Urban Strategies and Design - MSc

The contemporary urban environment is influenced by a wide and diverse range of social, economic and political processes.

Studying for an MSc in Urban Strategies and Design at ECA, you will engage with all these factors, enabling you to adopt a comprehensive approach towards the delivery of socially-sustainable urban transformation.

You will acquire the tools and skills to propose urban projects of diverse scales and specificities, from local to strategic metropolitan and regional.

Delivered collaboratively with the School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society at Heriot-Watt University, the programme is focused on urban design responses to contemporary urban transformations, often characterised by forms of urban restructuring in the Global North, and rapid urban expansion in the Global South.

The City of Edinburgh offers an active urban laboratory for project-led and site visit-based exploration of current urban design issues in the North. The City's historic 'Geddesian' planning links, and contemporary international links with urban-focused institutions and bodies, particularly in the Global South, provide a strong platform from which to support student-led, location-based dissertations.

Through lectures, projects, fieldwork and research, the Urban Strategies and Design Programme involves both critical-analytical and projective components. This enables you to test the hypotheses of course-based research in the form of an urban project, which can be developed in a range of forms, depending on your interest and expertise.

It could, for example, result in a design proposal addressing spatial organisation and urban morphology. Alternatively, it might lead to the development of urban design-related policies and guidance, or the proposal of institutional and governance arrangements for the development and implementation of an urban project.

We’re considering offering the MSc Urban Strategies & Design in a two-year mixed-mode format, which would include distance learning with short trips to our campus in Edinburgh. We'd like to hear your views on this new study format. Our survey will only take about two minutes to complete.