Negotiation

This course combines evolving academic theory with simulations to teach the concepts and practice of effective multi-party negotiation among developers, owners, governments, community groups, tenants, lenders, and investors.

This module course takes place Monday, May 18th through Friday, May 29th, 2026. Class does not meet on Memorial Day, Monday, May 25th. Enrollment is limited to students in the GSD MRE program.

The Art Museum: Typological Trajectories

This seminar provides a critical analysis of the art museum. Rooted in the varied contexts and motives of its programmatic evolution, the course equips students with tools to anticipate the art museum’s typological trajectory amidst socio-economic, cultural, and environmental challenges. At stake is architecture’s prerogative to enable the institution’s relevance.

The art museum has emerged as one of the most significant and prolific typologies of the last century. Its edifice is at once a vessel for our cultural memories and a platform for espousing values, ideas, and knowledge essential to navigating our collective futures. The museum building tethers the objects it houses to the public it hosts. The three – building, object, and public – are constantly in dynamic alignments and tension with one another.

The course is divided into four sections. 

  1. Origins of the Typology: Expands the discourse to include non-Mediterranean/Western antecedents, reflecting our shared urge to collect and display.
  2. The Gallery: Traces the evolution of the gallery – the primary space of display – and the corresponding evolution in art, educational frameworks, and sociocultural practices. The study of gallery types, from the palatial salon to the white box, to burgeoning contemporary strategies, lay bare the didactic relationship between architecture and objects. 
  3. The Non-Gallery: Analyzes the roles of non-gallery programs – spaces of conservation and storage, circulation, infrastructure, retail, food, classrooms and auditoriums, among others – as mechanisms that expand the art museum’s relevance and economic viability, while providing alibis for architectural form.
  4. Future Trajectories: Anticipates new directions relative to contemporary issues such socio-economic inequity, cultural property, and the climate crisis.

The course straddles art and architectural history, design, practice, exhibition, arts programming and operations, infrastructure, climate, economics, landscape, and curatorial practices. Guest speakers – including designers, curators, public officials and museum leaders – will provide diverse perspectives on these matters.

Thesis project / Project Thesis

As the culminating effort for the Master of Architecture degree, a “Thesis” entails multiple expectations. It is a demonstration not only of competency and expertise, but of originality and relevance. A thesis is an opportunity to conceive and execute work that is both a specific project (delimited in scope, with a specific set of appropriate deliverables) as well as a declaration of a wider “Project” (possessing disciplinary value, and contributing to a larger discourse). This class will address both valences of the architectural  “project,” while providing space for students to develop methodological approaches for their own thesis.  Over the course of  a series of lectures and seminars, we will study the theory and practice of the architectural thesis by examining its institutional history and disciplinary development, in order to understand the conventions and possibilities of the format. In workshop sessions, as preparation for their own theses, students will work towards the articulation of their topics. This will include: identifying relevant precedents and existing literature; defining a site and program (however broad); and working through first iterations of working methods.  With these efforts, the aim of the course is for students to be equipped to undertake a thesis project in every sense.

 

Integrative Frameworks: Innovation in Global Problem Solving (Module 1)

This course explores emergent approaches to addressing global challenges. Over six weeks, students explore frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals, wicked problems, decolonizing innovation, the intersection of artificial and collective intelligence and systems thinking applied to global problems. Taught by the founder of the United Nation’s largest innovation network and featuring practitioners from the global majority, the course will unpack creating social change related to problems in sustainable development. Students can expect to question how change and impact are made, who drives innovation and arrive at a basic understanding of the complexity in global problem solving. While the course may complicate how we understand making change, it is designed to unleash hope for how to make an impact on social and environmental problems. Learning objectives include designers’ roles in global change, designing interaction for collective intelligence, and understanding the dichotomy between scaling solutions versus working within complex adaptive systems. The curriculum challenges students to think critically about real use cases in social and environmental innovation and to design interventions to create common ground on wicked problems. 

