be kept updated on our plans.
This trip would usually be based in a European city outside the UK and will cover a range of real estate and planning themes, linking directly to the master's programme.
- Staff
Programme Director
Dr Catalina Turcu
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Send Catalina an emailStaff teaching on the programme currently
Professor Matthew Carmona
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Send Matthew an emailDr Jessica Ferm
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Send Jessica an emailDr Robin Hickman
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Send Robin an emailProfessor Yvonne Rydin
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Send Yvonne an emailDr Tse-Hui Teh
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Send Tse-Hui an emailDr Jo Williams
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View Jo's personal websiteDr Filipa Wunderlich
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Send Filipa an email- Careers and employability
Graduate students from the Bartlett School of Planning have been very successful in gaining subsequent employment. There is growing demand for our masters’ graduates from a wide range of both public and private employers. While the main source of employment remains in local government and central government planning and in planning-related consultancy, graduates are also employed in the following areas:
- housing and transport sectors
- planning, urban regeneration and environmental agencies
- public and private utility companies
- teaching and research
Still can't find what you're looking for? Get in touch with Programme Director and Admissions Tutor Dr Catalina Turcu, or Programme Administrator Alkesh Patel.
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