Computing, Design, Values (at SEAS)
An interdisciplinary introduction to the central frameworks that shape the relationship and application of computation in design. Students undertake theoretical and practical exercises on computational models — rule-based description, shape grammars, learning algorithms — and deepen their understanding of how computation in design intersects with some key issues studied in other fields, including computer science and artificial intelligence, art and architecture, philosophy and linguistics, and perception science. In addition to lectures and assignments, the course includes seminar-style sessions where students cultivate skills in speaking, writing, presenting, and engaging in intellectual debates on selected reading material. The final deliverable is a research-based project in the student’s chosen disciplinary area — architecture, visual and applied arts, engineering design, cultural heritage, or other.
Prerequisites: Education or professional experience in a design area is highly desirable. Experience with computing is helpful but not required.
This course is offered at SEAS as ES138. See the SEAS listing for classroom information.
Relate, Relate, Relate: In the Age of Machine Learning
Relate, Relate, Relate: In the Age of Machine Learning
This thesis explores machine learning as an association machine, revealing its potential to historicize, contextualize, and generate architecture through relationships rather than categories. A book-manifesto anchors the work, archiving a semantic map of architecture: 28 GSD “five on five” lectures, 241 precedents, and 420,000 words analyzed to produce a cloud of relationships. Instead of hierarchies or lineages, this high-dimensional landscape blurs boundaries — pairing projects based on conceptual similarities and imagining entirely new architectures born from those pairings. It proposes a text-driven framework for understanding architecture beyond appearances — uncovering unexpected connections and offering an alternative way to produce and navigate architectural knowledge in the age of AI. The book presents 100 pairings and their imagined architectural descendants — an open-ended exploration of design through relationships.
Flip through the book at this link , or browse some excerpts in the image gallery below.
Block Edit
Block Edit
The scale of New York City’s flood risk has only recently come into focus now that storm systems are becoming more frequent and more powerful. The hundreds of dense residential blocks which surround Jamaica Bay face the brunt of the risk, forcing middle-class homeowners to decide between paying for increasing flood insurance premiums or costly adaptations. This decision is further complicated by the profusion of rowhouse type housing within these blocks, which are often unable to be individually lifted above the base flood elevation. Threatened both physically and financially, homeowners will likely be forced to leave their communities and attempt to find housing in the already overburdened New York City housing market. Therefore, this thesis proposes a system of architectural interventions at the scale of a residential block to enable the gradual introduction of elevated housing. To achieve this goal while ensuring the individual agency of existing homeowners, a design code will be created that will phase the introduction of new housing in between remaining structures on the site. This new housing will be linked by an elevated platform which will extend the public realm of the block while freeing the ground plane to return to a more natural and porous state.
Master in Real Estate Practicum Prep
The Master in Real Estate Practicum is a three-part academic experience that enables students to apply the knowledge and skills acquired during their time in-residence at Harvard to a practice-based institutional environment that makes a meaningful contribution to their education as well as to the host organization.
The Practicum begins with the 0-unit Prep Seminar in the Fall and Spring terms, where students are introduced to participating organizations, explore emerging trends in professional practice, and prepare for a productive summer placement.
During the Summer term, students complete a two-month, full-time Practicum with a private, public, or non-profit real estate organization, participating in ongoing real estate projects or initiatives that advance cutting-edge practices, including those promoting social and environmental best practices. The experience concludes with a final paper and participation in two days of presentations and discussion at the GSD during Orientation Week.
Together, these components comprise 12 course units, equivalent to three term-long courses. Participation is limited to students in the Master in Real Estate program at the GSD.
MDes Open Project 9707
MDes Open Project is an 8-unit, project-based, design-research collaboration supporting individual projects and peer review. The class is required of, and only open to, all students in the Master of Design Studies program in the fourth semester of study. All sections are open to all MDes Domains although certain projects may be more suitable for students with a given interest or skillset. Enrollment takes place via lottery.
MDes Open Project 9706
MDes Open Project is an 8-unit, project-based, design-research collaboration supporting individual projects and peer review. The class is required of, and only open to, all students in the Master of Design Studies program in the fourth semester of study. All sections are open to all MDes Domains although certain projects may be more suitable for students with a given interest or skillset. Enrollment takes place via lottery.
MDes Open Project 9705
MDes Open Project is an 8-unit, project-based, design-research collaboration supporting individual projects and peer review. The class is required of, and only open to, all students in the Master of Design Studies program in the fourth semester of study. All sections are open to all MDes Domains although certain projects may be more suitable for students with a given interest or skillset. Enrollment takes place via lottery.
MDes Open Project 9704
MDes Open Project is an 8-unit, project-based, design-research collaboration supporting individual projects and peer review. The class is required of, and only open to, all students in the Master of Design Studies program in the fourth semester of study. All sections are open to all MDes Domains although certain projects may be more suitable for students with a given interest or skillset. Enrollment takes place via lottery.
MDes Open Project 9703
MDes Open Project is an 8-unit, project-based, design-research collaboration supporting individual projects and peer review. The class is required of, and only open to, all students in the Master of Design Studies program in the fourth semester of study. All sections are open to all MDes Domains although certain projects may be more suitable for students with a given interest or skillset. Enrollment takes place via lottery.
MDes Open Project 9702
MDes Open Project is an 8-unit, project-based, design-research collaboration supporting individual projects and peer review. The class is required of, and only open to, all students in the Master of Design Studies program in the fourth semester of study. All sections are open to all MDes Domains although certain projects may be more suitable for students with a given interest or skillset. Enrollment takes place via lottery.