The Master of Science in Urban Design (M.S.) is a three-semester (fall, spring, fall), 33 credit post-professional program in urban design for students holding a five-year, or equivalent, professional degree in architecture, urban planning, or related fields. There is a culmination project in the third semester.

The field of urban design is undergoing significant change. The expansion and contraction of, and increasingly intricate economic and cultural exchanges between cities suggest that new forms of analysis and design are needed. Urban design has historically been more closely aligned with architecture than with urban planning, but neither alone can reach the heart of urbanism.

As with the M. Arch. II program at Pratt, the purpose of the Urban Design Program is to help students articulate, in visual and discursive ways, their long-term work in the discipline and practice. This approach helps determine where the student’s individual work kits in the larger arena of the discipline. The program exposes students to the best, most thoughtful, and inventive work in the field: new computer mapping and visualization technologies, theoretical debates, interdisciplinary views and practice, and methodological developments.

Meta Brunzema, coordinator

The Graduate Architecture and Urban Design Program is a unique, three semester post-professional program for students holding a five-year, or equivalent, professional degree in architecture, landscape architecture or related fields.

Urban Design students take advantage of specially designed digitally based courses that introduce them to sophisticated modeling software and up to date GIS (Geographic Information System) data-based software. Bridging disciplines of architecture and planning, Urban Design students complete their education with an extraordinary range of abilities and knowledge bases that will enable them to enter the fields of urban design, architecture, planning and environmental design at the most sophisticated level.

The program is a series of team-based advanced design/research studios and seminars that attempt to contend, in new ways, with the complex issues of contemporary urban environments.

Some of these issues are: specific architectural and infrastructural issues associated with urban scale development where “form” is understood as a dynamic, rather than a static, principle; problems of sustainability and the potential for non-linear and highly sensitive systems of feedback; the need to address a multiplicities of scales and a diversity of populations; the formulation of connections between diverse institutions and agencies; the analysis of informal systems of urban development and global/local economies and finance; the need for forms of representation and repositories of information (mapping, databases) that can provide genuine resources for decision-making.

The program prepares students to take on high-level, and broader, roles in public and private sector urban development projects.

The program draws on the strengths of excellent existing graduate programs in Architecture, Urban and Regional Planning, Historic Preservation, and the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development (PICCED), as well as the extensive resources of New York City.

Meta Brunzema, coordinator

via phone:
(800) 331-0834 or
(718) 636-3669

via e-mail:
admissions@pratt.edu

InProcess: Jounal of Student Work

InProcess is the Annual journal of the School of Architecture publishing work from all nine undergraduate and graduate programs. This 200 plus page journal is one of the most recognized journals of student work in the United States.

TARP

Tarp is a magazine that seeks to investigate the project of architecture, to allow architecture to grow and develop into realms that are not supported by the presentation of a final product. To this end, Tarp seeks content which is exploratory, experimental, and inspiring. This content does not need to conform to any predominant style or trend, but should directly and truthfully address the continued project of architecture as a catalyst for social change. Tarp is a student edited publication, is published bi-annually, and is always accepting submissions. Tarp is made possible through the support of the Pratt School of Architecture and the Graham Foundation.

higgins hall north,
1st floor
tel: (718) 399-4304
fax: (718) 399-4315
info@pratt.edu

Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design (Post-professional)

33 total credits required

5 U.D. Studio II UD-602
2 Culmination Project Research UD-614A
3 Urban Design & Implementation: Case Studies UD-671
4 Elective credits
14 CREDITS

5 U.D. Thesis UD-614B
4 Elective credits
9 CREDITS

5 U.D. Studio IUD-601
2 Methods & Computer Applications UD-608
3 Urban Design Theory UD-628
11 CREDITS