Real Estate Finance and Development

This course teaches the fundamentals of real estate finance and development. Lectures and case studies introduce students to the full range of financial analysis skills and analytical processes for evaluating private and public development and investment in real estate. All major property types and land uses are covered as well as all stages of the development process, including site selection, market analysis, financial feasibility, design and legal considerations, construction, lease-up, operations, and sale of the final product. The cases are designed to place students in a number of decision-making situations commonly faced by real estate professionals. Prior or supplementary study of microeconomics is useful, but not required. Students studying business, law, and government, as well as selected undergraduates will be admitted, space permitting.

Nano Micro Macro: Adaptive Material Laboratory (with SEAS)

In recent years, a wealth of cross-disciplinary research has produced unprecedented growth in the study of “architectured-materials."  At the heart of this growth is a desire to design extraordinary functionality by manipulating matter at the smallest length scale possible—think nano or even atomic.  The science's new approach to material design is radical. This course asks what these new material technologies mean to design, energy, and our everyday occupancy of this planet.

This course brings together scientists, engineers, and designers to think across scales, learn about each other’s' working methods, and address real-world challenges by designing new materials and applying them to new applications, or atmospheres. It is co-taught by faculty from the GSD and SEAS and co-listed between the two schools. There are no prerequisites.

Working closely with laboratories from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and SEAS, the 2018 edition of this course will focus on the potential of these new materials to be translated across scales and application space. To develop bio-inspired adaptive materials capable of responding to thermal, chemical, or other stimuli, students may work with scientists from the Aizenberg Lab. Those interested in the mechanical behavior of meta-materials may work with the Bertoldi Group to understand the effects of cellular aggregation in structural materials. While other students may be excited to explore super-tough and self-actuated soft materials with scientists from the Mooney Lab. Across all of these possible experiences, students will work closely with their scientist counterparts to gain hands-on, practical knowledge of prototyping and experimental methods that provide meaningful insight into the future of material design.

As in previous years, the course will be an intensely interdisciplinary, project-based exploration that challenges students from the sciences and design to re-think the way they approach their craft. Students will be asked to navigate the space between the sciences and design through a collaborative semester-long group project. A sequence of lectures, workshops, and ideation sessions will provide a framework that guides students towards understanding and mastering the innovation process itself. Scientists from the Wyss, SEAS, and industry will provide both material specific guest lectures as well as visionary lectures to help students frame their work. Students will conduct part of their work in the Wyss or SEAS science labs on Oxford Street, as well as at the GSD FabLab.

Note: MDE students, this course can satisfy a GSD course requirement by enrolling in SCI 6477, or a SEAS course requirement by enrolling in ES 291. But it cannot simultaneously satisfy both requirements.

Jointly Offered Course: SEAS ES291

 

Digital Fabrication and Robotics

The materials and procedures of constructing architecture have changed surprisingly little since the late 1800’s / early 1900’s when the introduction of industrial mass production of Portland cement, low carbon steel, aluminum extrusion, float glass and an ever-expanding range of petrochemical polymers shaped modernity. While the economic circumstances, social mandates, environmental sensibilities, design narratives and advancements in technologies have made great leaps forward, we still downstream build and by implication upstream design influenced by notions of standardization and persistence.

The course investigates the notion of alternative materials and fabrication processes aiming to bridge the gap between traditionally sustainable materials and techniques with notions of information and labor-oblivious technologies such as industrial robotics. Participants are called to develop novel materialization processes and explore design opportunities that emerge naturally from them; to approach design bottom-up from the perspective of an inventor.

In depth familiarity with computer aided design / manufacturing, programming, material characterization, electromechanical prototyping and numerical control machinery is highly welcome but not strictly required. Intensive training during the three-hour workshops and teamwork sprit is required for successful results. As a research-oriented thematic course, participants are encouraged to document and share new knowledge with the broader community in form of publications.

The course consists of a three-hour workshop session per week comprised of presentation, active learning and discussion components. Students must bring their laptops in workshop sessions. The software used in the class is: Rhino3D, Grasshopper as well as bespoke software components by the tutor.

Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of computer aided design and computer programming.

