Master of Disaster, Design & Development

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Professor Martin: The Master of Disaster, Design and Development is in some ways the encapsulation of the concerns that exist within the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT

Professor Esther: It had a long gestation, maybe four or five years. I have had a lot of discussions through the International Federation the Red Cross, RMIT Europe, the Australian Red Cross, World Vision. People across the world who really interested in putting together a degree in the Asia Pacific region to train the next generation of humanitarians.

Professor Ed: There are going to be increasing disasters around the world. The toll on humankind is going to be very great. If we have people who already have some skills from a bachelor's degree, from service, in other disciplines, they bring a lot to a degree like this, where you're adding on a new component, dealing with disasters both before, after and during.

Professor Esther: As a graduate student, I had the incredible opportunity to get involved in a project to rebuild and it really got me thinking about these issues and the capacity of design to deal with the complexity of social justice, the role of spacial thinking in dealing with these really complex issues of peace, war, disaster, and division.

David Anderson: I chose to do the MoDDD degree as it was kind of like a solidifying of almost of the experience that I've been on a working out or as developing that past experience in the humanitarian sector through study. During the time as an architect, I did a bit of work with architects without frontiers. I've been across the board number of times and sort of been working in that sector a little bit, even though it was only through community development work, but I really wanted to get in there and study. When the MoDDD degree came available, I was like, yeah I've got to do this. MoDDD has enabled me tot into the disaster relief sector by opening up of opportunities in terms of deployment by radar, as an expert on mission to work with UNHCR in Nepal, undertaking site planning for consolidation of the remaining refugee settlements into a single refugee settlement and working with their temporary shelters to be more robust.

Professor Ed: MODDD is the only degree in the world that I know of that really is transformative. It doesn't just give you a skill on how to build a building or how to work with people because they have trauma. It gives you those skills so you can manage all those disciplines and really bring to bear that can kinds of skills necessary to run the entire operation like a Katrina or after a tsunami, not just to be there, not just to be a helper, but to help manage the thing to the future.

Speaker 5: MoDDD is engaging, compelling.

Speaker 6: Eye opening.

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