Héctor Tarrido-Picart (MLA/MAUD ’15) is among the students from around the university whom the Harvard Gazette is spotlighting as part of its Commencement 2015 coverage. Tarrido-Picart discusses the layers of influences that have shaped his studies, starting from his childhood in San Juan, where watching his father restore some of the oldest buildings in the Americas exposed him to craft. He also touches upon his multimedia thesis, “Remote Sensing in Mumbai,” which introduces a novel way of mapping urban landscapes.
Tarrido-Picart is graduating from the GSD with degrees in landscape architecture and urban design. He arrived at the GSD in the fall of 2012 with a bachelor’s in architecture from Cornell and four years of experience at an engineering firm in Boston.
A former president of the GSD’s African American Student Union (AASU), Tarrido-Picart was recently published in the Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative’s “Black Lives Matter” project, with an essay reflecting on pedagogy, race, and his education and experience as a designer. Over the summer, in addition to catching up on books he has been wanting to read, Tarrido-Picart plans to work on a project with the AASU and Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, investigating institutionalized racism in housing.
Photo: Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer