Creating Future Cities that Combine Design, Science & Research: our UDDI Master's Course Approach
Updated: Jun 27, 2020
We are opening to a world of drastic changes. The recent world events have shown that the design of cities need to integrate new paradigms that enable the creation of more resilient and healthy environments. To achieve this, creative thinkers, designers, and scientist would pave the way towards addressing urban challenges in a new and smart way.
Covid and new social dynamics (Bangkok April 2020)
As this new century embraces technology to back up the way cities operate, the creative side of how cities should function is still a huge topic to address. New concepts, ideas, and multidisciplinary perspectives will commence to mold the new narratives of how to design cities for the future. This will require future professionals that have technical and creative skills to tackle some of the biggest challenges that the world organizations such as the United Nations have identified (i.e., SDGs). Of primary concern will be the systems that will be put in place in order to guarantee that cities are designed for health and well-being. Factors to consider for instance are among others, air pollution, traffic jams, sound pollution, reduce travel distances, overpopulation, heath island effect, and of course pandemics. However, how to tackle all these factors is a matter of discussion among all professions, since the most prevalent arguments are to interconnect urban environments and systems for health and well-being, while at the same time creating financial benefits to the general society.
Nevertheless, while the economic factors guarantee the operation of cities, in the table is the great question mark of sustainability and how to design cities that create less harm to the environment and do more good by returning back to nature some of the resources taken. Although these ideas would have seemed impossible to achieve in the past years, a vast amount of scientific research has provided innovative approaches that integrate ideas of biophilic and regenerative design as ways to move towards highly efficient and lower carbon footprint cities and buildings. In other words, buildings and cities that regenerate the environment and those that inhabit these are accomplishable ideas in the current times. Nevertheless, to achieve this, efforts that combine the scientific research with design strategies is of imperative importance for the design of cities that also integrate the community factors that are fostered by social interaction.
The challenges for the future are many, however, the current crisis is clearly showing the need to combine academic research and practice in the urban design fields. New urban trends that will emerge will be supported by research and design thinking. Therefore, our master program of Urban Design and Development, combines a series of state-of-the-art topics in urban sciences, technology and design that will provide the necessary skills required for the future design of cities.
Final Master studio: Navanakorn Industrial State & Biophilic design
(by Laksika Dejpreechachai)
A multilayered and personalized syllabus integrates four core topics: Urban Design and Sustainable communities; Urban Tourism; Real Estate and Housing Development and Public Private Partnership. Each of this core topics is explored through design studios that are supported by comprehensive researches and integrated seminars on urban sustainability, regenerative design, and smart cities. Through the exploration of these topics, this master program will help students develop advanced-design and research skills through different national/international city projects.
If you have ever wondered what could be your contribution for the future society and you are curious about how design, technology, research, and sciences can contribute to shape cities, then you might like join our UDDI Master's course. This course is for those that wish to become lead experts on the future of urban design by understanding the interlinking systems that create functional, healthy, and smart cities.
Aj. Diana Benjumea, Ph.D
Ph.D Urban Studies and Social Sciences, UDDI Master's courses coordinator