Architecture and Planning Beyond Sustainability Chalmers University of Technology

Overview

Sustainable development is a set of a political visions that entails huge challenges for social and technical innovation all over the world. It has consequences for all professions, not least for architecture and urban design, since it is here the full complexity of societal development has to be addressed and managed through design for sustainable development. Sustainable development today is to be integrated into all master’s programmes at Chalmers as a major demand. 

However, this Architecture and Planning Beyond Sustainability programme at Chalmers University of Technology differs from most other master's programmes by staying at the forefront of sustainable development within the respective major subject (here Architecture, Urban Design and Planning). Therefore, this master's programme's clear sustainability agenda and profile is clarified by the programme’s name "beyond sustainability", which is an internationally viable concept for the development of knowledge, methods and perspectives that follow as the next step in traditional sustainable development.

Career:

The education leads to a wide range of career opportunities within architecture, urban design and planning for sustainable development as a response to increasing awareness and commitment among both public and private actors.

The global challenges of resource constraints and climate change open for new and extensive fields of professional practices. Globally rapid urbanisation, poverty reduction and fair distribution of resources are key issues as manifested in the UN Agenda 2013 and Sustainable Development Goals.

In Sweden the existing building stock, not least from the 1960s and 1970s, has to be reconstructed in ways that can address socioeconomic segregation problems as well as deficient environmental performance in an integrated manner. Taken together these challenges request a new generation of skilled design professionals that are able to work in cross-disciplinary expert teams and in close contact with local stakeholders.