Integrative Frameworks: Product Design (Module 2)

This immersive course delves into the dynamic discipline of product design, equipping students with the knowledge and skills to create and lead innovative, user-centric, and sustainable solutions that meet the needs of the user, market and the environment. Drawing from complementary disciplines, the course emphasizes the importance of holistic thinking, and fosters a deep understanding of design’s impact and influence on both society and industry.

Through a blend of lectures, guest speakers, and hands-on activities, the course will explore the fundamentals of product design: creation of a functional design brief that clearly articulates the problem and sets the stage for ideation and design exploration; introduction to the fundamentals of sketching and its role in visualizing and communicating design concepts; importance of iterative design – define, refine, repeat; and the power of brand strategy.

The curriculum emphasizes the significance of aesthetics, functionality, and manufacturing feasibility, while also incorporating user-centric approaches such as jobs-to-be-done and design justice. The course will provide invaluable insights into the design process, enabling students to translate ideas into tangible, impactful, and viable physical products.

Course Structure: 
1. Industrial Design: introduction and history
2. Crafting the Design Brief
3. Ideation and Conceptualization
4. Prototyping and Iteration
5. Brand Design and Strategy
6. Presentation and Reflection
 

Integrative Frameworks: Product Management (Module 1)

Great products don’t happen by accident – they’re the result of thoughtful strategy, deep customer insight, and strong execution.  This course provides a comprehensive dive into the craft of product management, equipping students with the frameworks, tools, and mindset needed to turn ideas into successful products.  You’ll learn how to identify real user needs, define and test product hypotheses, prioritize what to build, and lead cross-functional teams from concept to launch.

Throughout the course, you’ll apply product management principles to a variety of real world contexts – including fast-moving startups, high growth scale-ups, established enterprises, and mission-driven social ventures.  You’ll explore how PMs adapt their approach depending on company stage, organizational structure, and market dynamics, developing a flexible skillset that can thrive anywhere.

By the end, you’ll have a solid foundation in both the art and science of product management, and a clear view of how to grow your own PM career.

Topics covered include:

Whether you’re an aspiring product manager or looking to apply the skills, this course will help you think like a PM, act like a PM, and build products that make a difference.

Integrative Frameworks: Business, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship (Module 2)

For design engineering initiatives to achieve your desired impact, they need to survive and thrive in the real world. This usually means that they need to be brought to life by an organization or as a business. This module explores the decisions you will have to make from strategy, to planning, to expression, to execution so you can make it happen.

Here are some examples of topics we will discuss:

• Personal brand + company brand: Starting with you and extending to your organization, you will need to be clear about your desired impact, customer audience, unique approach, and offering (Why? Who? How? What?). Ultimately, you will need to be able to express this as value propositions to multiple audiences.
• Market structures: You will need to understand the structure of the market you are entering. This will inform how you position your brand versus different forms of competition. Should you take a for-profit or not-for-profit approach? What revenue models, from product to platform approaches, should you consider?
• Spreading your story: Whether building relationships with customers, investors, analysts, or communities, you will need to be able to spread your story, and not just through marketing, advertising, and PR.
• Roadmapping for growth and sustainable business: Progress is a process, and you will need to build a team, foster a culture, evolve your offerings, scale your impact, all while adapting to unforeseen conditions. You will need smart sequencing and pacing to be successful.

Class time in this course will include workshops, guest lectures, and discussions using the HBS Case Method.

 

Ecological Restoration

The disturbance, degradation, and destruction of ecosystems from anthropogenic impacts is a global challenge. Recognizing this crisis, the United Nations declared this decade (2021-2030) the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. In this course, we will explore the principles of ecology that are fundamental to the goal of ecosystem restoration, including restoring ecological function and structure to degraded lands. We will discuss these concepts across multiple ecosystem types (e.g. wetlands, coasts, forests, deserts), scales (e.g. parcels, regions, continents), and landscape contexts (e.g. urban, agricultural, landfills, mines). In doing so, we will address a series of interrelated questions that will help determine how we implement ecosystem restoration and what we restore these landscapes to:  What are the ecological processes of functioning communities, both plants and animals, that can be reinstated on degraded lands? What are the constraints to restoring natural communities (soil, species availability, interactions among species, changed physical environments)? How can restored habitats be integrated into landscape architecture and urban planning? What social and political hurdles must be overcome to advance an ecosystem restoration agenda?

