Diane Davis appointed Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design

The GSD is pleased to announce the appointment of Diane Davis as chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design as of July 1, 2015. Davis is currently the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism at the GSD.

Davis teaches courses and options studios that examine the role of politics in planning and design, relations between urbanization and development, and socio-spatial practice at the scale of the city. Her research focuses on urban transformations in the global south, particularly the urban social, spatial, and political conflicts that have emerged in response to globalization, informality, and political and economic violence. In her capacity as codirector of the Risk and Resilience track in the Master in Design Studies (MDes) program, Davis explores overlapping vulnerabilities in the built and natural environment and assesses their significance for planning theory and design practice.

Davis is a prior recipient of research fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Heinz Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the United States Institute for Peace, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Currently, she directs a project funded by the Volvo Research and Educational Foundation titled “Transforming Urban Transport—The Role of Political Leadership.”

Davis was named the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism at the GSD in November 2014 and had served as professor of urbanism and development at the GSD since 2012.

Anita Berrizbeitia appointed Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture

The GSD is pleased to announce the appointment of Anita Berrizbeitia (MLA ’87) as chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture as of July 1, 2015. Berrizbeitia is currently professor of landscape architecture and director of the Master in Landscape Architecture degree programs at the GSD.

Berrizbeitia is a landscape architect specializing in theory and criticism of nineteenth and twentieth-century public landscapes in the United States and Europe, with particular interests in material culture, design expression, and the productive functions and roles of landscape in processes of urbanization. Her research on Latin American cities and landscapes centers on the creative hybridization of local and foreign cultural practices as a response to a centuries-old process of global cultural exchange; the role of large-scale infrastructural projects on territorial organization; and the interface between landscape and emerging urbanization.

At the GSD, Berrizbeitia has taught design studios and theory of contemporary practices, investigating innovative approaches to the conceptualization of public space, especially on sites where urbanism, globalization, and local cultural conditions intersect. She also leads seminars that focus on significant transformations in landscape discourse over the last three decades.

Editorially, Berrizbeitia is editor of Urban Landscape—Critical Concepts in Built Environment Series (Routledge, March 2015); editor of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates: Reconstructing Urban Landscapes (Yale University Press, 2009), which received an ASLA Honor Award; author of Roberto Burle Marx in Caracas: Parque del Este, 1956–1961 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), awarded the J.B. Jackson Book Prize in 2007 from the Foundation for Landscape Studies; and co-author with Linda Pollak of Inside/Outside: Between Architecture and Landscape (Rockport, 1999), which won an ASLA Merit Award. Her essays have also been published in numerous books and journals, and she serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Landscape Architecture and on the advisory board of the South America Project. She has also served on major competition juries in Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Madrid.

A native of Caracas, Venezuela, Berrizbeitia studied architecture at the Universidad Simon Bolivar before receiving a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College and a master in landscape architecture from the GSD in 1987. Since then, she has taught in various capacities at the GSD, including as assistant professor of landscape architecture from 1993 to 1998 and as professor of landscape architecture since 2009.

New PhD track in Architectural Technology

The PhD Program in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning announces an additional track in Architectural Technology. Doctoral research undertaken in this area will have the aim of advancing the state of knowledge in green building, and will typically include issues related to computation and simulation, environmental concerns, and energy performance. A background in architecture and/or engineering-related fields is required. In addition to a highly interdisciplinary curriculum that includes theoretical and empirical approaches, especially the history and philosophy of technology, the student will be associated with the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities , which will provide the intellectual context for this research. 

“It is with great excitement that we inaugurate a new doctoral concentration in Architectural Technology, which will allow students to take advantage of the extraordinary resources in this area at Harvard University in the context of a program based in the humanities and social sciences,” said Erika Naginski, Professor of Architectural History and Director of the PhD program.

For more information, please visit the PhD Program page.

Mohsen Mostafavi on designs for life

In an interview with BBC World Service broadcaster Peter Day on new trends in design thinking, GSD dean Mohsen Mostafavi discusses the GSD’s Bauhaus legacy and the inherent links between design, business, and entrepreneurship. Mostafavi’s 3-minute interview starts at 16 ½ minutes into the story and his comments continue at 25 minutes.

 

Jose Ignacio Ábalos Vazquez Appointed Chair of the Department of Architecture

The Harvard University Graduate School of Design has announced the appointment of Iñaki Ábalos as Chair of the Department of Architecture as of July 1, 2013. As Professor in Residence of Architecture at the GSD, Ábalos leads option studios, lectures and seminars that are grounded in both technology and history. His courses on the thermal properties of architecture and the integration of natural elements include Air in Motion and Thermodynamic Madrid. 

“The school will undoubtedly benefit from his deep intellectual commitment to the field of architecture and his passion as both an educator and an architect,” said Dean Mohsen Mostafavi. “I have no doubt that he will make great contributions to the culture of collaboration within the GSD and to the rest of the university.”

A founding member of Ábalos + Sentkiewicz Arquitectos (since 2007) and Ábalos and Herreros (1984–2007), his work is broadly interdisciplinary, integrating theory and practice and focusing on the interaction of architecture, technology, landscape and culture. Ábalos + Sentkiewicz’s design work incorporates social and emerging cultural values, specializing in highrise buildings, cultural equipment, public spaces and collective housing.

In addition to his internationally recognized practice, Ábalos has written extensively on architecture. Together with Juan Herreros, he authored Le Corbusier Skyscrapers (City of Madrid, 1988); Tower and Office (MIT Press, 2003); and Natural-Artificial (Exit LMI, Madrid, 1999). Ábalos edited Nature and Artifice (Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 2009), and wrote The Good Life (Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 2000); Picturesque Atlas (Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, Volume I, 2005, Volume II, 2007); and the monograph Alejandro de la Sota with Josep Llinàs and Moisés Puente (Fundación Caja de Arquitectos, Barcelona, 2009).

Ábalos received a master’s degree in architecture (1978) and a PhD in architecture (1991) from the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid (ETSAM) at Technical University of Madrid. He went on to teach at ETSAM for many years as an assistant professor, associate professor, professor, and most recently, as a chaired professor/director of laboratory techniques and contemporary landscapes. Ábalos has also held faculty positions at the Architectural Association (1998-2000), Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (1998), Columbia University (1995), Princeton University (2004–2007), and Cornell University (2007–2008). In 2009, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) elected him as an international member. 

New undergraduate track in architectural studies to begin this fall

For the first time this fall, a select group of undergraduates will take classes at the GSD as part of a new architectural studies track. Read more in Harvard Magazine .