Coming Soon: Harvard Design Magazine #49: Publics questions how public spaces operate in a fragmented social and political environment

Harvard Design Magazine relaunched with March 2021’s Harvard Design Magazine 48: America, an issue that interrogated the essence and the history of the United States. This November, the magazine returns with another timely inquiry, one that has both rigor and curiosity at its center. Harvard Design Magazine 49: Publics questions how public spaces—the physical, the cultural, and the theoretical—operate in a fragmented social and political environment, both in the US and abroad. Guest editors Anita Berrizbeitia and Diane E. Davis convene leading public intellectuals, scholars, and practitioners in architecture, urban planning, landscape design, law, and the social sciences and humanities to investigate design theories and outcomes percolating at the heart of national and global cultural discourse. They ponder the fate of “the public” in a world where xenophobic thinking and challenges to communal responsibility are, as the editors observe, becoming ever more dominant, and in which individualism poses a corrosive challenge to collectivity and unity. This issue integrates theoretical and thematic debates, including over who holds the power to define what is “public,” what roles class, ethnicity, and other identity matrices play in the concept of “the public,” and how the core idea of “a public” may survive—or atrophy—given looming environmental crises and deepening political and economic divisions. Publics enriches this dialogue with spatial and material looks at how the public is constructed and shaped through design projects and cultural production. Berrizbeitia and Davis contribute unique, complementary lenses to this well-timed inquiry. Chair of the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Department of Landscape Architecture, Berrizbeitia has led studios investigating innovative approaches to the conceptualization of public space, especially on sites where urbanism, globalization, and local cultural conditions intersect. Trained as a sociologist, Davis chaired the GSD’s Department of Urban Planning and Design, with research interests covering the relations between urbanization and national development, comparative urban governance, socio-spatial practice in conflict cities, urban violence, and new territorial manifestations of sovereignty. Each has published a wide array of books, journal articles, and other editorial work. Collaborating with Editorial Director Julie Cirelli and Publications Manager Meghan Ryan Sandberg, Berrizbeitia and Davis invited design observers and critics from within the GSD and beyond. The magazine’s introductory essays include contributions from Walter Hood, Sara Zewde, and architectural collaborative Assemble. The heart of Publics applies the immersive editorial structure and spatial rhythm established by its predecessor. In “Sites,” Toni L. Griffin muses on “South Side Land Narratives: The Lost Histories and Hidden Joys of Black Chicago.” “Spaces” offers observations from Frida Escobedo, Ali Madanipour, and others, analyzing what constitutes public space. “Scales” investigates ways in which the concept and shapes of “the public” interact with shared cultural concerns, including environmental justice, public health, and Indigenous land rights. And “Subjects” interrogates the very definition of “public”—especially the people for whom designers shape and create space. Publics concludes with a call-and-response segment, in which contributors including Christopher Hawthorne, Lizabeth Cohen, and others respond to a provocative prompt: “What is the most important public space worth preserving now?” Answers range from city sidewalks to Boston’s Franklin Park, to the Mississippi River Gathering Grounds, to your own backyard. The editorial structure Cirelli introduced with America provides an avenue through which design observers and others can constructively and collaboratively explore complicated issues and themes. Cirelli continues to refine the magazine’s voice, design, and feel, and she explains that the guest-editor model presents an opportunity to infuse fresh and diverse direction and voice in each issue. “By exploring what constitutes a public, Anita and Diane have struck at one of the fundamental questions of our moment: What are our rights, as human bodies on this earth? What belongs to us? What should belong to us, but doesn’t?” says Cirelli. “The scholars and practitioners we’ve invited to explore notions of the public have demonstrated how health, education, housing, access to food and clean water, and the right to advocate for oneself and one’s community all have a common thread. And as we pull that thread, the mechanisms of power and privilege are revealed. ” Harvard Design Magazine is an architecture and design magazine that probes at the reaches of design and its reciprocal influence on contemporary culture and life. Published twice a year and helmed by Editorial Director Julie Cirelli at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, Harvard Design Magazine invites guest editors to consider design through an interdisciplinary lens, resulting in unique perspectives by an international group of architects, designers, students, academics, and artists. For current and back issues, as well as subscription information and stockists, visit the Harvard Design Magazine website.

