Urban Design (MA)
- Duration: 1 year
- Mode: Full time
Open day
Find out more about studying here as a postgraduate at our next Open Day.
Why study this course
Prepare for your future urban design career through integrated and applied studio learning that connects theory, real‑world skills, and live development contexts.
Industry recognised
Recognised as a RTPI specialist-accredited degree, plus with three years’ professional urban design experience you are eligible to apply for the Urban Design Group’s Recognised Practitioner designation.
Holistic studio approach
Taught through an integrated studio model where theory, research, and creative practice are fused into a single learning experience.
Highly ranked
Delivered by Schools which rank among the top 50 in the world and top 10 in the UK in Planning and Architecture.
Professional-led and skills linked
Practitioner-led input and skills-based training develop professional competencies aligned with industry expectations.
Real-world design contexts
Engage in local site visits and an international field-study visit to hone your urban design skills.
Industry standard software
Access to a range of specialist software, including AutoCAD and Adobe Creative Suite.
Our Urban Design (MA) programme offers a robust pathway into professional design and planning practice while equipping you with the critical, creative, and analytical skills needed to address the complex challenges facing contemporary cities and regions.
You’ll be taught the foundational concepts, analytical tools, and digital design skills required for advanced urban design practice, with support to progress confidently through our design-led curriculum.
You’ll learn to conduct advanced urban design analysis, applying spatial concepts, frameworks, and techniques to interpret urban form and activity across multiple scales. You’ll also develop the ability to communicate design insights visually and textually through drawings, diagrams, maps, written analysis, and graphic outputs.
Building on this analytical foundation, you’ll explore how to develop spatially grounded, contextually sensitive design interventions, testing ideas through iterative design work in a studio environment. This will be inspired by theory and practice, use precedent studies, evaluation, and comparative analysis to inform and refine your design work.
Experiential learning enriches the programme: you’ll benefit from site visits, practitioner-led workshops, and an international field study visit, enabling you to engage directly with real-world design contexts and gain insight into innovative approaches to urban transformation across different cultural settings.
Our professional accreditation by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) supports your progression to Associate or, depending on past educational experience, Chartered Planner status. The programme also makes you eligible to apply for the Urban Design Group’s Recognised Practitioner designation following at least 3 years professional urban design experience.
Accreditations
"My time in the Urban Design (MA) programme at Cardiff University has been both academically rewarding and personally enriching. With a curriculum designed for diverse academic backgrounds, the programme is enriched by resourceful, supportive faculty and small-group studio sessions."
Where you'll study
Welsh School of Architecture
We aim to make the world a better place through contextually sensitive, sustainable and beautiful architecture.
School of Geography and Planning
Join us as we explore and tackle the social, political, economic, development and environmental challenges which affect where and how we live.
Admissions criteria
In order to be considered for an offer for this programme you will need to meet all of the entry requirements. Your application will not be progressed if the information and evidence listed is not provided.
With your online application you will need to provide:
- A copy of your degree certificate and transcripts which show you have achieved a 2:2 honours degree in a relevant subject area such as architecture, environmental design, human geography, landscape architecture, landscape design, urban design, and urban planning, or an equivalent international degree. If your degree certificate or result is pending, please upload any interim transcripts or provisional certificates.
- A copy of your IELTS certificate with an overall score of 6.5 with 6.0 in all subskills, or evidence of an accepted equivalent. Please include the date of your expected test if this qualification is pending. If you have alternative acceptable evidence, such as an undergraduate degree studied in the UK, please supply this in place of an IELTS.
If you do not have a degree in a relevant area, your application may be considered on the basis of your professional experience. A reference must be provided by your employer to evidence that you currently work in an area relevant to the programme. This should be signed, dated and less than six months old at the time you submit your application.
Application Deadline
We allocate places on a first-come, first-served basis, so we recommend you apply as early as possible. Applications normally close at the end of August but may close sooner if all places are filled.
