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Events at the GSD
- Ongoing
Platform GSD 09Through 12/20/2009 Gund Hall GalleryThe Graduate School of Design is the site of many research-based conjectures and experiments. In core and options studios, seminars, independent study, and thesis work, students and faculty expand the literal, figurative, and virtual boundaries of design. Despite our diverse disciplinary affiliations, the work of the school also strives to be collaborative and insistently cross-disciplinary, for only in this way can we make significant and innovative contributions to creating a better world.
Our intention is to explore the productive space between disciplinary advancement and cultural and social aspirations. We believe in the role of design as a form of constructed imagination that incorporates an ethical and political dimension. This engaged character of work provides a voice--a participatory and perceptual presence--to our design efforts. In this process, the advances in research and scholarship of the disciplines are informed by a much wider and more complex set of influences.For more information visit: Further description on the Current Exhibitions page
For event details contact: Shannon Stecher (sstecher@gsd.harvard.edu)
- Sunday, November 8
- Opening for The Laboratory at Harvard6:30pm - 8:00pm · The Laboratory, 52 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA
Art, like science, is an experience, and yet, we encounter art and science in our museums more frequently as outcome. Process, of course, is hard to define, to classify or to curate. It can seem beside the point. Sometimes, however, it is not. Occasionally, processes of exploration, discovery and innovation matter more than any result these processes ever produce. What is this creative process?
Idea development in culture, industry, education and society can be conceived as a kind of experimentation, where the catalyst for change, for movement -- for innovation -- is a fusion of those creative processes we conventionally think of as art and as science.
This fused process is the basis of Le Laboratoire in Paris.
The Idea Translation Lab at Harvard, in collaboration with FAS, SEAS, the GSD, the A.R.T, the Office of the Provost, HIGH, and The Wyss Institute, is in the process of developing an exhibition and idea lab space within the common spaces of the Northwest Science Building for the greater Harvard community.
It will be called The Laboratory at Harvard.For more information visit: The Laboratory at Harvard official site
For event details contact: Brooke King (bking@gsd.harvard.edu)
- Tuesday, November 10
- Tackling the Nation's Toughest Housing Challenges: A Neighborhood in Providence12:00pm - 1:00pm · Rm 109
Brown Bag Lunch Discussion
Barbara Fields, Executive Director, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and Frank Shea, Executive Director, Olneyville Housing Corporation
Sponsored by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.For more information visit: Joint Center for Housing Studies event calendar
For event details contact: Angela Flynn (angela_flynn@harvard.edu)
- Akihisa Hirata, "Recent Works"12:00pm - 1:30pm · Rm 112 (Stubbins)
Akihisa Hirata was born in Osaka, Japan in 1971. He completed his master's degree at the Graduated Kyoto University in 1997. From 1997 to 2005 he worked at the office of Toyo Ito & Associates and he established his own firm Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office in 2005.
Akihisa Hirata was the recipient of the 2007 JIA (Japan Institute of Architects) New Architect Award. Recent works include the Sarugaku shopping complex in Tokyo, his 'House T' concept home, as well as furniture and installation pieces like his Animated Knot installation.For more information visit: Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office website
For event details contact: Brooke King (bking@gsd.harvard.edu)
- Vittorio Lampugnani, "Towards a New Discipline of Urban Design"6:30pm - 7:30pm · Piper Auditorium
Urban design is a discipline with a great tradition that has to be refounded: in order to oppose the sprawl and shape new cities that are dense, sustainable, communicative and cheerful. Although still a work in progress, the Campus designed and (partially) built for a pharmaceutical company in Basel is more than just a collection of buildings by internationally renown architects; it is an example of the application of a controversial theoretical approach to urban design to a complex case study.
Vittorio Lampugnani was born in Rome in 1951 and studied architecture in Rome and in Stuttgart, receiving a doctorate in 1977. Prof. Lampugnani has been a Professor of architecture at Harvard, Frankfurt am Main and Pamplona, and has been Professor for the History of Urban Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich since 1994. Among the most important projects of his Studio di architettura in Milan: office building in Block 109, Berlin (1991-1996); housing group in Maria Lankowitz near Graz (1995-1999); entrance square of the Audi factory in Ingolstadt (1999-2000); urban design planning of Novartis Campus in St.Johann, Basel, (2001 ff.); underground station Mergellina, Naples (2004ff); reshaping of the Donau banks, Regensburg (2004ff); master plan Richti areal, Wallisellen (2007 ff). Prof. Lampugnani's work has been included in numerous scholarly architectural publications and exhibitions.For event details contact: Brooke King (bking@gsd.harvard.edu)
- Thursday, November 12
- Responsive Environments Technology Lecture Series: Hod Lipson, "Adaptive and Self-Reflective Systems"12:00pm - 2:00pm · Rm 112 (Stubbins)
Abstract
Can machines think about themselves? One of the most unique and fascinating aspects of intelligent living systems is their ability to self-reflect: To reconstruct models of their own morphology and of their own behavior, then use those models to adapt to new circumstances. Processes such as self-reflection play a key role in accelerating adaptation by reducing costs of physical trial and error. Similarly, the ability of a machine to observe and reconstruct models of the morphology and behavior of other systems is key to effective cooperation and competition. Despite its importance, however, most current systems can learn and adapt directly but have no second-order ability to reflect. This talk will demonstrate a number of experiments in self reflecting robotic system, and argue that reflective processes are essential in achieving meta-cognitive capacities such as theory-of-mind, consciousness and ultimately self-awareness.
