Urban Ecological Planning (MSA1)

Urban Ecological Planning programme is primarily designed to address the real, on-the-ground, urban issues of the developing and industrialising world that is estimated to hold about 85% of world’s population by 2050. While the programme ideology is still evolutionary, the core is to address and re-analyse different local and contextual urban planning issues in an alternative manner that rests on inclusionary, territorial, and incremental methods of cognition.

In the developing countries, where the urban development is extremely fast and often out of control, planning efforts are at best fragmented and incremental. A sustainable approach is assumed to concentrate on building local responsibility and capacities for an action planning. In the first semester, our programme starts right in the field in a developing country context, with a rich mix of international and local students. Students spend between 6-8 weeks on field to understand strengths of the neighbourhood within dense cities, and deliberate on how to create opportunities for spatial, environmental and livelihood improvements. In subsequent semesters, the students undertake various other courses designed to address theoretical and practical aspects of urban planning. Even though the focus is on the complex urban issues of the developing world, the concepts of urban planning developed and practiced in the programme are equally relevant in a more industrialised and developed world.

With on-site exercises and extensive field-works in developing countries, over the last decade the programme has addressed various situational topical issues which are globally and locally significant. While planning remains product oriented, we strive to find out with each new project - How to understand and build local knowledge? And how to link knowledge with real action in planning practice to create positive change? How to inculcate sustainable ideas within the livelihood challenges at the local level?