Courses
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First Semester Architecture Core: PROJECT
Mark Lee, Sean Canty, Jenny French, Elle Gerdeman, Lisa Haber-Thomson, Zeina Koreitem
Project is the first core studio of the four-semester sequence of the MArch I program. With a multiplicity of references, Project may refer to fundamental…
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Landscape Architecture I: First Semester Core Studio
Anita Berrizbeitia, Danielle Choi, Francesca Benedetto, Jungyoon Kim, Pablo Perez-Ramos, Emily Wettstein, Alistair McIntosh
This studio course problematizes issues of orientation and experience, scale and pattern, topographic form, climatic and vegetative influences, and varied ecological processes that help define…
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First Semester Core Urban Planning Studio
Toni L. Griffin, Sai Balakrishnan, Lily Song, David Gamble
The first semester core studio of the Master in Urban Planning program introduces students to the fundamental knowledge and technical skills used by urban planners…
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Third Semester Architecture Core: INTEGRATE
Jon Lott, Grace La, John May, Jay Siebenmorgen, Oana Stanescu, Belinda Tato, Frano Violich
Integration is the agenda for the third semester architecture design studio. Architecture is fundamentally a part-to-whole problem, involving the complex integration of building components, systems…
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Landscape Architecture III: Third Semester Core Studio
Rosetta S. Elkin, Robert Pietrusko, Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich, Sergio Lopez-Pineiro, Rosalea Monacella, Paola Sturla
This studio aims to conceptualize and articulate the adaptive city, the city in a state of flux as it responds to changing environmental, programmatic, market,…
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Elements of Urban Design
Rahul Mehrotra, Stephen Gray, Dennis Pieprz, Linda Pollak, Michael Manfredi
Elements of Urban Design is an advanced core studio for the post professional programs in urban design. This studio introduces critical concepts, strategies and technical…
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Collaborative Design Engineering Studio I (with SEAS)
Fawwaz Habbal, Andrew Witt, Jock Herron, Peter Stark
The first year MDE studio provides the students the opportunity to bridge the gaps between academic fields and practical, real-world stakeholders, and fosters a design…
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Visual Studies: Architectural Representation: Origins + Originality
Architectural representation is an ideology – a source of ideas and visionary theorizing that has an accompanying set of origins and natures. As such, it’s…
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Projective Representation in Architecture
This course examines the history, theory and practice of parallel (orthographic) and central (perspective) projection. The objective is to provide the tools to imagine and…
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Spatial Analysis and the Built Environment
Urban planners engage in many complex processes that defy easy representation. This course provides first-semester urban planning students with the graphic and technical skills needed…
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Landscape Representation I
The rich and varied discipline of landscape architecture is inextricably intertwined with the concept of representation. The first in a three-semester sequence, this course introduces…
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Landscape Representation III: Landform and Ecological Process
Craig Douglas, Rosalea Monacella
Landscape Representation III examines the fundamental relationship between terrain and the landscapes it supports and engenders. This examination will be developed through methods of associative…
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Communication for Designers
“The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings. In the end the communicator…
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Constructing Visual Narratives of Place
The seminar/workshop explores the representation of identity and memory in the city and its territory. The case study is Boston, in its…
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Paper or Plastic: Reinventing Shelf-life in the Supermarket Landscape
The supermarket shelf is a highly volatile, hyper-competitive space. On this shelf products struggle to maximize every possible advantage, all in a…
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Immersive Landscape: Representation through Gaming Technology
The course is aimed at investigating new ways to interpret, conceive and describe landscape. While traditional methods of representation will prevail for…
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Public Projection: Projection as a Tool for Expression and Communication in Public Space
The class will focus on development of original projection projects that can inspire and facilitate artistic expression and cultural communication in the…
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Art, Design and the Public Domain Proseminar
This seminar is intended to serve as a theoretical and practical laboratory for the development of student ideas and concepts toward their artistic, design and…
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Theories of Landscape as Urbanism, Landscape as Infrastructure: Paradigms, Practices, Prospects
Responding to contemporary urban patterns, ecological pressures and decaying infrastructures, this course brings together a series of influential thinkers and researchers from the design commons…
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Culture, Conservation and Design
This proseminar addresses issues of Critical Conservation, an evolving discipline that illuminates the bridge between Cultural Meaning, Identity and Context as part…
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The Idea of Environment
The environment is the milieu in which designers and planners operate. It is a messy world of facts, meanings, relations and actions that calls them…
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Field Methods and Living Collections
