The Charlotte metropolitan region provides an excellent urban laboratory for the Master of Urban Design program. The program is focused upon practice and research into the various types of urbanism that now face our communities. Our goal is to identify and provide sustainable urban alternatives within the context of a fast-transforming region that is moving from a predominantly rural economy and society to one that now interfaces with culture and capitalism on a global scale.
These transformations, together with the opportunities and problems that accrue in their wake, directly influence the pedagogy of the program, which bridges both theoretical and applied realms of urban design. They form the backdrop against which faculty-directed research and practice can advance the state of the art while providing up-to-the-minute teaching and learning opportunities for faculty and students alike. As an appropriate setting for these studies, the program is located the School of Architecture’s urban design satellite studio in Charlotte’s historic SouthEnd, adjacent to the city’s light rail line.
Charlotte’s emergence as a major banking center has ushered in a new internationalized era of population growth. Immigration to both the city and the region now challenge the traditional southern cultural dynamics. Tourism now lures visitors to the city’s regional cultural resources in record numbers. Each of these forces, to name only a few, combine to place Charlotte in the forefront of a transnational urban era in which the region’s future lies in its continued urbanization.
The M.U.D program serves as a regional “think tank” aimed at examining the territory between urban design and cultural and environmental sustainability, economic development, architecture and landscape design. Overall, the M.U.D program at UNC Charlotte offers students relevant design skills with which to influence urban life within the context of globalization, environmental change, and cultural diversification.
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