The course will be structured through lectures, case studies, and class discussion. Throughout the semester we will invite ecologists and practitioners to share their insight from restoring ecosystems worldwide. There will be field trips to local restoration sites, hosted by regional restoration agencies. A series of assignments will be completed through which each student will develop a restoration plan for a site of their choosing. Through these assignments and class activities, students will be provided with the understanding and tools to support, design, and monitor ecosystem restoration through their discipline. The course will be open to students from the GSD and Organismic Biology. The readings, lectures, and discussion will integrate the perspectives of both ecology and design. This course is suited for students with interest in the natural component of landscape architecture, environmental management, conservation, and/or ecological engineering. Students should have some course background (at Harvard or elsewhere) in modern ecology (e.g. ETT-III).

Structures in Landscape Architecture, Joint & Detail

This class will study the design form and constructional detail of the landscape pavilion and the pedestrian bridge. This work will be focused through the lens of a visual understanding of structural principles and their associated material and detail languages. The class will explore legible detail design in landscape architecture.

In a changing climate the landscape pavilion type affords shade, rain and wind protection, and provides a locus for social interaction within a particular landscape space. The pedestrian bridge is a key component of the organization of movement within and over landscape topography. It can also be a place of meetings and interpersonal exchange.

The class is lecture/workshop based. Existing structures will be analyzed in terms of structural principle deployed, materials used, and detail vocabulary developed for each individual structure. The case studies will also examine the structural design implications of sustainability. How material choice, structural logic, carbon content, and aesthetics interact in the design and making of the pergola and the pedestrian bridge.

Learning Objectives
The learning objectives of this class are:
1. Understand and be able to apply structural principles to design work
2. Understand develop and apply structurally based, three-dimensional detail in design work
3. Develop and personal practice of detail design that translates structural understanding into a coherent poetics of a material landscape architecture

Method of Evaluation
1. Weekly in class workshops completed in class time and submitted at the end of the class. 25%
2. Semester project – the design of a small pedestrian bridge OR the design of a small landscape pavilion that is related to a current or previous studio project/thesis. The design of this detail element will be accompanied by the study of a structural president for the bridge or pavilion that informs the project design. 55%
3. Review of student’s sketchbook. The sketchbook will be a record of the working out of the design and will show how observation, analysis and iterative detail design development leads to the final design form of the project. 15%
4. Class attendance and participation. 5%

Prerequisites
SCI 6242 or equivalent. Class is open to all students in all departments. Students enrolled in GSD ETT IV can take this class concurrently.

Advanced Introduction to Robotics (at SEAS)

Introduction to computer-controlled robotic manipulators. Topics include coordinate frames and transformations, forward and inverse kinematic solutions to open-chain manipulators, the Jacobian, dynamics and control, and motion planning. In addition, special topics will be introduced such as computer vision, soft robotics, surgical robots, MEMS and microrobotics, and biomimetic systems. Laboratory exercises will provide experience with industrial robot programming and robot simulation and control.

Related Sections: Laboratory TBA

Prerequisite: Linear algebra (e.g., Mathematics 21a,b, Mathematics 22a,b, Mathematics 25a,b, Applied Mathematics 22a,b); introductory mechanics (e.g., Physics 15a, Physics 16, Physical Sciences 12a, Applied Physics 50a,b); programming experience (e.g., CS 50; MATLAB recommended).

GSD SCI 6274 is jointly listed with SEAS as Eng-Sci 259. Students may not take both for credit.

Note that this course follows the FAS academic calendar. See the FAS calendar for information on the first day of classes. See the SEAS listing for classroom information.