Katarina Richter-Lunn (MDes ’21) awarded a 2022 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship

Harvard University Graduate School of Design DDes candidate Katarina Richter-Lunn (MDes ’21) has been awarded the 2022 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, a merit-based graduate school program for 30 immigrants and children of immigrants. Chosen from a competitive pool of over 1,800 applicants, Richter-Lunn was selected for her potential to make significant contributions through her research and work in the United States. She will join 10 other Harvard affiliated students who are being honored in 2022 by the Soros organization—all of whom receive up to $90,000 to support graduate studies. The new class of Fellows have heritage in the following countries: Afghanistan, Cameroon, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, France, Germany, Grenada, India, Israel, Mexico, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Syria, Taiwan, Uganda, and Vietnam. “I love being at the intersection of architecture, psychology, and technology because it allows me to be creative while still using the power of science to look for adaptable, amiable, and most importantly, universally accessible solutions to address mental health.” Richter-Lunn said.  “Not only is the topic of mental health very close to my heart but doing what I do for a living makes me truly feel that I can make a change in my field, and contribute to the vision of what the future of design will be.” After holding positions at Arup, Gehry Partners, IwamottoScott, and Snøhetta, Richter-Lunn returned to school and received her MDes from GSD in 2021. She is now enrolled in GSD’s DDes Program, where her primary research lies at the intersection of design, psychology, and neuroscience to address mental well-being through the built environment. As part of this work, she explores perception through the lens of material development, computational design, affective computing, and robotics. Additionally, Richter-Lunn seeks to envision how architecture, design, and our latest technological tools can embody spatial forms of therapy to provide more empathetic, seamless, and accessible design solutions to emotional disorders.

Jeanne Gang, Special Commencement Ceremony Speaker for the Classes of 2020 and 2021

Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design has named Jeanne Gang (MArch ’93) to address the 2020 and 2021 classes as the GSD welcomes back these graduates for an in-person celebration and Special Commencement Ceremony. Gang will address the GSD’s classes and their families on Sunday, May 29 at 10:30 AM ET in the Gund Back Yard. Jeanne Gang is Professor in Practice of Architecture at GSD and the founding principal of Studio Gang, an international architecture and urban design practice based in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, where her professional studios have focused on cities, ecologies, and materials. Her analytical and creative approach has produced projects across scales and typologies, from cultural and public buildings to urban parks and high-rise towers. These include Writers Theatre, a professional theater for a company north of Chicago; the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan; and the 82-story Aqua Tower in downtown Chicago. Intertwined with their built work, Jeanne and the Studio also develop research and related projects such as publications and exhibitions that push design’s ability to create public awareness and give rise to change—a practice they call “actionable idealism.” Jeanne and Studio Gang are currently designing major projects throughout the Americas and Europe. These include the expansion of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City; the new United States Embassy in Brasília, Brazil; a unified campus for the California College of the Arts in San Francisco; Civic Commons, a multi-city project reimagining public spaces across the United States; and mixed-use towers in Toronto, Chicago, Amsterdam, and Los Angeles Gang’s work has been honored and exhibited widely, including at the International Venice Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. A MacArthur Fellow, 2017 William A. Bernoudy Architect in Residence at the American Academy in Rome, and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Jeanne has been honored with the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture and was named one of 2019’s most influential people in the world by TIME magazine. Further accolades include Architectural Review’s Architect of the Year, the Louis I. Kahn Memorial Award, and the Marcus Prize for Architecture. Reveal, her first volume on Studio Gang’s work and process, was published in 2011, followed by Reverse Effect: Renewing Chicago’s Waterways, and Studio Gang: Architecture in 2020. To see a full schedule of the 2020 and 2021 Special Commencement Ceremony, and for other Commencement information, please visit the GSD’s Commencement webpage.

Danielle Allen, 2022 Class Day Speaker

Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design has named Danielle Allen as its 2022 Class Day speaker. Allen will address the GSD’s class and their families during the School’s 2022 Class Day exercises on Wednesday, May 25 at 3:30 PM ET in the Gund Back Yard. Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, and Director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, is a political theorist who has published broadly in democratic theory, political sociology, and the history of political thought. In 2022 Allen launched a historic bid as the first African-American woman to run for governor in Massachusetts state history. Widely known for her work on justice and citizenship in both ancient Athens and modern America, Allen is the author of The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens (2000); Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown vs. the Board of Education (2004); Why Plato Wrote (2010); and Our Declaration (2014); and co-editor (with Rob Reich) of Education, Justice, and Democracy (2013). In 2002 Allen was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for her “ability to combine the classicist’s careful attention to texts and language with the political theorist’s sophisticated and informed engagement.” Allen is a frequent public lecturer and regular guest on public radio affiliates to discuss issues of citizenship and education policy, as well as a contributor on similar subjects to the Washington Post, Boston Review, Democracy, Cabinet, and The Nation. Allen is a former Chair of the Mellon Foundation Board, past Chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. She is currently working on books on citizenship in the digital age and political equality and directs The Democratic Knowledge Project, a group of research projects on knowledge and democracy. To see a full schedule of 2022 Class Day and Commencement exercises, and for other Commencement information, please visit the GSD’s Commencement webpage.

Frida Escobedo to Design the Met’s New Art Wing

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has named Frida Escobedo (MDes ’12) to oversee the $500 million redesign and renovation of the modern and contemporary art wing. The wing will be named after longtime trustee Oscar L. Tang and his wife, Agnes Hsu-Tang, an archaeologist and art historian, who gave $125 million toward the project. Escobedo, whose firm is based in Mexico City, will become the first woman to design a wing at the museum. In a press release, Met director Max Hollein said, “The new wing will be a vibrant, exhilarating space that meets the Met’s current and future needs while promoting a lively representation and reevaluation of the art of the 20th and 21st centuries in the context of 5,000 years of art history.” Hollein praised Escobedo as “an outstanding architect of our time,” and explained that “she wields architecture as a way to create powerful spatial and communal experiences, and she has shown dexterity and sensitivity in her elegant use of material while bringing sincere attention to today’s socioeconomic and ecological issues.” In a statement, Escobedo said, “The Met is one of the most relevant sites for culture on a global scale, and it is an honor to be selected for this historic architectural reimagining. The Tang Wing presents an opportunity to give new life to the Museum’s art from the 20th and 21st century; to celebrate the dynamics we can find within art of different times, geographies, and ideologies; and to uncover new spaces for self-reflection and connection with others.” Escobedo was chosen from a shortlist of architectural firms that included Ensamble Studio, Lacaton & Vassal, SO — IL, and David Chipperfield Architects. According to her website, Escobedo has “developed an approach based on the idea that architecture and design represent a crucial medium for raising questions and discussing social, economic, political and cultural phenomena,” and that “art, both contemporary and historical, serves as a starting point for the development of each project.” Escobedo returned to the GSD in 2018 to lead the options studio course “Domestic Orbits.” In 2019, she participated in the jury selection of the Wheelwright Prize and presented an Open House Lecture at the school. More recently, an interview with Escobedo is featured in the latest issue of Harvard Design Magazine (#49) and an upcoming monograph of her work Split Subject is slated to be published by Harvard Design Press this fall.

Buy-One-Give-One Bottled Water Start-up is First of its Kind

GIVE H2O—the first buy-one-give-one sustainable bottled water brand—offers natural spring water from Finland in reusable aluminum bottles. Founded by Henrik Ilvesmäki (MArch II ’20/ MDes ’22) and Nema Kheradmand, a master’s degree student in sustainability at the Harvard Extension School, the brand stands out for its commitment to giving back on a local scale, allowing buyers to donate to a nonprofit organization of their choosing. Among participating local charities are the American Red Cross’s Boston Food Pantry, Cambridge Women’s Center, and Somerville Fire Department. The idea emerged from Kheradmand’s coursework in 2019, when he asked Ilvesmäki, his then roommate, to design the bottle and graphic identity. The two are passionate about water and sustainability. Charged with the task of creating a brand in the saturated and unsustainable bottled water market, Ilvesmäki—a registered architect in Finland and a design thinker—tapped into knowledge from marketing classes at MIT Sloan School of Management and the GSD’s “Paper or Plastic: Reinventing Shelf Life in the Supermarket Landscape.” The bottle’s signature hexagonal shape, the untapped spring water source in Finland, and GIVE H2O’s 100 percent commitment to charity have all received a positive response so far. Over 1,000 bottles have been sold, with an equal amount locally donated. Ilvesmäki is now the company’s chief creative officer and Kheradmand is CEO. “Our goal is to definitely take this venture global one day,” says Ilvesmäki. “I’m from Finland, where the water is the best in the world, and we hope to really share that water with everyone who needs it.” Currently, GIVE H2O is sold in-store at Pemberton Farms and can be purchased online at www.giveh2o.com. For more follow GIVE H2O on Instagram @giveh2owater and Twitter @giveh2o.