Dean Sarah M. Whiting to Receive Bevy Leadership Award for Academic Excellence

Sarah M. Whiting, dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture, is the 2021 recipient of the Bevy Leadership Award for Academic Excellence from the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. The awards program started in 2014 to highlight the work of contemporary women in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, development, and construction. A leadership celebration will take place in New York City on October 6, 2021. Whiting joined the Graduate School of Design as dean in 2019, having previously served as dean of Rice University’s School of Architecture. A graduate of Yale, Princeton, and MIT, Whiting is an expert in architectural theory and urbanism. Her research interests include architecture’s relationship with politics, economics, and society and how the built environment shapes the nature of public life. In addition to her roles at the GSD, Whiting is a design principal and cofounder of WW Architecture. Her writing has been published broadly and she is the founding editor of the book series Point. BWAF honorees are selected for the annual awards from names put forth by the foundation’s constituency. “We are interested in scholarship, professional distinction, journalism, corporate achievement, and impact in the advancement of women in the building industry,” according to the BWAF website. Among the other 2021 recipients is Miriam Harris (MUP ’98), executive vice president at Trinity Place Holdings, who will receive the Innovative Executive award.

Toshiko Mori to Receive 2021 Isamu Noguchi Award

The Harvard GSD’s Toshiko Mori has been named one of two recipients of the 2021 Isamu Noguchi Award, presented annually by the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum. Mori will be honored alongside artist Shio Kusaka at the Noguchi Museum’s annual benefit on October 5. Now in its eighth year, the award is presented to individuals who share Isamu Noguchi’s spirit of innovation, global consciousness, and commitment to Eastern and Western cultural exchange. Previous honorees include Sir David Adjaye OBE, Naoto Fukasawa, and Lord Norman Foster. “The Isamu Noguchi Award was created to recognize exceptional individuals whose creative practice shares a thoughtfulness and boundary-transcending point of view found in Isamu Noguchi’s work and extends his ideals into our own times,” says Noguchi Museum Director Brett Littman. “We are honored to present this year’s Award to artist Shio Kusaka and architect Toshiko Mori. Their very different work shares a profound sensitivity to nature, playful and clear-minded approaches to materials and function, and quiet reflectiveness, carrying forward and extending Noguchi’s principles.” Read about and view a photo essay from Mori’s Spring 2020 option studio, “Making Next to Forest.” Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988), a Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose career spanned six decades, was known especially for his sculptures and public art. He collaborated with the Herman Miller company on a series of mass-produced lamps and furniture items that are widely considered among the most influential works of modern furniture. Noguchi’s former studio building—located across the street from the museum and never before open for an event—will be the site of a reception at this year’s benefit ceremony. At the GSD, Mori is the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture and was chair of the Department of Architecture from 2002 to 2008. She is principal of Toshiko Mori Architect (TMA), which she established in 1981 in New York City. Mori taught at the Cooper Union School of Architecture from 1983 until 1995, when she joined the GSD faculty with tenure. She has been a visiting faculty member at Columbia University and Yale University, where she was the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor in 1992. Mori has taught courses on the tectonics of textiles, materials and fabrication methods in architecture, structural innovations, and the role of architects as agents of change in a global context. TMA’s recent work includes master plans for the Brooklyn Public Library Central Branch and the Buffalo Botanical Gardens; Thread: Artists’ Residency and Cultural Center in Sinthian, Senegal; Fass School and Teachers’ Residence in Fass, Senegal; and the expansion of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. TMA’s projects have won awards from Architizer, The Plan, and AIA, and have been internationally exhibited, including at the 2012, 2014, and 2018 Venice Architecture Biennales. The practice has been listed in Architectural Digest’s biennial AD100 multiple times, and in AN Interior’s Top 50 Architects. Recent publications include the Fass School and Teachers’ Residence in Architectural Record, the Mott Street Development in Architect’s Newspaper, and features in Architectural Digest for the Fass School, Treeline (a private art barn), and a beach house in Suffolk County, New York. As a member and former chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Design, Mori has participated in sessions to discuss scarcity-driven design, the future of cities and urban information systems, design related to olfactory sensation and experience, and the role of the arts in improving communities. She has participated in international symposia and conferences, and in 2009, she established VisionArc, a think tank which connects local and global issues to mobilize design initiatives for a more sustainable future.

