Environment, Economics, and Enterprise

How can one optimize the benefits of environmental or social sustainability while generating a higher return on investment in buildings? Where are the opportunities for real estate initiatives that are highly functional, healthy, aesthetically pleasing and financially rewarding? The challenge to designers, developers, environmental consultants, policy-makers and other professionals lies in finding and communicating these synergies. This cross-disciplinary course will give students an approach to problem solving to help them contribute to thoughtful, high-impact decisions about design and construction that are both environmentally/socially impactful and economically effective.

At the end of the course students will be able to…
– identify sustainability opportunities for their projects. Identify sustainable/economic win-win solutions
– translate enhanced design into a project 's financial pro forma, and communicate the financial impact clearly to market makers
– complete accurate cost benefit economic analysis, with realistic assumptions on ability to finance and ability (if any) to obtain premium value on exit
– analyze market demand for projects with and without enhanced sustainability design
– think about how to finance their projects and where to go for capital
– explain their ideas in the language of decision-makers, from community groups to financial investors

Students from all GSD disciplines are encouraged to participate.
No prerequisites.

Climate Change Resilience and Adaptation

Through the lens of climate change, this foundation course surveys the intellectual development of resilience and adaptation in the social, natural, and applied sciences. Through a critical reading and analysis of central bodies of literature, students are provided a conceptual and empirical basis for exploring applied practices and policies advanced in the name of climate change adaptation. The practice component of the course focuses on community resilience in urban planning and policy, technical resilience in civil and systems engineering, multi-hazard risk assessment in disaster risk management, and adaptation mainstreaming in the public and private sectors. This range of applications reflects the opportunities for a diversity of actors to engage in new forms of practice that synthetically negotiate and mediate various socioeconomic and biophysical forces. Positioned within an emerging field of study, this course identifies many of the key unanswered questions that are critical for future conceptual and empirical development. With a focus on environmental change and the built environment, students will develop a critical understanding of relevant public policies and institutions, design and engineering techniques, economic strategies and planning models. The course pedagogy balances lectures, seminar readings and case study reviews to link theory with practice. Students may select their final course evaluation to be based on either be a final exam or a paper. The intent is to utilize the course as a means of research support for students across the university who may be incorporating aspects of resilience and adaptation scholarship into their existing theses, dissertations, and peer-review manuscripts. This course is open to masters and doctoral students at the KSG, HBS, HLS, HSPH, FAS, MIT and Tufts Fletcher School.

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Global Perspectives on Shelter Insecurity and Displacement

This course examines the drivers of, and responses to, global shelter insecurity and displacement. It addresses these issues in both the Global South and North and examines similarities and differences in the way displacement occurs and is addressed across these contexts. The course takes the form of a graduate seminar, in which students will co-create knowledge and engage in informed discussion and debate. The seminar will begin with an overview of the scale of global displacement and the history of this increasingly pervasive phenomenon. UNHCR reported in 2015 that displacement had reached the highest levels ever recorded with almost 1% of the planet’s population either a refugee, internally displaced person or asylum seeker. In 2014 alone the UN conservatively estimated that 59.5 million people had been displaced by war and persecution alone. To address this crisis in greater detail, the remaining seminar sessions will be divided into two sections. The first will cover the primary drivers of global displacement, including: gentrification, criminalization of housing marginality and the displaced, large development projects, conflict and natural disasters. The second section will address responses to displacement, including market and human rights approaches and resettlement in camps, transitional shelters and permanent housing. The seminar sessions will involve students reading weekly assigned papers and discussing these in detail. In most weeks, specific cases from a variety of geographic, social and political contexts will be presented and discussed. Participation in class discussions and reading of assigned papers are a course requirement. Additional course activities will include in-class debates on critical themes, practice-relevant simulations and visits by guest speakers. The seminar will also involve several local field trips to examine issues of shelter insecurity and displacement in more detail. These will include visits to a local homeless shelter and to the museum of Boston’s former West End neighborhood. Assignments will include weekly memos on the readings and a final analytic project.

Housing and Urbanization in Global Cities

Housing and Urbanization in Global Cities examines housing policy and planning in urban societies around the world and especially in the Global South.  Through slide presentations, discussions, guest lectures, texts, and exercises, we examine the dynamic growth of cities; the ideological impulses to combat slum conditions and provide mass housing; the resulting anti-slum and housing programs; the means of financing such programs; and the effects of design and planning on people and their communities.

The first part of the course is devoted to the history and theory of housing and urbanization. We examine the effects of intense urban growth in Europe, especially the emergence of the twin problems of slums and housing; the export of Western housing and anti-slum policies to the developing world; the furious debate over the nature of informal settlements in the Global South; and the fundamental concepts of land use and housing policy. 

In the second part of the course, we take up the practical application of housing policies in different national environments around the globe.  Using the cases of Bogotá, Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Beijing, we study the ways private developers, planners, designers, non-government organization officers, and government officials work within local systems of land use, law, and finance to respond to informal settlements and produce homes for people. Working in teams, students evaluate specific housing programs in Bogotá, Mumbai, and Johannesburg, and propose a planning strategy to improve particular sites in the outer section of Beijing. 

This course helps prepare students for international planning and design studios, housing studios, and courses on housing or social policy in general.  It will appeal to graduate school designers, planners, and public policy students interested in social engagement and the diverse methods of producing low-income housing in global cities. There are no prerequisites.

Jointly Offered Course: HKS SUP-662

Note: Shopping Day Schedule for SES-5337/SUP-662 at HKS: Thursday, January 23rd from 2:45-4:00 pm in R304.

Building and Leading Real Estate Enterprises and Entrepreneurship

This course focuses on how you conceive, build and lead successful real estate companies. By virtue of the industry in which they compete, real estate companies are almost always founded and developed by entrepreneurs. A few grow to become category killers; others are able to compete in a crowded and competitive landscape. Many, however, are eventually closed down; sometimes due to changing market forces, sometimes due to lack of good corporate strategy or execution, and sometimes due to the founder neglecting to institutionalize a lasting organization to succeed him or her.

Taught through a combination of lectures, cases and analytical problems, this course examines (primarily through the lens of real estate investment and development companies), the critical ingredients required to grow and lead long-term competitive enterprises. The course will begin with an examination of how to optimize the performance of real properties and then migrate to the design and development of successful companies that own or service properties.

At the end of this course, students should gain a deeper appreciation of how owners think and act when they oversee their companies. They will specifically be introduced to how to develop a robust strategy, capital plan, corporate culture and execution capability that are part of every great real estate company. Students taking this course should also be able to construct the elements of a simple business plan for a startup. Students are also encouraged to think about how they may launch their own real estate enterprise during the course, and to make active use of other Harvard resources, including Harvard clubs and facilities like the I-lab, as they think through their entrepreneurial opportunities.

Paired Course: Although not mandatory, this course is meant to be taken in conjunction with GSD 5275,  which meets the first half of the semester; it is also 2 credits and meets at the same time as 5276. GSD 5276 will build on many of the questions and concepts that 5275 postulates.

Advanced Real Estate Finance

This course builds on GSD 5204 and comparable introductory real estate courses offered by other schools at Harvard. This year’s course covers five main topics: (1) Advanced Financial Analysis and Deal Structuring for Acquisitions (including waterfalls), (2) Advanced Financial Analysis and Structuring for Land and Development Projects, (3) Debt Financing and Debt Investments, (4) Real Estate Market Cycles and Portfolio Structuring, (5) Management and recovery of Assets in a Distressed Environment

The objective of the course is to give students in-depth financial analytical skills for project acquisitions and development, real estate financing, and portfolio management. Using case studies and lectures, the course focuses on advanced real estate topics for all major real estate product-types including apartments, office, retail, industrial, single-family, and land development. A major emphasis in the class is to build students’ financial modeling skills and their knowledge of advanced industry practices. Many cases will require students to apply a full range of acquisition, development, investment, disposition, financing, and management decisions at the property level. Key decision-making for all phases of the development process including site selection, design, financing, construction, leasing, operations, and sales are stressed throughout the first half of the course. Other strategic requirements for completing successful projects such as acquisition due diligence, debt and equity structuring, market cycle timing, and asset recovery in a distressed environment are covered during the other half.

Paired Course: Although not mandatory, this course is meant to be taken in conjunction with GSD 5276, which takes place in the second half of the semester; it is also 2 credits and meets at the same time as 5275. GSD 5276 will build on many of the questions and concepts that 5275 postulates.

Cities by Design II: Projects, Processes, and Outcomes

Cities are palimpsests. They are the spatial manifestations of a layering and re-layering of social and environmental systems over time. Cities by Design II is a lecture/seminar that introduces students to contemporary urban design projects through the case study method, with emphasis on critical contextualization and implementation. GSD faculty and outside experts will introduce 15-20 projects with lectures, readings, and class discussions. Beyond familiarizing students with contemporary urban design projects, this course will equip students with an understanding of the broader implications of urban design including historical contexts, institutional influences, financing mechanisms, stakeholder involvement, and other process-related aspects of urban design. Students will examine projects through two lenses: (1) Infrastructure (the what), and (2) Agency (the who, how, and why).

This year, case studies will be organized by Paradigm: Parks, Linear Infrastructures, Campuses, Megaform Cities, Housing Developments, Brownfield Reclamation, Resilient Systems, Component Aggregations, Conservation, Slums, and New Districts.

There are two main pedagogical objectives that guide the course: (1) Engage students in a comparative study of contemporary urban design projects as a way to broaden their understanding of how urban design happens, and (2) Explore the interrelationship of urban politics and urban design through projects that range in context, scale, and operational capacity. Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

Term grades will be based on attendance and participation in lectures and section discussions, student group presentations, and a final paper or project. The year-long ‘Cities by Design’ course is mandatory for all incoming Masters of Urban Design Students. All other students are welcome to enroll in the course by semester, and need not do so in sequence. No Prerequisites.

