The MSc BUDD explores how to design holistic strategic responses to conflicting urban setting – inclusive, secure, adaptive and sustainable - specifically but not only in geographies of the global south. It combines cultural, social, economic, political and spatial analysis to recalibrate the perspective on urban design practice in order to develop design strategies based on critical engagement wi
th contemporary urban issues. Principles such as affordability, acceptability, sustainability, participation and responsiveness to the local context are considered central in this process of designing for and in informal and contested urban space. The BUDD course is concerned with a reorientation of the relation of politics and aesthetics and therefore engages directly with transformative and critical urban design practices (architectural and urban) that contribute to changing the paradigm of working with communities, the urban poor and the city towards a shared production of space and knowledge. The MSc BUDD directly challenges the paradigms of participation, the agency of design and the political potential of architecture. Community based collective practices are developed in action-research initiatives, research projects and in learning exchanges. Here, design, strategies and building processes become means to address social and political issues, to build lasting social and political processes of building and designing spaces and to empower community and citizens through strategies and practices that help enact equality.
