Design Strategies for Deep Civic Engagement

Citizens engaged in a well-designed deliberative process can shape transformative futures that foster a sense of collective ownership of the vision that emerges. At its very best civic engagement, when done well, is a process of community empowerment. But often the future desired by individual stakeholders is significantly different than the reality in which they currently live, and therefore requires new learning and a commitment of their time and intellect to deep engagement in a collective process.

As planning and design professionals we are called upon to design the environment that can assist communities in the new learning required to adapt to a future vision. This project-based course aspires to present emerging planning and design professionals innovative design strategies with tools for deep civic engagement that move beyond theories of community inclusion and into the practice of deep engagement.

The course is presented in partnership with the City of Boston Planning and Development Agency under the leadership of Deputy Chief of Urban Design, Diana Fernandez Bibeau and will focus on the city’s current planning framework, Squares and Streets Initiative.

Goals of the project-based course:
To partner with the City of Boston Planning and Development Agency to assist in the development of new tools for civic engagement applied to the City of Boston’s Squares and Streets Initiative.

To gain exposure to real-world dynamics as community members navigate planned changes to their neighborhoods. Student teams will not be asked to facilitate these changes but instead to be integrated into existing professional teams from the City of Boston Planning and Development Agency.

To deepen our listening skills to better discern complex cultural histories, past harms due to public policy, and amplify under-valued neighborhood assets.

To reimagine the role of codes, guidelines, historical research, storytelling of marginalized histories, mapping, visualization, video communication and data presentation as tools for deep engagement.  

Semester Structure:
Classes will be a mixture of case study presentations on strategies for effective engagement, workshop preparatory meetings with planning and design professional teams at Boston City Hall, and attendance to at least one community-based Squares and Streets workshop event.

The Local Context:
Select neighborhoods currently engaged in planning process to implement Boston’s Squares and Streets Initiative will be the subject of the course as a living laboratory for innovation. 

Connecting Gilman Square: A New Housing and Green Space Development

Chandler Caserta (MArch I ’25), Austin Sun (MLA/MArch I ’24), Kei Takanami (MArch I ’25), and Amber Zeng (MArch I ’25)

This project proposes a 196,020 sq ft transit-oriented mixed-use building and public park in Somerville, Massachusetts. Given the current limited amount of open green space in Somerville, Connecting Gilman Square envisions a revitalized identity for Gilman Square through a new public landscape and building. It aims to create a community identity around a new transit station by introducing market rate and affordable housing, a public outdoor park, a grocery store, cafes, restaurants, artist workshops, and non-profit offices on two underutilized lots adjacent to the new Gilman Square Station.

We will introduce 150 new units of housing with 20% at affordable rates (50%, 80%, and 110% AMI). This project aligns with Somerville’s Somervision 2040 plan to increase housing and stimulate the commercial sector in Somerville. By configuring the housing block to a L-shaped stack on the southwest corner of the site, the building is able to shield the public park from railway disturbances. This project targets young professionals in the Somerville area through a mix of studio and two-bedroom units. The building opens its corner to the Somerville Community Path to give generous access to outdoor activities for both residents and park-users alike. Through the transit-oriented development, the revitalized site becomes a gateway connecting this public green space to the greater Boston area.

The strategy to pair a housing project with a public park considers both the financial viability and social benefits for Somerville and the Greater Boston area. Using a capital stack of equity and grants to support the new green space and infrastructure, Connecting Gilman Square will transform this previously underutilized industrial site into new transit-oriented housing and a publicly accessible landscape.

Monterrey’s Urban [River] Forest: Improving Microclimatic Conditions through Public-Private Partnership Vertical Development

Miguel Lantigua Inoa (MArch II/MLA AP ’24), Jaime Espinoza (MRE ’25), and Chris James (MRE ’25)

Design Challenge-Opportunity

Monterrey, Mexico, a desert metropolis nestled against the backdrop of the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range, has experienced rapid urban development in recent decades. This development, however, has unfolded within a complex socioeconomic and environmental context that poses unique challenges to the city’s sustainable growth. Monterrey’s economy, powered by a strong industrial base, has attracted a diverse workforce, leading to significant urban sprawl. Yet, this economic prosperity has not been evenly distributed, contributing to stark socioeconomic disparities. The city grapples with issues of affordable housing, where a booming population and rising real estate prices have pushed lower-income families into cramped and poorly serviced neighborhoods, exacerbating social inequities.

