Program Overview

Program Overview

The Bachelor of Design in City Innovation (BDCI) is a four-year, 120-unit program that offers students a customized learning experience. The program consists of a 75-unit common core completed in the first 2.5 years, and an additional 45 customizable units completed in the remaining 1.5 years.

Customized Learning Experience

Students can pursue the following pathways through the degree, depending on their interests:

• Licensed architect or landscape architect: apply to one of two concentrations as preparation for professional graduate degree programs in architecture or landscape architecture that lead to licensure;
• Licensed planner: complete a customized program of study that focuses in area of professional interest as preparation for a graduate planning degree program that leads to licensure;
• City Innovation careers: create a customized program of study as preparation for entry to a city-building related professional, or graduate program including law, social work, public policy, public health, business, and data science; or direct entry into a city-building related career in the private, public, or non-profit sectors.

BDCI Core Requirements

The common core requirements of the BDCI program include:

• Studio courses: develop design abilities, skills, and foundational theoretical comprehension across scales, to address complex city-based issues.
• Visualization and design graphics courses: develop skills in the visual representation of design, including traditional methods, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Computer Aided Design (CAD), digital modelling, animation, and fabrication.
• Technical courses: examine city policies, infrastructures and systems, landscape ecology, and building science.
• Global citizenship courses: build awareness and critical thinking through a broad contextual understanding of the environmental, and of the social, technological, historical, and economic forces that impact the physical and social infrastructure of cities.
• Data science courses: provide a fundamental understanding of how data, computation, and sensing can help us better understand how the complex and interconnected physical and social infrastructure of cities perform, in both a current state and in response to design interventions.
• Specialty courses:
  • Sustainability Studies: provide a basic understanding of how cities and the people who live in them impact the climate crisis.
  • Entrepreneurial Thinking: introduce students to entrepreneurial thinking as a mode of implementing design-based solutions in practice.

Professional Experience

Students will complete two additional studios outside of the BDCI required common core courses:

• Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) Studio: students will select a project for their WIL studio course that aligns with their interests and career objectives.
• Capstone Studio Learning: the final studio in the BDCI program is a capstone learning experience in which students develop an independent project that aligns with their interests and career goals.

Architecture and Landscape Architecture Concentrations

BDCI students interested in pursuing professional graduate degrees in architecture and landscape architecture can apply for admission into either the Architecture or Landscape Architecture Concentration in their second year. Both Concentrations consist of a series of 30 units of Concentration requirements in advanced design studio, visualization and technical courses.

Design in City Innovation (DCI) Options

Students pursuing general studies in the BDCI program are required to take 24 units of DCI options, which can be chosen from:

• the fields of DATA and UBST
• courses labelled SUST
• courses taken to fulfill the Entrepreneurial Thinking Embedded Certificate, Health and Society Minor, or Management and Society Minor

Recommended Minors and Embedded Certificates

Students may opt to incorporate an additional Minor or Embedded Certificate to complement the Bachelor of Design in City Innovation program, including:

• Embedded Certificate in Entrepreneurial Thinking
• Embedded Certificate in Sustainability
• Minor in Data Science
• Minor in Urban Studies
• Health and Society Minor
• Management and Society Minor

Recommended Electives

SAPL has put together a list of recommended electives for BDCI students to further develop their interest areas and complement the program curriculum. The courses listed are all offered outside of SAPL and can be used to fulfill BDCI’s general breadth requirements.

Planning Electives

SAPL has put together a list of recommended Planning electives for BDCI students to engage in courses that would prepare them for the Master of Planning program and a career in Planning. The courses listed are all offered outside of SAPL and can be used to fulfill BDCI’s general breadth requirements.