Introduction to Computational Design

This is an introductory course to computational design and the prerequisite for a spring course that deals with more advanced topics in the field. This course is primarily intended for designers with little background in programming who are interested in developing their skills in order to be able to better understand, interface with and customize the digital tools they are using, or develop their own software and interactive applications. The course introduces students to fundamental concepts and techniques in computational design as well as the relevant mathematics. By the term “computational design” we mean an ad hoc set of methods borrowed from computer science, computational geometry and other fields, and adapted to specific design problems such as design development, fabrication, analysis, interaction and communication.

Jointly Offered Course: SEAS EngSci 29

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 of a site. By choosing what features, forces, and flows to highlight—and implicitly, which to exclude—the designer first creates the reality into which their intervention will be situated and discussed. Furthermore, the usage and materiality of space is increasingly measured, categorized, and circulated by all manners of institutions; these competing data representations often become the primary way of understanding and responding to a site. Designers are in the difficult position of approaching these geographic datasets critically while simultaneously employing them in their work. It is not enough to represent complicated networks of site forces and interactions as a neutral backdrop to one’s design; we are tasked with actively shaping them.

It is within the framework of a highly-authored design process that this course presents the fundamentals of geographic analysis and visualization.

Over the course of a semester, students will work extensively with techniques of geospatial analysis in GIS. Using ESRI’s ArcMap software, we will explore data sources, data models, topological overlays, map algebra, spatial statistics, terrain analysis, and suitability modeling, among others.

Students will learn how to embed these techniques within larger design workflows. We will address the visualization of spatial analysis in its various forms using Illustrator, Photoshop, and physical modeling. We will also treat mapping as an active part of the design process – where the speculative use of spatial data provides the context for 2D and 3D design proposals in Rhino. These designs will then feed back into the GIS environment as additional layers for analysis and modeling.

Lastly, a portion of the semester will be devoted to visualizing geospatial data using the Processing language. The basics of coding with Processing will be taught with a specific focus on representing analysis produced by students in the GIS environment.

Course Structure
Each week will consist of a skills workshop devoted to a technique or workflow, and a lecture that situates these techniques critically in relationship to design. Students will be expected to complete weekly mapping exercises and short reading assignments in preparation for the class. During the semester, there will be two main projects combining advanced mapping techniques with a student’s own research interests.

Prerequisites
No previous experience with ArcMap or Processing is assumed. Confidence with Rhino, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop is preferred.

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Material Systems: Digital Design and Fabrication

Digital design and fabrication technologies have become integral to the discourse surrounding contemporary design and architectural practice. The translation from design to realization is mediated by a range of tools and processes whose development is informed over time by material properties, skill, technology, and culture. As a whole, these systems are the vehicle by which design teams, manufacturers, installers, and ultimately users engage the materiality of architecture. Parallel technological developments relating to the way in which things are designed (digital modeling, simulation, generative design, etc.) and the way things are made (automation, computer-controlled equipment including robotics, advanced materials, etc.) have afforded new opportunities and challenges related to the realization of new forms in architecture, part customization, user-centered design, and enhanced building performance.

Within this context, this year’s course positions ceramic material systems as a vehicle for exploring applied research methodologies and investigation into the opportunities (and challenges) afforded by digital fabrication techniques. Building on nearly a decade of research by the Material Processes and Systems (MaP+S) group at the GSD and long-time collaboration with the Harvard Ceramics Studio in Allston (consultant: Kathy King), this course will advance strategies for robotics, additive manufacturing, and other computational fabrication technologies.

Ceramics are the first material created by humankind and are produced across scales and applications from the craft-studio to high-volume, automated manufacturing environments. Pleasing to the touch and easily manipulated by hand, it can just as easily be subject to digital technologies and robotic approaches. While ceramic-specific aspects of material design and manipulation will be taught, emphasis is on understanding ceramics as a microcosm of material research that offers insights which transfer to work with almost any material used in architecture.

The course is offered as a limited enrollment lecture/workshop that includes weekly lectures, discussions, and hands-on workshops. Lectures include a historic overview of material systems, fundamentals of fabrication and manufacturing, strategic customization, digital and physical prototyping, digital simulation, introduction to robotic systems, introduction to product development, production economics, research methods, and other topics. Selected readings of book chapters and papers will supplement topics taught in class. Students will be introduced to a range of digital fabrication and robotic systems and their related software environments and digital techniques.

