The Master’s Degree in Urban Design at HafenCity University addresses the challenges and potentials of contemporary urban society by critically analyzing its current states and the design of future modes of co-production in urban spaces. We, as the research and teaching staff of the program, understand the city as a historically developed and continuously re/produced entity that is shaped by diverse actors, processes, discourses, materialities, imaginaries, and modes of use. It is within this assemblage of practices of humans and non-humans that the interdependencies of the urban emerge. The objective of the study program Urban Design is to understand urban configurations and relevant knowledges thus making these negotiable and tangible to unlock potentialities hidden therein and to inform urban transformation processes.
Additionally, the Urban Design program is concerned with developing, testing and conveying appropriate methodologies, and forms of knowledge for the interaction with the city in terms of research and design. Some current research interests and annual topics of the program focus on housing and dwelling as urban practices, Everyday Urban Design, Spatial Politics of Comfort or Urgent Matter/s of the Just City and Social Infrastructures concerning Maintenance and Care.
The master program invites students from theory as well as practice backgrounds and a broad range of disciplines and professional fields with an interest in gaining further qualifications in the field of urban research, development, and design of urban environments. The courses of the study program are taught in English, with some exceptions of cross-study electives.