Confronting the reality of environmental degradation requires more than remote sensing, statistical analysis or institutional restructuring. As images of the changing planet become emblematic of…
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An Unsentimental Look at Architecture and Social Craft
Designers of the built environment have had an on-again/off-again relationship with social agency. Progressive design and social outcomes were closely linked in early modernism. However,…
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Spaces of Solidarity
‘Spaces of Solidarity’ aims at examining community-driven spaces and spatial processes that pool and share resources to build social cohesion in times…
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Rotterdam Study Abroad Seminar: The Invention of the Countryside – A Critical Iconography
This Course is for students in the Rotterdam Study Abroad Program. This seminar invites students to analyze the political iconography of the countryside. Whereas in…
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Studies of the Built North American Environment: 1580 to the Present
North America as an evolving visual environment is analyzed as a systems concatenation involving such constituent elements as farms, small towns, shopping…
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History and Theory of Urban Interventions
This class provides a high-intensity introduction the history and theory of urban planning practice under modern capitalism. Building upon an interdisciplinary literature drawn from planning…
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Buildings, Texts, and Contexts I
This course is structured as a dialogue between the historical and theoretical frameworks that have shaped the formulation of architectural principles – what the architectural…
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Histories of Landscape Architecture I: Textuality and the Practice of Landscape Architecture
Note, the first meeting on Wednesday, August 31, will take place in Stubbins, room 112, rather than Piper Auditorium. This course introduces students to a…
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North American Seacoasts and Landscapes: Discovery Period to the Present
Selected topics in the history of the North American coastal zone, including the seashore as wilderness, as industrial site, as area of…
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Michelangelo Architect: Precedents, Innovation, Influence
An exploration of Italian Renaissance architecture and urbanism through the persona of Michelangelo as witness, agent, and inspiration. We look at architecture…
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Structuring Urban Experience: From the Athenian Acropolis to the Boston Common
This lecture course examines selected cities between the fifth century B.C. and the seventeenth century A.D., beginning with ancient Athens and ending…
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Signal, Image, Architecture II: Automation, or the Politics of Very Large Numbers
If the first version of this seminar sought to understand computational images through an anthropology of the disappearance of “orthographic life”—and, in…
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Rotterdam Study Abroad Seminar: Designing and Managing Worlds in the Countryside
This Course is for students in the Rotterdam Study Abroad Program. One of the best medieval copies of Vitruvius’s De Architectura is in the codex…
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Real Estate Finance and Development
Richard Peiser, David Hamilton
This course teaches the fundamentals of real estate finance and development. Lectures and case studies introduce students to the full range of…
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Land Use and Environmental Law
As a scarce and necessary resource, land triggers competition and conflict over its possession and use. For privately owned land, the market manages much of…
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Cities by Design I
Rahul Mehrotra, Jerold S. Kayden, Alex Krieger, Eve Blau, Joan Busquets, Peter Rowe, Antoine Picon
Cities by Design I is concerned with in-depth longitudinal examination of urban conditions in and among selected cities in the world. The…
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Field Studies in Real Estate, Planning, and Urban Design: Seattle, WA and Boston
The Field Study course is designed to provide students an understanding of the dynamics and complexities of reality that create contemporary urban…
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Policy Making in Urban Settings (at HKS)
An introduction to policymaking in American cities, focusing on economic, demographic, institutional, and political settings. It examines economic development and job growth in the context…
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Analytic Methods of Urban Planning: Quantitative
This course introduces students to quantitative analysis and research methods for urban planning. The course begins with an examination of how quantitative methods fit within…
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Analytic Methods: Qualitative
How can planners understand places in a rich, meaningful, and yet systematic way? This module examines how qualitative approaches can be used…
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Transportation Policy and Planning (at HKS)
The course is intended to develop in students an understanding of the management, policy and planning problems that are peculiar to transportation and other types…
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Housing and Urbanization in the United States
James Stockard, Jennifer Molinsky
This course examines housing as both an individual concern and an object of policy and planning. It is intended to provide those…
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Healthy Places
The connections between health, well-being, and place are a complex. This class focuses on four topics that will be important in coming…
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Sustainable Real Estate
This introductory course surveys the historical foundations, economic logics and underlying physics that underscore the design, development and operations of sustainable buildings.
