The student body within the programme is comprised of approximately two-thirds local Danish/Nordic students who have graduated from the Academy's own bachelor programme; and approximately one-third international students.
The studio space of the programme is the core educational environment in which an intensive and playful culture of collective learning and experimentation is fostered. Students of the programme are expected to work consistently in the space, with regular structured studio teaching days, along with lecture/workshop/reading seminar inputs on specific days.
A characteristic of the programme is that each semester’s project work is framed less according to conventional scalar categories, and more based on thematic approaches to critical societal changes. The themes offer a range of entry points to design, architectural and spatial planning proposals that might range in scale from that of the building, to that of urban space or the territory. Past thematics have included: climate change focusing on spatial adaptation to predicted sea-level rise; the urban implications of population aging; disadvantaged housing areas and the associated challenges of socio-spatial segregation; etc.
The structure of the two-year, four-semester programme can be unfolded as follows:
Semester one is focused on developing broad knowledge and competencies in the methods and approaches that the programme employs. Project work is typically based in a Copenhagen context, exploiting local knowledge and local networks of collaborators including academics, practitioners, and the Municipality of Copenhagen. Students in the first and second year of the programme work together in this semester, typically working in groups of two or three students.
The second semester typically focuses on addressing a foreign context undergoing dynamic transformation, to which the studio conducts an in-depth study tour. These settings are intended both as unknown environments to challenge the students, and to allow them to reflect on conditions in their own ‘home’ contexts. Previous second semester sites have included Riga, Helsinki and Beijing – and have involved exchanges and on-site exhibitions. In this semester, students in the first year of the programme work separately from second year students. (It is also possible for students to do a study exchange abroad during this semester.)
The focus of semester three returns to the local Copenhagen context with the studio mixed between students in the first and second year of the programme. Third semester students are also able to work on projects individually. In the third semester, students split their time between the (20 ECTS) studio project set in the Copenhagen context, and a (10 ECTS) independent research project. The research project addresses the spatial implications of societal changes in a specific context of the student’s choice and is intended to form the basis of the student’s diploma thesis programme.
After the first three semesters of the programme, students will have had experience working across scales and modes of production: from architectural design interventions, to urban design or neighbourhood designs, to local planning and spatial strategic planning.
The fourth and final semester is dedicated to developing the diploma thesis project on a societal change, context and programme of the student’s selection. Students are expected to deliver a mature, thoroughly iterated and provocative research, programme and architectural or urban spatial proposition at the end of their studies.
'Urbanism & Societal Change' is an important part of the Institute of Architecture, Urbanism & Landscape. The programmes at the Institute typically share a geographical frame in the autumn-semester, and from time to time a common meta-theme throughout the study-year. Through this approach, students are able to exploit and investigate different sets of professional positions, methods and knowledge-bases at the Institute, and the types of problematics that they entail.
The programme and the institute aims at training graduates who can take on leadership in all of the complex processes of urban development. Therefore, there is a focus on developing knowledge of what this implies, both at the bachelor level and on the candidate programmes.