IAAC’s Master in City & Technology (1 or 2-year program) is a unique program oriented towards redefining the analysis, planning, and design of twenty-first-century cities and beyond. The program offers expertise in the design of digitally enhanced, ecological and human-centered urban environments by intersecting the disciplines of urbanism and data science. Taking place in Barcelona, the capital of urbanism, the Master in City & Technology is training the professionals that city administrations, governments, industries, and communities need, to transform the urban environment in the era of big data.
How Cities Move: The Interplay of Technology, User Behavior, and Planning
Innovative Urban Futures examines how movement shapes cities by exploring the relationship between transport systems, user behavior, and emerging technologies. The seminar distinguishes between transport as infrastructure-driven systems and mobility as a human-centered framework shaped by social, cultural, and economic factors. Through theoretical discussions and applied analysis, students investigate how data-driven tools and digital technologies influence urban planning, while also enabling new forms of citizen participation and feedback. A central component of the course is a collaborative project focused on private car dependency, where students develop strategies informed by travel behavior, land use, and evolving mobility technologies. By bridging analysis and design, the seminar fosters innovative and context-sensitive approaches to creating more sustainable, efficient, and equitable urban mobility systems. view Syllabus & Faculty
Barcelona is a city that faces many physical limitations to it’s expansion as a metropolis-the mountains contain development within them and the sea borders its other side. For the past 15 years, it has been struggling with an immense wave of tourism that has displaced locals from affordable housing in popular areas and historic neighborhoods … Read more
How does a world-class shopping destination integrate into one of Europe’s densest urban grids without destroying it? This project interrogates Barcelona’s proposed destination mall near La Sagrada Família — originally conceived at 150,000m² with 6,000 car parking spaces — and redefines it as a 100,000m² precinct with radically reduced vehicle dependency. Through a three-pillar spatial … Read more
Re-envisioning Container City One of Barcelona’s most strategically located waterfront areas, the container port south of Montjuïc, remains largely disconnected from the inner city. As the city explores the possibility of relocating portions of its container operations in this speculative project and transforming this industrial landscape into a mixed-use district, mobility becomes a more pertinent … Read more