Gary R. Hilderbrand Appointed Chair of the GSD Department of Landscape Architecture

Harvard Graduate School of Design announces Gary R. Hilderbrand (MLA ’85) as new chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture, effective July 1, 2022. Hilderbrand is the Peter Louis Hornbeck Professor-in-Practice at the GSD, where he has taught since 1990, and Founding Principal and Partner of Reed Hilderbrand.

Hilderbrand succeeds Anita Berrizbeitia (MLA ’87), Professor of Landscape Architecture, who joined Harvard GSD as a Design Critic in Landscape Architecture in 1991. Appointed in 2015, Berrizbeitia is the 14th chair of the oldest landscape architecture department in the world, and only the second woman to hold the position.

“Gary’s sensibilities as a teacher and as a practitioner are one and the same—his unyielding efforts to reconcile imminent, often intractable forces of urbanization with ecological sustainability, cultural history, vegetative regimes, and thoughtful kindness are central to his pedagogy and practice both. I could not be more delighted he has accepted this appointment, and I am excited for what is to come under his leadership of the department. I also look forward to celebrating Anita’s important tenure as chair of the department and thank her for all that she has brought to the school,” says Sarah M. Whiting, Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture.

“I’m humbled and honored in equal measure by this appointment, and I am grateful to Dean Whiting for her confidence and support,” Hilderbrand says. “For more than a century, Landscape Architecture at Harvard has positively shaped discourse in research, teaching, and practice in the field. We continue that legacy forward with renewed urgency in the face of ever more dramatic environmental and social upheaval. I’m grateful for Professor Anita Berrizbeitia’s remarkable and humane intellectual stewardship over the past seven years, and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the department and the school to uphold the commitment to design leadership that is demanded of us in this time. We stand well prepared.”

Gary Hilderbrand is a Founding Principal and Partner of Reed Hilderbrand. Works by Reed Hilderbrand have received more than 100 design awards to date. A committed practitioner, teacher, critic, and writer, Hilderbrand’s honors include Harvard University’s Charles Eliot Traveling Fellowship, the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture, the Architectural League’s Emerging Voices Award with Douglas Reed, and the 2013 ASLA Firm of the Year award. DesignIntelligence named Hilderbrand one its “25 Most Admired Educators” of 2016. Gary is the recipient of the 2017 ASLA Design Medal, the highest design honor available to an American landscape architect.

Hilderbrand is committed to positioning landscape architecture’s role in reconciling intellectual and cultural traditions with contemporary forces of urbanization and change. Over the course of his prolific career, Hilderband has collaborated with Tadao Ando, Annabelle Selldorf, and Gensler on the expansion of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA; developed four phases of revitalizing the Hudson River waterfront at Long Dock Park, Beacon, NY; and led the Cambridge Urban Forest Master Plan for the City of Cambridge, MA. More recently, Reed Hilderbrand were part of five firms participating in the Tidal Basin Ideas Lab, a design ideas competition that reimagines the future of Washington, D.C.’s iconic Tidal Basin. Current works include the repositioning of New York City’s Lever House, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the new Farrand House at Dumbarton Oaks, and major interventions at the Storm King Art Center.

Hilderbrand’s essays have been featured in Landscape Architecture, Topos, Harvard Design Magazine, Architecture Boston, Clark Art Journal, Arnoldia, New England Journal of Garden History, and Land Forum. Hilderbrand is co-author of Visible | Invisible, a Reed Hilderbrand monograph (2012), and he has produced two other books: Making a Landscape of Continuity: The Practice of Innocenti & Webel (1997), which was recognized by ASLA and AIGA (50 Best Books); and The Miller Garden: Icon of Modernism (1999).

