162 Best Urban Planning Master's Degree Programs for 2024

The MSc in Green Infrastructure integrates the disciplines of geography, landscape, and environmental planning to offer a comprehensive and pioneering educational experience. This program is the first of its kind, combining the theoretical knowledge, practical application, and evaluative techniques of green infrastructure. It equips students with a robust understanding of the necessity for green infrastructure and the processes involved in transitioning from design to implementation.

The MS in Applied Urban Science and Informatics will provide you with the opportunity to take part in this mission by engaging in the interdisciplinary study of urban science and applying technical skills to problems facing cities all over the globe. You will learn to formulate questions about your surroundings, and then how to answer those questions using large data sets.

As the population of urban areas continues to grow, so do the challenges to secure an inclusive, just and sustainable set of futures. These challenges ask questions related to anthropology, architecture, business studies, economics, geography, history, and sociology. Drawing upon concepts from across these disciplines, the MSc Urban Studies will deliver a better understanding of how cities are confronting these challenges.

The climate emergency brings an urgent awareness of the inter-relationships between land and human development. The pervasive exploitation of natural systems means populations face fundamental challenges for their future. Sustainable Lands and Cities brings together people who are committed to creating, shaping, and conserving sustainable communities. The programme is designed for both recent graduates and professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds in the public, private, and third sectors. This programme focuses on the fundamental nature of land; how it can be defined, understood, managed and used.

The Master of Sustainable Real Estate Development (MSRED) degree is an interdisciplinary one-year graduate program that prepares students from diverse backgrounds to become effective and influential participants in the fields of real estate finance, design, and development. We equip our graduates with a blended education in business, economics, sustainable design, urbanism, and legal issues. The MSRED degree is practice-oriented and emphasizes opportunities for students to gain experience and build a professional network in innovative for-profit, nonprofit and public settings.

The Jefferson Master of Architecture Program is a first-professional graduate program designed to prepare students for professional architectural practice through the development of sustainable design and technology skills, knowledge of project management, and collaborative experiences in an interdisciplinary environment.

Master of Architecture students study through two principal tracks that culminate in the M.Arch degree: Track I: a 2.5-year program for students with an undergraduate degree outside the field of architecture (102 credits). This Track includes preprofessional coursework (42 credits) followed by professional coursework (60 credits), and may be completed in eight continuous terms including three summers.. Track II: a 2-year program of professional coursework for students with an undergraduate degree in architecture (60 credits). This program may be completed in five continuous semesters including two summers. Architecture at MassArt is foremost a social art, with a hands-on approach to building, gaining its strength from MassArt's legacy as an educational institution that provides affordable access to students from diverse backgrounds.

The Master of Architecture (M.Arch) is a professional degree accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB). This degree is available to students with or without pre-professional degrees in architecture.

The Conway program is a lively mix of classroom instruction, applied studio work, student and visitor presentations, fieldwork, site visits, and informal discussions in the collective kitchen.

The Master of Environmental Design program is a two-year research-based program culminating in a Masters thesis. Started in 1967, the MED program remains one of the first and most intensive of its kind with a history that is particularly relevant today. The program has long addressed environment as the aggregate of objects, conditions, and influences that constitute the constructed surroundings. Today that environmental scope informs many crucial contemporary issues from climate change and global inequality to digital ubiquity and the influence of large socio-technical organizations. A return to the origins of the program also energizes an activist conception of design. Positioned beyond client consumption or the cultural production of galleries, to design, in this context, is to create conditions for change that address urgent situations in the present.

The Master of Architecture graduate program brings together the foundations and professional issues of architecture in a challenging, rigorous, and collaborative environment. With opportunities to design both collaboratively and independently, you’ll achieve an understanding of yourself as an emerging professional. In the Master of Architecture program at UL Lafayette, we have an intense focus on community outreach and topic-based studios. Our faculty are devoted to your professional preparation, and that means bringing great design to the Acadiana community and beyond. In our Master of Architecture studios, you’ll have the option to: • gain hands-on experience helping cities, small towns, and neighborhoods visualize their potential as communities; • design and build sustainable, market-rate homes; and • work in the Louisiana coastal territory to reduce environmental vulnerability, enhance ecosystem resilience, and promote cultural sustainability.

