Lifelong Learning Master's Degree in Urban Design for Healthy Cities

Achieving healthier and more sustainable urban environments is one of the SDG included in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Combining health and sustainability criteria in urban design and planning is needed to mitigate climate change and improve people's well-being. This master’s degree programme seeks to respond to this global challenge by placing citizens at the heart of urban transformation projects. 

Nowadays, a wealth of research focusing on the assessment of the impact of environmental factors on public health is available. However, a structured body of knowledge on concepts, tools and methods to support urban design solutions adapted to each context is lacking. The general goal of this master’s degree programme is to fill this gap by exploring and discussing specific solutions based on real cases. Barcelona offers multiple opportunities to learn about urban design and planning linked to health and sustainability. Practitioners in charge of working on significant examples of this will participate in the course.

Overview

Although public health and urban planning share common objectives, they have remained independent disciplines over the past century. Increasing concern about the environmental and health emergencies have triggered a wider debate on the need to integrate both fields, and the combination of urban design and health has gained ground in recent years.  

Against this backdrop, the Master’s degree in Urban Design for Healthy Cities offers a programme aimed at architects and urban planners, both recent graduates and experienced professionals, who want to expand their knowledge in sustainable urban design while focusing on the well-being of citizens. 

The principles of well-being and sustainability are studied here in a combined way, in theoretical and practical blocks. 

Objectives

• To provide a conceptual and methodological basis for planning and designing urban systems based on the principles of well-being and sustainability.
• To provide knowledge on metrics, tools and methods from areas such as ecology, engineering, urban planning, urban design, urban geography, psychology, sociology and economics, to address the transition towards healthier urban environments.
• To provide knowledge on the scientific evidence available about the environmental, social, cultural and economic factors that influence people’s health and well-being.
• To provide knowledge on a wide array of emblematic healthy urban actions –from policies and regulations to planning and design.
• To teach students skills to help them to plan, execute and communicate strategic urban transformations aimed at enhancing public health and well-being.

Temas estudiados en profundidad durante el curso

Metrics, tools and methods for planning and designing healthy and sustainable built environments, will be elicited through literature review –scientific evidence-, and analysis of case studies at all scales –from policies and regulations to planning and design- related to each dimension. This content reviewed in the seminars will then be applied in a workshop (focusing on the transformation of the built environment in a specific case study) using a holistic approach. The mains topics proposed for this first edition are:

• Environmental Dimension: (1) Environmental Epidemiology: Air Pollution, Noise, Green Spaces, Temperature. (2) Mobility: Sustainable Transport Systems, Transport Planning, Infrastructure and Cities. (3) Energy and Waste: Materials and Energy Flows, Waste Collection, Energy Transition. (4) Food and Water:  Peri-urban Agriculture, Food/Water Planning and Governance, Climate/Food/Water Emergency. (5) Nature-Based Solutions: Blue and Grey Infrastructure.
• Social Dimension: (1) Physical Activity in the City (Benefits/Problems), The City as a Gym. (2) Safety Perception: Determinants of Fear, Effects of Fear in Public Space. (3) Empowerment and Social Capital: Empowerment Theories and Urban Transformation, Social Capital in Urban Areas. (4) Environmental Justice: Gentrification and Health in Global Cities, Health Effects in Gentrified Neighbourhoods. (5) Everyday Urbanism: Cooperative Urban Transformation Processes. (6) Citizen Science: Evaluation of Citizen Science Initiatives, Co-Designing Citizen Science Projects, Citizen Science and Urban Sustainability.
• Cultural dimension: (1) Place Attachment: Place Meanings and Living Experience, Applications of Place Attachment and Place Identity to Urban Planning Processes. (2) Urban Sense of Place: The Modern Urban Sense of Place, From Genius-Loci to Placelessness, Urbanalisation, Sense of Place after Urbanalszation. (3) Landscape Values and Development: From Landscape Characterisation to Landscape Management, Planning the Landscape with Communities, Planning Ordinary Landscapes. (4) Heritage in Urban Intervention: Mapping Heritage, Cultural Landscapes Recovery, Cultural Tourism, Cultural Heritage and Cooperative Processes. (5) City and Identity. Identity in Designing New Cities, Designing Proximity, Intermediate Landscapes; Pre-Urban Patterns.
• Economic dimension: (1) Economic Evaluation: Efficiency in Decision-Making, Environmental Valuation Techniques, Cost-Benefit Analysis. (2) Sustainable Economy: Circular Economy, Sharing Economy, Local Economy.

Skills and learning outcomes to be acquired by the student

• Knowledge on key topics (healthy cities, sustainable cities and planetary health).
• Knowledge on research and dissemination tools (quantitative and qualitative analysis methods, and e-communication skills).
• Knowledge on the determinants of health and well-being in urban environments, including four dimensions: environmental, social, cultural and economic.
• Knowledge on the tools and methods tested by practitioners to increase good health and well-being among citizens.
• Ability to apply this knowledge in real urban scenarios.

Student competences

• Holistic urban analysis skills based on sustainability and health principles.
• The ability to develop surveys and plans to mitigate the impact or maximize the benefits of the environmental, social, cultural and economic factors that affect people’s health and well-being.
• The ability to incorporate environmental, social, cultural and economic dimensions into the design of healthy urban solutions.
• The ability to undertake the supervision and coordination of urban projects for healthy cities.

Prospective students

This programme is aimed at university graduates from the following areas:

• Main recipients: architects, urban designers, urban planners, landscape designers, civil engineers, students from all disciplines involved in the design, management, physical planning of the city.
• Secondary recipients: environmental scientists, urban geographers, students from all disciplines who (despite the fact they do not intervene directly in the physical transformation of cities) generate the urban cartographies that are necessary to transform them.