Postgraduate | basehabitat
Master of Advanced Studies – Architecture

The Postgraduate is aimed at professionals and graduates in architecture who wish to learn and enhance their skills and abilities by expanding their outreach to address social and environmental issues.

Zwei Frauen bauen eine Lehmwand

application

Application will open in January 2025

key facts

Period: March 2026 – Sept 2027
Duration: 3 terms / 90 ects
Language: English
Tuition Fee: to be announced
Degree: Master of Arts (CE) in sustainable architecture
Admission Requirements: Master's or bachelor's degree (180 ECTS) in architecture or a comparable branch
Participants: max.20

contact

basehabitat.postgrad@kunstuni-linz.at

archive editions 20 + 22

Read through the reports of 2020 and 2022

Summary Activities Postgrad 2022
Summary Activities Postgrad 2020

Aware of the global challenges we face, ranging from environmental destruction and dwindling resources to poverty and growing inequality, the need to prepare future architects and practitioners to address current issues in the field requires new methods and tools, including a repertoire of skills.

Responding to this urgent need, the Postgraduate basehabitat programme is aimed at professionals and graduate in architecture who are looking for an educational context in which to learn and enhance their skills and abilities by expanding their range of action to address social and environmental issues.

The programme, combining theoretical knowledge and practical experience, explores the practice of architecture in a different way, involving diverse actors within the design process, understanding the implications of design decisions by focusing on in-depth choices of materials and construction methods. It is taught by an international body of visiting renowned architects and scholars, as well as basehabitat's teaching staff. The approach focuses on hands-on experience, in a context of professionals from various disciplines and an international learning environment.

As today's construction activities are extremely resource intensive and harmful to the environment and our climate, special attention is given to natural building materials which have been the focus of basehabitat for the past 15 years.

The Postgraduate basehabitat is a full-time study program taught in English lasting one and a half years, divided into three terms (theory and design, hands-on experience and master thesis), at the end of which students receive a Master of Advanced Studies in Architecture – basehabitat (MAS) from the University of the Arts and Design Linz.

Photo: basehabitat

“I strongly believe architecture is a tool to improve lives. As architects we do have power to influence the society and to make a change. Rather than exploiting our planet’s precious resources, we can be sensitive and graft what we find locally.”

Anna Heringer

Objectives

  • Enhance the awareness of the global challenges we face in relation to the built environment, such as climate change and social inequality.
  • Develop and broaden the scope for architects and related professionals to develop alternative concepts and implement them.
  • Combine the efforts of different disciplines and include distinct cultural peculiarities without hierarchies.
  • Raise the level of professionalism in matters relating to the built environment.

Teaching Team

  • A team of outstanding and internationally renowned guest professors.
  • An experienced and skilled team at basehabitat
  • Guest lecturers from different disciplines

Curriculum structure

The program comprises 90ECTS, distributed among the three terms.

Teaching Principles

  • Practice the hands-on approach in a context of international participants.
  • Integrate different cultural peculiarities and facilitate mutual learning and lively exchange of ideas.
  • Focus on design processes accompanied by various seminars, conferences and workshops.
  • Design experience on-desk and on-site.
  • Work in groups and individually.
  • Sharpen your individual profile and develop your portfolio throughout the programme.

What do participants learn?

  • Experience the built environment in theory and practice from various perspectives by understanding different places and contexts and their dynamics.
  • Manage socially responsible planning and building processes. Work together in teams.
  • Integrate architectural quality into functional needs. Developing sustainable architectural solutions that also convince with their quality and aesthetics.
  • Design and build with sustainable building materials. Discover the wide range of possibilities that these materials offer for contemporary architecture.
  • Develop and broaden the scope for architects and related professionals to develop alternative concepts and implement them
  • Combine the efforts of different disciplines and include distinct cultural peculiarities without hierarchies.

Who should apply

The Postgraduate | basehabitat

  • is aimed at built environment professionals with dedication and commitment to social and sustainable architecture.
  • invites those interested to join forces with like-minded people and professionals to work on alternative approaches.
  • provides participants the opportunity to work on radically different approaches in offers participants the opportunity to work on radically different approaches to tackling global challenges.

“Resource scarcity, environmental pollution, climate change, and resulting mass migration and conflicts are current global challenges that are forcing us to radically rethink the way we live and work.”

Nina Pawlicki

Photo: Stefanie Hueber

Photo: basehabitat

Photo: Kurt Hoerbst

Postgraduate Highlights

 
title
time
Claystorming, Anna Heringer
a special design method
February 2020 + July 2022
Rammed Earth Project, Martin Rauch
Recreation space for the Haberkorn company
May 2022
Design Studio, Markus Dobmeier
Kyaninga Inclusive Model School, Uganda
May - September 2022
Social Entrepreneurship, Elisa Engel
Implementing sustainable architecture projects in an international context
April 2022
Material Science Earth, Gian Franco Noriega
Hands-on experience and theory
April 2020, Mai + July 2022
Eisch Pavilion, Jan Glasmeier
a building for a community garden
June - December 2020
Baan Doi Guest Houses, on-site experience
Entwerfen und Bauen in Thailand
August - December 2022
Excursion Wooden and Earthen Architecture, Vorarlberg, AT
inspiration by innovative buildings
May 2022
Hands-on Experience Earth
Plastering in Zöbing, AT
July 2022
Fundraising Module, Lucia Perianes
setting up a project
June - July 2020
Rammed Earth Workshop, Martin Rauch
visiting Lehm Ton Erde
August 2020
Participatory Design, Nina Pawlicki
new rooms for the NGO "Über den Tellerrand"
July - August 2020
Sebkha Sejoumi Masterplan, Helena Sandman
Sustainable urban development in Tunis, Tunisia
March - May 2020