The 48 hour Master of Science in Urban and Regional Planning (M.S. URP) is designed to prepare students for leadership roles and careers in the public and private sectors of planning and designing communities and regions. The program has a strong focus on land use planning; design; policy; and economic, environmental, and cultural issues that shape urban and regional land development patterns in terms of infrastructure, housing, and open space systems. Emphasis is placed on developing research capabilities and graphic skills needed in planning. The degree program’s primary focus is to prepare students to become practitioners in the planning profession. The MSURP is taught with support of the Department of Public Administration in the College of Public Policy.

Urban planning offers significant and diverse opportunities to solve the complex problems of communities and to shape their built environments. This profession is uniquely dedicated to the quality of life affected by place, to visions and policy consequences that extend beyond the near term, and to problem-solving that relies on multiple disciplines. Learn about what we teach and how you will learn.

Rice Architecture is the meeting point of design and discourse; of theory and practice; of past and future; of Rice and the world; and of our two inseparable aims: to educate architects and to position our graduates as leaders in a rapidly changing world.

The UNLV School of Architecture Master of Architecture Degree Program is a NAAB accredited program that offers prospective students two paths of study to the Master of Architecture (M. Arch.) professional degree; a two-year course of study for students possessing a pre-professional undergraduate degree in architecture and a three to a four-year course of study for students whose academic background is outside of architecture. Master of Architecture Program studies emphasizes the opportunities that the University and Southern Nevada settings have to inform and enrich the study of architecture and prepare students for meaningful careers and lifelong success. Whether through a research-based interdisciplinary study involving academic units across the UNLV campus or design inquiry exploring the unique qualities of Las Vegas, students that enroll in the program will be rewarded with an educational experience that is as unique and dynamic as this place. Centering on critical opportunities for architecture to serve society, the M. Arch. the degree program is organized into three distinct courses of study or concentrations: Building Systems and Sustainability, Hospitality and Entertainment Design, and Education Facilities Research & Design. Each concentration is composed of an interdisciplinary curriculum involving academic programs across the University of Nevada Las Vegas as well as the participation of internationally significant practitioners and researchers. The M. Arch. the degree program is thematically structured to emphasize comprehensive building design during the first year of study and concentration-focused research and design during the second year of study. Concurrent to both years, students enroll in concentration-related electives that inform and give breadth to students’ individual efforts in the final year of the program. The School of Architecture is fortunate to offer students a range of research labs and centers that enhance the graduate experience. These include the Downtown Design Center located in downtown Las Vegas, the SimLab emphasizing modes of fabrication, LIME emphasizing virtual realizations, the NEET Lab emphasizing renewable resources, and the Design-Build program which in its inaugural year competed in the 2013 Solar Decathlon.

Graduate education in bioregional planning is designed to prepare the student for work within a trans-disciplinary environment providing better alternatives for environmental decisions, policy and implementation. The program is jointly administered by the departments of Environment and Society and Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning. The graduate will be qualified to practice in both private firms and various public sectors, which may include offices of the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management; and various state, county, and community organizations.

As the premiere public arts school in the nation, the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture (UCLA Arts) plays a vital role in the cultural and artistic life of the campus and the broader community.

The Master of Urban Design (MUD) is an intensive post-professional degree program for individuals who seek a career in urban design practice or for current planning and design professionals who want to enhance and expand their existing practice with urban design knowledge and expertise.

Integrating theoretical and technical competencies, the Master of Architecture program nurtures future professionals through a comprehensive and flexible core curriculum. Students learn to analyze complex environments and propose innovative design solutions to the world's most urgent problems.

Our department offers an accredited 3-year Master's degree in Architecture (M. ARCH), developed for students entering with a previously completed bachelor's degree in a program. Applicants with previous degrees in design will be viewed on a case-by-base basis. Years needed to complete the M. ARCH may be reduced from the three-year-plan. Accredited by NAAB, and incorporate coursework in architectural design.