University of Calgary
AC-4: Graduate Program

The Faculty of Environmental Design offers the truly innovative thesis-based Master in Environmental Design (MEDes) degree program. Increasingly, natural, built and social environments are seen as intertwined, interdependent and indeterminate, creating challenging conditions which must be addressed to achieve a sustainable future. Meeting this challenge requires environmental designers with exceptional leadership and visionary skills, who are able to inform, design and manage interventions across the scales of human endeavour. Ecology refers to the relationships between organisms and environments, in the case of architecture this includes the many social, technical, political, spatial, and cultural factors that effect these relationships. By engaging contemporary problems through studio, technical, and theory courses, our students come to understand the implications of creating architecture and other environments in the 21st century. Typically it is at the interdisciplinary synthesis of disciplines that Environmental Design is informed as a field of study and critical practice, and is where the complex dynamics of environmental design problems exist and in which design interventions must be implemented.

The Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Natural Resources, Energy and Environmental Law is intended for lawyers who wish to supplement or update their knowledge in the areas of natural resources, energy and environmental law. The certificate is offered only to those with a law degree. Students may be admitted to this program in either September (Fall term) or January (Winter term). Students enrolled in the Post-baccalaureate certificate program must take four elective courses in the areas of natural resources, energy or environmental law, or a related area. Options include pollution control and waste management law, mining law, environmental impact assessment law, environmental law and ethics, water law, climate change law, and Aboriginal law. Lawyers leave the program with proof of their knowledge of key sustainability areas and the way the law works with them.