Master's Degree in Sustainable Building Projects

The Master's Degree in Sustainable Building Projects is aimed at professionals who are interested in reducing the environmental impact of building design and construction by formulating assessments, identifying critical problems, and suggesting comprehensive solutions that consider the physical, economic and social context.

This program is listed on the National Registry of Quality Programs of CONACYT, as in develop Program.

By the year 2030, the 80 urban areas of Mexico are expected to add 10 million new houses and 415 million square meters of production area to support job growth.

Even though this demand represents business opportunities for the construction sector, the different types of socio-environmental impact that can be expected from this level of construction will be irreversible and devastating if short-term measures are not taken to mitigate them.

In the face of these challenges, ITESO promotes graduate programs in Sustainability in the Department of Habitat and Urban Development, in order to use an interdisciplinary approach to address the increasing environmental and social deterioration of urban spaces at the local, national and global levels.

The Master's Degree in Sustainable Building Projects is aimed at professionals who are interested in reducing the environmental impact of building design and construction by formulating assessments, identifying critical problems, and suggesting comprehensive solutions that consider the physical, economic and social context.

Candidate profile

Bachelor's Degree or Specialization in Design, Architecture, Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Urban Planning or related areas.

• Professional-level oral and written communication skills.
• Ability to use Word, Excel, AutoCAD, ArcView or ArcGris, and Power Point.
• Willingness to tackle critical, real-world issues.
• Willingness to take on complex problems.
• Interest in working in multi-disciplinary professional settings.
• Ability to engage in critical debates and make well-grounded reflections.
• Ability to identify latent problems and generate key questions.
• Skill at framing coherent and relevant proposals for solving problems.
• Willingness to construct projects in collaboration with interdisciplinary teams.
• Strong English skills.

Reasons to study this degree program

You join a professional network of national and international social organizations and governmental entities that have been studying urban topics for over 40 years.

• You join research and intervention programs, initiatives, and projects that focus on the social sustainability of habitat.
• You develop a project that proposes real solutions.
• You study with a faculty made up of researchers and professors with experience in the fields of sustainability, social management, public spaces, urban governance, urban planning, and design, participatory processes, among others.
• You gain access to collaboration agreements with universities that belong to the Association of Universities Entrusted to the Society of Jesus in Latin America (AUSJAL, in its initials in Spanish).
• You study at an environmentally friendly campus with over 3,000 trees, fully-equipped outdoor working areas, smart buildings, and facilities adapted for people with different abilities.
• You can use laboratories such as the Innovative Design Workshops, located a sustainable building that meets the specifications for certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council and valid worldwide.
• Learn more about the ITESO experience by taking a virtual tour of its beautifully landscaped campus.

ITESO has a broad offering of specializations, master's degrees, and Ph.D.s that can help you become a better professional and make contact with distinguished academics, leaders of civil organizations, government officials, and businesspeople. No other private university in Western Mexico has more researchers belonging to the National System of Researchers, and many of our programs are listed on the National Registry of Quality Graduate Programs.

ITESO graduate programs give you access to networks of knowledge, in which researchers, experts, and students share academic, professional, social, cultural, and economic projects. By studying at ITESO you get a close look at the work of renowned researchers who understand the human dimension of the issues they take on, who are genuinely interested in making relevant contributions to knowledge and offering viable solutions to concrete issues. These are the reasons why ITESO is recognized as the most important private university in Western Mexico.

Our professors are experts in their fields of knowledge; they lead projects with researchers from ITESO as well as from other universities. They actively participate in research and outreach projects and are committed to the values and foundations of our educational project.

Finally, our university belongs to the Jesuit University System, which within the private education sector has the most programs listed on the National Registry of Quality Graduate Programs (PNPC, in its initials in Spanish) of the National Science and Technology Council (CONACYT, in its initials in Spanish).

Graduate profile

Graduates will be able to:

• Graduates from this Master's Degree program will have acquired the competencies to design and implement projects, products, and systems that help to enhance the quality of life and meet habitability needs, thus promoting social equity and respect for the environment.
• Identify, quantify and predict the impacts caused by buildings and infrastructure.
• Use different methodological tools to monitor, model, and generate indicators that measure the impacts of the built environment.
• Calculate buildings' energy consumption and environmental footprint.
• Calculate greenhouse-gas emissions.
• Identify alternative technologies to reduce impacts and promote their use among different actors.
• Design and develop sustainable or low-impact urban development and infrastructure projects.
• Use building materials and systems with low energy consumption, low waste generation, and a high capacity for recycling.
• Design and build housing with ecological characteristics.
• Design alternative systems for comprehensive water, soil, air, and energy management in habitat projects, and provide consulting on their construction.
• Consult and follow through on building certification processes.
• Estimate the environmental impacts, economic costs, and social appropriation of the implementation of alternative technologies.
• Generate economic evidence demonstrating the benefits of both technology appropriation processes and the reduction of environmental impacts.

Study plan

The Master's Degree Program in Sustainable Projects and Construction was designed for people interested in reducing the different impacts that the design and construction of our habitat have on the environment, by formulating diagnoses, identifying critical problems, and proposing comprehensive solutions that consider the physical, economic and social contexts.

It is estimated that by the year 2030, in Mexico's 80 urban areas, some 10 million housing units will be built, along with 415 million square meters of productive area for the jobs that will be created.

While this demand represents opportunities for this sector of the economy, the different socio-environmental impacts that can be expected from this level of construction will be irreversible and highly detrimental if mitigation measures are not taken in the short term.

In order to deal with these challenges, ITESO, through its Department of Habitat and Urban Development, has developed its graduate programs in Sustainability. The aim is to form professionals who can develop interdisciplinary responses to the growing environmental and social deterioration in urban spaces at the local, national and global levels.

The Master's Degree Program in Sustainable Projects and Construction was designed for people interested in reducing the different impacts that the design and construction of our habitat have on the environment, by formulating diagnoses, identifying critical problems, and proposing comprehensive solutions that consider the physical, economic and social contexts.

Overall objective:

To form specialists who can address the different socio-environmental issues that arise in the act of building, by means of a systemic and thorough analysis of the dimensions of sustainability, making it possible to identify, develop and implement construction systems that succeed in reducing the environmental impact of human habitat.

Specific objectives:

This program focuses on:

• Forming professionals with an awareness of human beings' enormous impact on the environment and with the ability to generate spaces that, from a sustainability perspective, can contribute to improving the quality of life and correcting the conditions of inequity in our society.
• Equipping our graduates with the knowledge, instruments, and tools, both diagnostic and analytical, to design and build a sustainable habitat.
• Developing lines of research at the graduate level that will expand and enhance knowledge related to sustainability and the built environment.

Advisory support system

• The advisory support system seeks to build bridges between students' research, innovation and development interests and each particular graduate program's Lines of Generation and Application of Knowledge, as well as their interrelation with the university's other graduate programs.
• This person-centered advisory support system gives priority to collective production scenarios. It promotes interaction between students and advisors with the intention of creating collaborative learning spaces where the dissonance that comes from constructive criticism will favor a reflective process and the collective construction of knowledge.
• The academic support is conceived as a system that integrates the different dimensions of formation (individual, social and historical) in each of the program's curricular periods. Peer and individual support processes are also possible.