Harvard GSD announces Fall 2021 public program

Harvard GSD announces its series of virtual public lectures for the Fall 2021 semester, inviting designers and other curious viewers from around the world to join the school’s dialogue. This fall’s program offers speakers and events from across the design disciplines, as well as the return of the biennial, student-organized Black in Design Conference (October 8, 9, & 10), with the theme “Black Matter: Celebrating Black Spatial Practices from the Magical to the Mundane.” The Fall 2021 public program also introduces Harvard Design Magazine #49: “Publics” (October 28), as well as the exhibition “Interrogative Design: Selected Works of Krzysztof Wodiczko” with a pair of conversations with the artist on November 12. All programs will take place virtually, are free and open to the public, and require registration, and all times are listed in United States Eastern Time (ET). Please visit Harvard GSD’s events calendar for more information, including registration details. Live captioning will be provided for all programs. To request other accessibility accommodations, please contact the Public Programs Office at events [​at​] gsd.harvard.edu. Robin Winogrond, “In Search of Geographical Re-enchantment” September 13, 12:00 pm Vittorio Lampugnani, “The City as Accumulated Knowledge: Urban Design and Research” September 14, 6:30 pm Anne Anlin Cheng, “Monsters, Cyborgs, and Vases: Apparitions of the Yellow Woman” September 21, 6:30 pm Harvard GSD Alumni Council Presents: “Design Impact: Following the Sun: Design Futures at the Intersection of Health, Equity and Climate Change” September 23 & 24 Spiro Pollalis, “Sustainability and Climate Change: From Science to Design” October 4, 12:00 pm Loeb Lecture: Reginald Dwayne Betts, “Felon: A play; A discourse.” October 5, 6:30 pm Black in Design 2021: “Black Matter: Celebrating Black Spatial Practices from the Magical to the Mundane” October 8, 9, & 10 Black in Design Keynote Address by Mpho Matsipa October 8, 12:00 pm Black in Design Keynote Address by Lesley Lokko October 9, 1:00 pm Rouse Visiting Artist Lecture: Zoe Leonard with José Esparza Chong Cuy October 12, 6:30 pm Frederick Law Olmsted Lecture: Jamaica Kincaid October 14, 6:30 pm Margaret McCurry Lectureship in the Design Arts: Jade Kake, “Indigenous Urbanism” October 19, 6:30 pm Kenzo Tange Lecture: Christ & Gantenbein and OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen, interviewed by Jeannette Kuo  October 20, 12:00 pm Jane Bennett, “Out for a Walk in the Middle Voice” October 21, 6:30 pm Rachael Dorothy Tanur Memorial Lecture: Andrea Roberts, “The Community Core: Making and Keeping Place Heritage in Texas’s Freedom Colonies” October 25, 12:00 pm Daniela Bleichmar October 26, 6:30 pm Introducing Harvard Design Magazine #49: “Publics” with guest co-editors Anita Berrizbeitia and Diane Davis and contributors Elijah Anderson, Tali Hatuka, A. K. Sandoval-Strausz, and Assemble’s Louis Schulz October 28, 12:00 pm Carl M. Sapers Ethics in Practice Lecture: Eric Klinenberg, “Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life” November 3, 6:30 pm “Landscapes of Slavery, Landscapes of Freedom” conference November 5, 6, & 7 “Landscapes of Slavery, Landscapes of Freedom” Keynote Address by Michael Twitty: “Beyond ‘Slave Food’: Re-Organizing the Perceptions and Potential of African American Foodways” November 5, 6:00 pm Li Hu + Huang Wenjing | OPEN, “Imagine” November 10, 7:30 pm “Interrogative Designs: Conversations with Krzysztof Wodiczko” November 12, 12:00 pm (Wodiczko with Erika Naginski) & 2:30 pm (Wodiczko with Rosalyn Deutsche) Wheelwright Prize Lecture: Aude-Line Dulière, “The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Stories on Dismantling and Reuse” November 15, 12:00 pm

Recent Doctoral Graduates Maria Atuesta Ortiz and Longfeng Wu Honored with ACSP2021 Awards

The Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Maria Atuesta Ortiz (PhD ’21) and Longfeng Wu (MDes ’16, DDes ’20) are among this year’s five recipients of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning’s ACSP2021 Student Awards. Atuesta and Wu will each receive a formal award from ACSP and be invited to present their award-winning papers at the association’s annual conference. Atuesta earned the ACSP/GPEIG Gill-Chin Lim Award for the Best Dissertation on International Planning for her dissertation Forced Migration and Neighborhood Formation: How Communities of Internally Displaced Persons Find Residential Stability in an Unstable World. In the paper, Atuesta observes that the issue of residential stability—central to urban studies and planning—is especially urgent for groups who have experienced turmoil and displacement in their immediate past. In nation-states around the world, civil conflicts or climate change have increasingly displaced families to urban centers. In particular, Atuesta examines the recent history of Colombia, where, she writes, a decades-long civil conflict has produced more than six million internally displaced persons who have migrated from rural areas to urban centers. Her study focused on Granada, a city of about 80,000 inhabitants that has absorbed tens of thousands of internally displaced persons over the last three decades. Ortiz examined different processes of neighborhood creation among migrants, concluding that these experiences affected the means available for displaced residents to make claims on the city. Atuesta recently completed her PhD in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning at the GSD. Her dissertation committee comprised Diane E. Davis, Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism, alongside Mario Small, Sai Balakrishnan, and Lawrence Vale. Wu was awarded the Karen R. Polenske Award for Outstanding Student Paper on a China-Related Topic for his paper Pattern and Process: Exploring Socio-spatial (In)equality of Access to Urban Green Space in Beijing. As Wu observes in his paper’s abstract, green space is a vital component of urban systems, yet studies have confirmed that such spaces are not equally accessible among different socioeconomic groups, fueling social segregation, dislocation, and gentrification. His paper focused on how the spatial distribution and formation of urban-rural green space have affected its ecological as well as socioeconomic contributions during rapid urban expansion in the Beijing metropolitan area. Relying on data construction and consumption from various sources with the support of GIS techniques and quantitative analysis tools, Wu targeted a planning approach that aims to improve the performance of the future urban-rural green spaces. The paper was supervised by his doctoral dissertation advisor, Peter Rowe, Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. Wu’s research during his time at the GSD has been supported by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Harvard Asia Center, the Penny White Fund, the Geological Society of America, and the Harvard Center for Geographical Analysis. Beyond his studies, he has been involved in various scales of landscape design and planning projects, closely working with a number of renowned landscape architects in China.

Alum-led Start-up Acelab Raises $3.5M in Seed Funding

Acelab, an information marketplace of building products for architects, manufacturers, contractors, and clients founded in 2019 by Vardhan Mehta (MAUD ’21) and MIT alumnus Dries Carmeliet, recently announced it had raised $3.5 million in investment from institutional investors and industry angels. Among participating investors in its first round of funding were Pillar VC, Alpaca, Draper Associates, MIT MET fund, Emily Fairbairn, and Erik Jarnryd. As architectural designers, Mehta and Carmeliet recognized the vast numbers of hours architects spend gathering information on building products—“from sifting through manufacturing brochures and spec sheets to contacting salespeople with questions about product specs, pricing, and availability,” says Mehta. He notes that Acelab allows architects to “spend more time designing, and less time on the busy work involved in product sourcing and specifying” and manufacturers to “increase visibility and get in the spec.” Daniel Fetner, principal at investing firm Alpaca VC, explained the need for a tool like Acelab, describing it as a way to automate the “manual and time-consuming process of sourcing building materials and drafting spec sheets.” Pillar VC’s Russ Wilcox elaborated, saying, “It’s challenging for architects and building products manufacturers to coordinate, especially in this time of supply chain interruptions. Acelab’s platform makes it easy for everyone to stay on the same page. Architects can select and specify exactly the right products, manufacturers can sell more efficiently, and builders waste less time returning wrong orders.” Last year, Acelab won the Harvard Real Estate Venture competition, received grants from MIT DesignX and MIT Sandbox, and was a finalist in Harvard Innovation Lab’s President’s Innovation Challenge. Currently, Acelab is running pilot partnerships with a select group of architecture and manufacturing firms in the US to prepare for its general availability launch.

GSD’s Inaugural Alumni Council Award Recipients Announced

The Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) is pleased to announce Everett Fly MLA ’77, Deanna Van Buren Loeb Fellow ’13, and Jack Dangermond MLA ’69 as the inaugural recipients of the 2021 Harvard GSD Alumni Award. The award honors outstanding leadership by GSD alumni, underscoring the essential role GSD graduates play in leading change around the world. The award recognizes and celebrates the diversity, range, and impact of GSD alumni within their communities and across their areas of practice, celebrating and honoring design leadership by GSD Alumni.

