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Urban Design for the City in Transition

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What is the objective of the course? What is it?
What does it train you for?

The three-year Bachelor Degree Course in Urban Design for the City in Transition (UDCT) trains experts in the analysis, research and representation of cities, human-made or natural territories, environments and landscapes. Their professional expertise is paramount for elaborating urban, territorial, environmental and sectoral plans, projects and programmes that are drawn up by Public Administrations (Regions, Municipalities, Local Authorities) or by Agencies, Private Companies and the Third Sector. The professional abilities of the graduates in Urban Design for the City in Transition allow them to understand and interpret the processes of historical transformation of territories and cities. These are peculiar skills that are necessary for drafting analyses aimed at knowing territorial resources and their state of preservation, the built heritage (both historical and contemporary) and complex systems such as landscape and environmental ones. The competences of the UDCT graduate also include social, political and economic components that interact with the planning of cities and territories, as well as knowledge in the use of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) tools and the representation and management of territorial information data (Geographic Information Systems), which today is among the most required professional skills for Public Administrations and in all cases of drafting complex territorial projects. The Bachelor Degree Course in UDCT trains graduates who can understand the greatest contemporary changes (the planetary scale of environmental issues, the globalisation of economic and cultural dynamics, etc.) that require planning solutions and are challenging the ethical foundations, disciplinary statutes, theoretical and methodological bases of planning itself. In 2019, the Bachelor Degree Course received QR - Quality Recognition Certification from AESOP.

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What do you learn?

The course requires the students to carry out as much experimental experience as possible that allows them to grasp the various points of view on the transformation of cities and territories - in historical, economic, social, environmental, landscape, infrastructural and urban design terms. This is fundamental to train professionals who can operate in the most current fields of urban studies and planning. The course is built on five different disciplinary areas made up of basic, characterising and related subjects:

  • Urbanism, Planning, Architecture and Landscape;
  • Economics, Geography and Sociology;
  • Ecology;
  • Representation and History of Architecture;
  • Basic subjects.
The course is characterised by various studios that are central to the training experience offered by the course:
  • Digital Design for the City;
  • Analysis of the Urban;
  • Regeneration of the Contemporary City;
  • History of Cities and Territories;
  • Advanced Spatial Analysis;
  • Inclusive Urban Design;
  • 3D Mapping for the Territory;
  • Landscape and Green Networks.
These studios are related to a set of theoretical-practical teachings aimed at understanding urban and territorial phenomena and at the construction of principles and methodologies useful for cognitive approaches and grafted with practical experimentations aimed at acquiring cultural apparatuses and operational techniques.

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What can you do with it?

Graduates in Urban Design for the Transitional City may continue their studies by enrolling in two-year Master Degree Courses. Subject to a State Examination, the title of Junior Planner can be obtained, as well as registration in the Order of Architects, Planners, Landscapers and Conservators, section B, 'Planning' sector. The privileged stakeholders for Junior Planners are those subjects, both public and private, operating in the field of urban and territorial transformations, infrastructures and transport, landscape and environment, participatory processes linked to plans and projects, which can therefore be identified as:

  • Public administrations for the government and management of the territory (Municipalities, Regional Councillorships, Local Authorities for cultural and environmental heritage, Park Authorities, Port Authorities, Local Development Agencies, etc.);
  • Public or private research institutes;
  • Professional firms, service companies, private institutions and the third sector.
Those who have obtained a Higher Diploma in the relevant technical institutes, if they have graduated in Urban Design for the City in Transition, can access the Italian State Examinations for the professions of Agrotechnician, Graduate Geometrician, Agricultural Technician and Industrial Technician according to the indications of Presidential Decree 328/2001. Internships can be carried out in whole or in part during the course of studies according to the procedures established in agreements stipulated between the Orders or Colleges and the Universities (Presidential Decree 328/2001).