Design and Urban Ecologies (MS)

Program Overview

The Master of Science in Design and Urban Ecologies at The New School reframes urban studies through design-led, justice-centered approaches. Combining urbanism, ecology, design, and activism, it equips students with innovative methodologies to address global urban challenges and opportunities for social and spatial transformation. Graduates become advanced urban design practitioners prepared for careers in urbanism, planning, and research, or to pursue doctoral studies. The program is highly interdisciplinary, attracting students from diverse backgrounds and offering extensive resources and support for research and career advancement.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

The Master of Science in Design and Urban Ecologies radically reframes the study of urbanization and cities through design-led, justice-centered approaches to urban transformation. It combines urbanism with ecology, design, policy, activism, and community participation, equipping students to address global urban challenges and opportunities. Aligned with The New School's commitment to environmental and social justice, students from diverse backgrounds collaborate with external partners to design and implement proposals for critical urban change.

Objectives:

• Integrate aspects of architecture, urban design, urban planning, and landscape architecture in new ways by forefronting issues of sociospatial and environmental justice.
• Apply designing as a methodology to explore and combat social, economic, political, and environmental injustices in urban ecosystems.
• Use New York and other world cities as living laboratories to understand the forces influencing urban decline, restructuring, and development.
• Devise design strategies and infrastructures that lead to social and spatial transformation, working alongside and within the communities directly affected.
• Use innovative methodologies to confront and engage with globalization, deindustrialization, migration, climate change, and shifts in urban policy and governance.

Teaching:

• The program involves a sequence of design studios connected with other core courses.
• Students combine research, policy, planning, design, and activism, working in partnership with civic, nonprofit, and public organizations.
• Parsons faculty represent a broad range of expertise and are acknowledged as leading practitioners and scholars in their fields.

Careers:

• Graduates are advanced urban design practitioners prepared for careers in urbanism, urban and regional planning, community development, public and urban policy, strategic design, development of social, cultural, and environmental enterprises, and urban research and analysis.
• The program provides a research foundation that enables students to pursue advanced study at the doctoral level.

Other:

• The program attracts students from diverse backgrounds, including the humanities and social sciences, law, architecture, communication design, and environmental studies.
• Research is integral to the Parsons learning experience, and students and faculty work together to challenge existing paradigms and advance emerging scholarship and practice.
• New York City's thriving creative industry and cultural institutions are part of the Parsons education.
• The Career Services Office is enmeshed in the art and design industries and can help students advance their careers with industry-oriented internships.
Opportunities include paid teaching assistantships, research fellowships and assistantships, ample student employment, and other grants available to U.S. domestic and international students alike.