Interdisciplinary Project in MSc RE&IS
The integrated project is the capstone of the MSc Spatial Development and Infrastructure Systems. It asks groups of 4-5 students to bring together their knowledge, skills and innovation to address an area and its problems. They have to address all of the aspects covered in the study program: planning processes, infrastructure management, landscape and spatial planning, urban and landscape design, transportation engineering (transport planning, public transport design and operations, road design & traffic operations) to develop, design and stage a solution for the area.
Keywords
Course description
Project description
The integrated project challenges the students to work together on this substantial task (12 credit points) in the 14 weeks of the fall semester. They have to organize themselves under the supervision of the chair in charge, while working and interacting with all the six chairs involved in the master and in the integrated project. This simulates the real life planning situation, in which a team has multiple stakeholders to consider, while advancing the identified solution.
The semester is structured by scheduled interim reporting requirements. Phase 1 ends with the identification of areas for further works after a comprehensive analysis of the area and its potentials and problems. Further meetings with the teaching assistants and professors follow four weeks later. Phase 3 ends with the final report and presentation in the last week of term. The page limit of the final report enforces succinct writing which needs to be supported by images, graphs and tables for the 6 topic areas.
The regular change of area allows the lead chair to shift emphasis in the project from year to year. It allows the course to bring in local authorities, which support the students by presentation, excursions, data and previous reports.
This close interaction is also a challenge, as the students have to distance themselves from previous work and standard approaches to identify the subareas/issues, but challenges their innovative thinking.
The 12 credit point course is obligatory for all third term students of the MSc course. The organization of the project rotates among the six groups involved, but all six groups are intimately involved through interactions and support of the groups, say with software and tutorials.
The format of the project has not been changed substantially over the years. The timetable of the interim presentations has been adjusted to force an earlier commitment of the groups to their topic of concentration. This change has been welcomed by the students.
The objectives of providing the students with a chance of practicing their teamwork and project management skills has been achieved, equally the objective of making them live through an “interdisciplinary” project and to experience the trade-offs required in a planning process between themselves, with the stakeholders, and with the timeline.
Contact information
Other involved:
Prof. Kaufmann,
Dr. M. Nollert, IRL
Dr. van Wezemael,
Prof. F. Corman, IVT
Dr. A. Kouvelas IVT