Open call for applications for one-year and two-year Postgraduate Masters programmes
Master of Human Settlements (MaHS): One-year degree (60 ECTS)
Space is an increasingly limited resource. The Master of Human Settlements provides insights into the challenges and opportunities of worldwide settlements in an era of rapid change. The intensive programme seeks to examine the multi-faceted challenge of contemporary human settlements, from multi-disciplinary and multi-scalar perspectives. Students are encouraged to develop a critical and interpretative approach towards developing their own position within the field.
The programme addresses rapid urbanisation in the developing world and contemporary urban transformations. Architecture, urbanism, landscape architecture and spatial planning are the core disciplines underpinning the programme. Contributions from economics, geography and anthropology, among others, complement the core and prepare students to better understand the interplay of human and natural ecosystems. The programme thrives from its truly international body of students and the faculty’s long-standing research expertise in worldwide contexts. The discipline of human settlements encompasses aspects of architecture, urban design and spatial planning and deals with the problems of the built environment in the context of dynamic change. It approaches the built environment from a perspective of sustainable development and emphasizes, in that respect, the resourcefulness of space. Historically, the discipline of human settlements mainly focuses on developing countries.
Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning (MaULP): Two-year degree (120 ECTS)
The Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning is a four-semester academic program, focusing on multifaceted and multi-scalar issues of contemporary urban development. The programme serves a small group of select international candidates with advanced design skills or an equivalent background related to urbanism and/or planning.
Cities and settlements are under extreme pressure. Social and environmental inequity is sharply on the rise. Urbanism, spatial planning and intervention in landscape systems are in urgent need of renewed approaches. New strategies must be developed to not only tackle social exclusion, unequal distribution of resources and spatial contradictions, but also be inspired by the multiple and (trans)cultural expressions of worldwide urbanisms. The programme develops a critical understanding of the contemporary conditions of settlements, cities and urban regions. It introduces students to innovative concepts and strategies for qualitative interventions in urban territories through projects, plans and policies across different scales. It offers three possible specializations: urbanism, planning or landscape.
Eligibility and timeline
The programmes are addressed to international graduates, young professionals, designers and researchers who wish to link research and design expertise in the context of the extended urbanisation of territories.
First semester 2021–22 (September–January) includes studio options in Belgium and Europe.
Second semester 2022 (February–June) includes studio options in and outside of Europe.
Tuition and scholarships
The yearly tuition is 6600 EUR. Motivated partial tuition waivers, available for students from the OECD’s list of least developed countries, will be evaluated by the programme director. The MaHS programme is part of a competitive scholarship programme for students from VLIR-UOS countries.
International focus
The MaHS and MaULP programmes are supported by a number of partners across the globe. Presently there are collaborations with the University of Architecture Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa), University of Guayaquil (Ecuador), Technical University of Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya), Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambique) and Birzeit University (Palestine). Partner co-production reinforces the unique and distinctive trait of the programmes, namely that of an integrated approach to urban development that finds its best expression in the design studio where real-world problems are tackled. These intensive and shared design experiences are jointly organized onsite as a way to balance fundamental and applied knowledge and scientific distance and engagement within a research-oriented approach. In addition, the programmes have developed a number of synergies with the associated research groups of the program (OSA, P&D and L/A/P) and their post-doc and PhD students.
Full-time program professors
Karen Allacker, Professor of Building Technology and Economics
Viviana d’Auria, Professor of International Urbanism
Bruno De Meulder, Professor of Urbanism
Hilde Heynen, Professor of Architecture Theory
Joris Scheers, Visiting Professor of Planning
Kelly Shannon, Professor of Urbanism
Pieter Van den Broeck, Professor of Planning
