Master in Design Studies (MDesS)
Suzanne Charles - Concentration in Urbanization and Housing
In the ten years since I received my Master of Architecture degree, the question of how to provide shelter has increasingly consumed my practice as an architect, and I have come to focus on the design of housing. By expanding my knowledge of the field’s physical and socio-economic issues, the Urbanization and Housing study area of Harvard’s Master of Design Studies program is helping to hone my current expertise and further my professional goals. Over the course of my year’s study, I am investigating how innovative public policy, delivery mechanisms, public-private partnerships and real estate finance can collaborate to effect positive changes in the production of housing.
I began my career at the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Paris in 1993, and from that starting point I have grown into my current role as a licensed architect and Vice President of Booth Hansen Architects in Chicago. Most recently, I was the Project Director and designer of the adaptive re-use of the historic Palmolive Building in Chicago from commercial to multi-family residential. While most of my past work consists of work for clients with large budgets and few economic constraints, I am personally invested in developing opportunities to direct my creativity and resources toward answering society’s need for housing that is intelligent, thoughtful, environmentally sustainable and economically viable.
Harvard’s MDesS program is uniquely suited to help me achieve
my future career goals. I am attracted by the flexibility and cross-disciplinary
nature of the program allowing the ability to study housing design as
well as the socio-economic issues affecting housing through both the
departments of Architecture and Urban Planning. The study of the physical
aspects of housing design through the Graduate School of Design combined
with the study of policy issues through the resources of the Kennedy
School of Government and the Joint Center for Housing Studies allows
me to refine my architectural expertise and provide critical insight
into areas where I have less experience.