Work in Progress: Edgar Rodriguez’s Cross-Laminated Timber Experiments

Edgar Rodriguez (MArch ’20) describes his final project for the option studio “Mass Timber and the Scandinavian Effect” led by Jeniffer Bonner and Hanif Kara, spring 2020.

Can technology enable site-specific knowledge? A studio examining transformations in rural China tests the limits of remote ethnography

Last March, the option studio I led with Kathryn Firth and David Rubin, Taishan: Designing the Rural Cosmopolis in China, suddenly found itself on the forefront of a design research challenge. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, classes became virtual seemingly overnight and research by necessity became remote. But when research is based on site-specific knowledge of a place and pedagogy requires deep immersion and understanding of a local transformation, how could we draw strong conclusions from so far away?

In lieu of their scheduled trip to China in March, students enlisted a suite of new tools to help them research developments in Taishan. Through the use of survey apps, video chat, and online mapping tools, student teams were able to conduct remote ethnography in a way that allowed Taishan citizens to voice their perspective and students to integrate real scenarios into their design proposals. As design challenges continue in the studio, our daily lives, and abroad, how can connections afforded by technology offer unique opportunities to innovate, connect, and continue collaborating?

Elaine Kwong is a Chinese-American urban designer based in Los Angeles. She directs DESAKOTA and teaches architecture and urban design. Elaine is currently a faculty member at Harvard University, Graduate School of Design and University of Southern California, School of Architecture.

Exhibition Preview: First the Forests on view through March 15 in the Druker Design Gallery

Listen to Günther Vogt describing three of the six projects featured in the exhibition First the Forests.

Architecture has always played an important role as a mediator between humans and the environment. This separation, achieved through the basis of architectural form–walls, doors, roofs and windows–enabled humans to contemplate the outside from the comforts of architectural space. This relationship has marked the way in which we view and experience nature. Perception became mediated through architecture as doors and windows turned into pin-hole devices through which we could project ideas of nature. The exhibition explores the plant imaginary by bringing landscape into the confines of the architectonic space, turning inside-out the landscape-architecture relation. The cabin in the woods–a reference to Thoreau’s temporary home in the adjacent woods and what many consider to be the birthplace of the environmental movement – becomes a surrogate architecture through which the relationship between humans and their environment is explored.  The result is a series of experiments in observation and analysis that create a wide variety of environmental experiences. What we see on the walls of the exhibition space are windows into the workings of VOGT Landscape Architects, vignettes into the methodologies, exercises, and projects through which we explore and analyze vegetation as a central element of our practice.  The gallery becomes a shelter for the landscape that we seek to understand – a space to explore the relationship between humans and nature through experiment and experience.

Learn more about Günther Vogt’s project Traveling Landscapes in the Zürich Zoo:

Learn more about Günther Vogt’s project Collective Memory in Hamburg, Germany:

Learn more about Günther Vogt’s project Drifting Giants for Drägerwerk in Lübeck, Germany:

Work in Progress: Sarah Fayad’s strategy for equitable distribution of affordable housing in Los Angeles

Sarah Fayad (MLAUD ’20) describes her final project for the option studio “Affordability Now!” led by Daniel D’Oca, fall 2019.

Work in Progress: Nhi Tran’s Hotel within the Shikumen Home

Nhi Tran (MArch ’21) describes her final project for the option studio “Reflective Nostalgia: Alternative Futures for Shanghai’s Shikumen Heritage” led by Rossana Hu and Lyndon Neri, fall 2019.

Work in Progress: Kira Clingen’s observation tower at the End of the Rhine

Kira Clingen (MLA/MDes ’21) describes her final project for the option studio “Geographical Reenchantment: Swiss Landscape Interventions between Atmosphere, Function + Experience” led by Robin Winogrond, fall 2019.

Work in Progress: Calvin Boyd’s International African American Museum

Calvin Boyd (MArch I ’21) describes his final project for the option studio “Groundless” led by Andrew Zago, fall 2019.

Work in Progress: Nan Yang’s Modern Food Supply System

Nan Yang (MLA I ’20) describes her final project for the option studio “Feeding Boston” led by Eulàlia Gómez Escoda, fall 2019.

Work in Progress: William Smith’s Model of a Model of a Model

William Smith (MArch II ’20) describes his final project for the option studio “The Immeasurable Enclosure” led by Sergio Lopez-Pineiro, fall 2019.

Fight or Flight? Designers and planners grapple with whether to fight the effects of climate change, or accept the inevitability of mass migration

To quote Margaret Atwood, climate change isn’t just about the climate, it’s “everything change,” and it is transforming coastal regions in the United States at an unprecedented rate. In their studios at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Rosetta S. Elkin, Eric Höweler and Gary H. Hilderbrand are grappling with whether to “build back better” in areas affected by flooding, drought, multi-species migration, and increasingly destructive natural disasters, or move to higher ground. Here, they discuss design interventions and land-use strategies for the country’s most vulnerable areas.