Urban Design Courses

Page Links
Affiliated Articles

The following are sample descriptions for MUD courses. Please note: courses’ contents and schedule are subject to revision each year.

Foundation Studio and Seminar (UD712/UD739)
Summer Term
The Urban Design Foundation Studio and Seminar is an intense workshop intended to introduce the necessary skills and base of knowledge to carry you through your studies in the MUD Program.
More about this studio/seminar...
Master of Urban Design Intermediate Studio (UD722)
Fall Term
This studio combines analysis and observation of urban morphology and culture with urban design projects set in Chicago and New York City. Its goals are to equip participants with the skills to see and interpret urbanism as they develop processes for designing cities that reflect concern for both physical form and the human activity that form contains. The studio also seeks to enable designers to communicate their ideas through graphic and verbal means understandable and compelling to the project stakeholders, architects, developers, and public agencies that will determine the outcomes of the urban design process.
More about this studio...
The History of Urban Form (UD713)
Fall Term
This course examines a wide range of cities from all the major urban civilizations ranging from ancient times to the present. From this wonderful variety of historic urban forms the course seeks timeless principles of urbanism through a kind of dialogue or conversation among three great urbanists whose work forms the bulk of the readings: Lewis Mumford, Spiro Kostof, and Jane Jacobs.

In addition to the readings, class discussions, and papers based on the readings, students will be required to choose one city and to analyze its history in depth.
More about this course...
Theories of Urban Design (URP519)
Fall Term
“Each generation writes its own biography in the cities it creates,”
Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities

The purpose of this seminar is to critically evaluate the concepts and practices of urban design. In the spirit of Lewis Mumford's quote, we will be exploring the biographies that past generations have written with the design of their cities and we will be discussing what biographies we hope this generation, faced with many new challenges, will create. Key to interpreting our urban ‘biographies’ is understanding how different design philosophies shape form, configuration, and the distribution of uses. Our readings are organized around nine themes:

  • Signature moments and movements in the history of urban design and city-making
  • Criticisms of modern planning and design
  • Theoretical concepts of place
  • Place-making practices
  • Typology and Morphology in Urban Design
  • Physical form- implications and externalities
  • Physical elements of urban design
  • Urban Design Practice
  • The Future is Now
More about this course...
Master of Urban Design Final Studio (UD732)
Winter Term
The Master of Urban Design Final Studio is related to the Annual Detroit Charrette held by TCAUP early in the winter term. For four consecutive days, TCAUP faculty and students work with distinguished design professionals from across the country and the Detroit region in formulating urban design strategies for areas in the Detroit metropolitan area that have been identified by public and private leaderships as potential sites for development. At the end of each Charrette, results presented to the public for discussion and review. They are then published for use by project stakeholders. The Master of Urban Design Final Studio adopts the Charrette problem as its focus and enables students to identify aspects of the problem for continued research and design. In addition to participating in the Detroit Charrette, the studio has access to guest critics from among its participants, and enjoys the presence of the Charles Moore Visiting Professor, a leading urban designer who joins the MUD faculty during the Winter Term for studio desk crits and reviews.
More about this studio...
Methodologies of Urban Design (UD723)
Winter Term
This seminar will provide a review of urban design methodologies, from the 19th Century through the present, by focusing on one of the world’s great laboratories of city design, New York, and by relating that city’s experience to that of other major cities around the world.
More about this course...
Practices of Urban Design (UD729)
Winter Term
This course exposes the students to urban design as it is practiced in the United States, including the practical constraints and collaborations, and its interdisciplinary nature. There are many ways in which urban design is practiced; there are also many factors typically outside of designers’ control that ultimately affect the design of our environment. Students will be encouraged to expand the definition of urban design and the role of the urban designer—to explore the question: “What can urban design be?”
More about this course...

Return to top of page