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Critical Perspectives in Environmental Planning
What is the relationship between the natural environment and the design of successful places? How do we know? And how can we…
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Form+Finance: the Design of Real Estate
This course exposes students to tools, instruments and strategies for design thinking and the mechanisms of finance and market forces that shape and impact built…
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The Spatial Politics of Land: A Comparative Perspective
This course focuses on the deeply contested and political processes of land-use planning, i.e. of allocating land amongst different, often competing uses,…
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Environmental Systems 1
This course is the first of a two-module sequence in Building Technology (6121, 6122) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture. Objectives:To…
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Environmental Systems 2
This course is the second of a two-module sequence in Building Technology (6121, 6122) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture. The objective…
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Construction Systems
This course introduces a framework to know the instantiation of architecture through construction systems. Construction systems will be discovered through the methods of dissection, drawing,…
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Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies I
Recognizing that plants are one of the essential mediums of landscape architecture, this class seeks to introduce the student to two basic relationships; the relationship…
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Structural Design II
This course is a continuation of GSD 6227 and, after an overview/reminder introduction, furthers understanding of more developed structural systems and materials in architectural design.
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Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies III: Ecology and the Design World
Required for both MLA 1 and MLA AP students taking the third LA core-studio. Ecological Principles for Design (Steven Handel). The fundamentals of ecological science…
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Material Systems: Digital Design and Fabrication
The translation between architectural design and the subsequent actualization process is mediated by various tools and techniques that allow design teams, fabricators…
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Mapping: Geographic Representation and Speculation
Maps do not represent reality, they create it. As a fundamental part of the design process, the act of mapping results in highly authored views…
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Brownfields Practicum: Regen. & Reuse of Brownfield Lands: Research, Remediation & Design Practices
‘A Brownfields Site is real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence, or potential presence of a hazardous…
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Water, Land-Water Linkages, and Aquatic Ecology
Timothy Dekker, Nicholas Nelson
This course will provide students with an understanding of water that will inform their professional approaches to landscape architecture, architecture, and planning,…
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Introduction to Computational Design
Panagiotis Michalatos, Sawako Kaijima
This is an introductory course to computational design and the prerequisite for a spring course that deals with more advanced topics in…
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Transformable Design Methods
Architects have long imagined a built environment that is fundamentally dynamic. Portable buildings, retractable coverings, kinetic facades, and spaces that morph: these transformable structures have…
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Nano Micro Macro: Adaptive Material Laboratory (with SEAS)
In recent years, materials scientists have radically extended the arena for inventing new technology, by discovering how to manipulate matter starting from…
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Foundations of Practice
Jeffry Burchard, Jesse M. Keenan
For students in the fifth semester of the M.Arch I degree program, this four (4) credit hour course examines models and…
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Integrative Frameworks for Technology, Environment, and Society I
Woodward Yang, Diane Davis, Martin Bechthold, Chuck Hoberman, Robert Silman
Developing and implementing good solutions to real problems facing human society requires a broad understanding of the relationships between technology innovation, science, manufacturing, design thinking,…
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Practices of Landscape Architecture
This course examines landscape architecture practice through the consideration of contemporary frameworks for professional services, the legal and financial contexts in which they operate, and…
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Frameworks of Practice
Since the dawn of the technological society that emerged after World War II, the normative practice of architecture, particularly in the United…
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Innovation in Project Delivery
Project delivery – the organizational, legal and economic arrangements by which society produces its built environment – has undergone a radical transformation…
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Aggregate Effects: Re-Tooling the Small City for Environmental and Social Impact at Multiple Scales
Discussions on the contemporary city often focus on the challenges of large metropolitan areas. The convergence of competing economic, geographic, and environmental…
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Real Estate and City Making in China
Real estate has increasingly become a compelling force in the process of city making, one uniquely capable of leading and guiding multiple steps in the…
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Preparation for Independent Thesis Proposal for MUP, MAUD, or MLAUD
This seminar is intended to provide the theoretical and methodological foundation for completing a graduate thesis in the Department of Urban Planning and Design. By…
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Preparation of MLA Design Thesis
This research seminar is intended for Master in Landscape Architecture candidates electing to pursue a design thesis in their final year of study. The course…
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Independent Design Engineering Project I
The Independent Design Engineering Project (IDEP) is a two-semester project during which students in the Master in Design Engineering (MDE) program work on understanding a…
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MArch II Proseminar
This course provides a forum for critical discussion of contemporary design practices that is exploratory and speculative in nature. The course emphasizes collaborative thinking and…
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Urban Design Proseminar
The proseminar is a forum for conversation on contemporary urban design. It is structured around three overlapping discussions: the formation of the discipline,…
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Proseminar in Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology
This research seminar is intended for Master in Design Studies (MDES) candidates entering the Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology (ULE) stream as well as Master in Landscape…