Lifelong Learning Master's Degree in Design for Emergent Futures I

Presentation

The Master in Design for Emergent Futures (MDEF) is an immersive learning program that focuses on Barcelona city as an experimental playground, in which design can be used to understand, develop, test and speculate interventions that respond to the wicked problems of our time.
The Master is organized by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and Elisava Barcelona School of Design and Engineering, in collaboration with the Fab Academy. The practical content of the Master is developed by Fab Lab Barcelona, the research and innovation center at IAAC.
It is a multidisciplinary design course which focuses on turning ideas into actions to transform the state of society.
The master evolves the practice of design beyond objects, aesthetics, form-finding and pure speculation through an approach of ‘designing interventions’ and hands-on-learning. The approach enhances the technical capabilities of designers in digital fabrication, artificial intelligence, and synthetic biology in order for them to physically explore their ideas. On the other hand, the approach elevates the critical thinking of designers and provides them with communication tools and philosophical understanding to build new narratives about the possible futures that can be triggered in the urban context of today. It collects the solid design and academic knowledge of Elisava School of Design and Engineering, professional and research experience of Fab Lab Barcelona and the pioneering distributed education model for digital fabrication of the Fab Academy program.
MDEF invites students to unlearn first, and to embrace a process of continuous learning during the program, and after graduation. MDEF is about learning how to learn.
Candidates for this Master’s Degree are professionals coming from Industrial Design, Product Design, Urban Design, Communication, Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Computer Science, Engineering (Mechanical, Chemical, Product, Material), Sociology, UX/UI Design, Multimedia Design, Arts, Anthropology, Economics, and other related professions.

Coordinators and teaching staff