Discourse Practices

This course takes stock of the proliferating media and institutional frameworks within which architectural research takes form. We will understand these discursive modes–publications, exhibitions, installations, labs, collectives, pedagogies, policies, among others–as sites where architectural thought moves between the documentary and the propositional. We will look broadly at the landscape of discourse practice with the aim of thinking together about the particular affordances, limits, materialities, methods, reach, and politics of these various modes of working, and we will approach our topics on historical, theoretical, and practical terms.

This course will be comprised of lectures that introduce a range of historical and contemporary discourse practices, seminar discussions of texts (historical, theoretical, and otherwise) that might animate our understanding of those practices, and, finally, practical workshops. Participants in this class will be expected to lead reading discussions, formulate a research proposal, and examine a particular case study (historical or contemporary) through an in-class presentation and final paper.

Redefining Urban Design-3

The field of urban design is undergoing a process of major transformation. Josep Lluís Sert’s initial definition as the space between planning and architecture, emphasizing the culture of cities as “civic culture” and proposing pedestrian interaction as the “underlying coherence” of the work developed at different scales, followed his reinterpretation of the CIAM. This began at the GSD in 1956 with the Urban Design Program and has evolved continuously for seven decades. This seminar sets out to contribute to redefining urban design by enhancing theoretical principles and exploring innovative practices in the field. Industrialization and progress guided development throughout the 20th century, resulting in financial globalization, and the advancement of forms of communication and digital development. The emergence of new forms of economy that impact the conception and design of the city allows us to consider more creative alternatives to those of the prevailing globalization process. This is the framework in which we wish to situate discussion in the seminar. Defining this new urban field calls for a more in-depth study of projects that represent the roles or issues that urban design can address. It also requires us to produce design actions and strategies within the urbanistic discipline through research and practice. The design of the present-day city must consider environmental and climate challenges, digital impact, a knowledge-based economy, multiple and changing modes of mobility, as well as the more demanding aspirations of an older and more educated population. The seminar method is based on facing today’s challenges by considering ongoing projects or research that allow us to understand that development is not linear and univocal; rather there are open and varied solutions centering on housing, energy, transport, etc. The process is a plural one, and the solutions in each case depend largely on the context, including aspirations, limitations, and available technologies.

The seminar is based on research into sixteen topics that define current thinking and practice of urban design and projecting them into the future. We are selecting certain topics and case studies to advance the discussion of theoretical background, design tools, development process, and the conditions of agency and governance. Topics are structured within a theoretical framework, using relevant case studies and key projects to show the scope and conditions for the development of each chapter.

Research is organized in four blocks corresponding to different scales and approaches, and an introduction. These four main blocks are:
– Long-term strategies operating at different scales.
– Systematic forms of transition from the present-day city.
– Infilling and upgrading.
– Experimenting with new design issues.

Above all, we will be interested in the way this discipline develops plans, projects, and strategies, within the extraordinary complexity of today’s urban design field. Because, to quote Lesley Lokko at the 2023 Venice Biennale, “it is impossible to build a better world if we cannot first imagine it”.
 

Contextual Capacities

Urban analysis, understanding of ‘context,’ and specificity of a place, have long been intrinsic to architectural and urban discourse and practice. Today, this discussion is as relevant as ever, gaining renewed urgency in the face of numerous crises—be they environmental or related to equity and inclusion.

The course will explore the study and analysis of cities, context, and situations to formulate spatial interventions and urban transformations. It does so by examining existing theory and various architectural practices, highlighting the ‘context’ as an environmental, cultural, and social resource in the development and envisioning of spatial interventions.

Moreover, it provides tools for analyzing and understanding urban structures, fabrics, and situations, and for translating these into architectural potentials and spatial imaginaries. It further engages in critical discussions, on how to create meaningful spatial interventions and urban transitions, that can foster more sustainable, livable, and equitable cities.

This seminar’s aim is to establish a method to analyze and use existing urban situations and context as a driver in design development. Students will work in pairs for this assignment, which consists of two parts.

