The world’s first Master in Business for Architecture and Design

IE School of Architecture and Design is the first higher education institution in the world to offer a Master in Business for Architecture and Design (MBArch). The program encompasses the experience accumulated through the school’s more than a decade of educational leadership at the intersection of design and management. The MBArch2020 starts this February, with students from 19 countries. The new master blends online sessions, face-to-face periods in Madrid and Amsterdam, as well as a professional post-graduation trip to London to meet with industry leaders.

One of the main objectives of the school is to educate architects and designers to acquire knowledge and understanding of other fields in order to be effective across industries. Facing complex global challenges, higher education needs to empower architects and designers to fulfill new and expanded roles. “Today, our impact as built environment professionals increasingly depends on leading through action, collaboration and multidisciplinarity,” explains Jerónimo van Schendel, Director of the new program.

Believing that professionals in the field can make a unique and substantial contribution to academia and together enhance and explore new roles related to the built environment, MBArch has established a design-entrepreneurship collaboration agreement with the renowned architecture firm UNStudio. This firm, led by Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, has created UNSense, an innovative start-up enterprise combining architecture and technology. Through this collaborative agreement, both parties will benefit in the areas of design entrepreneurship, teaching and research.

UNStudio and UNSense will actively participate in the development of IE’s Venture Discovery Workshops, along with teaching activities. The Venture Lab, a fundamental component of the program, is a real-world entrepreneurship exercise that allows students to develop a start-up business within the classroom and pitch this to business angels as they would in their professional lives.