Elective courses offered at the request of faculty or students to provide an opportunity for internships, fieldwork, or independent study. Prerequisite: Planning faculty approval of topic.

The course emulates the real estate development process in a specific geographic and socio-economic setting. In this studio, students will form small teams assigned to develop a project for a specific site. The students begin with site analysis, develop a proposed "product," conduct all the key financial analyses, and identify and develop the materials that would be necessary to move the project through public approval. Prerequisite: PLAN 5220

Topical Offerings in Planning

This course will help you identify global segregation trends in cities and the role of planning and designing interventions to reduce inequality and segregation towards disadvantaged socio-economic groups, racial minorities, people with physical and cognitive disabilities, children, older adults, refugees, gender minorities, etc. This course will build your confidence in your ability to design and plan participatory, inclusive, and innovative ways of re-thinking the city.

Students act as a consultant team to develop sustainable planning and design strategies for sites which rotate each year.

Plants lie at the intersection of climate change, food security, ecological risk, geopolitical conflict, and cultural self-determination. Yet, they remain largely overlooked and marginalized as a practical body of knowledge to the alarming ignorance of the botanical world. Through selected topics, this course will investigate the role and agency of plants in transforming the built environment, urbanization, and climate adaptation, among others.

Cities have altered natural drainage patterns, vegetation, local climate and habitats. Cities can use natural elements such as plants, trees and wetlands combined with engineered structures as "constructed green infrastructure" to redesign degraded urban sites. Students will utilize "green infrastructure" to create conceptual designs for sites to absorb stormwater, clean the air, or provide food and recreation.

This course serves as the fourth semester integrative class for the MUEP. Students work on a group project for a community client. Course entails understanding and drafting MOUs, creating concrete work plans, engaging with the public, gathering data and investigating strategies and alternatives. Final product should be a meaningful, implementable planning document for community use.