All programmes > Programme : Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning (Leuven)

Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning (Leuven)

Master of Science

Programme summary

Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning (120 ECTS)

Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning (120 ECTS)

Education

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Be sure to first take a look at the page about the Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning.

There you can find more info on:

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Objectives

The Advanced Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning (MaULP) programme achieves the learning outcomes described below through a 120 credits professional training programme taught and tutored by internationally respected specialists from both academic and professional spheres. The programme serves a small group of select international candidates with advanced design skills or an equivalent background related to urbanism and/or planning.

This general objective can be translated into the following learning outcomes:

1.  Graduates have mastered the state-of-the-art in academic theory and day-to-day methods and have obtained the skills to practice as an urbanism, landscape and planning professional.

2.  Graduates have acquired the ability to conceive and design spatial interventions and strategies that have the capacity to positively affect complex developments such as contemporary urbanization and give expression to a critical vision on the spatial organisation of today's society. This implies that graduates have gained a deep understanding of the dynamic and multifunctional aspects of the built environment through critical analysis design approaches.

3.  Graduates have mastered the research methods, planning tools and state-of-the-art design practices in urbanism, landscape and planning.

4.  Graduates are able to creatively combine the research and design driven natures of their disciplines.

5.  Like their cohorts in the Master of Human Settlements (MaHS) programme, MaULP graduates have experience in team-based interdisciplinary research and studio work in order to prepare them to constructively act and work in a multilevel and multisectoral environment, which often involves partaking in multidisciplinary teams.

6.  By exposure to stimulating exchanges and interactive feedback between academic analysis and day-to-day practice, graduates have acquired the ability to operate as 'reflective practitioners', which means promoting approaches that include reflection (theory, history, critique) as well as action (in the form of design research and strategy development) but also self-reflection (self-criticism and reorientation, personal development through communication and co-learning).

7.  Graduates are familiar with methods and have acquired skills for intervention which reflect context-responsive concepts of sustainable development at different scale levels.

In a professional capacity, graduates of the Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning programme will consequently be expected to have acquired the following:

Knowledge
-  Graduates are aware of various contexts of urbanization in Europe and the wider world. They have insight into how the built environment emerged, grew and transformed and understand how the disciplines of urbanism and spatial planning operate in the processes of urbanisation.
-  Graduates have insight in design methods based on a deep analysis of the ongoing forces and phenomena that determine today's urbanization.
-  Graduates understand how urbanism and spatial planning as professional fields relate to other selected professional disciplines (sociology, economy, geography, etc.).
-  Graduates understand, as MaHS graduates do within the field of human settlements, the relationship between policies at various levels (worldwide, international, national, local) and the professional approaches and initiatives of urbanism, landscape and planning.

Skills
-  Graduates are able to scientifically formulate a (development) problem in the built environment and propose a method or approach for solving the problem and applying it to offer a solution. Furthermore, graduates are able to focus on the strategic project in an integral way. That is, they will be able to directly intervene in what is politically and economically feasible, yet exert an effect in time and scale that exceeds the hic et nunc.
-  Graduates are able to recognize the link between the participatory visioning of a strategic project, its design (in terms of concept, form and strategy) and its implementation (in terms of adequate, feasible and timely project management, development and assessment).
-  Graduates have insight in the design methods based on the deep analysis of ongoing forces and phenomena of urbanisation as mentioned above, and have mastered these methods. This includes searching for, selecting and assessing sources of information. This analytical capacity is complemented with the capacity to conceive, develop and express interventions on various scale levels.
-  Graduates are able to address the different scales relevant in urbanism and urban planning, with the intention of stressing the interrelations between them.
-  Graduates are capable of communicating acquired knowledge in a well-structured and clear manner, orally, textually and graphically.

Attitudes
-  Graduates have a result-oriented planning and design attitude that effectively brings the (legitimate) interests of the different stakeholders in a planning or design project closer together and furthers a spatial policy aimed at the implementation of a coherent vision.
-  Like to their cohorts in the MaHS programme, graduates have developed a critical and open attitude enabling them to appreciate the value and contextual relevance of information and evaluate proposals of interventions.
-  Like to their cohorts in the MaHS programme, graduates have developed attitudes enabling them to learn from others and cooperate with professionals and other actors in society at large and with stakeholders involved in strategic interventions in particular.

The graduated master:

During the practice of the profession, is guided by his or her scientific and technical knowledge.
Has an attitude that enables him or her to formulate solutions to complex problems, taking into account relevant constraints of an economic, legal, social, ... nature.
Is aware of his or her social and ethical responsibility and can act accordingly.
Has a willingness for open communication and cooperation, both with colleagues within and outside the discipline, and with other actors in the professional field.
Shows willingness to keep abreast of new scientific and technical evolutions, and to approach them with a critical mind.