Remembering Lars Lerup (1940–2025)

Lars Lerup was perhaps the most provocative urban thinker of his time. With an unconventional blend of inquisitive observation and wild speculation—aided by a dual gift for clarity and hyperbole—his prolific graphic and written output shaped the way we understand the American city. A towering figure in academia, his life and work touched countless individuals across several generations. A charismatic man with a warm and expansive personality, he leaves behind many friends.  

Lars was born in 1940 in Växjö, Sweden. He often recalled his childhood, in the outskirts of a small town, at the edge of the northern taiga, as marked by the dual influence of the immensity of the forest and an emotionally absent father. He left home for Stockholm at age sixteen to pursue studies in civil engineering. Soon after graduating in 1960, Lars moved to the United States, where he studied architecture, obtaining a degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1968. He continued his studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), where he graduated with a MAUD in 1970. 

During the 1970s and ’80s Lars was based in Berkeley, where he taught for two decades, but he remained involved in the ongoing debates on the East Coast, acting as a bridge between both centers of architectural discourse in the country. During this period, he was an active participant in Peter Eisenman’s Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, contributed one of the seminal issues to Steven Holl’s Pamphlet Architecture, and was a regular visitor at the GSD. 

In 1993 Lars moved to Houston, Texas, to become the dean of the Rice School of Architecture. Once there, he brought a cadre of free-wheeling collaborators who, for a few years, created a buzzing atmosphere of experimentation. Living in the quintessential postwar, car-centric American city was a puzzling experience for the Swede, who gradually turned Houston into the crux of his writing on contemporary cities. Starting with his article “Stim & Dross,” published in Assemblage in 1994, Houston continued to gain centrality in Lars’s thinking, becoming the subject of several books, including After the City (2000), One Million Acres & No Zoning (2011), and The Continuous City (2018).

As I wrote in the introduction to that latter publication, Lars’s way of thinking and writing about the city could be described as a hunter–gatherer empiricism: it departed from observations of objects and phenomena in the real world to theorize them—first by naming them, and then by setting them into relationships with other objects or phenomena, as if building a collection of fragments that formed a system of sorts. Lars’s systems were full of gaps and fissures, and their components, even if interdependent, always retained their discreteness and autonomy.  

This approach was especially useful when applied to the study of contemporary cities, vast assemblages where boundaries between things are ambiguous, often overlapped or nested within each other, and where it is hard to tell how or to what extent parts integrate into larger wholes, or even decipher the scales of the relationships at work. Lars’s refusal to overtheorize or simplify the level of complexity of urban conditions was his primary contribution, and it kept his thinking and writing sharp for decades.

Cities where, however, not the only topic of interest for Lars, who had an eclectic list of obsessions and recurring themes, which included everything from furniture to geological formations. Often he explored these preoccupations through speculative designs and through his drawing practice, which was equal in originality and relevance to his writing.

As a man, Lars was, like many of us, full of contradictions. He was open-hearted but elusive, expansive but vulnerable, a loner but deeply devoted to family—he adored his son, Darius, and his wife, Eva. He was a workaholic but also lazy as only a hedonist can be. . . . Perhaps more than anything he was large, as in larger-than-life: he took up a lot of space in the lives of the people around him. It is unavoidable that when somebody like that departs, they leave behind a void commensurate with the impact they made in others. In the case of Lars, the gaping void we feel is mitigated by myriad memories of his wit and charming intellect, as well as by a body of work that helps us make better sense of the world in which we live.

Leyla Uysal: Weaving Culture, Ecology, and Design at the GSD

When Leyla Uysal (MDes ’24, MLA ’27) arrived at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), she was already navigating an extraordinary path. An urban planner, entrepreneur, and mother, she had long worked to uplift Kurdish communities in her native Türkiye. Yet it was at Harvard that her journey deepened—becoming, as she puts it, “a dialogue with nature, design, and the world itself.” Through the Master of Design (MDes) and now the Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) programs, Uysal has found the GSD to be a catalyst for reimagining how creativity, culture, and ecology can intertwine to shape more compassionate and sustainable futures.

“Since my childhood, I’ve lived in close conversation with nature,” Uysal says, reflecting on her Indigenous Mesopotamian upbringing in a war-scarred area of rural Türkiye. Her Kurdish community—long oppressed by mainstream society—remained largely untouched by modernization, preserving a way of life rooted in intimacy with the land. What might have been deprivation became, in hindsight, a kind of inheritance. “Not being introduced to modernization, globalization, and industrialization has a positive impact on our bond with nature,” she explains. “We see everything as valuable and precious, and we live with much less waste. This is the blessing of not being fully modernized.”

This blessing, however, came at a cost. Education was not a birthright in Uysal’s community; it was something to be won. As a girl, she had to persuade her parents to allow her to attend school, defying customs that deemed education improper for daughters. “This was the curse of not living in a modernized setting,” she recalls. “My going to school was seen as dishonoring my culture.” Within her tribe of nearly six thousand people, Uysal became the first woman to graduate from high school—and the first person ever to attend college. Today, she notes with pride, many of her younger female relatives have followed in her path.

In time, Uysal left her family homestead for Istanbul, where she enrolled at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. There she earned a bachelor’s degree in urban and regional planning while also studying ecology and ecosystem restoration—a synthesis that would become central to her later work. In 2012, she moved to Boston with two goals: to learn English and, inspired by Charles Waldheim’s theories of landscape urbanism, to explore opportunities for study at the GSD. Marriage and motherhood followed, and for a few years her energy turned inward, toward family and the fragile equilibrium of building a new life abroad. But the memory of her own struggles lingered. “I wanted to help others who were facing the same challenges I did,” she says.

That impulse gave rise to Bajer Watches , a social enterprise founded, in her words, “to empower women and children, to provide them opportunities to have a better life.” Through Bajer, which produces high-end timepieces, Uysal partners with two Turkish NGOs that create educational and employment opportunities for rural Kurdish women and children. Each watch, crafted by hand, carries a piece of that story: the leather bands are inscribed with motifs drawn from Kurdish rugs—ancient symbols of clarity, resistance, and protection once woven by women as a means of communication when traditions required their silence. “The brand brings that story to the front line,” Uysal says. “Through design and craft, we tell the world that we exist.”

Bajer soon drew attention from the press , its blend of activism and aesthetics striking a resonant chord. Yet even as her company grew, Uysal felt another calling stirring. The planner in her—the thinker who saw systems, cities, and landscapes as interconnected—was restless. “I thought, I need to go back to school,” she recalls, “and use my skills for the next generations.”

In 2022, Uysal returned to academia, enrolling in the MDes program at the Harvard GSD. It marked, as she puts it, “a beautiful new chapter in my life.” She had always felt close to nature, but the MDes program gave that intuition an intellectual framework. As a student in the Ecologies domain, she immersed herself in the science of climate systems, exploring how data, policy, and design intersect. “I took many science, data, policy, and technology classes in the context of climate change,” she says. “My perspective became more grounded, and now everything I do is rooted in it.”