Biography
Hod Lipson is an Associate Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and Computing & Information Science at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. He directs the Computational Synthesis group, which focuses on novel ways for automatic design, fabrication and adaptation of virtual and physical machines. He has led work in areas such as evolutionary robotics, multi-material functional rapid prototyping, machine self-replication and programmable self-assembly. Lipson received his Ph.D. from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in 1998, and continued to a postdoc at Brandeis University and MIT. His research focuses primarily on biologically-inspired approaches, as they bring new ideas to engineering and new engineering insights into biology.For more information visit: Prof. Lipson's Cornell University faculty profile
For event details contact: Brooke King (bking@gsd.harvard.edu)
- Marcelo Ebrard, Mayor of Mexico City, "Sustainable Mega-Cities"4:00pm - 5:30pm · Piper Auditorium
Marcelo Ebrard, Mayor of Mexico City, will be discussing efforts to make Mexico City more sustainable.
This lecture is sponsored by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Taubman Center for State and Local Government, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Harvard University Center for the EnvironmentFor event details contact: Brooke King (bking@gsd.harvard.edu)
- Ambiguity in Collective Re-Presentation: a talk on architectural practice in China6:00pm - 8:00pm · Portico 122
Andy Wen is the design director of Aedas China. He was born in Taiwan and moved to the US when he was 8. He received his architectural education at Penn State University and is now practicing intensively in China.
He will discuss the ideologies behind his recent projects in China, introducing the "collective" metaphors that have greatly influenced his designs, with which a translation of the "Ambiguous re-presentations" of culture will become evident in his new creations. Here, "Made in China" will take a whole new meaning.For more information visit: Aedas website
For event details contact: Jianhang Gao (jgao@gsd.harvard.edu)
- ALUMNI EVENT: John Stilgoe, "Landscape Nationalism"6:30pm - 7:30pm · The Harvard Club of New York, 35 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036
John Stilgoe is Robert and Lois Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (Harvard College) and the Department of Landscape Architecture (Harvard Graduate School of Design). He is author of many books, most recently Train Time: Railroads and the Imminent Reshaping of the United States Landscape. For decades, he has driven around the United States photographing regions and constituent elements for his courses on the history of the American built environment. In the past eight years, he has been working on alternative futures; Train Time is the first book in a series about the ways the national landscape will almost certainly evolve, given existing physical constraints.
The lecture is free and open to all GSD alumni. To reserve a space, please contact Abby Suckle, Program Committee, at info@abbysuckle.com.For event details contact: Abby Suckle (info@abbysuckle.com)
- Paisajes Emergentes_ Projects, Competitions and Methods6:30pm - 8:30pm · Piper Auditorium
Latin GSD 09-10 Lecture Series
Paisajes Emergentes (Emerging Landscapes)-- is a new form of practice based in Medellin Colombia, whose work addresses a wide variety of cross-disciplinary design issues, among them: remediation as it informs program and ecology, energy generation, the potential of water as an unifying element, etc. Edgar, Sebastian & Luis, will go over their current projects and processes, followed by an open dialogue / discussion with students. All disciplines are welcomed!For more information visit: Paisajes Emergentes website
or: Blog post
For event details contact: Pedro SantaRivera (psantari@gsd.harvard.edu)
- Friday, November 13
- Landscape Lunchbox Series + Club MEDINA: Aziza Chaouni, "Developing Infra-tectures"12:30pm - 1:30pm · Rm 112 (Stubbins)
What is the contribution and role of design projects' geographical specificities in shaping an office practice and its methodological approaches? How easily can those methodologies be transferred to different contexts?
Departing from our work in developing countries - where resources are scarce and the demands for basic needs immediate - and desert climates - where water resources are limited- we will delineate our approach which collapses infrastructure, architecture and landscape while attempting to address local social and economic concerns.
I will discuss our praxis model through the analysis of commissioned, speculative and non-profit proposals of various scales as well as research and studio projects.
