Master in Architecture, Design and Sustainable Construction
Valle de Bravo, Mexico
DURATION
4 Semesters
LANGUAGES
Spanish
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
30 Nov 2023
EARLIEST START DATE
01 Oct 2023
TUITION FEES
MXN 309,600 *
STUDY FORMAT
Blended
* not including graduation fees
Introduction
Architecture that seeks the well-being of people and the planet
Explore the design and development of habitable spaces that promote the well-being of people and the environment, under participatory processes that enrich the social fabric.
The Master's Degree in Architecture, Design and Sustainable Construction addresses place-based design as a premise to achieve an Architecture appropriate to the context and appropriated by its inhabitants. This is complemented by a diverse range of tools and technologies applicable to construction, which favor the rational use of resources and the minimization of construction impacts, both in urban and rural areas.
Purpose
Develop a broad perspective on architectural practice, to integrate multidisciplinary teams in the co-design of projects and regenerative processes, aimed at transforming the living space by ethically taking advantage of the resources and potential of the place.
From the UMA we help you find accommodation in Valle de Bravo during face-to-face workshops
One of the biggest attractions that our students find when coming to UMA is getting to know Valle de Bravo; a place that allows you to connect with nature and with a vibrant community in socio-environmental matters.
The day to day in Valle de Bravo offers peace and tranquility, as well as a rich social offer, public events, and the practice of sports such as paragliding, sailing, skiing, mountain biking or climbing.
Being a tourist place, Valle de Bravo has a wide variety of accommodation for different tastes and budgets.
Ideal Students
Who is our Master's degree aimed at?
We look for interdisciplinary groups, so the Master's Degree is aimed at professionals with different profiles and work areas, for example:
- Project integration: Develop a panoramic vision of the aspects that affect the sustainability of an architectural project to integrate them into your projects and make strategic decisions.
- Architectural design: Acquire a conceptual and practical framework that allows you to offer your clients comprehensive designs, from a vision of sustainability and regeneration.
- Consulting: Acquire knowledge and tools to provide your clients with solutions that increase the sustainability of their projects.
- Teaching: Consolidate your disciplinary knowledge and learn new techniques to facilitate significant learning experiences in the field of Architecture and Construction.
- Process facilitation: Learn techniques to facilitate collaborative processes in your work teams or in community contexts.
- Construction: Learn about construction systems with earth and other local materials to incorporate them into your designs.
Admissions
Scholarships and Funding
At UMA we offer two types of scholarships:
We seek to support people with high potential for change agency who are interested in studying the Master's degree, but who are in an economic situation that does not allow them to pay the full tuition fee. We have a limited number of scholarships and these are distributed to those who need it most and best meet the criteria specified below.
Within our admission application you will find a section where you can apply for the scholarship you need (see Admission Process tab), you must indicate the type and percentage of scholarship you are looking for. If you are interested in a scholarship, keep in mind that you can get a higher percentage if you submit your application in the first round of registration.
a) Partial scholarships: Scholarships of 10% to 20% of the cost of the Master's Degree, not including degree costs.
b) Exchange scholarships: Scholarships from 25% to 40% of the cost of the Master's degree, not including degree costs. These scholarships are given in exchange of time to support activities of the Master's coordination or the UMA community. You can choose between different support activities, and they can be done from anywhere and at flexible hours.
Discount for full Master's payment: 15%.
Applies if you pay for the entire master's degree in advance.
Discount for advance payment of one year: 10%.
Applies if you pay a full year in advance.
Discount for early payment of a semester: 5%.
Applies if you pay for a full semester in advance.
If you receive a scholarship, any of these discounts are applied to the amount payable after taking into account the percentage of scholarship awarded.
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
Upon finishing the Master's degree you will be able to:
- Analyze the project site with a systemic vision, assessing its elements and potential to improve the living space.
- Apply diagnostic and participatory architectural design methodologies.
- Have sustainable construction techniques, creating comprehensive, efficient and appropriate solutions to the particular conditions of the place.
- Conceptualize a project based on the principles of regenerative design.
- Be an integrative leader of living space transformation projects and collaborative and interdisciplinary design processes.
Rankings
The awards received recognize us as one of the best educational innovations in Latin America
Facilities
Curriculum
The Curriculum of the Master's Degree in Sustainable Architecture, Design and Construction was co-designed by an interdisciplinary group of specialists and change agents with extensive experience and vision, resulting in an integrated curricular design that evolves each semester according to the experience.
The Study Plan is made up of four semesters, taking place in two years in blended mode. The program consists of 76 credits that are taken in 402 face-to-face hours with a teacher and 814 non-face-to-face or independent hours, to complete a total of 1,216 hours.
The Master's degree is focused on a process of semester projects, through which the knowledge and tools acquired in the seminars are applied, professional development is explored, and vocation is investigated. Each student develops their own process according to their possibilities, questions and context. In the last year of the Master's degree, a final project is designed and implemented, which constitutes the degree work.
A) Axes and Curriculum Lines
The Curriculum is organized into three curricular axes: the specialized content axis, the change agency axis and the projects axis. These three axes reflect the UMA's educational proposal for the development of professionals (specialized axis), in order to participate in the transformation towards sustainability (change agency axis), through learning by doing (project axis).
Specialized axis This axis is disciplinary, so it is carried out only by students of the Master's Degree in Architecture, Design and Sustainable Construction. Its purpose is to acquire the tools and capabilities necessary to successfully develop sustainable or regenerative architecture projects.
Curricular lines:
• Place-based architectural design: Offers methodologies to conceptualize and develop proposals for sustainable and regenerative transformation of living space, based on the understanding of the place with an integrative vision and of architecture as a sociocultural process managed and produced in a participatory and collective way.
• Technical aspects of sustainable architecture: Provides the technical bases to create architectural and construction solutions that ensure efficient use of resources: water, energy and materials.
Complementary tools workshop: Complements the previous lines with “learning by doing” experiences to become familiar with construction methodologies and materials with low environmental impact and that underpin the design of economically viable projects. These practical workshops take an additional day in the face-to-face meetings each semester, so unlike other master's degrees, the meetings last 5 days instead of 4 (Friday to Tuesday).
Change agency axis This axis is interdisciplinary, so it is shared by the different master's degrees at the UMA. Its purpose is to provide essential tools and concepts for the agent of socio-environmental change, regardless of their specialty.
Curricular lines:
• Thinking frameworks: Develops systemic, critical, evolutionary and ethical thinking frameworks for socio-environmental action.
• Socio-environmental frameworks: Develop the bases to conceptualize
sustainability and socio-environmental problems, promoting a
regenerative vision and emphasizing the importance of considering the human and ecological aspects as a single system
Project axis In this axis, practices and projects are developed that apply and interconnect the contents addressed in the other two axes, according to the possibilities and context of each student. It constitutes a space for experimentation and reflection, both individual and collective. It uses active research as a methodology, which develops the ability to formally investigate our actions, in a cyclical process that allows increasingly more complex actions informed by experience.
Curricular lines:
• Professional active research : In disciplinary groups for master's degrees, each student designs and implements professional experiments and projects that allow applying new knowledge and tools and investigating the socio-environmental vocation; reflecting on the experience collectively.
• Personal active research : In interdisciplinary groups between master's degrees, each student designs and implements capacity-building processes for personal development, self-directed learning and leadership; reflecting on the experience collectively. The groups are integrated each semester in a community of practice format, each with approximately 9 students, and are coordinated by Facilitators experienced in supporting group and individual processes.