Response to Climatic Vulnerabilities and Open Space Needs

The environmental challenges facing Monterrey, particularly those related to climate change, are equally pressing. Water scarcity has emerged as a critical concern, exacerbated by the city’s semi-arid climate and extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods. These climatic vulnerabilities have underscored the need for sustainable urban planning practices that prioritize water conservation and innovative management solutions. Moreover, the rapid pace of Monterrey’s urban development has led to a reduction of open spaces, further straining the city’s ecological balance. The lack of open spaces not only impacts residents’ quality of life but also diminishes the city’s ability to mitigate air pollution, regulate temperatures, and provide recreational spaces for its inhabitants.

Harness Financing for More Sustainability and Inclusivity

In response to these challenges, the proposed development project in downtown Monterrey seeks to address these multifaceted issues by revitalizing the Santa Catarina River. This ambitious initiative aims to harness financing from the construction of mixed-income residential developments, thereby tackling the affordable housing crisis while simultaneously creating valuable public spaces. By integrating open spaces, the project aspires to foster a more sustainable and inclusive urban environment. This approach not only aligns with Monterrey’s socioeconomic needs but also sets a precedent for addressing urban development in harmony with environmental sustainability and social equity.

Catalyst for Broader Revitalization

Additionally, the proposed development along the Santa Catarina River is envisioned as a catalyst for the broader revitalization of Downtown Monterrey. By increasing the residential base with mixed-income housing, the project seeks to infuse the downtown area with a vibrant, diverse community, thereby enhancing its socio-economic fabric. This influx of residents is expected to further stimulate economic growth, attracting businesses, retail, and services that cater to a revitalized downtown core.

The Santa Catarina River

Rio Santa Caterina is a paradox for Monterrey. For a city with severe water scarcity, the river accommodates the episodic influx of water from several hurricanes which occur every 10-15 years. While the river hardly contains water, it is an essential infrastructure. In the process of the most recent storms, a robust ecological habitat has formed within the predominantly dry riverbed. It is within this dynamic condition that El Gran Río de Bosque (Urban River Forest) advocates for the importance of microclimatic environments which can combat Monterrey’s urgent heat and water crisis, create equitable cross-city access to a robust ecological habitat, and increase housing within the heart of the city. These three primary objectives are achieved through strategically leveraging the river’s ecology, its primarily low-density adjacencies, its increasingly flourishing habitats, and its potential east-west connectivity. In this way, the Rio Santa Caterina is an episodic urban forest in the river capable of setting the tone for how to work with water, enabling responsible developments, and expand the Urban Street Foresting of the city for climatic comfort.

Downtown Monterrey Context

With historical significance, political representation, and rich cultural heritage, Downtown Monterrey is a microcosm of the city’s identity. However, despite being the heart of Monterrey, the downtown area has faced a severe challenge – a significant decline in population density.

While Downtown Monterrey was once a bustling hub with over 100,000 residents, the population within the 1,000-hectare area has shrunk to a mere 23,000. This demographic shift over the last several decades has led to a significant degradation of the urban fabric.

In response to the severe decline of Downtown Monterrey, the local municipality has prioritized revitalizing the city’s core into one that may become a compact, dense, and sustainable urban model. Such revitalization efforts include plans for repopulation, environmental restoration, and a renewed sense of community. Indeed, these revitalization plans are informed by engagement with existing residents, ensuring their vision for the future reflects their collective aspirations.

To this end, the proposed project for Monterrey’s downtown draws inspiration from successful revitalization efforts in other North American cities. These initiatives demonstrate the power of public sector investment as a catalyst for broader development. The place-based strategy prioritizes public infrastructure upgrades, such as improved streetscapes, revitalization of underutilized open spaces, and investment in housing projects to foster a sense of community and address population decline. This multi-pronged approach aims to generate newfound demand for living and working in the downtown core, sparking a wave of community and economic development.

SILVERLINE: A New Model for Data Centers in the Age of AI: Verticalities at the Edge of the Cloud

Ben Parker (MAUD ’24), Christopher Oh (MAUD ’24), Ziyang Dong (MArch ’25), and Jasmine Ibrahim (MRE ’25)

Data centers underlie all the most important technological developments of the past three decades, and emerging innovations like generative AI rely even more heavily on the remote storage and computing that data centers provide. Yet for all their transformative impact, data centers are remarkably conventional buildings. The typical model of data center development holds the same pitfalls and consequences of most construction: degraded water quality, habitat destruction, car dependence, failing power grids, unchecked sprawl, visual monotony, increasing wealth disparity, and accelerated climate change. This need not be the case.

Silverline: Positive Potential at the Edge of the Cloud

As a design-driven real estate startup, we bring to data center buildings all the transformative aspiration that technologists bring to the servers within it. We propose a new model of data center development that preserves land, minimizes fossil fuel emissions, respects cultural context, and invests in disadvantaged communities, all within an attractively profitable financial model made possible through a new product type.

Silverline Edge-Colo data centers are medium-sized, 8-28 megawatt data centers that support low latency applications. They utilize a series of technological innovations to bring increased energy efficiency and better price-to-performance compared to traditional data centers. Immersion cooling and robotic operations reduce MEP costs through minimizing building HVAC and lighting requirements, resulting in competitive construction costs and hyper efficient power use (PUE). A system of nested modularity creates economies of scale and connects into an integrated system that starts with the microchip. This uninterrupted modularity, from chip to server to rack to building, creates the possibility of streamlined procurement, cutting construction time to further save on cost. Finally, biomethane fuel cells replace diesel fuel as the power source for the data center’s backup generators, a significant sustainability improvement.

Silverline’s Thin, Vertical Typology Addresses Land Constraint Issues

The data center industry has made great strides in power use efficiency and renewable fuels but has yet to consider land as a sustainability issue. In contrast to the traditional, land-hungry approach, Silverline proposes a vertical model: each data center tower holds 4-24 levels of server racks with mechanical equipment above and below. In urban areas where land is expensive and parcels can be small or unusually shaped, this provides more flexibility to locate near customers. In rural areas, where agricultural and ecological land preservation is a core issue, a tower solution disturbs less land and can minimize regulatory hurdles regarding zoning changes.

Colo-Edge Data Centers: Digital Proximity is the New Industry Buzzword

The proliferation of low latent technologies involving AI has become a strong tailwind for building urban data centers. The benefits of locating close to the end consumers of data outweigh the construction premium, which is absorbed via higher rents charged to tenants. Investment grade cloud providers like Google and Amazon are willing to pay a premium to be closer to the end consumer and ensure high customer retention.

Blue Ocean Strategy: First Mover Advantage in a High Growth Market

Digital consumers and businesses are pushing data closer to end users, where industry research has noted higher growth rates compared to the established “hyperscale” in the mid-to-long term. Despite this demand for expanding edge infrastructure, cloud providers are deterred by the high barriers to entry in securing downtown land and seeking permitting approval for data center development from the local authorities in both urban and rural locations.

Bridging the Digital Divide with Decentralized Colo-Edge Data Centers

Access disparity between urban and rural internet users remains an important issue for digital infrastructure. As an incentive for local governments to lease land in dense urban cores for data center developments, Silverline will cross-subsidize data centers for underserved rural populations, allowing these communities to access high speed internet. Rural data centers also support 5G connection, an infrastructure upgrade that would increase demand density in rural areas to achieve competitive market rents in the near future.

Modular Core, Adaptive Shell: Contextualizing an Anonymous Box

Local public opposition has halted recent data center projects in Ireland, the US and other countries, with moratoriums on some data center construction in Singapore and the Netherlands. Such community concerns have the industry rethinking its traditional approach to data centers as large, anonymous, unidentifiable boxes. With each data tower, Silverline pairs a modular core with a contextually adaptive shell that incorporates aesthetic and ecological considerations. The core is identical in every project, while the shell is the product of local architectural competitions sponsored by Silverline. The core holds all of the technological components of the building, while the shell addresses outward considerations of structure, façade, circulation, and how the building meets the ground. This opens a dialog between infrastructure and design that could manage the tension between ubiquitous use of the cloud and a similarly ubiquitous opposition to its physical presence.

To test Silverline’s globally adaptable core + shell strategy, we will first develop Silverline in paired urban/rural locations in Ireland, a strong market with mature planning practices and significant sustainable power. We then envision a scenario in Malaysia, a leading growth market with starkly different environmental, cultural, and regulatory conditions. Silverline would then continue expanding globally as the product is tested and refined.

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 and create 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 the adaptation of temperate food systems and mitigation of 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? How are field studies shaped and practiced? What forms might allow for ongoing input and collaborative knowledge contribution that informs 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. Drawings, fieldwork, and other crafts undertaken in the course will be informed by studying social and ecological relationships and exploring interactive, collective, and fluid means of knowledge sharing and organizing.

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. The outcome will be a field guide to action, at once a collection and a vision for the potential future of collectivity.

Landscape Architecture IV

The Near Future City

The fourth and final semester for the core Landscape Architecture sequence responds to our most pressing urban agenda in the years to come to transition into climatically just and resilient cities where no-one is left behind. As a Landscape Architect your role in this urban climatic transition is fundamental. Core IV provides you with the tools and skills to translate the important values and actions embedded in this process, into individual design proposals that are specific and concrete for the City of Boston.

In the Spring of 2024 Core IV joins current efforts from the federal, municipal, and civil society to accomplish this needed task. Among others: President Biden´s administration realignment with the Paris Agreement followed by his American Jobs Plan[1] and the Roadmap for Nature-Based Solutions[2] at the COP 27; the commitment to swift from fossil fuels at COP 28; Mayor Michelle Wu’s Boston Green New Deal & Just Recovery [3] synthesizing many of the Boston Climate Action [4] initiatives toward climate resilience and decarbonization; or EPA5 and the Mystic River Watershed Association to reduce pollution. The semester opens with an immersive pre-term symposium to learn first-hand from state, city officials, and NGOs on their multiple Boston plans, initiatives, and policies while experts share important precedents and critically assess the encounters. As an academic exercise, we will have the freedom to move beyond the “status quo” of present possibilities, to more desirable outcomes toward climatic resilience in the Near Future. While enhancing your imagination in the creative process of design, this might be precisely where our collaboration becomes more nurturing and catalyzing.

After the opening, the semester is structured around three ACTIONS: 01. analyzing; 02. spatializing; 03. projecting. Each ACTION combines expert lectures, readings, skill building workshops, and exercises that built sequentially and iteratively upon each other during the semester. In closing, students assembled their work for a Near Future Charlestown Presentation to continue the engaging conversation that was started at the opening symposium.

Landscape Architecture II

The studio will explore how we might reimagine cemetery landscapes of the future in response to the challenges of the climate crisis, and the clear and present issues of social inequality. These issues are extensively shifting the ways we live, and, at the very least, are the uninvited corollary through which we might imagine new expressions of the cemetery.

As sites of remembrance, cemeteries may be considered as ‘places where memory crystalises and secretes itself as part of an ongoing construction of history’ (Pierre Nora 1989), whilst simultaneously acting as ‘settings in which memory is a real part of everyday experience’ (Michael Rothberg 2010). They are spaces that are socially produced and made productive in social practice (Lefebvre 1974), whilst also being highly logistical practical settings created in the absent presence of the body (Ken Warpole).

Just as death is a necessary part of life, cemeteries are sites of contrast, yet it is perhaps through the very preservation of this tension of contradiction that they exist as some of the most enduring landscapes across cultures around the world.

Often perceived as a space ‘apart’ from the city as a consequence of their physical traits and phenomenal characteristics, cemeteries none the less play significant roles within the life of the metropolis as biodiversity hotspots offering ecosystem services in the form of thermal regulation, stormwater management, and carbon absorption. They provide significant social functions such as spaces for people to seek sanctuary, reflection and play, and healthy spaces for individuals to contemplate in the context of a natural landscape.

Cemeteries, capable and perhaps charged to carry multiple meanings, are paradoxical spaces described by Foucault (1967) as ‘heterotopias’, a no place that, nonetheless, is. The studio will be exploring what the urban and social significance of the cemetery of the future could be, and ask what are the forms and cultural expressions the urban cemetery might project? How might the articulation of the material and physical space reinterpret the temporal experience of the cemetery, and how might the increasingly rich cultural diversity of a progressive society be celebrated through ritual and mediated through disparate processes of burial and internment? How might the cemetery critique and address the extensive environmental and social issues that are before us by proposing alternative organisational patterns and expression, a place that celebrates diverse beliefs and rituals, and a space as an important contribution to the city’s natural systems?

