Minor in Urban Design
Open to all WashU students, the 15-unit Minor in Urban Design provides a platform for students to explore issues related to the urban condition that is unfolding in the twenty-first century. Within this framework, students explore urbanization processes in the context of design applications and tools, critical urban issues, and the application of urban history and theory to real-world scenarios.
Critical themes and topics within the discipline of urbanization today include:
- Aging infrastructure networks
- Pressures on access to education
- Overextended health care systems
- The loss of other public investments
- False securities in the housing market
- Spatial exclusion based on class, race, and gender
- The dispossession of local inhabitants from common resources, or food supply interruptions
- The vulnerability and degradation of the environment
- Wasteful forms of consumerism for the sake of capital accumulation
Coursework
Students take 3 units of Design Methods, 3 units of Foundations, 3 units of Advanced Coursework (choosing from the courses Metropolitan Urbanism, Metropolitan Development, and Metropolitan Sustainability), and 6 units of urban design electives.