Markets and Market Failures

This course provides a critical introduction to the creation and operation of markets, and assesses the criteria and circumstances under which they perform well or poorly. Rather than seeing the market and state as discrete entities, this course starts from the premise that they are fundamentally intertwined: the state creates, regulates, and subsidizes market activity. Participants will read, critique, discuss, and debate a variety of theories about and perspectives on markets—from economic geography, urban planning, economic sociology, economics, and law—and evaluate how these works might inform our understandings of contemporary urban issues, particularly around the ways the selective absence or presence of the state shapes the geographies and the functioning of markets. These debates will be rooted in current topical issues such as the global financial crisis, predatory lending in the housing market, transportation network companies and public goods, climate change and the economics of the Green New Deal, tax avoidance and real estate, rent control, antitrust legislation and online retailers, and labor markets and migration. 

Beyond stimulating critical and constructive dialogues about the substance, utility, and limitations of market ideology and activity, an overarching goal of the seminar is to demonstrate the wide-ranging and significant influence that political-economic approaches have in urban planning and to inspire students to advance this line of thinking through their own professional lives and research projects. 

This course is open to all students but recommended for MUP and MDES real estate students. No prior exposure to economics is required.
 

Jointly Offered Course: HKS API-105B

Public and Private Development

This course provides a high-intensity introduction to the theory and practice of urban development in the contemporary United States. Through lectures, technical workshops, reading assignments, and individual and group exercises, students will learn how the public and private sectors work together to implement urban policy and planning objectives, including the provision of affordable housing, resilient infrastructure, community facilities, open space, and other public goods.

City building today is characterized by an increasingly complex and sometimes counter-intuitive relationship between public and private interests. To effectively intervene in this hybrid landscape, students will learn how both public and private actors – including non-profits and community-based organizations – engage in the conception, financing, development, and operation of urban real estate. Students will also learn how to think critically about urban development ventures, using the concepts of use and exchange value to interrogate the trade-offs inherent in public-private deal-making. The goal of the class is to foster a reflective practitioner, equipped with the tools of the trade yet attuned to the risks of public entrepreneurship. Whether planner, designer, developer, or advocate, understanding the fundamentals of project implementation is critical to forging more equitable and resilient cities.

The course is structured into four parts. First, we will learn the core analytical methods employed by public-private real estate professionals, including the stabilized year pro forma, discounted cash flow analysis, and fiscal and economic impact analysis. We will then examine a range of qualitative frameworks for evaluating urban development projects, including legal, institutional, administrative, political, and ethical considerations. Third, we will explore the specific implementation tools used to realize public-private development projects, including programmatic subsidies, below-market financing, eminent domain, value capture mechanisms, and public land disposition through sale or lease. In the final section of the course, a series of practitioners will present “live case studies” covering the full spectrum of public and private development actors, including public authorities, non-profit and for-profit developers, community land trusts, business improvement districts, and others.

The course has no prerequisites. However, students without prior real estate experience are highly encouraged to attend the five optional real estate finance review sessions offered over the course of the semester by the course Teaching Associate.

Jointly Offered Course: HKS SUP-668

Informal Robotics / New Paradigms for Design & Construction

Today new materials and fabrication techniques are transforming the field of robotics. Rather than rigid metal parts connected by mechanical components, robots may now be made of folded paper, carbon laminates or soft gels. They may be formed fully integrated from a 2D or 3D printer rather than assembled from individual components. Light, compliant, highly customized – we are seeing the emergence of a new design paradigm.

Informal Robotics is a direct collaboration between the Wyss Institute’s Bioinspired Robotics platform (http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewpage/204/bioinspired-robotics) and the GSD.  Within the class, you will interact with Wyss researchers who will share their unique designs for ambulatory and flying robots, end-effectors, medical instruments and other applications.

The class will explore informal robotics from multiple perspectives, culminating with the design and fabrication of original devices displaying animated intelligence in real-time. Going beyond traditional engineering approaches, we will also explore new opportunities for design at the product, architectural, and urban scales.

The class will be organized along four primary topics:
– Kinematics includes an overview of mechanism principles, design techniques for pop-ups, flat-folding origami structures, and soft mechanisms.

– Fabrication methods will be explored through workshops on use of composite materials, laminated assembly techniques, self-folding, and integrated flexures.

– Controls considers how to actuate movement and program desired behavior. Topics include servos, linear actuators, shape memory alloys (SMAs) and use of Arduino for sensing and actuator control.

Applications takes us beyond purely technological concerns, contextualizing Informal Robotics within larger trends where materials, manufacturing and computation are starting to merge.

Format, prerequisites, evaluation:
This course includes weekly lectures, workshops, and guest lectures. There will be assignments to produce test mechanisms and CAD models, followed by final group projects. Presentations and discussions of ongoing student work are integral to the course. Although, there are no firm prerequisites, some knowledge of scripting and/or fabrication using CNC machines is helpful. Evaluation will be based on completion of assignments and the final project.

Seminar/ Workshop in collaboration with the Wyss Institute’s Bioinspired Robotics Platform

Jointly Offered Course: SEAS ES256