Building the city mobilizes architects, geographers, lawyers, and recent graduates in town planning, a large population of freelance professionals and employees between the public and private sectors, who share the planning, programming, and design work.
The urban designer is a town planner. He is, above all, a conductor. Indeed, suppose in an urban planning project, different specialists are involved. In that case, he is the one who has acquired a specific skill allowing him to connect the stakeholders in addition to his initial training (architecture, geography).
He coordinates, synthesizes the skills of each other. His work requires a global vision: he must think of everything and keep in mind that the city is a dynamic where the elements interact with each other.
If in this profession, as in architecture, drawing constitutes the work’s basis, the resemblance ends there. The town planner acts before the architect or the engineer, whether it is to rehabilitate, develop, or protect a place or space. He programs and prepares while the architect builds.
The city and urban planner can intervene both upstream and downstream of the project. He collects and interprets data (economic, demographic, land, sociological, physical, and spatial). He participates in the decision-making process and discussions on development policies.
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The city planner can work both in the private and public sectors (State civil service, territorial civil service).
In local communities, he advises, proposes, and organizes projects concerning the social environment. He assumes the role of mediator between decision-makers and user defense associations, the final decision being the responsibility of elected officials.
At the same time as this work, the town planner is carrying out research. He very often teaches at the university or in architecture schools.
The ministries of ecological transition, transport, or housing also employ town planners.
In the private sector, they practice in a liberal capacity, remunerated by fees. Some work as employees in design offices.
What are urban design jobs?
At the crossroads of many disciplines, the planning and urban design professions suffer from an identity blur due to the diversity of practices and training.
Scattered and multifaceted, the profession is poorly identified and little recognized in European countries, unlike the Anglo-Saxon countries and Northern Europe. Its anchoring is public as much as private. All the statutes meet according to the activity structures: civil servant, agent or contractor of the public sector, an employee of the private or liberal.
This image deficit has a corollary the underpayment of studies for private actors and the narrowness of careers for public officials.
To account for professional diversity, a repository of missions ranging from territorial planning to urban design and planning, as well as setting up operations to finish with the design, was recently drawn up.
There are other actors, instructors in the administration, surveyors in the field, at the risk of some confusion. Because none of these professions, including architecture, opens an automatic right on town planning defined as “the art of questioning and articulating themes on a given territory”.
The urban designers come from schools of architecture with a specialization in town planning, from university training at master’s or doctorate level, or engineering schools.
Here are some examples of the many jobs that are waiting for dynamic professional urban planners:
- professional license for land use planning and town planning.
- territorial development and project management
- planning environment geomatics
- urban territory planning
- urban planning and development also offer many specialties (development and enhancement of heritage, construction and sustainable development, environment, project design, development of territories, urban planning and territorial projects, etc.)
- territorial and urban strategies
- environmental law and town planning
- city and urban environment and management of the urban planning transition and
- architecture or landscape
To do so, professional urban designers focus on acquiring and showing demonstrated skills:
- Produce and mobilize knowledge and analysis in areas related to town planning, development, and management of towns and territories
- Make available knowledge and analysis in areas related to town planning,” development and management of cities and territories
- Problematize an urban or territorial situation in a perspective of collective action at different temporal and spatial scales
- Develop, design, propose territorial projects and interventions on space
- Carry out territorial projects and local initiatives in a transversal and operational manner, integrating the various public policies
- Assume the social responsibility of the town planner by adapting his professional practice over time and according to the context
Where to find sustainable urban design jobs?
There are still many experts working in urban design development whose study content did not cover the topic of sustainability that intensively.
What is missing are urban developers with specialist knowledge who have specialized. In renewable energies, resource-saving alternatives, sustainable mobility, and well-being.
With online freelance end professional marketplaces such as Eventeus.com, you can now find the best sustainable urban design jobs worldwide.
To a certain extent, you will find projects and companies looking for a wide variety of future-vision consultants. As this activity has not been covered by just one professional branch for a long time.
How much can you make with urban design jobs?
The average monthly salary is € 2,900 – 3,5000 gross per month.
After a few years of practicing the profession in the public sector, town planners can progress to a position such as that of town planning director.
In the private sector, the situations and statuses are very disparate. In large architectural firms, they can practice in a liberal capacity and make vacations and studies on request. A dense relational network is welcome.
How to become an urban designer?
As for urban designers, the sector still in its embryonic existence, particularly for training.
There are still very few diplomas dedicated to training “pure urban designers.” Currently, schools of architecture and urban planning institutes have decided to invest in training urban designers.
For example, in the United Kingdom, the US, and Australia, there are more Urban Design Masters studies than in Europe.
The small number of diplomas dedicated explicitly to urban design in France. It does not mean that the skills mobilized and the outlets do not exist, quite the contrary.
Europe has the particularity of training urban designers through other professional streams: mainly architects and landscapers.
Urban programming, composition, and design missions call for profiles sensitized to the concept of a project. Developed by architecture and landscape and graphic approaches to represent space, formerly manual, today computer-assisted).
Get hired for urban design jobs with Eventeus.com!
To find the best urban designer and master planning experts for real estate and other design projects. You can now use Eventeus.com digital marketplace.
On Eventeus.com, you can set up job alerts to screen the planning and landscape designers profiles, from entry-level to landscape architecture experts with a master’s degree in urban design and planning and experience as a landscape architect or a project manager.
With Eventeus.com, designers, dancers, painters, musicians … and other creative people can create their own profiles online, on a professional worldwide market place, and present their work and skills.
The platform belongs to events and networking experts and is particularly geared towards creative jobs and skills, from singers and painters to web design and graphic design.
As an employer, you can write to talents via your own messenger and actively use the search function to filter them by region or skills.
What are you waiting for to find the best urban designers near you or connect with talents anywhere and globally?