MA Urban Design
Cardiff, United Kingdom
DURATION
1 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
Request application deadline
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
TUITION FEES
GBP 27,200 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* for overseas | for home: £12,200
Key Summary
Introduction
Our MA Urban Design programme is jointly delivered by the Welsh School of Architecture and the School of Geography and Planning. The goal of this programme is to enable practitioners and scholars to transform the field of urban design through critical thinking and creative practice.
Urban design is transdisciplinary, straddling professional fields such as architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and public policy, and also disciplines such as politics, economics, sociology and cultural studies. The programme fully embraces this transdisciplinarity through the theory, research training and design teaching it offers.
You will learn from academic staff from both schools who are highly accomplished and locally engaged in Cardiff, nationally in the UK, and internationally across the world. In the context of the design studios, you will also be able to benefit from the input and expertise of leading practitioners.
Studio teaching focuses on developing critically informed as well as creative and practical proposals for real sites, addressing important contemporary issues of design and urbanism.
Why Study this Course
Run in conjunction with the Welsh School of Architecture, this course enables students to learn by deploying design, theory, and development and design control practices, which inform urban design processes.
Professionally Recognised
Accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Design-Studio Teaching
Develop critically-informed, creative and practical proposals for real sites, addressing important contemporary design and urbanism issues.
Highly-Ranked
Delivered by two Schools which are ranked among the top 50 in the world.
Expert-Led
Learn from and engage with academic staff who are at the forefront of their fields alongside leading practitioners.
Admissions
Scholarships and Funding
We are committed to investing up to a total of £500,000 in this high-value competitive scholarship scheme to support UK students who are planning to start an eligible Master’s programme in 2024/25.
The Scholarships are each worth £3,000 and will be awarded in the form of a tuition fee discount.
Eligibility
UK students are eligible to apply for the Scholarship. You normally need to have achieved at least a 2.1 or equivalent in your first degree to be eligible. You need to submit an application to study at Cardiff University and be made an offer to study before your fee status can be confirmed.
Curriculum
This is a one-year full-time degree.
The course is structured to provide a set of three lecture-based modules and three studio-based design modules, followed by a dissertation in the form of a research-based design project. The three lecture-based modules run in parallel with studio-based design projects which enable you to continually relate theory and practice.
Your research-based design project represents the culmination of your studies. You will be required to develop proposals relating to a chosen site, demonstrating an understanding of all aspects of urban design drawings and a written, reflective commentary.
You will have between 2-3 days of contact time each week, working between the design studio and your module lectures/seminars.
Core Modules for Year One
- Urban Design Thinkers
- Urban Design Foundation
- Autumn Studio
- Spring Studio
- Urban Development Debates
- Urban Design Research Methods
- Urban Design Dissertation
How Will I Be Assessed?
Non-design modules provide the foundations for developing an understanding of urban design. These are assessed through:
- Essays
- Reports
- Presentations
Most of these provide opportunities for summative assessment. However, tutorials and a number of essays provide opportunities for formative assessment.
A summative assessment is conducted at the end of each module. Formative assessment elements include design reviews, usually one or two per design module, and weekly tutorials also provide an opportunity for this.
Other forms of assessment include:
- Drawings
- Sketchbooks
- Viva voce examination of the dissertation
- Reports
Program Outcome
What Skills Will I Practise and Develop?
You can expect to deepen your knowledge and understanding of urban economics and politics, and the role of an urban designer, as well as develop the range of relevant skills to begin or further a career in urban design.
These skills are in the areas of built environment design at a number of scales, graphic communication, urban research, policy research and development, property valuation and community consultation.
Generic skills include those in the areas of:
- Effective team working
- Negotiation
- Time management
Graduates from this programme will acquire a wide range of skills, described in each of the module descriptors.
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
Graduates move on to careers as urban designers, or in urban design-related work. Most of these careers are to be found within the wider areas of architecture, urban planning, property or public policy. These may be within the public, private or voluntary sectors. Some of our graduates continue to higher research degrees.
Guidance and mentoring on careers are provided during the year.
Program delivery
How Will I Be Taught?
Teaching takes place in new light-filled studio spaces in the centre of the City. You will also have access to the latest modelling and workshop facilities in the Architecture School.
This MA is taught via lectures, workshops and design studios, by lecturers who are all experts in their fields – in geography, urban planning, urbanism, urban design and architecture. The design tutors also include leading practitioners who bring their experience of cutting-edge practice to the core of design studio work.
Studio teaching focuses on developing critically informed as well as creative and practical proposals for real sites, addressing important contemporary issues of design and urbanism.