Students who enter the program must select a domain of study and construct a trajectory to guide their coursework. A degree candidate will be recommended for the Master in Design Studies degree upon satisfactory completion of 64 units of course work, including an 8-unit directed, collaborative project in the final semester.

Cross-Registration units may not represent more than one half of the student’s total program in any one term. The Domain Head may waive requirements or make exceptions to the maximum number of units allowed through non-GSD courses, however, a total of 64 units of course work must still be completed.

Specific course requirements are subject to change or substitution each academic year. The MDes Degree Requirements document in place at the time of matriculation serves as the official guideline for degree requirements. Specific requirements for each domain of study are available below and are also accessible from each domain’s web page. Recommended courses for each trajectory are available below.

Residence

Four terms of full-time study in residence are required for students entering the program in 2021 and later.

Students pursuing concurrent masters’ degrees may be able to complete the program in a minimum of two semesters. As a concurrent degree student, you must complete 40 more units than the longer of your two degree programs.  Requirements should be discussed with the Domain Head and Program Coordinator. Please reach out to your Program Coordinator if you are considering a concurrent degree.

Domains and Required Courses

Ecologies

First Semester Required Course:
ADV-9674 Proseminar in Ecologies: Interrelated, In-between, Dynamic

First and Second Semester Distributional Electives–Choose 3 from the list of Ecologies Distributional Electives, to be taken in the first or second semester.

Fourth Semester Required Course:
ADV-97XX Open Project

Mediums

First Semester Required Course:
ADV-9672 Proseminar in Mediums: On Making Culture, Technology and Art

First and Second Semester Distributional Electives–Choose 3 from the list of Mediums Distributional Electives, to be taken in the first or second semester.

Fourth Semester Required Course:
ADV-97XX Open Project

Narratives

First Semester Required Course:
ADV-9673 Proseminar in Narratives: Word and Image as Narrative Structure

First and Second Semester Distributional Electives–Choose 3 from the list of Narratives Distributional Electives, to be taken in the first or second semester.

Fourth Semester Required Course:
ADV-97XX Open Project

Publics

First Semester Required Course:
ADV-9671 Proseminar in Publics: Of the Public. In the Public. By the Public

First and Second Semester Distributional Electives–Choose 3 from the list of Publics Distributional Electives, to be taken in the first or second semester.

Fourth Semester Required Course:
ADV-97XX Open Project

Trajectories and Recommended Courses

The following lists are suggested courses which may be selected to complete a Trajectory of study. Students may combine Trajectories or construct alternate Trajectories in conversation with their Domain Heads, Research Tutors, and Program Director. Additional courses are available across the GSD, Harvard University, and at MIT.

Social Equity

The spatial organization, infrastructure, programmatic amenities, even the ornamentation of public spaces contribute to the well being of the public. Interpretive tools and policy management help insure the equitable distribution of design resources.

SES 5373 Contemporary Developing Countries: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Intractable Problems
SES 5399 Race, Power, and Resistance in the City
SES 5398 New Spaces of Justice
HIS 4476 Architecture’s Bodies: Agency and Biopolitics
HIS 4479 Power & Place: Culture and Conflict in the Built Environment
HIS 4455 Cotton Kingdom, Now
DES 3358 An Unsentimental Look at Architecture and Social Craft
DES 3394 From Fallow: Equitable Futures for Landscapes of Injustice

Power and Place

Develops analytical tools and research methods leading to modes of interpretation associated with places where power and politics have a critical but often undisclosed influence in shaping the built environment.

HIS 4476 Architecture’s Bodies: Agency and Biopolitics
SES 5291 Theories for Practice in Conflict, Crisis, and Recovery
SES 5386 Urban Ethnographies
SES 5399 Race, Power, and Resistance in the City
HIS-4304 North American Seacoasts and Landscapes: Discovery Period to the Present
HIS-4105 Studies of the Built North American Environment: 1580 to the Present
HIS 4395 Environmentalisms
DES-3241 Theories of Landscape as Urbanism
DES-3348 The Idea of Environment

Climate Justice

Combines social studies, climate science, policy, diplomacy, and design; traces various forms of climate activism within the history of environmental movements; explores alternative forms of knowledge as key critiques and logics of environmental reform and climate justice.

SES 5395 Planning for Climate Change
SES 5206 Land Use and Environmental Law
SCI 6244 Climate by Design
SCI 6372 Advanced Topics on Embodied Carbon in Buildings
SCI 6482 Confronting Climate Change: A Foundation in Science, Technology, and Policy
SCI 6362 Climate Crisis—Beyond Adaptation & Resilience
SCI 6374 Advanced Applications in Sustainable Architecture
DES 3241 Theories of Landscape as Urbanism
DES 3391 Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle

Energy and Sustainability

Examines environmental issues related to the built environment, providing ways to couple theory with applied research. Topics include health, natural ventilation, advanced simulation and computation, and artificial intelligence.

SCI 6121, 6122 Environmental Systems
SCI 6125 Building Simulation
SCI GSD 6126 Materials
SCI-6338 Introduction to Computational Design
SCI-6361 Building Human Interaction
SCI 6374 Advanced Applications in Sustainable Architecture
SCI 6466 Optimizing Façade Performance
SES 5370 Environment, Economics, and Enterprise
DES 3397 Material World

Infrastructures as Social Structure

An interdisciplinary approach to questions of how infrastructure has been designed, built, and maintained in ways that reinforce (often problematic) social structures. Studies theoretical frameworks in the attempt to re-imagine infrastructure as a machine for social change.

