Overview

The Master of Urban Design (MUD) degree program is a one-calendar-year program of study for students with a prior professional degree in architecture, landscape architecture, or city and regional planning. The program last for three semesters, starting with the June Summer Session and ending at the end of May of the following year. The program offers advanced training in urban design in an interdisciplinary curriculum with faculty drawn from architecture, landscape architecture, and planning in the College of Environmental Design. Designers work in teams and individually across a large range of scales to develop an understanding of the complexity of urbanism and the interdependencies of buildings, landscapes, and planning in environments shaped by cultural, social, economic, political, and environmental forces. The program is an intense and demanding learning experience in which a global group of students shares working methods, acquire additional skills, and explore new challenges in the rapidly expanding field of urban design. As the only stand-alone urban design program in the state, the MUD program begins by focusing on emerging issues in California and the West at the urban, suburban, and territorial scales. As the fifth-largest economy in the world, the most diverse state in the U.S., and a global pioneer in technology, sustainability, and culture, California is a unique laboratory to investigate future spatial challenges. The final independent advanced design project offers students the opportunity to address topics that they are passionate about in sites around the world.

The MUD program is STEM certified for 3 year OPD.