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Program profile 03 · Cities & human experience

Read the city. Design a better urban experience.

A four-week interdisciplinary lab using Budapest's thermal culture, green space, public life and visitor economy as one connected wellbeing ecosystem.

Request the outline Explore the courses
4 weeksField-led format
1 or 2 coursesModular pathway
1 live briefShared final project
An international student group during a site visit at Széchenyi Thermal Bath
The decorated dome inside a historic Budapest thermal bath
Liveability · experience · innovation
Urban studiesBusinessTourismHospitalitySustainability

Flexible academic architecture

Choose one course—or connect both.

Each course is designed around 45 contact hours and can be submitted for home-institution credit review. Together they form a fuller interdisciplinary summer load built around one field lab.

Course A · 45 contact hours

Urban Wellbeing & Smart Cities

Liveability, quality of life, urban health assets, green space, indicators, governance and inclusive city systems.

  • Urban wellbeing frameworks
  • Smart-city strategy and evidence
  • Residents, visitors and shared space
Course B · 45 contact hours

Tourism Experience Design

Service design, visitor journeys, thermal and wellness experiences, hospitality, product development and business models.

  • Experience and service design
  • Wellness economy and operations
  • Viable concepts and positioning

A shared field lab

One question links the disciplines.

How might Budapest support better lives and better experiences for residents and visitors?

  1. 01 / Frame

    Define wellbeing

    Core concepts, Budapest's urban story, thermal heritage and the resident–visitor relationship.

  2. 02 / Observe

    Study the system

    Field inquiry, stakeholder perspectives, urban indicators and experience mapping.

  3. 03 / Design

    Build a response

    Insight synthesis, concept development, prototyping and viability testing.

  4. 04 / Persuade

    Make the case

    Impact logic, business or policy framing and a final expert-panel presentation.

Academic + industry network

Research, operations and experience strategy in one teaching team.

Contributors are sequenced around the cohort's live brief, so ideas can move between evidence, delivery and application.

Research

Dr Melanie Kay Smith

Urban and cultural tourism, wellness experiences, smart cities, quality of life and urban green space.

LinkedIn
Operations

Mike Wallace

Three decades of thermal, medical-spa and wellness practice, university teaching and international industry insight.

Professional profile
Experience strategy

Dr László Puczkó

Visitor experience, wellbeing, hospitality and tourism strategy, connecting concept development with real-world application.

LinkedIn

Budapest in the field

Observe the city before redesigning it.

Students discussing urban space during a field session at Heroes' Square
Students learning about hospitality operations during a professional site visit
A student group exploring a historic Budapest bath
Students listening to an on-site briefing inside a Budapest bath
Students observing the visitor experience at Széchenyi Thermal Bath

Start a conversation

Build an urban lab around your students' discipline.

Ask for the one-course or two-course model, learning outcomes and a first conversation about institutional fit.

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