SES 5380 Experimental Infrastructures
SES 5381 Urban Design and the Color-Line
SES 5399 Race, Power, and Resistance in the City
DES 3397 Material World
DES 3241 Theories of Landscape as Urbanism
HIS 4374 Cities, Infrastructures, and Politics: From Renaissance to Smart Technologies
HIS 4115 Histories and Theories of Urban Interventions

Emergent Urbanisms

Researches topics related to the description and understanding of contemporary urban forms through multimodal representations of the myriad determinants of urban, regional, or territorial spatial organizations. Includes advanced studies in landscape urbanism, ecological urbanism, extreme urbanism, and weak urbanism.

DES 3396 Thinking Landscape—Making Cities
DES 3472 Urban Grids: Open Form for City Design
HIS 4374 Cities, Infrastructures, and Politics: From Renaissance to Smart Technologies
SES 5337 Housing and Urbanization in Global Cities
SES 5347 Urbanization and Development
SES 5397 Cities and Urban Informal Economy: Rethinking Development, Urban Design, and Planning
SES 5399 Race, Power, and Resistance in the City
DES 3241 Theories of Landscape as Urbanism
DES 3391 Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle

Risk, Recovery, and Preemptive Practice

Supports novel approaches to socio-spatial planning that prepares for, copes with, and anticipates the social and economic vulnerability brought by natural disasters, ecological uncertainty, and health crisis. Courses prepare students to identify, articulate, and propose preemptive forms of practice.

DES 3358 The Idea of Environment
DES 3397 Material World
SES 5395 Planning for Climate Change
SES 5291 Theories for Practice in Conflict, Crisis, and Recovery
SES 5215 Analytic Methods of Urban Planning: Quantitative
SES 5216 Analytic Methods of Urban Planning: Qualitative
SES 5399 Race, Power, and Resistance in the City
VIS 2129 Spatial Analysis and the Built Environment
SCI 6322 Mapping: Geographic Representation and Speculation

Health

Investigates the interactions between humans, buildings, and cities with a focus on environmental sustainability and healthy places.

SES 5391 Public Health in an Era of Epidemics
SES 5330 Healthy Places: COVID 19 and Cities
SCI 6361 Building Human Interaction
SCI 6374 Advanced Applications in Sustainable Architecture
SCI 6482 Confronting Climate Change: A Foundation in Science, Technology, and Policy
SCI 6126 Materials

Architecture and Its Texts

Studies architectural history from the 15th to 21st century throughout the world with an emphasis on the theoretical constructions of architecture as a socially symbolic system.

HIS 4490 Architecture and Its Texts
HIS 4398 Postmodernism and Poststructuralism
HIA 4141 Histories of Landscape Architecture: Textuality and the Practice of Landscape Architecture
HIS 4454 The Project and Territory: Japan Story
HIS 4455 Cotton Kingdom, Now
HIS 4385 Mountains and the Rise of Landscapes
HIS 4356 Screens—Projecting Media and the Visual Arts
HIS 4395 Environmentalisms
HIS 4397 Environmental Histories, Archived Landscapes
HIS 4428 Visionary Architecture

Interdisciplinary Art and Design Practice

Socially engaged art, relational aesthetics, and activist and emancipatory design practices challenge disciplinary boundaries in the art and the design worlds and crossover to interact with varied audiences and communities.

VIS 2228 Digital Media: Artifacts
VIS 2229 Digital Media: Composition
VIS 2425 Paper or Plastic: Reinventing Shelf Life in the Supermaket Landscape
HIS 4451 Materiality, Visual Culture, and Media
HIS 4356 Screens—Projecting Media and the Visual Arts
SCI 6317 Material Systems: Digital Design and Fabrication
SCI 6360 Digital Fabrication and Robotics
SCI 6368, Pre- and Post-
SCI 6322 Mapping: Geographic Representation and Speculation
DES 3357 Experiments in Public Freedom
DES 3365 Material, Atmosphere, and Ambience
DES 3241 Landscape as Urbanism
ADV 9153 Forms of Assembly

Responsive Environments

Provides tools and design methods for creating responsive environments and technologically driven experiences in the built environment. Focuses on the dynamic, innovative human interfaces and technologically augmented environments.

DES 3357 Experiments in Public Freedom
DES 3365 Material, Atmosphere, and Ambience
DES 3386 Acoustic Space: An Archeology of Building Types
SCI-6322 Mapping: Geographic Representation and Speculation
SCI 6373 Domestic Logistics
SCI-6343 Cartographic Audition
VIS 2228 Digital Media: Artifacts
ADV 9153 Forms of Assembly

Digital Fabrication

Researches solutions to contemporary design problems requiring broad understanding of the relationships between technology innovation, science, manufacturing, environment, aesthetics, business, and public policy. Various frameworks for understanding these complex relationships within the context of real-world problems will be explored.

SCI 6317 Material Systems: Digital Design and Fabrication
SCI 6478 Informal Robotics / New Paradigms for Design and Construction
VIS 2227 Digital Media: Writing Form
VIS 2225 Digital Media: Design Systems
HIS 4399 Architecture and Construction: From the Vitruvian Tradition to the Digital
DES 3365 Material, Atmosphere, and Ambience
SCI 6477 Nano Micro Macro: Adaptive Material Laboratory

Human-Machine Interaction

Research cognitive skills such as motivation, attention, and memory and ways of enhancing these by developing fluid interfaces. Includes research in artificial intelligence and robotics.

VIS 2223 Digital Media: Telepresence
SCI 6359 Interface Design: Integrating Material Perceptions
SCI 6365 Enactive Design: Applications through Concurrent Human-Machine Interaction
SCI 6368 Pre- and Post-
DES 3381 Artificial Intelligence in Contemporary Design Practice

For students who entered the MDes program prior to Academic Year 2021-2022, please see the Requirements Pre-Fall 2021 page.