Demographics and Population Processes

Many of the important challenges that our communities face today, from the persistent racial and ethnic disparities and human rights violations, to climate change and community resiliency issues, and opioids crises and healthcare coverage, are related to demographics and population processes. This course offers an introduction to the substantive areas of inquiry in demographic research -at the intersection of sociological, community, and population research- to understand the causes and consequences of demographic changes in communities. Understanding these demographic concepts can help students integrate a socio-ecological perspective into the study of communities’ social, economic, environmental, and political issues.

Course objectives and outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:
Understand population processes and apply relevant concepts and measures into community decision-making, design, and planning.
Use key concepts related to demographics and population processes to describe a population.
Describe how demographic patterns are intertwined with health and environment.
Identify sources of demographic data.

Course format
This course is a seminar. Class meetings will entail discussion and the exchange of ideas by individuals who have read the assigned materials and thought about the topic at hand, as well as occasional (and limited) lecturing by the instructor.

Method of evaluation
Class attendance and participation (30%)
Weekly discussion questions (20%)
Discussion leadership (30%)
Critical essay (20%)

Designing with the Urban Stack: A Practice Course for Designers of the Built Environment

The seminar will investigate critical issues of the Urban Stack for the Kendall Square District, Cambridge, MA. The first half of the term entails teams researching various elements of the Urban Stack as they relate to conditions in the study area, followed by a charrette to identify key issues and problems of built-environment that may be productively addressed in the second part. Teams for the second half of the seminar are tasked with developing a range of considered speculations/proposals to improve the performance of built-environment for an inclusive spectrum of publics and constituencies. The work of the seminar will be conducted primarily in team format throughout the term. A core group of guest lecturers and visitors will provide additional perspectives and content for the work of the class. Students should anticipate a significant level of effort devoted to research and project development outside of the class meeting hours. The seminar is open to all graduate programs at the GSD. Pre-requisite: MAR I and MLA I students must have completed core.

Pre-requisite: MAR I and MLA I students must have completed core to enroll, otherwise no program restrictions.

 

 

Sections of Every Thing

This course aims to discuss the possibility of sections, made and used in the practice of landscape architecture, as the mean of constructing urban artifacts that could eventually yield the alternative forms and experiences of nature. For this end, both the criticality and imaginariness of landscape sections are to be sought throughout diverse formats during the semester.

The word 'section' is defined as " any of the more or less distinct parts into which something is or may be divided or from which it is made up." in the Oxford Dictionary. As it suggests, a section is not an intellectual and practical property exclusive to this profession. Not to mention those related disciplines like architecture and urban design, experts in geology, physics, medical science, biochemistry and product design make and use sections as their critical mean of research and practice, from the scale of as big as six million magnification to as small as some million reduction.  Landscape sections sit somewhere in-between, both in terms of scale and precision.

The vertical realm of landscape architecture ranges from the crust (of the earth) to the atmosphere (of the earth), incomparably wide and vast. Therefore this profession must deal with almost 'every thing' between the crust and the atmosphere, making sectioning arguably the most important tool that can distinguish this discipline from others. Through making, using, representing sections that are critical and generative, enough landscape architects would be able to lead and involve both architectural and non-architectural professionals in order to create the alternative forms and experiences of nature within ever- increasingly complicated urban context.

This seminar is composed of two general parts: lectures by the instructor and the guests, and presentations by the students. Each class will be composed of one to one and half hour lecture of a speaker and two presentations by two students. Landscape architects whose sections show the criticality of their practices will be invited to speak. Landscape researchers are also to be invited to discuss how recent development in technologies; 'Point Cloud Modeling' for example, can enhance the precision and the richness of landscape sections. Non-architectural experts, such as a geologist and a product designer, are to present what sections mean to their researches and practices. Each student is supposed to make two presentations during the semester. No additional exams or papers will be required.

Evaluation will be based on the class attendance, participation, and presentations.

This seminar is open to all students of the GSD who learned the basics of making and using sections as a design tool through the GSD's core studios.

Design Anthropology: Objects, Landscapes, Cities (with FAS)

In recent years, there has been a movement in anthropology toward a focus on objects, while design and planning have been moving toward the understanding of objects as part of a greater social, political, and cultural milieu. This seminar explores their common ethnographic ground. The course is about both the anthropology of design, and the design of anthropology.

For designers, the goals will be to learn thick ethnographic observation and description; applying theoretical concepts in making connections between ethnographic data; and moving from ethnography to design proposals. Anthropologists will be challenged to think about different forms of fieldwork by collaborating with non-anthropologists and working toward a collective ethnography; using visual information to represent ethnographic information and insights; and applying anthropological skills to the study of objects, materiality, and design processes.

The seminars will be filled with different components and tasks, including lectures and synopses of the weekly topic, fieldwork-based exercises, learning how to take notes or record data using different media, analyzing ethnographic data, sharing thinking on individual projects, and discussing assigned readings.

