Doctor of Design | SAPL - University of Calgary

This page connects the network of students, alumni, practice mentors, and faculty involved in the University of Calgary’s Doctor of Design (DDes) degree. The DDes is Canada's first online, design-based doctoral program for mid-career architects, planners, landscape architects and designers looking to elevate their careers by leveraging their expertise into practice-based innovations with real-world impact. The DDes enables design professionals to rethink the status quo ways that buildings, communities and landscapes are designed, built and operated. The degree is practice-focused and design-based, with candidates developing a research program centered around an enquiry emerging from their experience and insights in practice. Over the three-year degree, students remain fully engaged in their working life while pursuing a research program in an intense and rigorous format that’s distinct from, but parallel to, their professional work. Students formulate a design-based challenge from their existing practice-based knowledge and experience. They develop a response to this challenge through a studio-based pedagogy with a cohort of fellow students, working closely with assigned supervisors and participating in semi-annual design research symposia to test their work with recognized external experts and thought leaders. Through this framework, students identify and develop innovations that make ideas 'project-ready' for integration into practice.