List of subjects
1st year
15 ECTS
120h
Territorial Organisation Workshop
This workshop focuses on formulating a real, current and representative intervention proposal for one of the issues that territorial organisation is currently dealing with. The effect of massive infrastructures, the geography of activities, recognition of the shape of territories as an intervention criteria, among other things, will be some of the issues that will be articulated in the focus of the project. This project will be initiated using information that has already been generated allowing students to quickly use the materials and create adequately detailed proposals.
3 ECTS
15h
Post-industrial City Territories
Analysis and discussion of metropolitan realities like the growth and transformation process that Barcelona and other Mediterranean cities have experienced over the last few decades. Special attention is given to urban and territorial morphology as expressions of changes in demographics, economic activities, mobility, industry location, tertiary elements, facilities and residential areas. New forms of metropolitan growth. The nature of problems and processes.
3 ECTS
15h
Territorial Organisation Theory
This section seeks to offer key urban development and design studies into the origin and evolution of territorial organisation and an evaluation of the current situation of our context and other nearby urban development cultures through the selection and detailed discussion of a meaningful group of plans and studies. This includes definition of objectives, technical development of the main proposals and application instruments.
3 ECTS
15h
Territorial Organisation Experiences. Models, Instruments and Methods
This course studies the different types of the most commonly used plans in the territorial sector in Spain by presenting and critiquing of a series of case studies. As well this course looks at maps used in the Catalonian territorial sector, as well as maps from some other regions, where it is possible to look at the different types and focuses of methodologies produced nowadays.
3 ECTS
15h
Classes of support to the workshop
Discussions related to the workshop. The course will present the conceptual foundations of ecology at planning, landscape ecology principles, criteria for the design and sustainable management of the territory. It also will discuss the processes of growth and transformation of the territory from the socioeconomic perspective or the design of big infrastructures.
3 ECTS
15h
Cultural Landscapes, Heritage and Regional Planning Project
This course aims to provide an overview of developments in the treatment of heritage from the protection of cultural landscapes. Learn the concepts of 'cultural landscape' and 'heritage park', make a specific assessment of the situation in our immediate context and the challenges posed by this new conception of the landscape. Evaluate criteria and instruments in the successive stages in the development of a project in an area full of heritage resources and develop through analysis of representative examples, methodological guidelines for intervention.
15 ECTS
120h
Urban Planning Workshop
This workshop focuses on the analysis and organisation of urban structures and some of its systems using a medium sized Mediterranean city, whose problems and issues and previous history make it especially suitable for academic discussion and professional specialisation, as an example. The project will start with a physical proposal that demonstrates the relationship between design and construction of a city, taking into account timelines and the organisational necessities of process and form management.
4 ECTS
20h
Theory of Urban Planning
This course is a review of intervention theory in the urban planning field, dealing with things from the contributions of primary plans to urban documentation within the discipline. Reflection on the evolution of theory and planning methods, as well as reflection on the representative elements of recent process stages.
Responsible: Profs. Dr. Miquel Coromines Ayala and Joaquim Sabaté Bel (Department of Urbanism and Regional Planning).
4 ECTS
20h
Urban Structure and Systems
This course includes discussion about the material, functional and formal characteristics of the contemporary city when it experiences a transition from an industrial economy to a service based economy and from a compact urban configuration towards a more diffuse configuration. Analysis of processes and different forms of traditional growth, new means of locating activities and constructing new residential and commercial zones. Collective space versus public and private space in the contemporary city.
Responsible: Profs. Drs Josep M ª Claret Vilanova and Angel Martin Ramos (Department of Urbanism and Regional Planning).
3 ECTS
15h
Urban Regulation and Urban Economy
The first part of the course deals with urban regulations and management instruments: distribution of land use and building density, quality controls and urban standards, infrastructures and controlling the shape of urban spaces, types of plans, controlling growth and transformation processes and regulation of architecture from the planning stages.
The second part of the course teaches students how to read the growth and transformation processes of cities from key economic and social perspectives. Things like local labour markets, industrial districts, involvement of new modes of transport and exchange, information flows and spreading of information are some of the economic changes that a city undergoes that require a physical solution.