He has served on the editorial boards of Spacemaker Press, Harvard Design Magazine, and Landscape Architecture Magazine. As a competition juror, he’s participated in Harvard’s Green Prize for Urban Design (2006, 2013); I Premi Europeu de Paisatge Rosa Barba Barcelona (2000, 2002, 2003, 2018); and “Suburbia Transformed” for the James Rose Center (2010). He chaired the ASLA National Awards Jury in 2005 and the ASLA Annual Student Awards Jury in 2006

Sunghea Khil Receives Travel and Research Grant from the American Planning Association

Sunghea Khil, a joint degree Master in Urban Planning and Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Kennedy School, is one of two planning students to receive 2022 student grants from the American Planning Association to support travel and research. Her proposal, “Planning for Sustainable Urban Infrastructure in Uganda: Revenue Solutions for Municipal Services,” will research strategies for successful municipal solid waste (MSW) management in emerging markets.

“Over 90% of waste in Africa is disposed of at uncontrolled dumpsites and landfills,” notes Khil’s proposal. “The city of Kampala, Uganda is also experiencing a need for adequate solid waste management, as well as developing a landfill site that can accommodate greater needs of MSW.” Her project will ask questions including: “How can Kampala’s waste management infrastructure be financed to generate sufficient revenue solutions?” And, “Considering the potential impact of surrounding communities, what are some strategies to repurpose the old landfill site?”

During her time at Harvard, Khil has concentrated on urban economic development through the dual lenses of policy and design. She is interested in infrastructure, cities, and development in the United States and globally. The APA grant allows for study through August 2022.

Learn more about Khil’s research and the travel grant program on the APA website .

Honoring the Legacy of Urban Design Pioneer Jaqueline Tyrwhitt

The GSD renamed the 50th Anniversary of Urban Design Program Lecture for Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, a GSD associate professor who worked to establish and fortify the urban design program during its founding years. The Jaqueline Tyrwhitt Urban Design Lecture will be delivered each year by a visionary urban planner, designer, scholar, or leader who has opened novel directions in urban-design thinking and traced new intersections between urban design and other disciplines. Moshe Safdie, Lee Cott (MAUD ’70), and Jay Chatterjee (MAUD ’65) played a key role in establishing the original lecture in 2010 and fortifying its energy since.

About Professor Jaqueline Tyrwhitt

Written by Sarah M. Whiting, Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture 

Professor Tyrwhitt (1905–1983) served as an Associate Professor at the GSD between 1955 and 1969, and worked to establish and fortify the urban design program during its founding years. Professor Tyrwhitt—or Jacky, as she preferred to be called by friends—spent her early years in London and the English countryside. While taking a course at the Architectural Association, she found inspiration in the work of Patrick Geddes and his view of urban planning as organic rather than predetermined; her study and illumination of Geddes’s ideas would later prove seminal. After World War II, Tyrwhitt would stake out a transformative role in shaping the post-war Modern Movement toward decentralized urban, community, and residential design. She left England for Canada in 1951, working to establish a graduate program in city and regional planning at the University of Toronto. She arrived at the GSD in 1955, teaching here until her retirement in 1969.

Central forces throughout Professor Tyrwhitt’s pedagogy include her humanistic approach to urban planning and design, and her commitment to communicating and sharing design discourse. She translated and edited all major works by Swiss art historian Sigfried Giedion, and in 1955 launched a journal titled Ekistics to activate the influence of Greek architect and planner Constantinos Doxiadis. She moved to Greece after her GSD retirement, settling on an Attic hillside near the village of Peania; she passed away there in 1983, working on her final book. Our Frances Loeb Library offers a number of Professor Tyrwhitt’s publications; additionally, she was a focus of the library’s 2018 exhibition “Feminine Power and the Making of Modern Architectural History.”

Department of Landscape Architecture Announces 2022 Penny White Project Fund Recipients

The Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Department of Landscape Architecture has announced the 2022 recipients of the Penny White Project Fund . Established in 1976 by the family of Winifred G. “Penny” White who died suddenly during her second year as a landscape architecture student at the GSD, the program offers financial support for student projects with the goal to “carry forward Penny’s ideal of a culture which emphasizes a close relationship between people and nature in a cohesive living environment.”

This year’s 18 winning proposals were selected through an evaluation process that looked for “originality and innovation of projects, with an eye to their contribution to pressing challenges related to the fields of design, landscape, urbanism, and ecology.” Awards typically range from $200 to $4,500.

“From the impact of animist relationships with plants in the cultivation of ecosystems in Hawai’i to the analysis of rest stops and their impact in the US highway culture and leisure travel, from the role of the Luganda language in the construction and preservation of landscapes in south central Uganda to the shared cultural values and practices in the transcontinental landscape of the Strait of Gibraltar, from a prototypical experiment on the use of lichen as air quality bioindicator in Mexico City to a film documentary on the abandonment of wartime manufacturing plants in Central China, this 45th edition of the Penny White Project Fund has awarded an extraordinary set of proposals,” remarks the Fund’s 2022 selection committee. “Working with a wide variety of geographic conditions and research methods, these projects constitute a great reflection on the many different ways that design contributes to a more just distribution of the world’s resources, and will help to expand the Penny White Project’s legacy towards a better understanding of the complexities of our contemporary environment.”

The following GSD degree candidates will receive Penny White project funding for 2022:

Catherine Auger (MLA I AP ’23) for “Noise1”

Matthew Gorab (MLA I ’23) for “Rest Stopping Across America: An Investigation of Northeast and Midwest Rest Stops”

Diana Guo (MLA I ’22) & Tianwei Li (MLA I ’22) for “Berries of Abundance: Renewing Lifeways Through Cultural Foodscapes in Arctic Canada”

Julia Hedges (MLA I ’24) for “Immaterial Earth: Kentucky Karst Above and Below”

Yazmine Mihojevich (MLA I ’23) for “Recovering Roger Young Village”

Dora Mugerwa (MLA I ’24) for “Luganda and the Land: How Language Reimagines Landscape”

Chandani Patel (MLA I AP ’23) for “Environmental Commoning in Loktak Lake, Manipur”

Marina Recio (MLA I ’22) for “Seeing Through Lichen: Making Air Pollution Visible in Mexico City”

Scarlet Rendleman (MLA I ’22) for “Animate Entanglements: Spiritual Ecologies of Native Hawai’ian Land-based Ethics and Practices”

Kevin Robishaw (MLA I ’23) for “Never the Same River Twice: Un-Damming and Re-Designing America’s Rivers”

Berit Schurke (MLA I ’22) for “Of Shifting Coastlines: Articulating Arctic Coastal Adaptation Strategies in Anticipation of the Deep Thaw”

Rebecca Shen (MLA I AP ‘23) for “Tending Sanctuary: Exploring Entanglements of Land Stewardship and Multispecies Community at Vine Sanctuary”

Liwei Shen (MLA I ’22) & Ying Zhang (MLA I ’22) for “Atlas of Post-Afforested Desert Landscape: An Ecological Study of the Mu Us Desert’s Greening Effort in China’s Three-North Shelter Forest Program”

Elaine Stokes (DDes ’24) for “Dammed Landscapes: Riparian Infrastructure at the Mississippi’s Headwaters”

Juan Villalon (MAUD ’22) & Kawthar Marafi (MLA I AP ’23) for “Aceituna/Zaytoon landscapes: Olive Tree Cultivation Atlas across the Trans-Gibraltar Region”

Erin Voss (MLA I ’23) for “The Implication of Cultural Seascapes for the Design and Management of Polynesian Islands”

Rachaya Wattanasirichaigoon (MAUD/MLA I AP ’24) for “The Lightscapes of Fireflies”

Sijia Zhong (MLA I AP ’22) for “Land the Void”

New book from REAL considers Responsive Environments through a design manifesto

A new book from the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Responsive Environments and Artifacts Lab (REAL), co-authored by Associate Professor in Practice of Architectural Technology Allen Sayegh, Stefano Andreani (MDes ’13), and Matteo Kalchschmidt, presents a design manifesto in response to the question: What makes an environment “responsive”?

Released by Actar Publishers, Responsive Environments: An Interdisciplinary Manifesto on Design, Technology and the Human Experience draws on years of research from REAL, design work by Cambridge-based research studio INVIVIA , and other innovative practices. It examines our “technologically-mediated relationship with space” and is divided into three parts: Situations, Experiences, and Interactions. For each section, the book includes a series of case studies.

REAL is dedicated to a “design-led approach for the development of alternative models, technologies, and processes to be applied to artifacts and buildings as well as to cities and landscapes, with the ultimate objective of mediating and augmenting the relationship between the individual and the urban environment.” Sayegh serves as principal investigator and Andreani is the lab’s research associate and project manager.

Browse and buy the book on Actar’s website.