Kalundborg 4400
Denmark
Hours: Monday–Friday 9am–4pm
The architecture programme Urbanism & Societal Change (USC) is an accredited two-year Master of Arts in Architecture education at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. Based within the Institute of Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape, it is one of seven master programmes taught in English at the Academy. The programme builds both upon the Academy’s tradition of a multi-scalar architecture education spanning the building arts, urban design and spatial planning—and the intention to develop evolving forms of design agency in response to the complex and manifold spatial challenges of our contemporary moment. Central to the programme is the coupling of research and design practices within a space of interdisciplinary and multi-actor dialogue.
About the Programme
Profound societal transformations and challenges, ranging from extreme social inequality, and shifting demographic conditions, to the massive implications of climate change and environmental degradation indicate that we can no longer expect the future conditions of the discipline to be an extrapolation of the past. These emerging conditions—with political, economic, technological, ecological, social and cultural implications—challenge our established understandings of spatial production and the agency. In this context, the capacity of architects to identify and analyze these evolving conditions affecting the discipline, to make new problem formulations, form new alliances, engage new methods, and to negotiate and formulate alternative visions for collective futures, becomes increasingly vital.
The education focuses on research-based design approaches in which students generate knowledge and propositions related to specific thematics, conditions, and contexts. In addition to immersion in architectural design, urban design, strategic spatial planning, and systemic design approaches – students are exposed to a range of research methodologies, theory and history frameworks; and representational and rhetorical techniques as a basis for developing novel spatial and organizational proposals.
The physical studio space of the programme is the core educational environment in which an intensive explorative culture of collective learning and experimentation is fostered. Students are expected to work persistently in the space, with regular structured studio teaching days, and supporting lectures, workshops, and reading seminar inputs from a broad network of expert actors from various fields.
The two-year program is conducted over four semesters. The project work of the first three semesters is based upon a sequence of thematics addressing critical societal challenges played out in both local and international contexts. The thematics offer a range of entry points to design, architectural, urban design and spatial planning proposals that span in scale from the multipliable building component to the regional territory. Each thematic semester engages a chosen network of site-specific institutions, collaborators, and experts that embed the semester work in the full complexity of its context. Past thematics have included: the socio-spatial segregation of socially vulnerable housing areas; radical spatial planning pathways for climate mitigation; reinterpretation of the welfare city; and spatial adaptation for sea-level rise. Sites have ranged from Copenhagen to Beijing, Helsinki and Riga; and outcomes have included exhibitions, films and publications.
The fourth and final semester is dedicated to the development of the design thesis project addressing a societal change, context and programme of the student’s selection, which is researched in the third semester. Students are supported in the delivery of relevant, coherent, mature, provocative, and thoroughly iterated research, programmes and propositions.
Lecturers, critics and collaborators in recent years have included
Keller Easterling, Indy Johar, Joost Grootens, Gabu Heindl, Andreas Quednau, Wouter Vanstiphout, Jan Gehl, Marco Steinberg, Sandi Hilal, John Lin, Tom Nielsen, Philipp Schaerer, Kristoffer Lindhardt Weiss, Jörg Stollmann, Christopher Roth, Filip Dujardin, Forbes Massie, Archie Cantwell, Nicolay Boyadjiev and Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, amongst others.
Teaching team
Deane Simpson (Programme Head), Charles Bessard (on leave), Christine Bjerke, Michael Asgaard Andersen, Jan Loerakker, Tamara Kalantajevska, Carlos Ramos Tenorio, Cameron Clarke, and Simon Sjökvist.
Link to online open house event: February 3, 4–5:30pm CET
Deadline for application: March 1, 2022