Everett Fly MLA ’77 – As the first African-American graduate of the Master in Landscape Architecture program, Everett Fly witnessed first-hand the lack of architectural scholarship centered on the African American experience. In response, Fly began the “Black Settlements in America Research Project,” setting in motion decades of groundbreaking design research focused on the history of black settlements across the United States. Fly is the recipient of the 2014 National Endowment for the Humanities National Humanities Medal and is recognized as a national leader whose work has transformed our collective understanding of the significance of black places and spaces across America.

Deanna Van Buren LF ’13 – Deanna Van Buren is a nationally recognized activist architect leading the research, formulation, and advocacy of restorative justice centers, a radical transformation of the criminal justice system. Deanna sits on the national board of Architects Designs and Planners for Social Responsibility and is the co-founder and design director of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces , based in Oakland, California. Designing Justice + Designing Space is an innovative architecture and real estate development firm that designs restorative justice centers instead of prisons with the goal of ending the age of mass incarceration. Van Buren’s recent social impact work includes Restore, a multi-use hub for restorative justice and workforce development, The Pop-up Village—a mobile site activation tool and The Reem’s Re-entry Campus. Van Buren’s work has been featured at TED Women and the Women in Architecture Awards Honoring Pioneering Professionals. She received her BS in Architecture from the University of Virginia, M. Arch from Columbia University, and is an alumna of the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Jack Dangermond MLA ’69 – Jack Dangermond is the founder and president of Esri . With a background in landscape architecture and urban design, he and his wife, Laura, founded Esri in 1969 on the idea that computer-based mapping and analysis could make significant contributions to geographic planning and environmental science. Since then, Esri has become the global market leader in GIS and location intelligence, with 49 offices worldwide, 11 dedicated research centers, and a user base of about 350,000 organizations around the world. Dangermond completed his undergraduate degree in landscape architecture at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He then earned a Master in Urban Planning from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. His early work in the school’s Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis (LCGSA) led directly to the development of Esri’s ARC/INFO GIS software. Dangermond has received many acknowledgments and awards for his contributions to the fields of geography, environmental science, planning, and GIS, including 13 honorary degrees and the Order of Orange- Nassau from the Dutch Government.

The GSD Alumni Award underscores the urgent relevance of the GDS’s design education to a broad range of stakeholders, including peers, practitioners, students, and clients. Through their work and practice, GSD Alumni Award recipients demonstrate their commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and collaboration as stated in the GSD Alumni Council Community Statement and GSD Alumni Council Mission Statements. Nominations for the 2021-2022 GSD Alumni Award will open soon.

Welcoming 2021–2022 Pollman Fellow Maximilian Buchholz

The Harvard Graduate School of Design is pleased to welcome Maximilian Buchholz as the Pollman Fellow in Real Estate and Urban Development for the 2021–2022 academic year. A graduate of the University of Toronto with a PhD in geography, Buchholz researches urban and regional economic development. His work has primarily focused on how emerging patterns of migration and firms’ global economic linkages shape economic opportunities. Prior to earning his PhD, Buchholz completed a master of arts in Latin American studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a bachelor of arts from the University of California, Berkeley. While at the GSD, Buchholz will begin a new research project focused on understanding why the wage and salary income advantages of living in a more urbanized area (a phenomenon known as “urban wage premium”) appear to be uneven across racial and gender categories. One of the fellowships and prizes administered by the GSD’s Department of Urban Planning and Design, the Pollman Fellowship was established in 2002 through a gift from Harold A. Pollman. It is given yearly to an outstanding postdoctoral graduate in real estate, urban planning, and development, who spends one year in residence at the GSD as a visiting scholar.

Students, faculty, and alumni honored with 2021 Boston Society of Landscape Architects Awards

The Boston Society of Landscape Architects recently honored 21 projects by Harvard Graduate School of Design students, faculty, and alumni with its annual design awards. The program recognizes outstanding landscape architects, students, and projects based in Massachusetts or Maine. This year the awards were presented to projects that merited recognition in one or more of the following areas:

• Exemplary social, cultural, educational, or environmental significance.
• Outstanding quality, craftmanship, creativity, or artistry.
• Unique and innovative technologies, techniques, or concepts.
• Advancement of the public’s awareness and perception of the field of landscape architecture.

