Do you want to design contemporary cities and territories to enable radical social and ecological changes?

Urban and territorial design lies at the core of complex spatial questions and increasing urgencies. From drivers of progress to the source of planetary hazards, the impacts of cities and urbanisation processes are being recast in the public sphere. The critical examination of anthropocentric world views, the greening of politics and economies, growing social polarisation and uneven development, protest movements and climate activism, are reflected in urban and territorial space, highlighting power asymmetries and the urgent need for alternatives.

The MAS ETH EPFL in Urban and Territorial Design (MAS ETH EPFL UTD) embraces the need for a socio-ecological transition of inhabited territories as a field of critical and imaginative investigation based on the principles of social and environmental equity and justice. Engaging with notions of transformation, reuse, circularity, regeneration, reparation, and transition of habitats and ecologies, students will deploy the urban and territorial project as the crucial field of knowledge production across scales. Design is explored as a tool for synthesis in an expanded environment of transdisciplinary exchange.

It is addressed to Swiss and international graduates, young professionals, designers, and researchers wishing to link research and design expertise to the extended urbanisation of territories. The MAS ETH EPFL UTD serves as a laboratory and a forum where participants develop design skills for shaping resilient urban territories and propose concrete agendas, design strategies and governance models. Participants are prepared for interdisciplinary, site-specific work at all urban-territorial scales and engagement with communities, local actors, NGOs, and governance bodies. This responds to professional perspectives offered by design offices and public authorities, but also to international career opportunities in academic work or within research institutions.