The technical and systems knowledge imparted in the class will be complemented by the teaching of research methods in the technology area, through a combination of readings and writing exercises. Students will be proposing and working on a research-based ceramics project throughout the semester, culminating in a substantial experimental prototype and a conference-level paper that frames the project as an instance of design technology research in ceramic material systems. Beyond Gund, some activities and project-work will take place in the Harvard Ceramics Studio in Allston and, depending on project typology, may engage the Autodesk BUILD Space in Boston. The course is supported by a grant from ASCER Tile of Spain. We plan on exhibiting all student work in a show at the Allston Ceramics Studio at the beginning of 2019. A selection of project may also be shown at the 2019 CEVISAMA in Valencia, Spain.

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 are introduced towards investigating, understanding, and shaping landscape structure, function and change. Through lectures, discussions, and readings, the core principles of ecological science relevant to designing landscapes from small to large scales are introduced and integrated, from populations to communities and ecosystems, and the landscape ecological linkages among sites.  Topics will include plant species reproduction and evolution, the relevance of biodiversity to landscape function and management, stresses facing designed landscapes, and the added values of ecological perspectives.   We will discuss the particular problems and opportunities of urbanized landscapes, a dominant arena for modern landscape design work, as well as differences between natural and human-dominated landscapes.  Disturbances, including climate change and sea level rise, intrude on ecological landscape design and these processes must be included into site planning.  Site analysis activities must include living and abiotic components of the ecosystem; how should this be addressed on your sites?  Pragmatically, what can each site plan include for better ecological functioning?  How can ecological needs be integrated with the other concerns of modern landscape design?

Readings will supplement lectures and introduce the concerns of modern ecology as they relate to design challenges. Exercises will explore species requirements as part of the design agenda, and the application of ecological structures into studio exercises.   Local field trips will give us experiences in ecological analysis of habitats.

An Introduction to Woody Plants as a Design Medium (Chris Matthews) Recognizing that plants are one of the essential mediums of landscape architecture, this module seeks to introduce the student to the relationships between plants and people (horticulture); and the relationships between plants and the environment (ecology). The class focuses on the following topics and objectives: Concepts, and practices necessary for using woody plants as a design medium; an introduction to the spatial, visual, functional, temporal, and sensorial qualities of woody plants in the landscape; an introduction to the horticultural requirements of woody plants particularly as it relates to the urban environment; techniques and practices for using woody plants in the designed landscape. The additional session taught by Chris Matthews is taken only by MLA AP students.

The Wednesday 1-2:30 section of 6241 is only for MLA1APs. All others need only participate in the Tuesday morning time. Those seeking to enroll in other Wednesday afternoon courses can request a schedule conflict exception from the registrar.

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.

· Systems include frames and floor-system behavior, lateral systems, tall buildings, and bridges.
· Materials include reinforced concrete, structural glass, and composites.

The course focuses more on a qualitative understanding than quantitative to be of direct relevance to the students now and in their future. This prioritizes structures from a design, rather than analytical, perspective. Personal case studies are used to tell the real story of project development, structural concepts, and eventual construction.

Prerequisites: GSD 6227
 

Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies I

This course is an introduction to the understanding of plants from non-managed plant communities to managed living structures. Through field visits, observation, lectures, short design exercises, and readings students will define new notational systems, and translate the associations, structure and attributes of plant community into design languages that they will be able to apply in their futures design proposals. The methodology of the course is based on the translation into design language of empiric observations,  measurements ‘in situ”, and  research on cultural and vernacular living structures supported and extended to the context of their biophysical ecology. The goal of the course is to introduce the potential of plants as a means of design. The outcome of the course will be a wallpaper and a booklet describing typologies of plant communities designed and non-designed under a new notational system describing the main attributes of each typology. Black and withe note field, lecture sketches, diagrams, and series of curated drawings in axon, plan, and section will be the language of the course.

Construction Systems

In this course we examine architecture as the manifestation of logics of systems, assemblies, and materials.  We seek to understand how component assemblies have evolved over time, what sorts of physical forces act on building elements at various scales, and how the materials and processes used in construction impact our ecosystem.  We sample the techniques and technologies of construction and survey the regulations and standards that govern construction practices. Through the critical study of precedents we measure the successes or failures of our predecessors and learn to establish criteria and evaluate performance.

Construction systems will be analyzed and invented using various means of study and representation: observation, research, writing, sketching, technical drawing and modeling.

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