Master in Design for Resilience

The capacity of the human being to survive and thrive in all hardships is called resilience. Its psychological and practical applications traverse all disciplines, including design. Knowledge about its ethical and political implications (environmental, socio-cultural and economic) —in addition to the analysis of the international scene, with its different agendas, and of the fundamental needs that the world currently experiences and that affect the designer work— is necessary.

Taking all of this into account, the Master in Design for Resilience helps you to realise design has the power of transforming our environment for the better, contributing to a fairer and more ethical society thanks to design for resilience.

Study a design Master in Barcelona

There are many places to study a master’s degree in design, masters in resilience or design masters in general, but no scenario can offer the facilities and experiences of a cosmopolitan city, open and adapted to change as Barcelona. If you want to study design through a Master in Design for Resilience in Barcelona, Elisava is the perfect option for you.

Resilience in design means a positive change, our ability to be happy or prosperous after something difficult or bad has happened. We have the power of transforming our environment for the better, contributing to a fairer and more ethical society through designing for resilience.

For all these reasons, studying a design master, more specifically a Master in Design for Resilience, in Barcelona is a clear choice. Our city is today an important center of cultural activity, in which the sector is experiencing one of its best moments in relation with design for resilience.

The Master in Design for Resilience is aimed at people with a proactive attitude, open to the world and its transformation, committed to the environment, regenerating urban landscapes and willing to dare to create sustainable, socially fair and economically viable transformative projects. We're looking for agents of change, willing to work for transformation and design for resilience, such as:

• Entrepreneurs creating their own start-up or company.
• Designers and consultants specialized in aspects related to innovation and resilience in its climatic and social spheres, accompanying diverse organizations such as public administrations, large corporations, associations, non-profit entities, and SMEs.
• Reviewers and managers of practices and proposals for resilience in City Councils, municipalities or companies, as head of programmes and projects, including those related to corporate social responsibility.

• Identify and understand the main concepts informing resilience to develop designs with maximum impact on the matter.
• Recognise the primary contexts and approaches in which resilience flourishes.
• Develop specific capacities for a resilient design, which allows relevant and high-impact solutions for positive transformation.
• Develop specific adaptive and agile management skills, including collaborative and empathic leadership techniques.
• Incorporate what we learn into real situations on various scales.
• Implement new initiatives that solve relevant problems and needs from a resilience focus.

In a process specifically created to allow us to:

• Understand the transformative capacity of design, incorporating uncertainty and risk in the analysis. Create resilient design and resilient designers.
• Acquire knowledge of the contexts (geographical, spatial, functional, organisational and/or governance) in which a project is developed.
• Apply critical thinking to imagine a better world thanks to the work of the designer community.
• Formulate designs for resilience, turning problems into opportunities.
• Be familiar with different adaptive and agile design management methods, techniques, and tools.
• Working in a team, understanding motivations and roles, and developing innovative initiatives in uncertain environments.
• Manage and lead multidisciplinary work teams based on the principles of empathy and collaboration.
• Develop skills for autonomy and entrepreneurship, applied towards transformative actions.

This is how it will be deployed:

Foundations, Approach and Scales of Resilience

This block offers content on the fundamentals of the resilience in design, its principles, dimensions and characteristics, fostering a debate on the idea itself, its origin and development through different disciplines in recent years.

Design from a Strategy for Resilience

This module focuses on issues related to eco-design, from a focus on rights for people in vulnerable situations, with adaptive and mitigating strategies, and with climate action. We will study the potential of remediation and eco-systemic recovery strategies through design for resilience.

Tools, methodologies and processes

This part is about learning dynamics that explore adaptive and flexible management and implementation concepts, seeking maximum practicality without giving up the project’s key objectives. We will also work on contemporary and disruptive approaches and empathy methodologies.

Collaborative workshops

This module will encourage students to participate in a micro-design workshop to learn how to make an impact with the minimum possible resources and in another workshop around the intermediate scale of the domestic and living, from the understanding of our day-to-day dynamics. Finally, we will learn innovative solutions on an urban and/or territorial level, focusing on international cooperation and innovation.