MA International Planning and Sustainable Development

Tony Lloyd-Jones (Course Leader), Krystallia Kamvasinou, Roudaina Al Khani, Lindsay Bremner, Robin Crompton, Bill Erickson, Ripin Kalra, David Mathewson, Michael Neuman, Johannes Novy, David Seex, Giulio Verdini, Johan Woltjer

Tony Lloyd-Jones is an architect, urban designer and planner involved in international development research and practice. He is a Reader in International Planning and Sustainable Development and Director of Research and Consultancy at the Max Lock Centre.

Krystallia Kamvasinou is a Senior Lecturer and an architect and landscape architect who has published widely and recently completed a Leverhulme Fellowship on ‘Interim Spaces and Creative Use’.

This course explores contemporary theories, policy and practice in planning and urban design for sustainable, inclusive and resilient development in cities, regions and communities in a rapidly urbanising world. It spans both developed and developing world contexts, in locations facing a wide range of growing climate change and other environmental, economic and social pressures and risks, reflected in the student project work noted here.

There are two pathways through the course. The Spatial Planning Pathway has a strong urban design component and an emphasis on development planning. The Urban Resilience Pathway provides a sustainable development- focused route with a core emphasis on climate change risks, adaptation planning and natural hazard risk management. Both pathways are grounded in three core modules: Planning in a Globalising World; International Spatial Planning Practice; and Sustainable Neighbourhood Development.

The MAIPSD is aimed at those with a relevant background who wish to gain an in-depth understanding of planning and sustainable development, whether to improve career prospects in their country or enter UK or international practice. It is aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and New Urban Agenda and we are a Habitat Partner University, with several students who have worked as interns with UN-HABITAT. The curriculum draws on the hands-on experience of the Max Lock Centre, an international development unit that has been actively involved in action- and policy-focused research across the developing world since 1995.

The MAIPSD is aimed at full-time international, UK and EU students, but it is also open to part-time UK-based students who want to explore an international development planning career pathway. The MA course (both pathways) is fully accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) as a ‘combined planning programme’. Graduates from this course find employment as planners and urban designers, urban regeneration or environmental management specialists in private consultancy, local and national government, and non-governmental sectors in their own country or internationally, including international development agencies.

The course is structured around written assignments and studio-based projects undertaken in group workshops and supported by seminars, tutorials and site visits and a range of lectures delivered by the teaching staff and visiting speaker from the industry. Recent international eld trips included visits to Brazil, Indonesia and Istanbul, Turkey.

Guest Critics:

Darshana Chauhan (CoPlug), Martyn Clark (Tripleline), Prof. Ian Davis, Tim Edmundson, Sebastian Loew (Urban Design Journal), Prof. Peter Newman, Geoff Payne (Geoffrey Payne Associates), Federico Redin, Robert Sadlier

Special Thanks:

Judith Allen, Camillo Boano (DPU/UCL), Angelique Chettiparamb, Malcolm Moor, Michael Mutter Prof. Marion Roberts, Prof. Pat Wakely (DPU Associates), Prof.Ya Ping Wang (University of Glasgow)

Alejandro Henao Mejia:
*The influence of regulatory spatial planning systems in the informal urban growing – Case study Medellin, Colombia*

Students: