Introduction

The Delft School of Design (DSD) is an internationally recognized advanced research institution in Architecture, Urbanism and Technology. The DSD Masters Thesis program is open to both Architecture & Urban degree track students; it runs under the Chairs of professors Arie Graafland and Winy Maas, of MVRDV architects. Graafland and Maas direct two distinct studio tracks – “Urban Asymmetries” and “The Why Factory” respectively. The DSD Masters Thesis theory curriculum – “Architecture Thinking” is directed by Deborah Hauptmann. Currently the DSD offers only a Masters Thesis year (MSc 3/4) program.

Overview

The DSD FUTURE CITIES Masters Program – regarding the requirements and ambitions of the Faculty of Architecture’s research portfolios; we have always agreed that design related research can both benefit from and contribute greatly to work being carried out in our Masters education programs. The DSD Master program is unique at the Faculty of Architecture in that it is the only such program that has been approved to offer either a Master degree in Architecture or a Master Degree in Urbanism. The  DSD Maters program will provide the basis for design research in two primary ways: radical experimentation and topic-centric investigations. Clearly, architecture – not what it is but how it acts – works  within open structures and systems. Through experimentation, we seek to discover how things work or function by disclosing an order of causes, the affective relations between the various parts of a complex assemblage. In other words, the decomposing of a composite in order not merely to record its elements, but to grasp its aspects. Such a position seeks to investigate structures, associations and connections, resulting in an understanding of tendencies over strictly traceable causalities. Of course, equally, design research here will be necessarily guided by topic based concerns, with the in-depth knowledge developed and exchanged by the DSD faculty, researchers and teachers.
The DSD FUTURE CITIES Masters Program is a content-driven design and research project with practical and theoretical scope. The program consists of a structured sequence of design studios,  theoretical seminars and lecture series which are intended to provide the students with a solid basis to sustain their design proposals and Thesis projects. As the title of this program suggests, the scope of the courses – both, theoretical and practical - is precisely to think, or rather to trans-think  the challenges that the practice of architecture, as well as our present urban environments will have to face in the near future. This implies that not only will architects and urbanist be confronted to questions of advanced technology, digitalization (of both, the image and information), the proliferation of ‘datascapes’ and simulations, scenarios, and virtual environments, but also to other problematic issues such as environmental, political, economic, cultural and social transformations within a rapidly changing urban world. The city, or rather the urban milieu, and the mutations it has manifested during the second half of the twentieth century and continuing into the 21st, will play a central role in this program. In the light of present-day urban realities and future challenges, no architectural or urban intervention will prove satisfactory in the long run if it lacks a social component in its core. Therefore, students enrolled in this program will be encouraged to propose and present design projects that critically address the social dimensions of these disciplines.

Students accepted to this program will be instructed by faculty members and guest teaching staff, as well as by selected international experts, guest lecturers and guest critics. A selection of outstanding graduation projects will be included in a thematic book edition with contributions from international experts and scholars in the field, published by 010 Publishers, Rotterdam, or by NAi Publishers, Rotterdam. This program will cross-connect with the DSD series of colloquiums, seminars and public presentations within the DSD PhD Platform  venue.

Program Structure

The current  DSD Future Cities Program is conceived not merely as a one-year project, but rather as a three-year program, starting in September 2008, and running until July 2011.

• The successful completion of this program results in the Master’s in Science graduate diploma in either Architecture or Urbanism.

The first semester (MSc3) consists of the following: one design studio (15 ects), one theory seminar (6 ects), one lecture series (3 ects ), the design thesis (6 ects).
The second semester (Msc4) consists of one design studio in which is incorporated a building technology requirement (30 ects). 

• Depending on the studio a student joins as well as the degree track program they belong to (Architecture or Urbanism), the required Architecture Thinking (theory) curriculum courses vary. We advise TU Delft students to review the official documents for the DSD courses as made available in the ‘course browser’ .