The Territorial Project for Social and Ecological Change

Urban and territorial design lies at the core of complex spatial questions and increasing urgencies which now extend beyond-the-city and beyond-the-human. The MAS programme embraces such a transition as a field of critical and imaginative investigation based on the principles of social and environmental equity and justice. Engaging with notions of transformation, reuse, circularity, regeneration, reparation and transition of habitats and ecologies, the MAS deploys the urban and territorial project as a means to explore common epistemic horizons and new biopolitical paradigms, and as a crucial field of knowledge production across scales. 

Design and research studios form the core of the programme, seen as a tool for synthesis within inter- and transdisciplinary exchange involving science, practice and governance. Research on planetary urbanisation, postcolonial thought, political economy and post-extraction is engaged in relation to urban design, landscape architecture, urban and agricultural ecology, systems thinking, sustainable construction, renewable energy and low-carbon mobility. 

Further details and contact information: www.mas-utd.arch.ethz.ch

Applications close March 31, 2026