4 ECTS
20h
Infrastructure, Environment and City
The aim of the first part of the course is to offer a focused view of the relationship between two concepts (infrastructure and planning) on an urban scale. This course proposes systematising characteristic problems from each type of infrastructure according to remodelled planning where issues and flows (communication, energy, mobility), logistics, environmental infrastructures, public transportation, together with other relatively traditional layouts of streets and urban services constitute fundamental themes.
Responsible: Profs. Joan Miró and Francesc Magrinyà (Department of Infrastructures, Transport and Regional Planning).
The second part of this course introduces environmental principles on an urban scale, integrating them into the urban landscape. New concepts, parameters and techniques following the environmental paradigm are incorporated into this course with the aim of improving the integration of natural and urban environments.
4 ECTS
20h
Project Analysis and Evaluation
This course seeks to analyse different aspects of medium sized urban interventions, predominately urban projects, by looking at the different elements and techniques used in recent proposals that have been selected for this course because of their paradigmatic nature.
4 ECTS
20h
Design of Public Space
This course focuses on the discussion about public space projects: streets, boulevards, promenades, squares and parks, through its most characteristic features explained by their authors. This instrumental course, will review the different elements and common techniques used in the construction and maintenance of public space. This seminar will focus in the recent review of public space design and in the gradual enrichment of techniques and materials.
2nd year
4 ECTS
20h
Urban Improvement
Recent urban improvement plans and operations, as much for the sector itself as for the variety of situations where they are proposed, for the diversity of objectives and the intervention methods, represent one of the most important chapters in the history of urban development of our cities. This course seeks to classify these things according to common themes, allowing us to do comparative study to establish suitable criteria, objectives and intervention methods for use with different urban improvement situations.
14 ECTS
120h
Urban Design Workshop
This workshop focuses on the relationships between new pieces of a contemporary city that are frequently characterised by their isolation, mutual indifference and insensitivity within the urban context, given that they have generated peri-urban zones where non-integration is the norm.
Designs proposals put forth will focus on exploiting the potential functional and formal links between these peripheral units to be able to configure new city structures and determine their complexity, vitality and beauty.
2 ECTS
10h
The Construction of the Urban Form
The urban project, such as the architectural one, is an exercise of synthesis about diferent factors. In this synthesis the invention of the urban form -either of volumes or spaces- is often a key moment to unlock the process. The effectiveness of this form depends on its conformity with the technical and functional aspects, but also depends on a crucial attribute: the internal consistency of the shape itself. The course aims to expose some mechanisms for constructing formal coherence and to come into an analysis and understanding of the logic of form, its process of formation, the relationship of the project with the context or the economy of expressive resources. It seeks to provide conceptual tools to project the urban morphology, without forgetting the other dimensions of the synthesis of design.
2 ECTS
10h
New Residential Designs
The scarcity of innovation of different types of residential organisation models put forth over the last few years is in stark contrast to the traditional role of residential design projects as purveyors of new urban organisational models. Given the minimal quality of housing, new offerings tend to be promoted by means of complimentary aspects such as: centrality, accessibility, features, community spaces, entertainment, and proximity to natural spaces... This seminar is based on analysis of designs from the last twenty five years.
10 ECTS
40h
Módulo Situaciones y Escenarios: Seminario de Investigación
This fourth module of the Master of Urban Design is the development of a research project, scheduled by a research seminar with a clear methodological orientation.
Degree
Special master's degree issued by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Issued pursuant to art. 34.1 of Organic Law 4/2007 of 12 April, amending Organic Law 6/2001 of 21 December, concerning Universities. To obtain it, is necessary to have an official university qualification. Otherwise, the student will receive a certificate of completion of the programme issued by the Fundació Politècnica de Catalunya.
Range of modules
The master's degree programme is organized into the following modules. If you don't wish to take the entire master's degree you can sign on one or several modules.
Master's degree:
Postgraduate courses:
Postgraduate courses:
