Climate by Design
The climate crisis is here now and for the foreseeable future. For designers who shape the built environment, there is an urgent need to respond to the changing climate with greater understanding, sophistication, and imagination. To do so requires a community of learning committed to deeper analysis of the patterns of change and the potential roles designers may play in reducing carbon emissions and adapting to the many changes the future will bring. We must ask critical questions and interrogate existing systems of knowledge. How has/does design contribute to the climate crisis and its underlying causes? What biases and assumptions drive design decisions, and how can we work to change them? What are the existing and potential design strategies for climate mitigation and adaptation? How effective are they? Whom do they serve? And on what terms?
The effects and burdens of climatic change are unequal, contributing to increased social and economic disparity and often exacerbating historic patterns of inequity. The impacts are multiple and diverse, as are the many cultures and communities that must respond and adapt. Therefore, a universal, one-size-fits-all approach is not an adequate response. To develop design tools that respond to these conditions, we need to understand not only the science but also the political, social, economic, and cultural contexts on the ground where design projects and movements are rooted.
Through a series of lectures and case studies, this course will explore the range of paradigmatic design responses to the climate crisis. This foundation will be built through a series of talks by GSD faculty and external experts across various fields. Lectures and panel discussions will cover the science of and design response to the climate crisis, including adaptation, mitigation, climate justice, and activism. We will engage in discussion together and with these invited experts to advance our knowledge and interrogate existing practices.
Students will develop and analyze a case study, advancing methodologies for critical assessment and visual representation. The studies will consider social, cultural, and aesthetic dimensions, environmental function, economic deployment, and political engagement. These exemplary cases will be a means to understand and articulate the evolving role of landscape architecture and related disciplines in designing for an increasingly vulnerable planet. As such, the course will explore how landscape architects respond to the climate crisis and what these actions say about the nature of design itself. The cases will be situated in different geographical and climatic contexts, and the responses will be understood relative to advances in science and the variations in political, environmental, economic, social, and historical contexts.
Climate by Design is a required course for MLA degree candidates and is open to other GSD and Harvard students interested in the climate crisis and design.
The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 3rd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. As this course meets on Monday, the first meeting of this course will be on Tuesday, September 3rd. It will meet regularly thereafter.
Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies III
Ecology and the Design World (Max Piana):
This course introduces Landscape Architecture students to the fundamentals of ecological science. We will use urban ecology and the social-ecological-systems framework as a lens through which to interpret human-influenced landscapes, assess ecological management and design decisions, and generate interventions. Through lectures, case studies, discussions, and field trips students will develop a working understanding, or ecological literacy, of ecological systems, function, and dynamics at multiple scales. Students will synthesize and apply these analytical skills in a series of assignments that integrate methods from field ecology, research, and design.
An Introduction to Woody Plants as a Design Medium (Christopher Matthews):
This portion of the course is for MLA AP students.
Recognizing that plants are one of the essential mediums of landscape architecture, this module seeks to introduce the student to the relationships between plants and people (horticulture) and the relationships between plants and the environment (ecology). The class focuses on the following topics and objectives:
– Concepts and practices necessary for using woody plants as a design medium.
– An introduction to the spatial, visual, functional, temporal, and sensorial qualities of woody plants in the landscape.
– An introduction to the horticultural requirements of woody plants particularly as it relates to the urban environment.
– Techniques and practices for using woody plants in the designed landscape.
Structural Design II
This course is a continuation of GSD 6227 and completes the introduction to the analysis and design of building structures. Both 6227 and 6229 are the required courses to satisfy (and exceed) accreditation requirements for structures in the MArch I program.
The course has three closely related pedagogical components. First, it introduces additional methods for structural analysis and design–numerical analysis techniques, physical model analysis, ultimate strength design of reinforced concrete elements, and structural design software.
Second, it completes the introduction to the elements of structures by introducing 3-D trusses, continuous beams, statically indeterminate frames, shells, and membranes. In addition to timber and steel, we introduce the design of reinforced concrete structures.
Finally, this course dedicates a significant amount of time to the design of structural systems, addressing both gravity as well as lateral loading scenarios. The design of structural systems is not treated as a purely quantitative exercise but as a design activity that synthesizes architectural design and structural principles. Design exercises and case study analysis serve to expose the relationship between structural systems and architectural form and space. Students will learn to identify typical design strategies for structural system strategies and understand their spatial and formal ramifications. They will learn to select and apply appropriate methods of analysis when conducting structural analysis studies in order to make informed decisions throughout the architectural design process.
A computer-based structural analysis program (Multiframe 3-D) will be used during the course. Together with its first part, GSD 6227, this course:
— Provides an understanding of the behavior of structural systems.
— Gives students an exposure to basic and advanced structural concepts and teaches simple calculations and the use of computer tools applicable in the early stages of the design process in order to select and size the most appropriate structural systems.
— Teaches the engineering language in an effort to improve communication with the engineers in the design team
The Monday class meeting is an optional review session.
Prerequisites: GSD 6227 or equivalent.
The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 3rd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. As this course meets on Monday, the first meeting of this course will be on Tuesday, September 3rd. It will meet regularly thereafter.
Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies I
This course recognizes plants as one of the most expressive materials of the artform — a living medium that distinguishes the discipline from the other applied sciences and fine arts. The goal of the course is to introduce the global potential of plants as a means of design for shaping the character of a place for individual and collective human experience. Investigations that straddle hand-drawn, digital and analog mediums will explore the universally accessible and adaptive power of plants in making healthy, resilient ecologies and socially dynamic spaces.
The course emphasizes the use of empirical observations and investigation to explore multiple-scaled thinking about plants and their habitats, including cultural and vernacular attributes and larger ecological systems. It is not a comprehensive overview of the horticultural or botanical history of plants, however students will employ an important methodology for how to learn plants that can be translated to any locale, including the rote memorization of botanical and common plant names combined with recognition of a plant's visual features.
Through case studies, field visits, lectures, and readings students will learn to identify approximately 50+ plants, define notational systems, and translate plant characteristics into design languages that they can apply in future design work. The course exposes students to the understanding of plants from non-managed plant communities to managed living systems.
Products of the course will include mixed media drawings that explore typologies of designed and non- designed plant communities. Videos, photographs, black and white field notes, sketches, diagrams, and a series of curated drawings in axon, plan, and section will be the vocabulary of the course. Regular "plant walks” which will provide great opportunities to observe plants in situ and learn how to use plants to shape the experience of place.
The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 3rd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. As this course meets on Tuesday, the first meeting of this course will be on Tuesday, September 10th. It will meet regularly thereafter.
Construction Systems
This course introduces students to methods of construction: conceptually, historically, and practically. We will consider how construction techniques emerge in relation to architectural desires and technical criteria in order to emphasize the architect’s agency in shaping construction systems within the collaborative environment of contemporary building design. Construction has material, structural, spatial, economic, environmental, and cultural consequences. As such, this foundational course will have the dual charge of understanding not just how, but also why we build in a particular manner.
An overview of construction systems will be provided including a review of wall, roof, envelope, and foundation systems. Students will learn about construction systems through lectures, readings, and a series of research assignments that ask students to apply methods of dissection (by drawing and modeling selected systems in detail) and to speculate on the larger societal and cultural relevance of architectural technologies. Students will be evaluated on the basis of their research assignments and participation in course discussions. Select course materials will be made available online for students to review outside of class hours for asynchronous engagement and discussion.
This course is part of the core curriculum in architecture for MArch I and MArch I AP students.
Environmental Systems 2 [Module 2]
Purpose: This course is the second of a two-module sequence in building technology (6121, 6122) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture.
Objective: To continue the study of environmental considerations in architectural design.
Content: The course will cover building systems and their technologies including the conventional and emerging HVAC systems, renewable energy systems, and other active building systems. It will also introduce daylight and electric lighting in buildings along with manual and computer-based methods for analyzing daylight design. The course also covers fundamental concepts of acoustics and their application in architecture.
In this course, students will:
– Learn the fundamentals of HVAC systems in architecture and practice the schematic design of such systems;
– Learn the basic principles and applications of daylighting and acoustic considerations in architecture; and
– Continue to develop analytical and creative thinking regarding sustainability and energy issues in building design.
Class format: Includes lectures and workshops. Where noted, attendance at evening workshops may be mandatory. In all classes, the goal is an interactive format, so questions, comments, and other forms of active participation are encouraged.
Environmental Systems 1 [Module 1]
This course is the first of a two-module sequence in building technology (6121, 6122) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture.
Objectives:
– To study selected aspects of the physical environment which directly affect people and their buildings, such as climate, weather, solar radiation and heat gain and loss.
– To study the means by which environmental factors may be wisely utilized, controlled, and modified as an integral part of the architectural design.
“Environmental Systems 1” will undertake the study of human needs, comfort, performance, and sense of well-being in relation to the physical environments, both natural and man-made, that occur in and around buildings. Recent environmental problems have been traced to the energy and waste products used or created by buildings. These environmental problems make it imperative that architects be familiar with the systems that affect building energy use.
Students in this course will become familiar with those elements of a building that contribute to the heat and cooling loads in the building and will be introduced to methods that reduce the energy consumption. Different methods of analysis, evaluation, and simulation will be introduced and used.
The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 3rd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. As this course meets on Monday, the first meeting of this course will be on Tuesday, September 3rd. It will meet regularly thereafter.
Origins and Contemporary Practices of Landscape Architecture in Asia: Korean Perspectives and More
This seminar will explore how landscape architecture as a modern profession was started in Asia, and how such origins have shaped the respective contemporary landscape architectural practices in the region.
The term “Asian” can be misleading; it conjures images of one identity that can be applied to all 51 countries in Asia. Scholars and practitioners, such as William Lim, Jillian Walliss, and Heike Rahmann, have elaborated on the inevitable complexities associated with identity in Asia’s landscapes, architecture, and urban practices. In his book Asian Alterity (Hackensack, N.J.: World Scientific, c2008), William Lim argues that most of the urban development processes in Asian countries can rarely be explained using Western theories. He also invited architects and landscape architects from nine Asian cities to write about their singularities. On the other hand, in The Big Asian Book of Landscape Architecture (Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 2020), Walliss and Rahmann claim that Asia is a method, not an identity, and write extensively about several practices and various aspects of being in the landscape profession in Asia.
In this seminar, we will deploy a particular lens to examine the onset of the contemporary landscape architecture profession and how their respective origins have shaped and are shaping each country’s landscape in five countries: the Republic of Korea (hereafter referred to as Korea), Japan, China, Singapore, and Thailand. Korea will be investigated more deeply and applied as a lens through which to further examine the cases of the four other countries since Korea’s landscape practices had an obvious initiator (i.e., former President Mr. Park) and a single strong motivation (i.e., post-war reforestation). Additionally, this course aims to promote further and in-depth discussions about other countries (beyond these five).
In each class, the students will hear from some of the most important scholars and practitioners in the field, including Yoonjin Park (PARKKIM), Shunsaku Miyagi (PLACEMEDIA, University of Tokyo), Kongjian Yu (Turenscape, Peking University), Dorothy Tang (National Singapore University), Kotchakorn Voraakhom (Landprocess), Jillian Walliss (University of Melbourne), and Heike Rahmann (RMIT), followed by the instructor’s lecture on each week’s topic. The course readings will be provided in digitized format at the start of the semester, and students will be expected to complete these readings before joining in the class discussion. Through this course, students will learn how each country’s landscape practice reflects its own distinctive historical, cultural, natural, and political context, and that they can leverage these practices in their respective futures as design professionals, no matter which region on the globe they will be based in.
There are no prerequisite courses required for enrollment in this seminar. However, some basic knowledge and interest in the geography of Asia, as well as the political and societal dynamics of the region in the 20th century, will be helpful. Please refer to the syllabus for the detailed schedule, contents, and course requirements.
