MISMEC

Master's degree in Sustainable Intervention in the Built Environment. MISMeC

Sustainability is the most transformative social demand we must respond to and the city is the key place to address it. It is an essential node of social metabolism – that is, the relation between our society and the environment – and now is the time to transform it. Intervening the city, the built environment, is both a vital need and an opportunity. A need to achieve the energy and environmental commitments that have been defined in the European framework – and are also being defined in the global framework – which urge us to be significantly more efficient in the use of resources and in waste management. An opportunity to rethink our cities and enhance their integration with the territory attending the demands that sustainability imposes.

The master's degree will train and reorient professionals – through intervention projects in the urban space, buildings, and infrastructures – to improve the sustainability of social metabolism, reducing the use of resources and the generation of waste, and increasing the productive capacity of the territory. In short, a process that pursues a more responsible urban model based on the transformation of the existing city, both at an architectural and urban scales.

To this end, the master’s degree offers an integral and transversal approach that exceed the mere resolution of technical issues. It can be regarded as part of a learning process to address the city from the logic of reuse of its buildings and spaces, from the revitalization of its fabrics and from the social impact.

Consequently, MISMeC sets out professional training objectives in the field of the future development of architecture, along with the initial tutoring of researchers to develop doctoral theses aimed at meeting the operational needs in this field. The experience in the professional training of the UPC and the literature and projects of the research groups in which master’s faculties are involved endorse this double objective.

MISMeC is organized in four thematic modules. Two in the fall semester, as a set of regular subjects, and two in the spring semester, involving a studio and a final master's thesis.

Module 1. Urban Metabolic Flows

A metabolic vision of the city. Characterization of the flows involved in urban metabolism and the relationship between urban evolution and the evolution of such flows. Reading this evolution in the past and the future in specific cases.

This module is structured in three subjects that address, on the one hand, the determinant flows of urban metabolism – more specifically, water and energy – and, on the other hand, their relationship with the city, allowing a global diagnosis of the built environment of industrial society, regarding each of the flows and in relation to sustainability.

Module 2. Scopes and Strategies for Action

Diagnosis and definition of interventions from three complementary viewpoints: the urban scale, the capacity for transformation of buildings and their potential for use.

Module 2 is also structured in three subjects that address the scales of action considered relevant for a sustainable assessment: urban regeneration, reuse of architectural and urban spaces and integrated rehabilitation of existing buildings. Each subject provides the resources and criteria to understand a sustainable intervention in its own field.

Module 3. Design Studio

Proposal and resolution of viable and sound projects for urban intervention in the built environment, with a view to improving its sustainability.

Student teams, organized by academic interests, develop an audit and diagnostic work aimed at defining an intervention strategy and the corresponding lines of action based on a real case, in collaboration with local administrations.

Module 4. Master's Thesis

Individual work based on analysis, studies or innovative solutions in projects of sustainable intervention on the built environment. Advanced approaches to issues relating to the needs and scope of these projects, with the possibility of leading the work towards an eventual doctoral thesis, if given the appropriate conditions.

 
Pre-enrolment dates

Registration for the academic year 2019-2020 is open until July 26 for candidates from the European Union. For the rest of the candidates, the deadline is June 28. At the time of definitive registration, September 2019, all documents issued in countries outside the European Union must be legalized through diplomatic channels or with the appropriate apostille. The Academic Committee meets monthly, starting in April, to evaluate all applications available to date.

Keywords: Sustainability, Social Metabolism, City, Building Sector, Urban Regeneration, Reuse, Rehabilitation, Built Environment Intervention.