In Part One, they will analyze how the existing context and the analysis hereof can inform spatial interventions by reviewing literature and examining current and past architectural practices. All students will read and discuss the provided literature, with each group responsible for reviewing one text. Additionally, each student group will analyze a contemporary urban design project. The focus is on how existing urban situations influence spatial interventions and designs, exploring the relationship between urban situations and context, concept, and final design. The analysis also addresses the specific tools/methods used in the analysis of urban situations and contexts and in the translation into design concepts. Students also evaluate how the spatial intervention aims to improve the area and express their opinions on its success.

In Part Two, each student group individually analyzes a designated Boston site using tools from Part One. It is crucial to explore various analytical tools across scales and subjects, critically assessing analyses in relation to the case-study area and discussing them in terms of identified potentials for spatial interventions. Based on their analysis, each group will propose a spatial intervention that positively impacts the site and context, addressing aspects such as community building, resilience, connectivity, or housing. The concepts should be presented through diagrams or collages, serving as initial ideas pointing towards the development of design projects.

This course has an irregular schedule. Please see the course syllabus for details.

African Landscape Architecture: Alternative Futures for the Field

A central aim of this seminar is to reveal the plurality of ways landscapes are shaped across the African continent and how they help mitigate the impacts of changing climates and social injustice now and in the future. Africa is a continent rich in landscape projects and practices but only nine out of fifty-four African nations have professional associations of landscape architects. The course is framed around three central questions: 1.) How is landscape architecture currently practiced in African countries? (2.) What lessons can we learn from landscape practices in various African societies that can help mitigate the impacts of climate change and social inequities? (3.) As landscape architecture unfolds across the continent in the next 50–200 years, how can it continue assert its agency in the fight against changing climates and social inequity and claim a central space in the shaping of African cities of the future? Each week we will focus on a different region or landscape types. In collaboration with several practitioners and academics from across the continent, this seminar will explore what it means to practice and teach landscape architecture in societies in which the profession is nascent or non-existent and speculate on the future of the shaping of landscapes in the Global South.

This GSD course is jointly listed with FAS as AFRAMER 143Y.

History, Theory, Culture IV: Theories and Practice of Landscape Architecture

What do you need to know in order to understand this landscape? How do design culture and design thinking transform over time? How are cultural values embedded in the design of landscapes? This course is framed in terms of the relationship of landscape architecture to the evolving theorizations of nature and culture. In each class, we will map various critical assumptions, ideologies, and aspirations that inform how landscape is designed and interpreted. By learning to read landscapes and related projects of landscape architecture, we will study the constructedness of landscape. Conversely, we will also examine the capacities of landscape architecture to shape identity and ecology, reproduce or contest power relations and inequality, and commemorate diverse cultural meaning.

The course elaborates a working definition of theory as it relates to landscape practice. It contextualizes the discipline’s transition from a modernist paradigm in the West, to the gradual eradication of conceptual binaries and the pluralization of narratives in the late twentieth century. It considers landscape’s ‘social’ engagements to include non-human actors, and concludes with recent materialist approaches to landscape that emphasize its performance and flows in the era of global warming.

The course weaves together three kinds of investigations: one that focuses on built forms, another on the ideas and conceptual frameworks that guide the production of those forms, and a third that examines the retrospective interpretation of those forms. We will attend to diverse projects and topics, that may include border regions, urban landscapes, agricultural landscapes, colonial plantations, scientific gardens, territories of extraction, zones of environmental risk, successional forests, migrating ecosystems, national parks, native lands, domestic spheres, and postcolonial gardens. Through these sites, we will critically explore the spatial forms of exclusion, inclusion, conflict, and cooperation between and among people and their surroundings.

At the end of this class, students will understand the value and make use of theory in design, will be able to articulate the diverse intellectual, social, and political dimensions of landscapes, and to refer to a history of landscape architecture projects oriented to related issues. Students will also be able to articulate their priorities within the discipline. Assignments will include a combination of case study presentations, written responses to assigned readings and hands-on exercises designed to train students in the analysis of landscapes.

This course is open to all Harvard GSD students and also accepts cross-registered students.

Forests and Fields: A Collective Guide to Scaling Agroforestry

Agroforestry is the intentional integration of agriculture and forestry into a productive system with economic, social, and ecological benefits. The multi-layered interactions between people, plants, animals, and fungi embedded in these practices enhance or preserve the fertility of the land, creating hyper-local and regional reciprocities that support complex social systems. While the roots of agroforestry can be traced to tropical food production systems and Indigenous land stewardship practices worldwide, it has more recently emerged as a practice with significant potential to contribute to efforts to adapt temperate food systems and mitigate increasing environmental and climate-based risks.