Students will be expected to engage in two large projects over the course of the semester. The first is fieldwork centered on the border region between Ireland and Northern Ireland, March 15–24, with pairs of students carrying out an ethnography of specific communities. Class periods leading up to that fieldwork will prepare students—methodologically, ethnographically, and theoretically—for this exercise.

After fieldwork, students will analyze their findings in relation to certain conceptual themes that drive much of design anthropology but also bear on the specific nature of design problems and opportunities in Ireland and Northern Ireland. This will prepare students to complete the second large project of the course: a term essay or design proposal capturing their thinking on design anthropology and fieldwork in Ireland/Northern Ireland.

This course will include a trip to Derry-Londonderry, Northern Ireland and County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland for 16 students, 8 from the GSD and 8 from FAS. Travel will take place on March 15–24. All students who travel in this course will be term billed $300. The 8 GSD students will be selected via the limited enrollment course lottery. Students may enroll in only one traveling course or studio in a given term, and are responsible for the cost of all meals and incidentals related to the trip, including visas and any change fees related to modifications to the set flight itinerary.
 

 

This course will meet in Gund Hall 109 for the first class. After that the course will meet in Tozzer room 203.

 

Re-thinking a Humanist Skyscraper City

As the birthplace of the modern Skyscraper, the city of Chicago holds a place in history as one of great architectural innovation. From the first Skyscraper ever constructed, the Home Insurance Building by William Le Baron Jenney in 1884, to Skidmore Owings and Merrill’s Sears Tower (Willis Tower) of 1973, Chicago has seen some of the tallest structures ever built.

As a reaction to growing city populations, we build taller buildings, extending the Chicago innovation to places as far off as Dubai and Shenzhen. We have also moved beyond building singular towers, and now we build towers in cluster developments. The familiar tower-podium typology stacks multiple tower extrusions on top of basement level public transportation networks and street level multi-story podium malls and parking decks. The plans feature a mix of programming-commercial office, residential, retail- with communal amenities like public parks and green spaces. Marketing slogans promise new neighborhoods to ‘Live, Work and Play.’ The promise of a diverse three- dimensional city is there, however many of these developments tend to be less than advertised, resulting in introverted settings.

In fact, as a whole we architects have advanced the tall tower typology very little in the past century, beyond our ability to grow it taller and more environmentally efficient. One would question why a building’s structural height would continue to hold such a primary value, aside from say other principles that affect more directly an occupant’s quality of life? As towers are deployed ever larger and taller, as multiples and as networks, human beings remain oddly enough, the same size. We have yet to understand these structures as building blocks appropriate to the human scale.

This line of critique is nothing new. One can reflect on more than 50 years of global interest and architectural speculation on the topic, citing Habitat ’67, the Metabolists, Paul Rudolf or Yona Freidman. While these visions fell short to provide a humanist-focused building revolution, each continues to carry a set of values and principles that remain powerful and perhaps even more relevant to the issue today.

This studio will be split into three phases. We will begin by researching visions of the past, in order to speculate on alternative models for the future. The case study work will lead towards a summary research publication.

We will then join into teams, and develop master plans for an active development site in Chicago ‘The 78.’ This is an example of a mega site, with great potential. It is 62 acres in size along the Chicago River with more than a half-mile of continuous river frontage. It is the largest parcel of undeveloped land in downtown Chicago.

As a studio, we will ‘award’ a preferred master plan, and in the final phase, each student will develop individually a building proposal on a parcel within the larger master plan. The plans will be reviewed by invited consultants, officials and critics, together with a studio ‘design advisory panel’ consisting of your fellow studio colleagues.

Urban Design for Planners

Course Objectives
This seminar course introduces physical planners to the approaches, techniques and tools of urban design necessary to structure the spatial and dimensional relationships of the built environment. Through an individual, Boston-based project, students will be required to give spatial definition and form to an urban district through the elaboration of streets, block and building morphologies, open space networks and typologies, and urban design guidelines. This course complements the first year Core Urban Planning Studios by concentrating on the design of urban spaces – informed by but independent of – the demands of quantitative analysis, decision-making frameworks, economic forecasting or the specifics of plan implementation.

Students in this class will learn urban design strategies for integrating form and program into a framework for research, collaboration, and communication. Students will gain familiarity with the technical tools and representational techniques essential for planners to portray development scenarios.

Methodology
The parameters for the site and program will be investigated at the outset of the course in order to begin with the investigation of urban form directly. The class will develop a spatial analysis of specific sites including but not limited to block patterns and parcelization, circulatory systems, open space characteristics, and relevant regulatory restrictions – easements, waterway setbacks, etc. Working individually, students will then create concept plans for specific interventions that will be elaborated throughout the remainder of the semester. The class will review urban design approaches for similarly scaled redevelopment projects, identifying relevant case studies from a range of urban design and planning practices. Students will develop their plans through the production of an urban design presentation board or boards that will include a street network plan, a public realm plan, a taxonomy of building types, three dimensional modeling of height and setback requirements and perspectival views conveying character. Techniques of representation will be customized by each student to align with their specific project approach in an acknowledgement of the relationship between representation and spatial or programmatic ideas.

