GIS in the Design School Studio and Curriculum
This page describes the opportunities for learning about spatial represenation and analysis imibedded in the GSD studio environment and curriculum. This range of opportuities can be arranged in ascending scale of formality, from simple exposure to an exemplary information infrastructure to specific tutorials integrated into courses and studios. Selected core studios incorporate a well planned GIS database loong with sequenses of exercises that guarantee that students get hands-on experience with the information resources and tools that are now essential for professional work, and a framework for applying and evaluating them. Finally, we offer GIS courses that provide a formal overview of the scholarly and institutional concerns of how spatial data are compiled and used to in administration and hypothesis testing.
An Exemplary Infrastructure for Understanding Places
The Graduate School of Design provides many opportunites to use and create spatial information for understanding and designing places and their context. These opportunities range from simply being exposed to a state-of the art infrastructure for using spatial data that is exemplary of most advanced public agencies and firms. Our environment features easy-to use resources for beginning a basic GIS database for anyplace in the world; a schoolwide license for four decades of the complete decennial census of the US; very detailed planimetric data for scores of international cities; and detailed three dimensional models of the Boston and NYC that evolve based on continuing collaboration of students and local firms. The keystone of this infrastructure is the GIS Manual which can be browsed by clicking on the links to the left of this page. GSD Students, who are without exception under pressure to gather and create information about places and context, make good use of this infrastructure and are continually contributing to its richness through their questions and contributions. We know that exposure to this infrastructure makes our students more productive and effective, and we hope that it raises their awareness and expectations for how knowledge-based organizations should manage and leverage information assets.
Design-Centric Introductory GIS Workshops
Several times a year we hold informal no-credit workshops focused on the issues surrouding compiling site information for design projects. This Minimal GIS Intro for Designers can be arranged for any group or studio of 10 or more; or you may enjoy just going through the on-line support documentation on your own.
Incidental Incorporation of GIS Tutorials in Non-GIS Courses
Many tasks that once incorporated basic map reading skills now require some literacy in the use and interpretation of spatial data. It is therefore expected that there will be some need to prepare geographic datasets and demonstrate their application in a variety of courses and studios. We are happy to prepare such a dataset and tutrial demonstration for any studio or course if data exists and if we are given enough advance notice (a few weeks.) The following are courses and studios that make use of some of these specialized datasets and demonstrations:
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GSD5204: Real Estate Finance and Development
Instructor, Richard Peiser
The Real Estate Analysis Tutorial begis with a student-gathered spreadsheet containing the addresses and other data about comparable properties. We augment this comp data by associating each property with neighborhood characteristics such as the distance to the nearest school, shopping areas and the demographic and housing characteristics of the surrounding neighborhood.
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Master of Architecture I Core Housing Studio
Coordinated by miscelaneous Architecture Faculty
In this architecture studio students consider various sites around Boston. This provides us with an opportunity to demonstrate how our 3d model of Metro Boston can be used as a starting place for a site model and as a means of studying views to, from and across sites under various development scenarios.
Integration of Introduction to GIS Curriculum in Core Studios
Basic GIS literacy is a must for professionals in Urban Planning and
Landscape Architecture. Beginning in 2007, we have developed a sequence of
lectures/demonstrations, laboratories and exercises intended to make students
self-sufficient and responsible compilers and analysts of electronic data
about places. In 2008, this curriculum will be presented to the
third semester core landscape studio and the first semester core urban
planning studio Elements of Urban Planning and Design
The learning opportunities presented above are geared toward
assuring that our graduates have a basic literacy in the
use of spatial data in day to day work. Students who see
themselves becoming leaders in information-based organizations
should have a structured course that provides an uunderstanding of
how spatial data are gathered and documented for sharing and
scholarship, how the logic of information systems is used to
create new information, and how these new information should be
evaluated.
This course explores Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and their applications. GIS serves as a framework for organizing knowledge about places and for developing logical models of the ways places operate under existing and proposed conditions. The course surveys the various forms and sources of spatially referenced information, how these originate, are obtained, and how they are organized as an infrastructure for administration and scholarship. Students will gain experience building logical models that transform source data and simulate place-based relationships and processes. Lectures will review the evolution and theory of the primary types of GIS and applications in urban planning, urban design, and environmental modeling. Hands-on workshops will provide experience in the creation of models. Emphasis is placed on developing best practices for organizing resources for collaborative research, and on establishing appropriate levels of confidence in the information obtained from maps and GIS models.
This course explores technologies, applications, and the societal context of broad-scale city modeling. Development of standards for interoperability across disciplines created a revolution in manufacturing during the machine age. The same process continues today: bringing about unprecedented integration of information and knowledge about our environment. The world wide web and its explosion of content has emerged through a cross-disciplinary collaboration in information modeling and exchange. A similar process has also brought about industry standards for organizing and exchanging semantically rich models of buildings (BIM) that are subject to a wide variety of analytic and administrative tools. This process continues as we see web-based three-dimensional models of cities that integrate representations of buildings, detailed and scalable terrain, and vegetation; contributed by limitless numbers of diverse collaborators. As communities of scholars and professionals work toward specification semantically coherent, shared models for urban landscapes, we will see emerging a shared laboratory: for experimentation with alternative futures and for recording historic changes -- especially as these unfold in the current epoch. The development of multi-purpose information models is crucial for making the most of the information that is generated in administration and scholarly research. Students will learn how to participate in the process of defining and evaluating standards and tools for city models and BIM. Hands-on workshops will develop technical skills in building and using city model infrastructure for design-related applications.
Coordinated by Judith Grant Long
Introduction to GIS
Courses Focused on Spatial Data and Modeling
instructor: Paul Cote
Instructor: Paul Cote