Master in Design Studies (MDesS)
Sustainable Design
Area Coordinator: Christoph Reinhart, Associate Professor of Architecture
Sustainable Design - an area of renewed focus within the MDesS program - addresses concepts and technologies at various scales ranging from urban neighborhoods and landscape design down to individual buildings and products.
Courses with a focus on buildings teach methods and technologies that support the design of comfortable and less resource-intensive environments. Particular areas of specialization are lighting and daylighting design, building performance simulation (energy and lighting), green building performance metrics, green roofs, automated controls, occupant behavior and satisfaction, acoustics, as well as lifecycle and embodied energy studies. A key objective is for our students to employ and further develop design tools and metrics to evaluate the indoor environmental performance and energy-efficiency of buildings at the various design stages.
Rather than concentrating on how to use any particular software, courses concentrate on the process of when and how different design tools can be used to effectively support key design decisions. Students are expected to develop a thorough understanding of the underlying assumptions and limitations of current approaches to model and assess a building’s environmental performance. Equipped with this knowledge they are then encouraged to critically review and think beyond the performance metrics that are currently promoted by green building rating systems such as the US Green Building Council’s LEED system. A strong emphasis is placed on the role building occupants play in the success or failure of any particular technology.
Beyond the building scale the course in sustainable design assesses the environmental effect of buildings within their larger context, including issues of climate and ecology at the urban and landscape level. Sustainability studies on this scale pursue a broad range of topics that may include the impact of urban and landscape design on local climactic conditions (heat, humidity, wind flows etc.), the investigation and design of water management techniques, traffic and infrastructure studies, strategies for brown fields and other disturbed sites, questions of landscape ecology, and many others. Research topics vary dependent on faculty and student interests.
Students area are further encouraged to also include courses at other Harvard Schools (for example, School of Public Health) in their curriculum, as well as considering relevant courses at MIT.
Required Courses
GSD 6212 Sustainability for Planning and Design
GSD 6332 Day-Lighting Buildings
GSD 6417 Building Performance Simulation - Energy
GSD 6412 Sustainability
GSD 9304 Independent Thesis
Typical Electives
GSD 6318 Urban and Suburban Ecology
GSD 6419 Natural Building Ventilation
GSD 6404 Green R + D: Case Studies in Sustainabilities
GSD 7307 Strategy, Sustainability and Finance
Related Faculty
Ken Kao, Lecturer in Architecture
Christoph Reinhart, Associate Professor of Architecture
Matthias Schuler, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Technology
Christian Werthmann, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture