You can help create the city of the future. As an urban designer, you work with challenges related to urban development and urban planning. You help to shape cities, creating new spaces for people, and new ways of moving around these cities.  

Over the course of the Urban Design programme, you learn to include cities’ residents and societal issues on the drawing board when, together, we work with the city's architecture. The programme thus focuses on designing cities for and with people.

Therefore, you also learn how you can help create safe, fair, inclusive, diverse cities, and urban areas and solve problems relating to, for example:

• climate change and sustainability
• urban growth and urban shrinkage
• migration, inequality, and social challenges.  

Cities are always evolving, and this creates a wide range of challenges – socially, culturally and environmentally. For example, you learn to work with:

• Climate challenges related to rising water levels and cloudbursts in cities: How do we change cities so that they can hold more water and at the same time be a good place to live in and stay?
• Socially inclusive cities during increasing inequality: How do we create safer and socially inclusive cities and cities with room for diversity? Here we work with i.a. transforming socially marginalised residential areas or with creating room and space in the city for creative young people who want to experiment and build.

Academic content

In urban design, we lay the city on the drawing board – both in theory and in practice. You will work practically and theoretically with urban, architectural and mobility theory. You will gain experience with both analogue and digital methods of analysis, design, and communication.  
 
You learn:  

• to sketch and model on paper and digitally
• to involve citizens and ethnographic perspectives
• to use tracking and simulation technologies. 

You and your fellow students become part of a dynamic and research-based learning environment with group work, courses, lectures and exercises. 

You go on excursions and research trips, collaborate with design studios, municipalities and other actors and get involved in current research projects. You also get professional inspiration and the opportunity to network when we organise seminars, open lectures, exhibitions, and the annual Urban Design Day. 
 
On the Urban Design programme, you develop a strong professional foundation so that you can work professionally with the city's complex contexts. 

The teaching takes place in English. 

Become an urban designer in two ways

You can become an urban designer in two ways. You can study Urban Design either as a MSc in Engineering or a MSc in Technology, depending on which bachelor's degree you hold. You get the same master's degree – but there are two ways in: 

•  The MSc in Engineering title (cand.polyt.) is for students holding a bachelor's degree in Architecture and Design from AAU or an equivalent technical bachelor's degree.
• The MSc in Technology (cand.tech.) is for students with another relevant bachelor's degree. Read more about this under "Enrolment and Access Requirements". 

It is important that – before you apply for admission to the programme – you clarify which title you qualify for on the basis of your bachelor's degree (see entry requirements) and which specialisation you wish to apply for.  

Internship and study abroad

You can do an internship in the 3rd term, e.g. at a design studio or other relevant company at home or abroad. You can also study at a foreign university. 

•  Internship: Here, you get the opportunity to collaborate with a company, institution or similar on one or more projects. The internship gives you the opportunity to test and use the theoretical skills you have acquired during the 1st and 2nd terms.
• Study abroad: In your third term, you can also choose to study at another university in Denmark or at a university outside Denmark. The courses you wish to take at a foreign university must be approved by the study board as an integral part of your education at Architecture & Design, Aalborg University (in the form of credits).  

Jobs and careers

The master's programme in Urban Design at Aalborg University combines skills such as creativity, technique and teamwork. It allows you to influence your future career and job opportunities. 

The programme has close links with companies, organisations and institutions with whom you will have the opportunity to collaborate on specific projects. This benefits both your studies and project work – and your future career opportunities. 

Future employment opportunities? 

Urban designers with the ability to work with the organisation of building development and the transformation of urban spaces are needed everywhere to give people experiences and exciting and new urban areas to live and move around in. For example, Urban Design graduates can be employed by: 

• private architectural firms
• public sectors with a focus on urban planning in practice, e.g. municipalities and regions
• design studios
• consulting engineering firms.