SOS Master’s Program in Sustainable Architecture and Design

About the Program

The SOS Level I Master’s Program in Sustainable Architecture and Design promotes a holistic comprehension of sustainability practices within the architecture and building sector, training students to tackle the environmental challanges that are emerging globally, integrating education, research, and practice and combining the study of sustainable theory with a real project work experience.

The SOS Level I Master’s Degree in Sustainable Architecture and Design:

• explores the application of sustainable architecture, from urban to product scale, from developing to advanced communities
• offers new cognitive and technical tools that will allow students to design products, spaces, buildings, and systems capable of generating new forms of creative empathy
• provides hard skills through an innovative, visionary, human-centered and practice-based approach to tackling environmental issues
• helps to establish a strong professional network for accessing quality job opportunities
• caters to young working professionals through an innovative blended format, combining online activities with hands-on project work at the SOS campus in Milan

Program Structure

Following the Uninettuno e-learning model, the blended program’s structure combines online teaching (video lessons, sharing of didactic material, live virtual classrooms, tutorials, and discussion forums), with hands-on project work at the SOS campus in Milan (within the MCA Mario Cucinella Architects Firm). The Master’s Program gives our students the flexibility to manage the workload with the comfort of remote learning while still getting the crucial practical experience and opportunity to work directly with SOS faculty members and trusted institutional partners on large-scale and innovative student projects when on campus.

The program consists of two phases:

• Foundation Courses: held online on the Uninettuno e-learning platform and running from mid-September to mid-March (first Intake) or from January to July (second Intake), they feature: Foundations of Sustainability, Design for Circular Economy, Digital & Parametric Design, Environmental Design, Healthy Materials. Course content tackles the most effective and innovative sustainability practices within the building sector, with an open-minded, holistic, research-driven, human-centered approach. Each course spans a total of 24 hours, distributed between 3 hours of pre-recorded lectures and 21 hours conducted interactively through live sessions online on the Uninettuno e-learning platform. The foundation courses schedule includes approximately 4 hours of face-to-face lectures each week. In addition to these lectures, students are required to engage in group or individual project work, complete assignments, and tutorials, and undertake research for an in-depth study of the topics covered in class.
• Project Tracks: held on campus within the MCA Headquarters in Milan, running for four months, from mid-March to mid-July (first Intake) or from September to mid-December (second Intake). In this phase, SOS students, divided into groups, work on real and impactful projects in close collaboration with SOS Partner Companies and Institutions, experiencing the entire life cycle of a given project implementing the SOS approach.

SOS School of Sustainability

About Us

SOS School of Sustainability (SOS) is an academic program founded by Mario Cucinella in 2015 striving to bring together the know-how, experience, competencies and skills that MCA has acquired over more than twenty-five years of professional practice in the global context, with the expertise of the SOS team and MCA partners, to guarantee the best quality education on the application of sustainable architecture to its students.

SOS offers a Master’s Program in Sustainable Architecture and Design to nurture talented individuals who aspire to become sustainability experts to tackle the environmental issues of the future to deal with the complexities to come, laying the foundation for reinventing the next generation of architects and designers and serving as a bridge between the educational world and the labor market.

The Master’s Program in Sustainable Architecture and Design forges four main professional figures in great demand and highly competitive in the field of consultancy as well as in the corporations, institutions, and the third sector: Sustainability Advisor, Green Building Manager, Environmental Analyst, and Circular Economy Consultant.

Admission & Financing

At SOS School of Sustainability, we aim to nurture talented individuals who aspire to become sustainability experts to tackle the environmental issues of the future to deal with the complexities to come, laying the foundation for reinventing the next generation of architects and designers. We welcome applications from all over the world all year round. We seek recent graduates and emerging professionals with diverse backgrounds to form a multidisciplinary group, looking for an experience that integrates training, research, and professional practice in the field of sustainability and willing to learn within an international environment.

Admission Requirements

The program is accessible to recent graduates and young working professionals. In order to be admitted to the Master’s Program in Sustainable Architecture and Design candidates must have:

• completed a 3 or 4 year Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture, Engineering or Design*
• a minimum of a B2.1 Level in English
• a strong passion, motivation, commitment, and ambition to contribute to the spreading of the culture of sustainability

*SOS also conditionally accepts applications from students attending the last year of Bachelor, who must, however, graduated prior to official enrollment in the master’s program.

Application Process

Applications for 2024-25 academic year are open!

All SOS students are required to submit an application form with the following documents:

• Curriculum Vitae
• Design Portfolio
• Motivational Letter
• Bachelor’s Degree Diploma, Diploma Supplement, or formal letter of current studies with expected graduation date
• Offical transcript of exams

After having completed their application, qualified candidates will be contacted for an aptitude interview. The criteria for acceptance are academic/professional experience and motivation. As the SOS Master’s Program is fully English taught, students are required to have a minimum of a B2.1 Level. Students holding a valid English Language Certification can submit it during the application process, students without a valid certification need not worry! The aptitude interview with the SOS Admissions Staff can also serve as an evaluation of proficiency.

Program Fees

The total tuition fees for the 2024-2025 Academic Year Master’s Program is 14.000€.

The tuition fee must be paid in the following installments:

• 3.000€ – Registration fee – within two weeks of receiving the acceptance offer for the 2024/2025 Academic Year
• 6.000€ – First installment – September 30th, 2024 (first intake) | January 30th, 2025 (second intake)
• 5.000€ (or final amount due if awarded scholarship*) – Second installment – January 20th, 2025 (first intake) | May 20th, 2025 (second intake)

*Awarded scholarships will be applied as a tuition reduction on the payment of the second installment.

Scholarships

Thanks to the support of its partners, every academic year SOS makes available to qualified students merit-based scholarships to partially offset program tuition fees.

All candidates, upon submitting their application, are automatically considered for a scholarship based on their academic excellence, professional experience, and motivation.