Her studies coalesced in “Project of Hope: Re-Imagining Indigenous Lands; Recovering through Memory,” supported by the Penny White Project Fund. “Project Hope” addresses the landmines scattered along Türkiye’s Syrian, Iraqi, and Iranian borders—about two million buried among ancient olive and pistachio fields—that have scarred both the land and its people. Rooted in a desire to restore memory and livelihood, the project uses landscape and permaculture design as tools to help Kurds reconnect with their sustainable farming traditions and reclaim their way of life. The work blended design, ecology, and cultural memory, proposing ways Indigenous landscapes might be repossessed—not only physically, but emotionally and symbolically.

After completing the MDes in 2024, Uysal’s curiosity only deepened. That summer, she began a PhD in environmental planning and policy program  at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), under the guidance of professors Janelle Knox-Hayes  and Lawrence Susskind . Her research, ambitious in scope, examines the role of human ego in design and planning, exploring how humility and reciprocity might reshape zoning, development, and our relationship to land. “It’s about rethinking how we plan on this planet,” she says—a question that links the human scale of design to the vastness of the Earth itself.

The complexity of that inquiry soon drew her back to landscape itself. In the fall of 2025, Uysal enrolled in the MLA program at the GSD, supported by a full scholarship from the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture. She describes the MLA as a foundation for her doctoral research—a way to integrate lived experience with ecological design. “It allows me to build a more inclusive, Earth-oriented, future-oriented approach,” she says, “to inspire planners, architects, and designers to rethink their work.”

This year, she added yet another layer to her work: teaching. At MIT, she is a teaching assistant for a course on quantitative and qualitative research methodologies—a role she approaches not as an authority, but as a participant in an ongoing exchange. “I’m still learning,” she says. “I’m learning from my students already.”

In some ways, Uysal’s work has always been a return—a long arc from southeastern Türkiye to the classrooms of Cambridge, from handmade rugs to digital mapping, from silence to speech. What began as a fight for an education has evolved into a philosophy of design that treats the planet as a living archive of memory and meaning. It is a perspective shaped as much by experience as by scholarship: the child who watched the seasons shift over an ancient landscape has become the scholar urging designers and planners to move with, not against, the rhythms of our planet.

Uysal’s story is less about success than about continuity—the enduring thread between land and learning, between the resilience of her Kurdish ancestors and the generative curiosity that defines her work today. “Every step,” she says, “is another way of listening—to people, to place, and to the Earth itself.”

Practicing Growth in a Finite World: An Ethics Of Patience and Pragmatism

Two themes—pragmatism and time—dominated last week’s Practicing Growth in a Finite World, a Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) panel presented as this year’s Carl E. Sapers Ethics in Practice Lecture and hosted by the GSD Practice Forum. Four experts—one philosopher and three built‑environment practitioners—approached the question of growth and sustainability in a resource‑constrained world from distinct vantage points. Their conversation, urgent yet mindful of the incremental pace of change, surfaced ethical frameworks for 21st‑century practice and examined how designers can work within today’s constraints to make room for future transformation.

Architects, planners, and designers face a constellation of ethical quandaries. Moderator Elizabeth Bowie Christoforetti, assistant professor in practice of architecture and chair of the GSD Practice Forum, set the stage with a sobering fact: buildings produce more than 40 percent of global carbon emissions. In an age of relentless urban growth, that number captures a central paradox. Political and professional pressures demand speed—the rapid delivery of affordable housing and public infrastructure—even as every new square foot adds to the planet’s carbon and waste loads. Technology can scale these efforts , magnifying both progress and harm—harm potentially so devastating that some commentators argue for a moratorium on new construction. Beneath it all runs a familiar tension: the push to maximize returns for clients versus the desire to create culturally meaningful work. As Christoforetti observed, “the context for 21st-century design is thus a pressure cooker of external complexities.” 

The urgency of the moment was brought into focus by philosopher Mathias Risse —Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights, Global Affairs, and Philosophy and director of the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights  at the Harvard Kennedy School. “Architecture and design are at an ethical crossroads,” he argued. The only ethically responsible path forward, Risse suggested, is to become a “pragmatic moral agent”—someone who “works within existing systems to minimize environmental impact, promote sustainable practices, and gradually shift attitudes toward building and consumption.” The practical and temporal dimensions he outlined echoed through the reflections of the remaining three panelists. 

Jane Amidon  (MLA ’95), professor of landscape architecture and director of the Urban Landscape Program at Northeastern University, examined how practitioners navigate questions of public space, nature, and human experience.  She pointed to large-scale, dynamic projects, such as those involving ecological rehabilitation and landscape maturation, that rely on “small tools of incremental change” and sustained advocacy—efforts that unfold over decades. Working closely with communities, she noted, designers can help shift expectations and foster acceptance of new approaches, such as coastal landscape projects in recent years that make room for rising water rather than trying, futilely, to hold it back. 

“I’m interested in how design can work within the systems of today and catalyze or allow for the possibility of a different tomorrow,” said Neeraj Bhatia, advocating a similar forward-looking approach. A professor at the California College of the Arts and founder of THE OPEN WORKSHOP , a design-research practice, Bhatia discussed  Lots Will Tear Us Apart, a recent collaboration with Spiegel Aihara Workshop that proposes a new housing typology for San Francisco. The project reimagines community living by rejecting conventional property division and private ownership, instead using prefabricated cores and flexible configurations to promote alternative living arrangements that allow for higher density and communal land. “The project asks how the architect can preconfigure the conditions for more collectivity, sharing, and social resilience,” Bhatia explained. “It offers the possibility of other ways of life that can slowly reconfigure the system over time.”

Dr. Dana Cuff , a professor at UCLA, concluded the discussion by focusing on spatial justice and the work she leads through cityLAB , a UCLA-based non-profit research and design center. “In every form of practice,” Cuff observed, “there are ways of doing work that step outside a capitalist model, whether it’s pro bono efforts in a traditional practice or … an organization dedicated to something like affordable housing.” One of cityLAB’s first breakthroughs was its research into the feasibility of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in California, which helped shape 2016 legislation that opened the door for an estimated 8.1 million ADUs statewide. Building on that momentum, Cuff and her team turned their attention to small vacant lots throughout Los Angeles, launching Small Lots, Big Impact in spring 2025—a design competition aimed at prototyping and promoting housing on underused parcels. As she remarked in response to an audience question, “Capitalism is the air we breathe. Once you accept that, you have to ask yourself: what can you do to shift the trajectory, even slightly, and open up new possibilities?” 

