Master of Advanced Studies in Urban and Territorial Design
ETH Zürich D-ARCH LUS and EPFL ENAC HRC joint master programme
This one-year, full-time postgraduate programme is receiving it’s fifth cohort of participants in autumn 2025. It is taught in English and held at the two top Swiss schools, EPFL (Autumn) and ETH Zurich (Spring). The participants receive a 60 ECTS joint degree, the “MAS ETH EPFL UTD I.”
The Territorial Project for Social and Ecological Change
Urban and territorial design lies at the core of complex spatial questions and increasing urgencies. From drivers of progress to the source of planetary hazards, the impacts of cities and urbanisation processes are being recast in the public sphere. The critical examination of anthropocentric world views, the greening of politics and economies, growing social polarisation and uneven development, protest movements, and climate activism are reflected in urban and territorial space, highlighting power asymmetries and the urgent need for alternatives. The future of the urban engages social and environmental imaginaries, which now extend beyond-the-city and beyond-the-human. Rather than an object, we understand territory as a subject in dialogue with other subjects, and space as an agent of socioecological change. 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.
The joint Master of Advanced Studies at the ETH Zürich and EPFL builds an innovative urban and territorial design education addressing social and environmental challenges both within the city-territory and across wider landscapes. Design and research studios form the core of the programme, where design is explored as a tool for synthesis within inter- and transdisciplinary exchange involving science, practice and governance. The extended scope of urban design teaching includes both emerging developments in urban theory and a deeper understanding of the cultural and ecological dimensions of territories. Scientific research on planetary urbanisation, postcolonial thought, and the Anthropocene will be engaged in relation to urban design, landscape architecture, urban and agricultural ecology, systems thinking, sustainable construction, renewable energy, and low-carbon mobility. Public debates with innovative thinkers and practitioners are an integral part of the programme.
The MAS serves as a laboratory and a forum where we propose agendas, design strategies and governance models for concrete territories. Swiss and international case studies are investigated through intensive, ethnographic explorations and in situ workshops. The programme engages in dialogue with communities, local actors, NGOs and governance bodies.
Collaborating leads
ETH Zürich D-ARCH, Institute of Landscape and Urban Studies (LUS), & EPFL ENAC, Habitat Research Center (HRC), Assoc. Prof. Milica Topalović (co-director ETH Zürich) & Prof. Paola Viganò (co-director EPFL); Dr. Nancy Couling & Dr. Tommaso Pietropolli (programme co-ordinators).
Collaborating teams
(Autumn) Paola Viganò, Tommaso Pietropolli and Loan Laurent; Luca Pattaroni and Maxime Felder; Elena Cogato Lanza and Anna Pagani; Barbara Lambec; Beate Jessel, Yves Kazemi and Luca Rossi
(Spring) Milica Topalović, Nancy Couling, Karoline Kostka, Alice Clarke and Jan Westerheide; Christian Schmid and Nitin Bathla; Freek Persyn, Philippe Vandenbroeck and Seppe De Blust; Christoph Küffer
Timeline and eligibility
Autumn 2025 (September–January): EPFL ENAC, Laboratory of Urbanism (Lab-U), Studio Paola Viganò
Spring 2026 (February–June): ETH Zürich D-ARCH, Architecture of Territory, Studio Milica Topalović.
The programme is addressed to international graduates, young professionals, designers and researchers wishing to link research and design expertise to the extended urbanisation of territories. A previous bachelor and master degree are both required. The MAS UTD alumni is made up of forty-six graduates from 23 nationalities–visit their work and read their testimonials here.
How to apply
For information about the programme, tuition fees, and how to apply, please contact us here or at the ETH School of Continuing Education. Participants requiring a visa to Switzerland must complete the application procedure before February 28, 2025.
The programme is committed to cultivating a successful social environment in Switzerland and cannot be attended remotely. Support services are offered to assist in finding accommodation.