The GSD student awardees are: Echo Chen (MLA ’21), Kongyun He (MLA ’21), and Michele Chen’s (MLAUD ’23) “Local Forest Coalition”—Student Merit Award Jury Comments: The jury appreciated the approach of treating this like a handbook that could be used by different communities to invest in the management, with unique and interesting graphics and compelling representation methods.  The project demonstrates an exciting and interesting concept, investing local residents in the management and creation of the built environment in their communities. Estello Raganit (MLA ’19) and Joan Chen’s (MLA ’19) “Slowlands: Making the Inter-Loughs Wilds”—Student Merit Award Jury Comments: The jury appreciates the ambitiousness of taking on this polarizing topic, and doing so at a variety of scales—from global to national to microscopic. The jury was very impressed with the graphics, each of which feels like a work of art, and they were intrigued to see something that’s not a site intervention—rather more of a thought intervention. Andreea Vasile-Hoxha’s (MLA ’20) “After Plastics”—Honor Award Jury Comments: The jury found this to be a brilliant piece of research, in which siloed concepts became integrated thinking within a futuristic framework. The jury appreciated the exploration of ecological and botanical interventions in dealing with the emergence and persistence of microplastics, and found the communication strategy compelling and rich. The range of scales in thinking and graphic communication make for an impressive package. Minzhi Lin’s (MLA ’23) “Retreating Plan”—Excellence Award Jury Comments: The jury deemed this project an ambitious plan demonstrating incredible restraint.  They celebrated the submission for its thoughtful process and beautiful and nuanced graphics. The proposal focuses equally on ecology and humanity, celebrating the interaction between the two, and the designed forms are as beautifully articulated as they are justified by the research. GSD faculty and alumni were also among the professionals awarded by the BSLA. GSD affiliated winners include:

• Agency Landscape + Planning, founders Gina Ford (MLA ’03), design critic in Landscape Architecture, and Brie Hensold (MUP ’07), design critic in Urban Planning and Design
• Carolina Aragon (MLA ’04)
• Copley Wolff Design Group, Inc, president and principal Lynn Wolff (MLA ’81)
• Crowley Cottrell, LLC, principal Naomi Cotrell (MLA ’02)
• Halvorson – Tighe & Bond Studio, principal landscape architect Cynthia Smith (MLA ’85)
• IBI Placemaking, principal John N. Amodeo (MLA ’82)
• Reed Hilderbrand, co-founder Gary Hilderbrand (MLA ’85), Peter Louis Hornbeck Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture
• SASAKI, principal James N. Miner (MUP ’01) with other GSD affiliates
• SCAPE, founder and principal Kate Orff (MLA ’97) with other GSD affiliates
• ScenesLab, founder and director Wendy Yifei Wang (MLA ’14) with other GSD affiliates 
• Stoss Landscape Urbanism, founder and director Chris Reed, co-director of the Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design Degree Program and Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture
• The VELA Project, co-principal Samantha Solano (MLA ’16)

Browse the full list of 2021 BSLA Award recipients.

Jessica Tang (MUP/MPP ’23) Awarded Rappaport Summer Public Policy Fellowship

Jessica Tang, a joint degree candidate in Urban Planning and Public Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Harvard Kennedy School, is working with the Massachusetts government agency MassDevelopment this summer as a Rappaport Public Policy Fellow. Now in its 21st year, the Rappaport Public Policy Fellowship gives graduate students throughout Boston the opportunity to gain hands-on experience as they work with organizations on addressing vital public policy issues. It is funded and administered by Harvard’s Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, which “strives to improve the governance of the region by strengthening connections between scholars, students, officials, and civic leaders.” Working with communities, nonprofits, businesses, and banks, MassDevelopment helps create “jobs, increase the number of housing units, revitalize urban environments, and address factors limiting economic growth including transportation, energy, and infrastructure deficiencies.” Tang will be supporting MassDevelopment’s Transformative Development Initiative by adapting TDI economic growth strategies for other areas in Massachusetts, analyzing the implementation of current TDI projects, and researching peer learning opportunities for organizations in the public sector. Tang is part of a cohort of 20 graduate students representing 14 schools from seven universities. Previous GSD students that were awarded the Rappaport Public Policy Fellowship include Marcus Mello (MArch I/MUP ’18) and Lindsay Woodson (MDes RR/MUP ’17) in 2015.