EVENT - Masters in Tropical Urban Design (MTUD), UPM

In Malaysia there are two universities offering a Masters program in urban design but only MTUD at UPM received the endorsement and validation from Perekabandar through a collaboration where Perekabandar is involved in the teaching/crits and assessment of the program to ensure a high quality program for urban design is being offerred. Since Urban Design is not a profession hence not having a professional body to regulate the profession Perekabandar takes the responsibility to ensure the urban design program offered by the university is producing high quality urban design graduates that will become the feeder to the industry.

This is to ensure our mission of championing good urban design practice in the country is being supported by the universities through programs that are operating within the right eco system and having qualified and competent lecturers to give the skills of urban design to their graduates.
Since urban design is a field of expertise that bridges the gap between Architecture and Urban Planning, the program must be taught by two core lecturers ie those being formally trained in urban design as a taught course at Masters level and having a background in Architecture or Urban Planning as their basic degrees.

By having an additional PhD in Urban Design topics, the lecturers will have a complete urban design knowledge to impart to the students. If there is a lecturer with a Landscape Architecture background with a training in Urban Design then it is an added value to the program but not necessarily compulsory as compared to the other two. It is also important for the Masters in Urban Design program to be offerred by a faculty which has other Built Environment programs due to the interdisciplinary nature of the Urban Design program and the cross learning needed for those following the urban design program with the other built environment discipline students.

Perekabandar hopes that more professionals would acquire a formal training in urban design at post graduate level in Malaysia to fulfill the needs of the country that aspires to produce a high quality urban environment that is sustainable, liveable with a sense of place and identity.
Well done to UPM for being the first university that fulfills the requirements by Perekabandar through its Masters in Tropical Urban Design program that hopefully would contribute towards our nation building.