Cuff’s reflection echoed a point made earlier in the evening by Sarah Whiting, dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at the GSD, who opened the event by emphasizing design schools’ ethical responsibilities—to their students, the profession, and humanity. “If we want our students to advance the world, making it more beautiful, more just, more ecological, and more durable, we need to work with them to envision what practices can enable that,” Whiting said. “As we push the envelope of building envelopes, facades, structures, materials, forms, and programs, we need to push the envelope of practice itself.” 

In the end, Practicing Growth in a Finite World revealed less a crisis than a recalibration. The panelists’ insights traced an ethics of patience and pragmatism—an acknowledgment that meaningful change in the built environment unfolds not only through grand gestures, but through persistant, systemic work. In confronting the limits of growth, they offered a hopeful reminder: that design’s true power lies not only in what it creates, but in how it reimagines the conditions for collective progress.

GSD Faculty and Alumni Integral to the Creation of Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus

After more than a decade of orchestration, the first phase of Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus (ERC) —a vibrant mixed-use district in Boston’s Allston neighborhood—is nearing completion, culminating the coordinated efforts of stakeholders from Harvard University, the City of Boston, local resident groups, and design professionals. Notably, faculty and alumni of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) have played integral roles in the ERC, from conceptualization and planning through design and construction.

Envisioned as an innovation hub to foster collaboration among academia, industry, and the surrounding community, the ERC occupies a 14-acre swath of land across the Charles River from Harvard University’s historic campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, adjacent to the university’s Business School and the Science and Engineering Complex. GSD faculty have contributed significantly to the ERC, including Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang , which led the master plan of the neighborhood-scale project with Henning Larsen ; Tim Love of Utile , which served as master plan coordinator; and Alexis Landes (MLA ’10) of SCAPE , responsible for landscape design throughout the project.   

Stewarded by Harvard Allston Land Company (HALC)  and developed by Tishman Speyer , the ERC encompasses two phases. Construction on the first portion, Phase A, officially began in November 2023; its 900,000 square feet of facilities began opening this summer and will continue into early 2026. This includes:

• David Rubenstein Treehouse: a university-wide conference center offering meeting and special event space  
• One Milestone East and One Milestone West: two cutting-edge laboratory buildings offering 440,000 square feet of lab and office space 
• Residences at Verra:  343 residential units over two buildings, an 8-story mid-rise tower and a 17-story high-rise that feature a green roof-top terrace, ground-floor retail, and resident amenities 
• The Atlas Hotel: 246-rooms in a 16-story tower with ground-floor restaurants, shops, and cafes 
• Greenway and flexible outdoor space: more than 2 acres of publicly accessible green space to host events including farmer markets, musical performances, and fitness classes 

ERC’s Phase B, located on a 4.8-acre parcel to the west and south of Phase A and not yet scheduled for construction, will contain an additional 720,000 square feet of lab and office space, 320,000 square feet of residential housing with a mix of ground-floor retail and community spaces, and public landscaping.

With a variety of contributions, GSD faculty and alumni have helped shape the ERC through all stages of its evolution.  

Conceptualization and Overall Development

Alex Krieger (MCU ’77), professor in practice of urban design, emeritus, was deeply involved in the conceptualization and evolution of the university’s Allston strategy and properties, including the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences complex, the American Repertory Theater, and the ERC. Krieger consistently served on design advisory, review, and selection committees related to the Allston expansion. A close advisor to former Harvard president Drew Faust and executive vice presidents for administration Sally Zeckhauser and Katie Lapp, Krieger co-led Harvard’s Allston Work Team, whose 2011 recommendations established the groundwork for, among other things, what would become the Harvard Allston Land Company. 

Stephen Gray (MAUD ’08), director of the Master of Architecture in Urban Design program, associate professor of urban design, co-director of the Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design degree program, is founder and principal of Grayscale Collaborative . Gray worked with HALC to explore detailed development scenarios prior to drafting the developer request for proposals (RFP); help select Tishman Speyer, the design team, and the master developer; lead a cross-team facilitated process across various client heads and designers, including a reimagined design review; and provide direction from the ERC equity and inclusion framework. 

Mohsen Mostafavi, Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design and Harvard University distinguished service professor, served as dean of the GSD from 2008 to 2019 and took part in university-wide advisory committees on Allston’s development.

Shaun Donovan (MArch/MPA ’95) worked directly with President Faust and Harvard leadership to establish the vision and planning for Allston, as well as create the land company that is now developing that vision. This includes projects such as the ERC, American Repertory Theater, and more affordable housing.

Harvard Allston Land Company (HALC): In 2018, Thomas P. Glynn III was named founding chief executive of the HALC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University established to develop the ERC. Under Glynn, who taught at the GSD in urban planning and design as well as at the Harvard Kennedy School, HALC issued a call for developers in 2019 and selected Tishman Speyer the following year. 

Following Glynn’s retirement in 2021, Carl Rodrigues, GSD lecturer in real estate, became chief executive officer of the Harvard Allston Land Company. Rodrigues has overseen securing project entitlements, construction financing and financial close on the ground leases, construction, and the opening of Phase A buildings.

Tishman Speyer : For more than five years, Rustom Cowasjee (MAUD ’82) has directed the overall development of the ERC and all aspects of the project’s design and construction for Tishman Speyer, a global corporation in real estate investment, development, and management. This includes orchestrating the distinct design and construction teams responsible for the ERC’s Phase A buildings alongside the cohesive landscaping approach that unites this new mixed-use neighborhood. 

Halls Lane Studio : As a consultant to Tishman Speyer working closely with Cowasjee, Halls Lane Studio—led by Jay Berman (MArch ’98)—served as a strategic design and planning advisor, helping to select and onboard architecture and engineering teams, map design processes, frame stakeholder engagement, and guide design evolution of lab/office, residential, hotel, conference center, and overall site planning during program confirmation, concept, schematic, and design development phases of the project.

Urban Design and Landscape 

Studio Gang : Led by founding partner Jeanne Gang (MArch ’93), Studio Gang took part in multiple facets of ERC  including serving as co-design lead with Henning Larsen  for the mixed-use district’s master plan, covering 14 acres of land adjacent to the Harvard Business School and Harvard’s Science and Engineering Complex. Other GSD alumni at Studio Gang who contributed to the ERC plan include design director Ana Flor (MArch ’10), Arthur Liu (MArch’13), and Spencer Hayden (MArch ’17). 

Henning Larsen : With Studio Gang, Henning Larsen served as co-design lead for the ERC’s master plan as well as the architectural design for One Milestone East and its connector. Harvard alumni engaged in one or both aspects of the project include Bomin Park (MAUD ’20), as senior designer; Kritika Kharbanda (MDes ’23), on sustainability; Evan Shieh (MAUD ’19), as urban planner; and Ece Comert-Fisher (MArch ’18), as designer. 

Utile : Utile, founded by Tim Love (MArch ’89), coordinated the master plan for the ERC. Love—GSD lecturer and senior fellow in real estate and urban planning, and assistant director of the Master in Real Estate program—is Utile’s principal-in-charge on master plan coordination; Jessy Yang (MAUD ’17), project manager; Loren Rapport (MAUD ’18), urban designer; and Andrew Nahmias (MArch ’16; now at Boston Planning Department), urban designer.  

SCAPE : Established by founding principal Kate Orff (MLA ’97), SCAPE is responsible for the greenway, central plaza, open space surrounding multiple buildings and on-structure landscapes, multi-modal streetscapes incorporating stormwater management infrastructure, and a laneway connecting Western Avenue to the greenway. Gena Wirth (MLA/MUP ’09) is SCAPE’s design principal-in-charge of the ERC; Alexis Landes (MLA ’10), management principal; Brad Howe (MLA ’15), design lead; and Rose Lee (MLA ’18), designer and construction administrator. Adopting a creative palette of pavers, plantings, and other elements, SCAPE’s landscaping strategy unites One Milestone East and West, the Verra Residences, the David Rubenstein Treehouse, and the Atlas Hotel into a cohesive, vibrant mixed-use development.

Sasaki : As an urban design principal at Sasaki, Martin Zogran (MAUD ’99) has actively led planning and urban design support for Harvard University’s Planning and Design (HUPAD) Allston Initiative (AI) planning group. Alongside the leadership of Marika Reuling of HUPAD AI, Sasaki has been engaged for over five years, helping to shape Harvard’s long-term land planning and community engagement objectives for the ERC, areas within the Institutional Master Plan, Beacon Park Yards, and greater Allston. GSD alumni at Sasaki also involved with this work include Dennis Pieprz (MAUD ’85), Mary Anna Ocampo (MAUD ’10), Laura Marett(MLA ’06; now at SCAPE), Rodrigo Guerra (MAUD ’17), and Gabriel Ramos (MUP ’19). 

Gamble Associates : Founded by David Gamble (MAUD ’97), Gamble Associates has been an urban design consultant for the HALC since 2018. In this capacity, the firm has consulted in the review process, conducted urban design studies, collaborated with selected architecture and landscape designers, and have been involved with design review.

Level Infrastructure : Level Infrastructure, led by founding director Byron Stigge (MDes ’08), acted as infrastructure consultant for the ERC master plan.

Architecture

Studio Gang : Led by founding partner Jeanne Gang (MArch ’93), Studio Gang designed the David Rubenstein Treehouse and One Milestone West. Managing partner Mark Schendel (MArch ’89) contributed to the David Rubenstein Treehouse. Eric Zuckerman (MArch ’18), Art Terry (MAUD ’14), and Shunfan Zheng (MAUD ’20) took part in designing One Milestone West.

Henning Larsen : Henning Larsen designed One Milestone East, the connector between One Milestone East and West, and served as co-design lead with Studio Gang on the district’s master plan. Harvard alumni engaged in one or both aspects of the project include Bomin Park(MAUD ’20), as senior designer; Kritika Kharbanda (MDes ’23), on sustainability; Evan Shieh (MAUD ’19), as urban planner; and Ece Comert-Fisher (MArch ’18), as designer. 

Marlon Blackwell Architects : Led by Marlon Blackwell, former visiting faculty at the GSD, Marlon Blackwell Architects designed the Harvard ERC Hotel, formally called the Atlas Hotel.

Moody Nolan : In his current role on the Harvard ERC Hotel/Atlas Hotel with Moody Nolan, Kevin Y. Lee (MArch ’09) has applied his design expertise to the construction administration process coordinating with HALC, Tishman Speyer, and construction manager Consigli-Smoot to ensure Marlon Blackwell Architects’ design vision is faithfully executed, bridging conceptual rigor with technical precision.

MVRDV : Nathalie de Vries, former visiting faculty at the GSD and one of the founders of MVRDV, led the firm’s design team for the ERC’s residential complex, Verra. 

Arrowstreet : For One Milestone West, Arrowstreet served as architect of record and sustainability consultant. Amy Korte (MArch ’01), president of Arrowstreet, worked as a consulting partner, contributing early in the project during the entitlement phase as well as supporting the coordination with HALC. Andrea Brue (MAUD ’91), senior associate, provided early-phase design support as a project architect, contributing to programmatic layout and the development of schematic designs. Architectural designer Chi-Hsuan (Vita) Wang (MArch ’19; no longer at Arrowstreet) also contributed to the project.

Acentech : Benjamin Markham, president of Acentech and formerly a lecturer on acoustics at the GSD, led the firm’s involvement as acoustic consultant for One Milestone West. 

*Please contact us if you or your firm should be included in this article.

Harvard Faculty and Alumni Among Winners of 40 Under 40 North America

Faculty and alumni of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) are among the winners of the inaugural 40 Under 40 North America competition. Curated by the World Architecture Festival  (WAF) and The Architect’s Newspaper , 40 Under 40 North America recognizes outstanding young architects from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In addition to receiving a complimentary ticket to WAF, to be held November 12 through 14 in Miami Beach, Florida, the winners’ work will be highlighted in a special exhibition at the festival—on view to the gathering’s nearly 2000 global attendees—and featured in The Architect’s Newspaper.  

The winning GSD alumni are Daniel Feldman (MAUD ’15) of ZITA in Long Island City, New York; Armida Fernandez (MDes ’20) of Estudio Ala in Guadalajara, Mexico; Taehyung Park (MLA ’14) of Field Operations in New York City, New York; Juan Sala (MArch ’18) of Sala Hars in Anzures, Mexico; and GSD design critic in architecture Khoa Vu (MArch ’19) of Studio KHOA VU in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Vu’s project, which will be on display at WAF alongside the works of the other 40 Under 40 architects, addresses issues of adaptive reuse and sustainable design—themes that are central to Vu’s teaching and practice. With Ts Veil, Vu transforms an existing villa in Ho Chi Min City into a social dining space, reinterpreting the relationship between old and new through material economy and climatic responsiveness. In addition to being exhibited at WAF, Ts Veil has been shortlisted for the Dezeen Awards 2025 .

Sameh Wahba: Expanding the Canvas of Sustainable Development

Sameh Wahba (MUP ’97, PhD ’02) navigates one of the most complex landscapes in global development. As the World Bank’s Regional Director for Sustainable Development in Europe and Central Asia, Wahba heads efforts to eradicate poverty and promote inclusive development in an area stretching nearly 5.5 million square miles, from Kazakhstan’s desert and steppes to the Mediterranean coasts. Within this vast territory, his mandate covers a diverse population and an extraordinary range of issues—helping countries strengthen agriculture and food systems, manage water and natural resources, adapt to climate change, build resilient cities, and foster social inclusion. With a $10 billion portfolio and a team of 200 experts over 23 regional offices, Wahba is tasked with creating a vision of sustainable growth that can withstand both the pressures of today and the uncertainties of tomorrow.

“For me, the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) was a good entry for this work; it gave me a place to build on my background in architecture while pushing me toward new ways of thinking,” Wahba reflects. Indeed, over the course of his studies in the GSD’s master of urban planning and doctoral programs, he came to embrace design as inseparable from economic, sociological, and environmental concerns. Whether in his efforts with the World Bank or his sustained engagement with the GSD, this expansive framework continues to guide Wahba’s work today.

The GSD as Springboard: From Architecture to Global Development

Wahba’s professional path began in Cairo, Egypt, where he completed a master’s degree in architecture with a focus on engineering. Interested in housing, he was inspired by the work of Hassan Fathy, whose pioneering low-cost housing projects demonstrated that affordability, culture, and beauty could align. But Wahba also recognized the limitations of such community development initiatives; for example, Fathy’s vernacular-inspired work didn’t always resonate aesthetically or functionally with the needs of those for whom he designed.

Arriving at the GSD, Wahba began to further explore the complexities of housing and community development. “My first couple of years, I complemented my existing design and spatial perspective with more quantitative tools, understanding the economics, the real estate finance dynamics, and the urban politics,” he recalls. The academic freedom allowed him to experiment broadly as he deepened his knowledge, drawing from design studios, planning courses, and policy seminars at the GSD, other Harvard schools, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This latitude proved transformative. “The GSD was a place where I could take Alan Altshuler’s ‘Urban Politics and Planning’ at the same time as Rem Koolhaas’s ‘Harvard Project on the City,’ and then take Rafael Moneo’s ‘Design Theories in Architecture,’” Wahba notes. For his PhD committee, Wahba assembled diverse thinkers, working with Jerold Kayden on public-private development, Bill Doebele  on international development, and Tony Gómez-Ibáñez on economics and public policy. Drawing from all three areas of expertise, he ultimately devised his own formula for work on land and housing policy. “The breadth of choice, within the GSD as well as across Harvard and MIT,” Wahba reflects, “gave me the intellectual flexibility that continues to shape my work.”

Overall, at the GSD, Wahba reframed his approach to urban and development challenges. “The school became a springboard for me; it let me experiment and connect design with the real forces shaping cities,” he explains. Wahba began to see design as a framework that could connect with economics, policy, and governance to create holistic solutions. As Wahba notes, the GSD’s multidisciplinarity “allowed me to expand the canvas. Whether it’s working on land policy, housing, or resilience, I’m always drawing from that foundation of ‘design-plus’.”

Integrating Insights to Create Solutions

Through his work with the World Bank, Wahba applies this “design-plus” concept within an amazingly broad context. While he currently directs efforts in Europe and Central Asia, throughout his 22 years with the institution he has been part of sustainable growth initiatives in regions around the world facing the pressures of rapid urbanization, environmental degradation, social inequality, and the intensifying impacts of climate change. Reflecting this complexity, Wahba’s portfolio encompasses projects across sectors, from improving land administration to supporting agricultural resilience to advancing energy and water sustainability. His work also includes helping governments strengthen disaster preparedness and recovery, a responsibility that has grown in urgency as extreme weather events increase in severity.

Crucially, Wahba emphasizes cooperation across domains, balancing technical expertise, policy advice, financing, and diplomacy—aspects that draw directly on the intellectual foundation he built at the GSD. “You cannot solve the housing crisis only with architecture,” he observes. “You have to think about finance, about land markets, about politics, about resilience, and you must integrate them all.” It is this perspective that Wahba brings to the World Bank. “Mainly we’re financiers,” he explains, “so we support governments in doing things. Yet with our research and the analytics, we’ve expanded the boundaries of the practice. And I’ve managed to introduce a stronger design lens to our work.” Since Wahba has joined the World Bank, he has helped countries grow significantly into issues of climate action, decarbonization, and adaptation. “We have moved into urban design, public spaces, nature-based solutions such as wetlands and mangroves—which serve decarbonization and flood mitigation purposes, but also in terms of creating green spaces, accessible spaces, thinking about mobility in the city.”

For Wahba, “expand the canvas” is more than a metaphor—it is a method of integrating insights across disciplines to generate practical, impactful solutions. It also means rethinking systems rather than simply delivering projects. For instance, in disaster prevention efforts, Wahba’s team helps rebuild infrastructure with embedded resilience measures that allow communities to emerge stronger. An example of such work is Beddagana Wetlands Park , part of the larger Metro Colombo Urban Redevelopment Project in Sri Lanka, which Wahba headed during an earlier role as Global Director for Urban, Resilience, and Land at the World Bank. His team transformed an 18-hectacre garbage strewn area into a thriving urban wetland that provides a recreational zone, regulates flooding, moderates atmospheric temperatures, and hosts an array of flora and fauna. At the same time, this regenerated wetland offers educational opportunities for local children and, through the development of concessions, generates revenue. Envisioned as a nature-based solution for flash floods, Beddagana Wetland has become a major amenity in the city, increasing biodiversity, residents’ property values, and their quality of life.

Another remarkable project occurred in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, following a massive mudslide that killed hundreds of people and displaced thousands more. In addition to rehousing the affected population, the Sierra Leone Urban Resilience Program  involved planting more than a million trees in the city for soil stabilization. This tree planting and care campaign  simultaneously doubles as an income transfer program to alleviate poverty, with poor households engaged as environmental stewards. In exchange for pay, they plant the trees, grow them, and document their growth. Such creative programs support urban improvements while bolstering opportunity. 

In many cases, Wahba’s team introduces new practices—such as the recently established Türkiye Water Circularity and Efficiency Improvement Project , which expands wastewater treatment and addresses water scarcity through the reuse of that water for agriculture and irrigation. And even seemingly small interventions can have a huge impact. Wahba cites an informal settlement upgrading program in Kenya where the installation of high mast lighting has changed communities: shops stay open later, kids without electricity at home bring books and study under the light, and crime rates drop. “It’s a complete transformation just because you put in a single light pole,” Wahba says. 

These initiatives reflect the interconnectedness of sustainable development and the imperative to bridge realms that, at times, have been treated as distinct. They also echo the GSD ethos of design as a framework that unites physical form with social, economic, and political realities.

A Continuing Conversation with the GSD

Even as he leads an expansive portfolio at the World Bank, Wahba remains closely connected to the GSD. Since July 2024 he has served as co-chair of the GSD Alumni Council, first with Nina Chase (MLA ’12)  and now with Alpa Nawre (MLAUD ’11). Through the Alumni Council Wahba co-created Design Impact —a global speaker series in which practitioners share their visionary work on critical yet often overlooked topics, including upgrading slums and accessible design. Wahba is also a member of the Dean’s Council, through which he takes part in high-level discussions that help further the GSD’s reach within the university and beyond. He also recently began as an appointed director of the Harvard Alumni Association, representing the GSD. Indeed, Wahba sees the GSD as a vital incubator for the next generation of urban and development leaders—individuals who will tackle the increasingly complex challenges of climate adaptation, migration, housing crises, and social equity. 

Looking back, Wahba positions his GSD experience as a reframing of design and the opportunities it brings. His wide-ranging explorations prepared him for a career where architecture merges with policy, spatial design intertwines with economic systems, and resilience demands creativity across disciplines. As Wahba affirms, “that multidisciplinary approach formed at the GSD comes to life in everything I do now.”

Harvard Graduate School of Design Students Win 24-hour Hack-a-thon with Creative Solution to Address America’s Housing Crisis

A team of Harvard Graduate School of Design students has won the Ivory Innovations  2025 Hack-A-House  competition in the Construction & Design category. Hack-A-House, an annual virtual competition, gives students a chance to win $5,000 while creating novel solutions to tackle America’s housing crisis. The One Block Away team—composed of Justin Joel Tan (MRE ’26), Marko Velazquez (MRE ’26), Noah Garcia (MRE ’26), Tejas S (MRE ’26), and Pranav Subramanian (MDes ’27)—won for their project “NeighborCore ,” which consists of a new housing typology that makes housing more affordable through shared spaces, modular construction, and flexible layouts.

“Hack-A-House uniquely empowers students from colleges and universities nationwide to create real-world solutions to address today’s housing crisis in a 24-hour period,” said Ian Cahoon, director of Innovations at Ivory Innovations. “It is truly amazing to see the innovative ideas and solutions teams like One Block Away can produce in such a short time. In addition to One Block Away’s winning entry, this year’s competitors presented solutions ranging from improving lending to first time buyers to increasing access to affordable housing.”

Combining off- and onsite construction techniques, One Block Away’s “NeighborCore” proposes an alternative to traditional single-family homes, which are often too big and too expensive for today’s changing population demographics. “Together, we explored a new housing typology aimed at bridging the gap between apartment living and home ownership by leveraging innovative design, efficient construction methods, existing distribution, and financial feasibility,” said One Block Away team member Tan. “We believe our solution, ‘NeighborCore,’ delivers a vision that can be scaled, producing densification while still blending into the character of existing neighborhoods.”

The Ivory Innovations 2025 Hack-A-House  recognizes winners in three areas—Finance, Policy & Regulatory Reform, Construction & Design. Participants were tasked with addressing specific challenges impacting housing affordability. After selecting a topic, contestants spent the next 24 hours strategizing with their teams, meeting with industry experts, and preparing a short live presentation for judges and other competitors. A panel of judges that included real estate industry experts, startup founders, academics, and leaders of major companies selected winning teams in the three categories.

The Hack-A-House winners will attend the upcoming 2025 Ivory Prize Summit  on October 29, at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and present their ideas in person. After the teams present, the audience, which includes a live stream , will vote to select the grand prize winner.

​Both an operating foundation and an academic center based at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business, Ivory Innovations catalyzes high-impact innovations in housing affordability. They bridge research and industry to support cross-sector solutions, provide recognition and funding for groundbreaking ideas, engage a global student population, and contribute directly to the development of affordable housing.

Joe Russell and Emma Sheffer Win Architizer A+ Vision Award 

Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) students Joe Russell (MArch ’27) and Emma Sheffer (MArch ’27) have been named as winners of the 2025 Architizer A+ Vision Award . The jury selected Russell and Sheffer’s project “Theseus ” as winner of the Vision for Reuse and Renovation category. The project will be published in Architizer’s How to Visualize Architecture book.

In addition, for the 2025 Vision Awards, “Theseus” has received the special title of “Best of Year” and will be featured in the November/December issue of Metropolis . 

Russell and Sheffer developed “Theseus” as part of their Core IV studio. A 150-bed housing project across from the port of Chelsea, MA, “Theseus” adapts cargo holds from decommissioned bulk-carrier ships, which are typically retired after 25 years. The project transforms maritime steel infrastructure into resilient housing superstructures. Suspended floor plates allow the ground to remain open for communal use, creating a floodable, adaptable civic space. The units offer elasticity; residents can open walls to expand or merge households, adapting to shifting domestic needs. Located along Marginal Street, the five-building complex buffers the community from industrial noise while creating east–west public passageways. The project addresses climate adaptation, material scarcity, and long-term housing stability. By reusing locally sourced steel and integrating public programming, “Theseus” reframes housing as civic infrastructure. Scalable to other port cities, it proposes a new architectural typology rooted in industrial heritage, designed not just to shelter but to support life, work, care, and community over time.

Gund Hall Receives 2025 Modernism in America Award From DOCOMOMO US

In 2024, the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) undertook an ambitious renovation to upgrade Gund Hall’s energy performance, sustainability, and accessibility while conserving the building’s original design. This week, Docomomo US —a non-profit organization dedicated to the documentation and conservation of works of the twentieth-century modern movement—announced Gund Hall as the recipient of the 2025 Modernism in America Award for excellence in the civic design category. 

“This year’s Modernism in America Awards highlight the enduring power of excellence in design and the ability of historic preservation to respond to the evolving needs of society,” Docomomo explained . Designed by John Andrews (MArch ’58) as a home for the GSD, Gund Hall opened in 1972. Fifty years later, a design team led by Bruner/Cott Architects  harnessed innovative technology to renew Gund Hall’s distinctive glass curtain wall. By improving the building’s energy efficiency, thermal performance, and light quality, the renovation created a more functional and comfortable environment for the school’s occupants while offering a model for the stewardship of mid-twentieth-century architecture. As the award announcement noted, “The restoration of Gund Hall’s curtain wall demonstrates how modern landmarks can improve usability and extend building life while meeting the urgent demands of climate responsibility through thoughtful, sustainable interventions.”

Other structures to receive Modernism in America Awards of Excellence this year include Boston City Hall  (Kallman, McKinnell, and Knowles, 1968; advocacy award); and Harlem River Houses  (by Archibald Manning Brown and funded by the Public Works Administration, 1937; residential design award) in New York City; and the Transamerica Pyramid Center  (William Pereria, 1972; commercial design award) in San Francisco, California. The award ceremony will take place on November 6, 2025, in Chicago.

In addition to the 2025 Modernism in America Award of Excellence bestowed by Docomomo US, since the completion of its renovation Gund Hall has also received the 2025 Robert H. Kuehn Award  from Preservation Massachusetts and a Preservation Award from the Cambridge Historical Commission .  

Harvard GSD Faculty and Alumni Feature Prominently in Chicago Architecture Biennial

As a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) more than a decade ago, Florencia Rodriguez (LF ’13) researched modes of architectural criticism. This theme remains uniquely relevant to Rodriguez in her current role as artistic director of the sixth Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB), on view September 19 through February 28, 2026. An editor, writer, and assistant professor and director of the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois Chicago, Rodriguez has fashioned the biennial—titled SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change—as an exploration of our uncertain era’s generative and transformational possibilities.

“Architecture is fundamentally about engaging with change—understanding it, responding to it, and proposing ways to improve the conditions we inhabit,” Rodriguez explains . “We always have choices, and the decisions we make define what becomes possible tomorrow. As Artistic Director of the Chicago Architecture Biennial on its 10th anniversary,” she continues, “I hope to foster a critical platform where bold, imaginative ideas can surface and be shared with the public.” 

For the next five months, SHIFT will present installations, capsule exhibitions, programming, and events throughout Chicago, collecting the work of over 100 creative designers, practitioners, and artists who hail from 30 countries. This international assemblage features contributions by more than two dozen GSD affiliates that investigate new, alternative models for our built environment, housing, future resiliency, and more.  

FACULTY (in alphabetical order)

Stan Allen, design critic in architecture, presents Building with Writing, an installation of Allen’s work examining the relationship between drawing and the written word. Specifically, 48 drawings from 12 buildings and 12 pieces of writing are (re)presented as pamphlets and displayed in an installation designed by Michael Meredith (MArch ’00) and Hilary Sample, conceived as a reading room. Writing and design are distinct yet parallel practices, usually kept separate. This exhibition presents writing and buildings together, juxtaposed on folded metal bookstands. Visitors are encouraged to engage with the work—rearrange the drawings, take down the pamphlets, sit and read, and spend time in the space, together. Originally shown at the Princeton School of Architecture Gallery, for this iteration at the CAB, the reading room is installed on the second floor of the Graham Foundation. 

Associate professor of architecture Sean Canty (MArch ’14) presents Regal Reverb, a semi-circular public forum designed for the CAB’s Speaker Corners. The project draws from the Regal Theater (by Edward Eichenbaum, 1928), once a celebrated center of Black performance and cultural life in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. Adorned with velvet drapes, gilded ornament, and a monumental proscenium, the Regal regularly featured musical performers such as Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong, securing the theater’s place on the Chitlin’ Circuit and in the cultural memory of Chicago’s South Side. Demolished in 1973, the theater remains an enduring figure of collective experience and architectural presence. 

Canty’s installation translates this history into a contemporary spatial register. A sweeping arc, drawn from the theater’s façade and proscenium, organizes the plan. In elevation, three brass-edged, color-blocked arches open onto the central space, evoking the ornamental profiles and window figures of the demolished theater. The composition is structured by a consistent datum that links each module, establishing order while leaving room for open occupation. Regal Reverb is not a reconstruction but a reverb: an architectural echo of a vanished landmark. 

Grace La (MArch ’95), professor and chair of the GSD’s Department of Architecture, and James Dallman (MArch ’92), co-principal of LA DALLMAN Architects, present SHIFTING REUSE AND REPAIR: the Door County Granary. The installation contemplates emerging strategies to reuse and repair derelict buildings—not only to prolong their useful life but to transform and extend their historical and civic meaning. Using the reclamation of an abandoned granary in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, as a case study, LA DALLMAN demonstrates how strategic excisions and insertions within existing structures produce new modes of habitation. A comprehensive architectural model suspended within an occupiable fragment of a grain storage bin comprises the installation. LA DALLMAN’s exhibition team includes Elias Bennett (MArch ’25), Oonagh Davis (MArch ’23), Belle Verwaay Delatour (MArch ’18), Sigmund Seongyun Jeong, Min Ho Kim (MArch ’26), Brian Lee (MArch ’22), and Go Nakao (MArch ’28). 

Iman Fayyad (MArch ’16), assistant professor of architecture, presents In The Round, part of a larger line of work that deals with the effects of standardization in building materials on architectural typology, addressing formal exploration as a function of material waste. This installation invites visitors to contemplate the spatial potentials of material transformations from thin, planar sheets to volumetric form. The space is composed exclusively of uncut 4-ft x 8-ft rectangular sheets of plywood bent into composite cylindrical forms. The radial assembly allows the membrane to operate as a compressive structure in both plan and section (similar to a dome), while the oculus opens the interior to its surroundings above. Seating elements around the interior and exterior serve as structural anchor points for people to rest and gather. The structure offers an intimate, collective inward-facing space as well as outward-facing individualized spaces that are simultaneously contemplative and exposed. 

The capsule exhibition Inhabit Outhabit brings together over 30 housing projects from around the world that explore new solutions and challenge traditional models in response to contemporary needs. French 2D, led by assistant professor in practice of architecture Jenny French (MArch ’11) and Anda French, contributed material on Bay State Cohousing, a 30-unit community developed by its residents in Malden, Massachusetts. Each individual unit provides the amenities of a private home, while shared spaces and resources promote the creation of a vibrant, multigenerational community. 

To mark the 10th anniversary of the CAB, Harvard Design Magazine  and biennial leadership invited GSD design critics in architecture Lap Chi Kwong (MArch ’13) and Alison Von Glinow (MArch ’13) to imagine a new future for the Chicago Horizon, a temporary pavilion—by the architecture firm Ultramodern and structural engineer Brett Schneider—commissioned for the inaugural CAB that, despite original intentions, still exists. Kwong Von Glinow’s proposal, Forget-Me-Not, preserves the pavilion’s essential structural character while responding thoughtfully to its site, materiality, and context. Kwong Von Glinow consulted closely with the original team, modeling a collaborative approach to architectural practice that considers a building’s evolution from conception through execution and beyond. 

With Living Histories: Space for Reckoning, Mónica Ponce de León (MAUD ’91) of MPdL Studio, Mark Lamster (LF ’17 ), and STOSS Landscape Urbanism—founded by Chris Reed, GSD professor in practice of landscape architecture and co-director of the Master in Landscape Architecture in Urban Design program—propose a new way of approaching commemorative space. Their installation addresses questions of how public space might tell the complex and interconnected histories that shape culture and inform who we are vis-à-vis a proposal for memorializing political and racial violence at Dealey Plaza and Martyr’s Park in Dallas, Texas. 

ALUMNI (in alphabetical order)

RADDAR, led by Sol Camacho (MAUD ’08), presents the glass pavilion Our Second Skin. More than 2,200 glass pieces comprise the pavilion, forming a translucent skin that simultaneously evokes the omnipresence of glass facades in contemporary cities and the invisible materiality of the industrial process that produces them. Inside the pavilion, an audiovisual essay presents excerpts from several interviews Camacho conducted with 23 leading international architects, engineers, and artists whose expertise spans design, research, construction, and technology. These individuals reflect on our contemporary indiscriminate use of glass, highlight its unparalleled and enigmatic qualities in architecture, and propose ideas for the material’s future. 

Abigail Chang (M Arch ’16) presents Liquid Glass for the CAB exhibition Melting Solids, located at the Stony Island Arts Bank. Liquid Glass examines a larger question about the boundary between our interior and exterior worlds. The work reflects on water as a resource whose invisible presence in air and vapor has the potential to materialize as condensation on windows. The installation, composed of hanging resin objects with various lenses, asks visitors to reflect on the fragility in our ever-changing surroundings as they move between and peer into opaque windows that seemingly stream, drip, and puddle.

Ignacio G. Galán (MArch ’10) with David Gissen and Architensions (Nick Roseboro, Alessandro Orsini) offer Fragments of Disability Fictions. Presented as a discontinuous description of a fictional disability world mixing different scales and times, Fragments of Disability Fictions highlights how disability and impairment offer alternatives to conventional representations of the past and future. The installation’s fragmentary character also disrupts the connection between the crafting of physical models and the pursuit of totalizing forms of control that produce “model” (i.e., “ideal”), streamlined worlds. The latter are often ableist (if not eugenic) representations of life. Unlike many visions of urban health and well-being, the architectural and urban histories we explore include messier, more complex, and more inclusive embodiments, materialities, cultures, socialities, technologies, and ecologies. Developed with the guidance of a group of disabled scholars, activists, and policymakers, such histories conceptualize physical and emotional well-being in complementary, contrasting, and even contradictory ways. 

Fragments of Disability Fictions includes contributions by Neta Alexander, Victor Calise, David Serlin, and Eman Rimawi. The exhibition team includes Sharona Cramer and Yotam Oron, Thomas Gomez Ospina, Lauren Jian, Norman Keyes, Yuna Li, Lajja Mehta, Natalia Molina Delgado, Nur Nuri, Aistyara Charmita Shaning, Sherry Aine Chuang Te. Voice is provided by Sophie Schulman; ASL interpreting is provided by All Hands in Motion / Diana Abayeva (DI on screen) and Maria Cardoza (HI).

SHIFT’s curatorial team includes co-curators Chana Haouzi (MArch ’14) and Igo Kommers Wender and artistic director Florencia Rodriguez (LF ’13).

Johnston Marklee, led by Sharon Johnston (MArch ’95) and Mark Lee (MArch ’95), presents Speaker Corners. Located on the second floor of 840 N. Michigan Avenue, this project takes the form of a grandstand with seating for more than 50 people. This small arena will host talks, panels, and other public events during the full run of the CAB. Speaker Corners was conceived as part of a series of spaces that promote discussions, presentations, and exchange, which began with Speakers’ Corner—an installation by Christopher Hawthorne, Florencia Rodriguez, and Johnston Marklee—one of the featured curator’s special projects at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2025.

Two Foundations, presented by Alex Yueyan Li (MArch ’21) and Mahsa Malek of 11X17, examines the dichotomy of stability/instability through two everyday construction practices—house lifting and underpinning—that accept instability as a perpetual architectural condition. The installation reconstructs these techniques through a series of technical objects; cribbing stacks, shoring posts, plumb bobs, and formwork are arranged as a structural diagram, enacting the physical operations they are designed to perform. Taken together, they reveal the mechanisms that allow an existing structure to pause, frame, and accommodate acts of repair. In doing so, the installation foregrounds instability as a fundamental aspect of architecture’s life, despite the persistent quest to create stable, unchanging buildings. Aging is a material fact that requires continuous care, and architecture will only endure through ongoing acts of adjustment and maintenance that sustain it over time.

Michael Maltzan (MArch ’88) of Michael Maltzan Architects has contributed materials on 26 Point 2 Apartments to the Inhabit Outhabit exhibition. Completed in 2023 in Long Beach, California, 26 Point 2 Apartments is a five-story permanent supportive housing apartment building that bridges a busy commercial zone and a residential neighborhood, providing 77 units plus amenities, staff, and supportive services that address the needs of chronically unhoused people.

To Inhabit Outhabit MASS Design Group has contributed materials on their Maternity Waiting Village in Kasungu, Malawi. Completed in 2015, this complex offers a housing model for expectant mothers. Alan Ricks (MArch ‘10), Michael Murphy (MArch ’11), and Matt Swaidon (MArch ’12) took part in the design of this project.

Susannah Sayler (LF ’09) and Edward Morris (LF ’09) of Sayler/Morris present The Crystal Forest, a body of linked works (photography, collage, a short film, animation) that meditates on the Amazon as a mosaic of symbolic meanings and a place where humans and other beings dwell. The work circles around the remains of a building the artists encountered on the edge of the jungle that inspired the title. The Escuela Superior Politécnica Ecológica Amazónica in Tena, Ecuador, was part of an ambitious 1997 endeavor to create a network of universities across the Amazon that would educate indigenous people and other citizens in subjects like business management and computer science. The “modernization” enterprise failed almost immediately, the jungle quickly overgrowing and re-absorbing its remnants, authoring its own architecture of entropy. The title The Crystal Forest also references the Crystal Palace built in London (1851) to house the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, which has been cited as an epochal moment in the development of integrated world capitalism. In this sense, The Crystal Forest is the inverse or shadow of the Crystal Palace.  

As part of the Inhabit Outhabit exhibition, Tosin Oshinowo (LF ’25) of Oshinowo Studio presents the film Nagarannam: Home Coming, which shares the story of a community displaced by the insurgency group Boko Haram operating in Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Cameroon, and Mali. In addition, to the capsule exhibition Ecologies, opening November 6, Oshinowo has contributed Alternative Urbanism, a continuation of her research exhibit from the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale that explores specialized markets in Nigeria. These markets operate as factories processing “waste” or “end-of-life” items from industrialized economies and showcase the principle of circularity prevalent in African cities through the ingeniousness of iterative self-organizing initiatives. Often foreign to their host environments and not structured by the state, these markets coexist with and may re-appropriate the urban fabric, speaking to the realities that enable the African city to function in modernity. 

The Embellished, the Transient, and the Critical, presented by Alejandro Saldarriaga Rubio (MArch ’23) of alsar-atelier, explores an architecture of post-pandemic magical realism within the context of temporary exhibits. The installation uses quotidian plastic pallets as a primary compositional element and speculates on the spatial possibilities behind a single vertical partition built from this ordinary object, critically addressing the economic and environmental implications of experimental ephemeral design. By embracing “off-the-shelfness” and “dryness” as structural principles, the installation embellishes the ordinary, accepts its own impermanence, and challenges norms through critical material choices. 

Oscar Zamora (MArch ’23) in collaboration with Michael Koliner worked on AIR VAPOR BARRIER, a piece that juxtaposes vernacular archetypes with Western envelope technologies by reinterpreting the tropical roof through mass-produced air-and-vapor-barrier (AVB) shingles. This material transposition critiques the persistent framing of the tropical as primitive while exposing the entanglement of indigenous practices and imported standards. The project demonstrates how industrial materials gain new significance when recontextualized through local construction logics. Positioned beyond nostalgia or technical determinism, it proposes a “third space” of contradiction, improvisation, and critique, reclaiming the tropical roof as a site of cultural negotiation and architectural imagination.