Selection process
We will review your application and if you meet all of the entry requirements, we will make you an offer.
Find out more about English language requirements.
Applicants who require a Student visa to study in the UK must present an acceptable English language qualification in order to meet UKVI (UK Visas and Immigration) requirements.
Criminal convictions
You are not required to complete a DBS (Disclosure Barring Service) check or provide a Certificate of Good Conduct to study this course.
If you are currently subject to any licence condition or monitoring restriction that could affect your ability to successfully complete your studies, you will be required to disclose your criminal record. Conditions include, but are not limited to:
- access to computers or devices that can store images
- use of internet and communication tools/devices
- curfews
- freedom of movement
- contact with people related to Cardiff University.
Course structure
This is a 1-year full-time degree.
The course is structured to provide a set of 2 lecture-based modules and 2 intensive studio-based design modules that integrate design, research, and theory. The 2 lecture-based modules run in parallel with the larger studio-based design projects, enabling you to continually relate theory and practice.
During the first 2 semesters, approximately 70% of your time will be studio or field study-based. The remaining time will be spent in lectures, seminars, or computer labs.
Your degree culminates in a research-based design project for which you’ll need to develop proposals relating to a chosen site, demonstrating an understanding of urban design practice and a written, reflective commentary.
The modules shown are an example of the typical curriculum. Final modules will be published one month ahead of your programme starting.
| Module title | Module code | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Space and Place: International Planning Practice | CPT870 | 20 credits |
| Autumn Studio | CPT933 | 40 credits |
| Spring Studio | CPT934 | 40 credits |
| Urban Design Foundations | CPT935 | 20 credits |
| Urban Design Dissertation | CPT928 | 60 credits |
The University is committed to providing a wide range of module options where possible, but please be aware that whilst every effort is made to offer choice this may be limited in certain circumstances. This is due to the fact that some modules have limited numbers of places available, which are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, while others have minimum student numbers required before they will run, to ensure that an appropriate quality of education can be delivered; some modules require students to have already taken particular subjects, and others are core or required on the programme you are taking. Modules may also be limited due to timetable clashes, and although the University works to minimise disruption to choice, we advise you to seek advice from the relevant School on the module choices available.
Learning and assessment
How will I be taught?
You’ll be taught through lectures, workshops and design studios, by lecturers who are experts in their respective fields.
Our purpose-built studio spaces provide a professionally equipped environment that supports design exploration and creative production, offering collaborative workspaces, a colour plotter for high-quality large-format printing, and a 3D printer for modelmaking.
Studio teaching focuses on developing critically informed as well as creative and practical proposals for real sites, addressing important contemporary issues of design, planning, and urbanism. Leading practitioners regularly participate in studio sessions, bringing their experience of cutting-edge practice to the core of design studio work.
How will I be assessed?
Non-studio modules provide the foundations for your understanding of urban design. These are assessed through:
- Essays
- Reports
- Skills portfolio
Studio modules work to integrate theory with practical design skills and problem-solving. These are assessed through:
- Design portfolios
- Reflective logs
- Presentations
Formative assessment elements include design reviews – usually 1 or 2 per design module.
Weekly tutorials provide an opportunity for formative assessments and feedback, helping you to understand your strengths and identify areas of development before summative assessments. Summative assessments are conducted at specific stages of the module.
How will I be supported?
You’ll be allocated a personal tutor for the duration of your degree and will also be supported by module leaders, the course director and the wider teaching team, who take a proactive approach to monitoring student progress.
You’ll have one-to-one weekly tutorials and guidance sessions with your allocated design tutor, and module leaders will provide advice throughout. Group and individual tutorials and seminars are also used extensively for the non-design modules.
For the dissertation module, you’ll be required to select a choice of research topic and/or a site for executing a design on. You’ll be supported throughout by the module leader and assigned a supervisor to help guide you and provide feedback throughout the dissertation.