Elements of the Urban Stack: Activating Design Agency in a Complex World
The Urban Stack is a practical and pedagogical framework for understanding the infrastructures of power that influence design practice today. The elements of the Urban Stack are the externalities that shape the design and production of the built environment — namely finance, technology, and policy — as well as the nature of contemporary practice itself. The course addresses the practical opportunities and challenges for design as it inevitably confronts, interacts with, and even shapes these elements in a time of increasing uncertainty, project complexity, and the collective risk of social and environmental crises.
The course is designed to explore, translate, and generate alternative readings of our built context: to “re-see” urban form through the lens of finance, technology, and policy. We will also examine how design practice can amplify its capacity as an agent of positive change in shaping the environmental, social, cultural, and experiential qualities of urban form within our emerging 21st-century context. A primary objective of the course is to identify gaps and opportunities in the layered socio-technical systems that guide the production of the contemporary built environment; and to leverage these gaps to enable culturally and socially transformative design and development.
Theoretical frameworks will be presented to help us seek space for design impact through established and emerging modes of practice and projects that operate upon, within, or against the elements of the Urban Stack as systemic constructs. This year, we will examine the housing design ecosystem to ground course content in practical and applied cases that wrestle with the balance of cultural, social, and environmental concerns; and that operate between the levels of project design and systems intervention.
Our task is to collectively answer the following questions: Where does our agency as designers of the built environment lie in current practice? As urban projects grow in complexity, swelling and speeding up to attain maximum impact, is our work inevitably defined and shaped by the pressures of finance, automation, and regulation?
The course format will balance lectures and panels of guest practitioners with collaborative cross-disciplinary research, analysis, discussion, and position formation around course topics. PRO-7445 is intended to bring together students across disciplines and degrees. The format of the class is aimed at interdisciplinary collaboration and novel investigation of the topics at hand. The discourse-heavy course format favors participation. There are no costs beyond tuition associated with this course.
The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 3rd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. As this course meets on Monday, the first meeting of this course will be on Tuesday, September 3rd. It will meet regularly thereafter.
Frameworks of Practice
How should we practice today?
The discipline, the profession, and the practice of architecture are invented and designed things. And the roles, relationships, protocols, and expertise that define architecture’s overarching frameworks are neither ancient nor fixed, even if buildings and the people who design them have existed for millennia. That said, for much of the twentieth century, the pace of change in the discipline, profession, and practice of architecture—and how one navigates these in the course of building a career—has been but gradual.
Crisis, however, is a powerful accelerant. Since the turn of the century, a series of interrelated economic, social, climate, and health crises have not just challenged architectural practices and practitioners, but are necessitating a wholesale reconsideration of the underlying frameworks of practice inherited from the twentieth century. While many architects will struggle to adapt, some are discovering and inventing new frameworks with which to confront not only specific crises, but to take a more proactive role in addressing the needs of society.
In Frameworks of Practice this fall, we will critically examine the challenges and opportunities created by crisis, and seek to understand how architects have designed new ways of practicing in direct response to crises ranging from economic collapse to structural racism to natural disaster to global pandemic. Acknowledging that the discipline, the profession, and the practice of architecture are invented, designed concepts, our ultimate aim is to uncover and imagine new ways of practicing in an increasingly upended world.
Course Format: Lectures by course instructor and guests; full-class and small group workshops and tutorials; discussions and team exercises; collaborative and individual projects.
Requirements: Consistent class attendance and engagement; satisfactory participation in and completion of collaborative and individual projects.
Prerequisites: The course is open to all degree programs at the GSD and certain cross-registration students from MIT. M.Arch I candidates must have completed the core professional practice course (PRO-07212) in order to enroll in PRO-07408. Prior work experience is beneficial but not required.
The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 3rd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. As this course meets on Tuesday, the first meeting of this course will be on Tuesday, September 10th. It will meet regularly thereafter.