This course will explore the potential for scaling agroforestry practices in the US by examining the relationships built through the cultivation of North American tree crops, from species-level interactions to regional distribution systems. Significant species and their immediate understory collaborators will be the starting point for unraveling and describing cultivation and stewardship, related ecological and social communities, craft, and other cultural practices.

The medium of study will be the field guide. Traditionally a tool for interpreting nature and identifying organisms in their environment, the field guide is commonly a static, one-way means of field study and knowledge sharing. Might a field guide offer insights for collective study and action? What forms might allow for ongoing input and collaborative knowledge contribution to inform potential futures? Students will respond to these questions and reimagine the field guide not only as a tool of interpretation but as an instrument of change, collaboration, and design.

The course will unfold in three parts: An exploration of the field guide as a form of knowledge collection and dissemination, research and field studies of tree crop species and their dynamic ecological and social communities, and speculation into the potential for these communities to thrive in a climate-impacted future. Research in the class will be supported by experiences in the field including on-site workshops in tree care at the Arnold Arboretum and Charbrook Nursery and a weekend-long trip exploring riparian agroforestry and regional food system security in the Hudson Valley. The outcome will be a field guide to action, at once a collection and a vision for the potential future of collectivity.

The weekend field trip will take place from March 28 to 30. Students will return in time to attend Monday afternoon courses as needed. 

Drawing Space / Marking Sensation

Designers often draw space digitally, and virtual reality creates vivid illusions of spatial experience. In an age of AI, this course uses freehand drawing to reconnect with the direct, here-and-now, bodily sensations that structure and inform not only these digital “spaces,” but also the actual environments produced by architects, landscape designers, and urban planners. Architectural historian and theorist Zeynep Çelik Alexander calls these wordless experiences of space “kinaesthetic knowing” and notes that they are a strong undercurrent in design practice  and education. Visually articulating physical space-sensations can enrich any mode of creativity.

No experience is required; arrive willing to “play messy” with charcoal, and to prioritize process over product. Various drawing experiments cultivate different ways to see, feel, and represent spatial dynamics. Topics include interior spaces, intervals between objects, air itself, the volumes in/of trees and human bodies (incl. live models). Spatial adaptations enrich traditional drawing techniques, to press beyond our habits of looking. Brief slide lectures, and studying selected works at the Harvard University Art Museum, enrich our visual vocabularies. Homework and sketchbook drawings build on class activities; optional readings in fiction, criticism, and philosophy contextualize the drawing practices and the works we’ll study.

Major assignments: for the midterm (only in Spring 2026), students will collaboratively draw sonic spaces in Gund Hall, with guidance from current Loeb Fellow and sound designer Jacek Smolicki. Drawings then will be installed as part of a Cambridge/Boston sound festival in April. For the final project, students will expand on a technique from the course. Conferences with the instructor, before and after midterm, support students’ individual development in drawing.

Drawing People in Context: Observation and Expression

The course is intended as a creative drawing laboratory for designers, an expressive and playful supplement to computer-based labor.

The aim of the class is to learn how to depict and express the presence and appearance of people in natural and built environments.

This class objective will be achieved through three projects:
First: focusing on people’s active presence in the landscape.  
Second: on people in a populated urban environment.
Third: on a person or two people acting or interacting in a specific spatial and social situation.

Each of the assigned projects will be realized in a different, specifically selected technique:
     – The first project will use a technique called a subtractive tone.
     – The second one will use a technique of a multiple lines/marks.
     – The last one will use an images projection.
 
The course will help to master techniques in hand drawing, refine sensitivity to all details of what one sees, and develop capacity to articulate them in a visually convincing and evocative form.

The class projects will include work in outdoor and indoor situations and places, as well as drawings of life models. In the process of drawing, students will focus on the world of lines, textures, shapes, light, shade, and values. We will use various tools, materials and artistic techniques including pencils, vine charcoal, graphite, etc.

In addition to the completion of three large drawing projects a special short assignment will be given at the beginning of each class session.