What skills will I practise and develop?
Urban design and professional practice skills include:
- Analysing complex urban environments across multiple spatial scales, using established urban design concepts, frameworks, and tools.
- Translating urban theory, research, and policy into spatially grounded, context‑responsive design proposals.
- Developing and testing urban design ideas through iterative, studio‑based design practice and precedent analysis.
- Producing drawings, maps, diagrams, visualisations, portfolios, and design presentations.
- Applying principles of sustainable urban design and responding to real‑world development challenges and site contexts.
- Using industry‑standard digital tools to support urban analysis, design development, and communication.
Generic and transferable skills include:
- Critical thinking and problem‑solving, evaluating competing ideas, evidence, and design approaches.
- Research skills, including formulating research questions, selecting appropriate methods, and producing ethical, methodologically sound outputs.
- Effective communication of complex ideas through written, verbal, and visual media to diverse audiences.
- Collaborative and independent working, managing time, resources, and workflows in studio and project‑based settings.
- Reflective practice and self‑development, supporting ongoing professional growth in urban design and related built‑environment fields.
You’ll also acquire a wide range of both specialist and transferable skills, described in each of the module descriptors.
Tuition fees for 2026 entry
Your tuition fees and how you pay them will depend on your fee status. Your fee status could be home, island or overseas.
Learn how we decide your fee status
Fees for home status
| Year | Tuition fee | Deposit |
|---|---|---|
| Year one | £12,950 | None |
Fees for overseas status
| Year | Tuition fee | Deposit |
|---|---|---|
| Year one | £29,950 | £2,500 |
More information about tuition fees and deposits, including for part-time and continuing students.
Financial support
Financial support may be available to individuals who meet certain criteria. For more information visit our funding section. Please note that these sources of financial support are limited and therefore not everyone who meets the criteria are guaranteed to receive the support.
Additional costs
We cover the cost of everything that is an essential part of the programme.
We recommend that you have access to a laptop computer with appropriate software (e.g. word processing) and general stationery.
The course includes an international field study visit. The costs of travel and accommodation for this are covered by your fees however you should allow for subsistence expenses. A number of local site visits may also be arranged during the course. We partly subsidise these trips, but you should allow for local travelling, such as public transport costs, and subsistence expenses.
Will I need any specific equipment to study this course/programme?
We provide student licenses for all of the specialist design software you are required to use on the course. While the software is available on both Windows and Mac operating systems, we use the former in our labs and computer lab workbooks. As such, we can currently only guarantee that teaching and support will take place using Windows operating system versions of software.
During the course, you’ll have access to the specialist geography, planning, urban design, and architecture library, as well as other University libraries, and study spaces across campus. Within the School, you may use our computing suites and other facilities which include large-format plotters, 3D printer, and workspaces.
Living costs
We’re based in one of the UK’s most affordable cities. Find out more about living costs in Cardiff.
Funding
Career prospects
Our alumni have enjoyed successful careers in urban design, master-planning, local government planning and design departments, design and interdisciplinary consultancies, public-realm design, community-focused development and regeneration, and related built environment professions, or to pursue further academic study. Most of these careers are to be found within the wider areas of architecture, urban planning, property or public policy within the public, private or voluntary sectors. Some of our graduates have continued their academic studies by undertaking a PhD.
"Studying Urban Design (MA) has been an interesting and enriching experience, which has enabled me to develop my design skills and knowledge of urban design debates and processes. The studio project was particularly interesting: analysing a site in Cardiff and proposing design interventions. The high level of contact hours with tutors and other students meant that we had lots of opportunity for discussion and idea sharing, which helped me to develop my reasoning and improve my final design. Overall, it has been a very positive experience!"
Next steps
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HESA Data: Copyright Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited 2021. The Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited cannot accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived by third parties from its data. Data is from the latest Graduate Outcomes Survey 2019/20, published by HESA in June 2022.