Aziza Chaouni is currently an assistant professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of architecture landscape and design, where she researches green technologies in arid climates and the rapidly changing Middle Eastern cities. With Professor Liat Margolis, she launched the Out of Water research project. (www.oowproject.com)
Ms. Chaouni is also the principal of Bureau E.A.S.T. Bureau E.A.S.T's Fez River Rehabilitation Project won the 2008 Regional Holcim Gold Award in Sustainable Construction and the 2009 EDRA Best Places Award, the 2009 Holcim Gold Global Award in Sustainable construction, EDRA Best Places Award and was a finalist for the INDEX and SQUAT city competitions. (www.bureaueast.com)
Ms. Chaouni graduated with a MArch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Chaouni has worked for Hashim Sarkis ALUD, Diller Scofidio + Renfro; and Renzo Piano Building Workshop. She was awarded the Progressive Architecture award in 2007 for her research project, "Hybrid Urban Sutures: Filling the Gaps in the Medina of Fez."She was the Aga Khan Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2006-2007, where she collaborated in the production of a seminar on desert tourism and a studio on the Medina of Fez.
Ms. Chaouni is the director of the research board of DOCO.MO.MO (http://DOCO.MO.MO) Morocco, a chapter of an international organization that seeks the preservation of the modern heritage.
This event is a part of the university-wide Harvard Arab Weekend 2009, for more information on the conference go to: http://www.harvardmena.orgFor more information visit: Harvard Arab Weekend at Harvard University
For event details contact: Abdulla Darrat (adarrat@gsd.harvard.edu)
- Club MEDINA Fall Movie Series: "Door to the Sky," Directed by Farida Ben Lyzaid7:30pm - 9:30pm · Rm 112 (Stubbins)
Nadia, a young Moroccan emigre, returns from Paris to Fez to visit her dying father. At his funeral, she is overcome by the voice of Karina chanting the Koran. A powerful friendship develops between the two women as they decide to turn the father's palace into a Muslim women's shelter. A Door To The Sky is a Sufi tale told in a metaphoric language. It is also the first North African film to address the social and economic changes as proposed by a spiritual Muslim woman on a quest to preserve her cultural and religious identity.
For event details contact: Abdulla Darrat (adarrat@gsd.harvard.edu)
- Saturday, November 14
- Materiality & Construction: 5 Positions in Contemporary Swiss Architecture10:00am - 6:00pm · Piper Auditorium
International Symposium
Co-Conveners Ole W. Fischer & Elli Mosayebi
Even within a global world there persist local forms of knowledge and practices that lead to differentiation. This may seem obvious, yet what does this mean for the theory and practice of architecture? Like the fine arts, architecture shows a long record of supranational periodization. And with the prevalence of modern architecture the discipline became a true agent of Western culture on a global scale. On the other hand local agents including the networks of clients, as well as legal, technologic and economic factors, combined with the collaboration of builders and craftsmen, shape local specificities which are enhanced by the dominance of certain "ideas" or "topics", such as "construction" and "materiality" in the case of contemporary Swiss architecture.
Today with the dissolution of national boarders (within Western societies) and the emergence of a global market for architectural design, we would like to re-address the ideological framework of the "National," challenging what terms such as "Swiss" or "American" mean with respect to (the discipline of) architecture and the built work. How are these preconceived notions of National differences related to architectural thinking? - From our observations there are alternative ways to pose an architectural "question" or "theme" that precede the actual design work and building production, something like an (implicit) idea of architectural action. In this case it would be possible to identify different "theories of practice" (similar to Le Corbusier's "l'art de produire"). As an example, the emphasis on construction, materiality and sensual effect differs from diagrammatic and parametric design methods. Both result in alternating concepts for teaching and research.
In order to challenge this working hypothesis on various "theories of practice" and their relation to the contested terrain of the "National" we bring together practitioners and educators from Switzerland (ETH, EPFL) and the US (Harvard GSD/MIT) to open a dialogue on parallels and differences of the production, reflection and education of architecture:
Speakers:
- Marcel Meili (Meili Peter Architects / ETH Zurich Studio Basel)
- Ines Lamuniere (dl-a / EPF Lausanne)
- Dieter Dietz (UNDEND / EPF Lausanne)
- Harry Gugger (Herzog & de Meuron / EPF Lausanne)
- Daniel Niggli (EM2N / ETH Zurich)
Respondents:
- Danieller Etzler (SHoP Architects NYC / Harvard GSD)
- Mark Jarzombek (MIT HTC)
- Michael Meredith (MOS / Harvard GSD)
- Ingeborg Rocker (Rocker-Lange Architects / Harvard GSD)
- A. Hashim Sarkis (Hashim Sarkis / Harvard GSD)
Organization, Introduction and Moderation: Elli Mosayebi (EMI / ETH Zurich) & Ole W. Fischer (O.W. Fischer / Harvard GSD/RISD)
Free and open to the public!
RSVP: swissarchsymposium@gsd.harvard.edu
Thanks to the support of the ProHelvetia Foundation Bern, Swissnex Boston, and to Harvard GSD, Harvard European Design Circle and GSD Culture Club.For more information visit: Download symposium poster (pdf)
For event details contact: Ole Fischer (swissarchsymposium@gsd.harvard.edu)