At Home and Abroad: Housing in Comparative Perspective

At Home and Abroad examines the diverse approaches to housing across cultural, political, and economic contexts. In a selection of cities across the globe, students will learn from different housing systems, and understand how each one responds to local problems–and sometimes, creates new ones. We will invert the usual lists of best practices, prioritizing traveling policies that move from South to North, and taking lessons from housing actors beyond the usual suspects.  

A unique feature of this course is the opportunity to work in tandem with the New York-based organization the Urban Design Forum. Students will be paired with groups of Forum fellows as they set out to analyze international housing models and extract valuable lessons for addressing New York City’s ongoing housing crisis. What makes New York a good laboratory for this inquiry? The scale of its housing crisis, paired with the relentless attempts at solving it. This provides students an extraordinary chance to apply classroom knowledge to real-world challenges, and connect in real time with practitioners taking those challenges on.  
 
In class, we will divide our time between discussion and action. In addition to our work with the Urban Design Forum, each week, we will debate essential readings in comparative housing studies. We will cover models in affordability, sustainability, governance, and financing. Students will engage with a variety of case studies, policy transfer stories, and theoretical frameworks. They will complete the course with an understanding of how housing solutions are influenced by local, national, and transnational conditions–and how, in turn, they shape the fate of cities. Potential case studies will include housing cooperatives in Uruguay and India, zoning reformers in New Zealand, Japanese aging-in-place strategies, Lebanon’s financialization of urban development, France’s social housing projects, and so on (see syllabus). We will also incorporate examples you choose in each of our sessions. 
 
This class explicitly seeks to include students from across the school’s programs. It is ideal for those interested in urban planning and design, public policy, sociology, environmental planning, and international studies. The course will be a mix of lectures, case discussions, exercises, and student presentations.

By the end of the course a student will be able to:  
1. Develop a comprehensive understanding of global housing systems 
2. Critically analyze and compare housing policies and practices across different regions 
3. Evaluate the role of housing in promoting or hindering social equity, better health outcomes, and environmental justice 
4. Synthesize cross-cultural perspectives to address housing challenges 
5. Collaborate with industry leaders as they engage directly with ongoing efforts to transform New York City’s housing landscape. 
6. Debate whether we can produce a clearly identifiable set of “best practices” given the global diversity of contexts, institutional arrangements, and intractable challenges cities are faced with, which themselves are constantly changing. 
 

Race, Gender, and Real Estate [Module 1]

This course examines historical and contemporary real estate practices that have negatively affected racial minorities and women in the United States and internationally. The course reviews the history of land ownership and housing in the United States as shaped by the legacy of slavery and subsequent discriminatory practices such as deed restrictions, restrictive covenants, redlining, predatory lending, and steering. These practices have disproportionately affected trajectories of intergenerational wealth as well as social outcomes in public health, education, and political power. The course will also look at the participation of underrepresented minorities and women in today’s real estate profession. Specifically highlighting discrimination and biases that have contributed to the uneven representation of racial minorities and women within the real estate industry, students will further understand these barriers to entry and explore the current climate of efforts towards greater inclusion. While the course principally focuses on race, gender, and real estate in the United States, it also looks at race, gender, and real estate in the international context alongside class, ethnicity, indigeneity, and religion. Classes include lectures, guest presentations, and student presentations. Students will be evaluated on their participation in class, presentation on a case study, and a final paper.

Project Management, Construction Management, New Technologies

This course focuses on three crucial aspects of real estate practice: project management, construction management, and new technologies.

The project management portion will cover the skills needed to manage the many disciplines and concurrent tasks that take place from start of a development project to finish. The class will explore multiple project management styles that can each produce successful or less successful outcomes.  Examples will be drawn from industry.  

The construction management portion will address how owners, developers, owner’s representatives and/or property managers can best manage the construction process. A visit to a major development project will serve as a live case study.  

New technologies will explore recent technologies being utilized in the real estate environment including prop tech, smart buildings, artificial intelligence, construction management software, robotics. The course will ask the fundamental question: when and how is it better to use new technologies and what are the risks associated with such use. How can real estate catch-up to other industries that use AI and other software to support better outcomes?

 

Enrollment in this course is limited to students in the GSD Master in Real Estate program. The course schedule is January 2 through January 23, from 11 am – 2 pm daily. There is no class on January 20, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.