Structure
The class will meet once per week, combining lectures, discussions and design reviews of individual students’ work. Grading will be based on successful completion of the urban design document described above. This course is primarily intended for first and second year planning students enrolled in the MUP program. Students outside this program may gain access to the class with permission from the instructor.

Architecture and Landscape before and after Watergate

In one of the defining moments of the Senate Watergate Hearings, June 28, 1973, Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr., put the “central question” to former White House counsel John W. Dean: “What did the president know, and when did he know it.” If we modify Baker’s question in one simple but crucial respect, the epistemology and practical implementation of space, planning, and representation in modern American politics comes more clearly into view: Where did the president know what he knew, and what did he know about where he knew it? President Nixon might never have asked himself this question, though as his administration unraveled, his own staff and the committees and prosecutors investigating them were increasingly preoccupied by it. In our own hearings, lectures and classroom discussion, we can pose this question in the service of (historical) truth. This course examines the role architecture and landscape—the complicatedly contoured where of political discourse—play in institutions of governance. To restate the initial question: What sorts of places and spaces result from and potentially reveal the uncertain mix of ideals, ambitions, influence, violence, and compromise that define the office of the president?

Focus will be placed on representative episodes in the administrations of John F. Kennedy (Rose Garden and Grassy Knoll), Lyndon Johnson (Highway Beautification Act); Nixon (Watergate and “office landscaping”); Gerald Ford (mineral extraction and “moonscapes”); Jimmy Carter (the “rural South”), to address conceptual questions of distance and proximity, privacy and impropriety, plans and how they fall apart in the conduct and context of special representational arena that is the modern presidency. More general framing questions will address the land holdings of the founding fathers, the planning of the nation’s capital, the creation of the system of national parks and monuments, and landmark policy issues. By striving to bring things more “clearly into view,” we recognize from that outset the place that “cover-ups” have in the shaping of public perception. Witness the all-purpose suffix “-gate” that now serves for all sorts of malfeasance, and our own defining garden narrative of a (lesser) Paradise Lost.

Independent Thesis in Satisfaction of the Degree MAUD, MLAUD, or MUP

Following participation in the department’s fall thesis preparation seminar (GSD 9204), the spring term of the second year sees students complete, defend, and submit their thesis. Thesis students must register in GSD 9302: Independent Thesis, which counts for eight units. This is a critical period in the thesis process and one where a strong student-advisor relationship is essential. During the term, students work closely with their advisors to develop a final thesis that can pass the scrutiny of faculty and outside critics. Students present their thesis-in-progress in mid-term and pre-final reviews and defend the final project in a final review.

 

Tokyo Study Abroad Studio: New Topologies of Our Living Environment

The Tokyo Study Abroad Option Studio, New Topologies of Our Living Environment: Beyond the Division of Architecture, City and Landscape, explores the typology of our living environment through a new method. We will diverge from traditional urban and building planning methods, and fuse architecture, cities and landscapes through a process focused not only on form, but also on programs, communities, and lifestyles. The studio will look to specific areas of Tokyo for research and inspiration.

Our boundaries have been shaken. The built environment and previously fixed notions such as architecture, urban design, streets and landscape have started to meld together. How can one think of a holistic architecture without designing the street around it? A desirable solution could be to introduce an urban street into the site itself, but should roads and architecture have different shapes to begin with? When designing a city the building lots, the roads, the zoning regulations are set, but the roads, buildings and landscapes are defined as independent elements. This studio questions how form might handle these different typologies simultaneously. Enrollment in this studio was pre-selected.

Enrollment for this study abroad studio was pre-selected.

Interface Design: Integrating Material Perceptions

The course explores the interface between architecture and engineering by examining our perceptions towards materials.

Interdisciplinary research has gained interest in recent years due to its creative potential to solve complex problems through the integration of diverse perspectives. Epistemological convergence across fields, though, is hindered due to different languages, value sets, and frames of reference used in individual domains. On the other hand, computation / computational thinking is becoming a common language across fields today that can facilitate new forms of communication and collaboration.

In this context, the class will focus on linking intrinsic material properties, often examined by engineering fields, to extrinsic material properties and geometry more central to the architectural domain. The course provides insight into the structural and mechanical engineering perspectives of material along with their quantitative analysis, optimization, and evaluation methods. In parallel, students will be exposed to computational workflows used to access and process material information. The discussions and design investigations will be organized as a dialog between numerical and visual, analytical and synthetical, as well as digital and physical with the goal of recognizing the differences and similarities between the fields.

Students will be asked to work in teams to (i) design and develop a simple software tool that assists in the understanding of engineering material knowledge in ways that are intuitive and relevant to architecture design processes, (ii) propose an integrative design application manifested in physical prototypes, and (iii) document the process in an academic paper format.    

Minimal programming skills per team would be desirable but not required.