Working on projects will be supplemented by the field trips, presentations, and discussions of relevant examples from art history and contemporary art. Guest artists will be invited as reviewers for the presentations and exhibition of the final project.

No prerequisites are required.

Responsive Environments

The course introduces students to the tools and design methods for creating responsive environments and technologically driven experiences in the built environment. By putting the human experience at the center and forefront, from the immediate body scale to the larger environment, encompassing buildings and the urban spaces, the course examines new and emerging models and technologies for the design of innovative architectural human interfaces and technologically augmented physical environments.     

The class addresses fundamental questions including: What are new and emergent ways of understanding the digital and physical environments? How can we create responsive and interactive experiences that augment the person’s experience of the physical space? What are the consequences of creating technologically augmented environments? What are the psychological, social, and environmental implications of creating such hybrids? And what are the criteria to measure successful responsive environments?  

These questions of analyzing, understanding and designing responsive environments will be tackled through both class discussions and also hands-on designing and prototyping of interactive, responsive installations. Readings and discussions will explore current and historical examples, theories of phenomenology, psychogeography, multisensory experience of architecture, body-centricity, proxemics, interaction design, installation design, and human-machine interface. Informed by this discourse, the first part of the course will engage students in measuring and quantifying the ephemeral and invisible qualities of space and human experience of space. This will form the foundation for students to design spatial and interactive interventions at various scales, ranging from wearables, interactive objects, to large-scale architectural installations. In the process, students will become familiarized with technologies that can change and augment our physical environment such as biometric sensors, electronics, processing, projections, and others.

The course will culminate with an exhibition of the students’ responsive and interactive installations of varied scales using the tools and methods discussed in class. The course will take advantage of the resources and the ongoing research at the Responsive Environments and Artifacts Lab.

No specific prerequisites are needed. Students from any background and concentration are encouraged to apply to the lottery.

 

Mediums Domain students will be prioritized in the MDes Advanced Course Selection.

Digital Media: Algorithmic Problems: Grasshopper as Medium

Grasshopper has become the design tech world’s second favorite idiom — after Python anyway. Incidentally, it has also become the design tech world’s answer to ‘broken English’: a seemingly easy, go-to language spoken effectively by billions of people, albeit with scant regard for its intrinsic depth, rigor, or idiosyncrasies.

Its relative ease of use and commensurate popularity have only exacerbated this paradox. The more people adopt it, the less it is understood. The course will challenge this paradox and explore Grasshopper’s algorithmic complexity on its own merit.

Focusing on this most ubiquitous of media may seem like an odd choice at first. Since nearly everyone uses it in some form, Grasshopper is usually taken for granted. In practice, however, while the low bar of entry and ease with which it delivers basic results have led to its widespread adoption as the lingua franca of design and computation, Grasshopper has become the victim of its own success. As the scripting language of choice in fields as disparate as architecture, thermal analysis, robotics, fashion design, and machine learning, Grasshopper is inevitably framed as the lowly enabler of far loftier endeavors, the lowest common denominator of computational design thinking, the plumbing underneath –best dealt with in technical workshops and evening tutorials.

This perception is a misunderstanding as a matter of course. With its stark syntactic differences with most other computer languages (one of which is gradually subsuming) and intricate, multi-layered data structures, Grasshopper is nothing if not a complex environment that demands exclusive attention to deliver its full potential. That is the ambition of the course.

The syllabus is based on weekly lectures and applied workshops and is generally geared towards dispensing core technical knowledge suitable for use in core and option studios, as well as in advanced computational courses, such as are currently on offer across the GSD.

The schedule is divided into two main sections on either side of the midterm week.
The first section explores the syntax of geometry, with an emphasis on computational and mathematical instruments such as ranges, domains, parameters, and data structures. This part of the course combines (possibly) familiar Grasshopper strategies with decidedly unfamiliar morphogenetic models based on the instructor’s previous offering (VIS 2227 Writing Form, 2017-24). Topics include parametric 3D modelling, procedural tessellation, image processing, and more.

The second half of the course offers a critical introduction to Grasshopper’s essential role as a gateway to complex third-party applications for physical and environmental analysis. Topics will include mechanics/kinematics, environmental performance, and strategies of optimization. This part brings together well-known plugins with the elaborate data structures explored during the first half of the course.