Master of Urban Design (Post Professional)

The Master of Urban Design (MUD) program at the Daniels Faculty foregrounds equity in the built environment, exploring practice-based design knowledge as a medium for engaging the social and ecological challenges produced by global urbanization. The program leverages the progressive potential of the Canadian context and the rapid growth of the Greater Toronto Area as a space to explore these challenges as they come to bear on the future of North American urban regions. While focused on design as a medium of practice and research, the program builds connections to urban planning—and more broadly to the social and environmental sciences—to explore speculative design thinking as a lens to reimagine the policies, infrastructures, and economies that govern city building today.To this end, it engages real-world issues and partners with local institutions to facilitate knowledge exchange with design practitioners, decision makers, and advocates who actively shape the city. For example, we are excited to partner with the Toronto District School Board as a means to introduce MUD students with communities who are often underrepresented in more official planning and design processes. We have also partnered with an urban design office in a regional municipality to explore pressing social and ecological issues. Our studios sequence is coordinated with city planning offices in the region, non-profits, and advocates in order for students to apply experimental thinking to problems on the ground. With the central location of the Daniels Faculty in the city of Toronto, the urban design program seeks to become a broadcast point for design practice as an agent of progressive urban change.The Master of Urban Design is a two-year post-professional program open to students with a professional degree in architecture (Bachelor of Architecture, MARC) or landscape architecture (BLA, MLA)—and to others with degrees in related fields who have demonstrated design ability and experience—with a final year average of at least mid-B from the University of Toronto or its equivalent from a recognized university.