Frameworks of Practice
How should we practice today?
The discipline, the profession, and the practice of architecture are invented and designed things. And the roles, relationships, protocols, and expertise that define architecture’s overarching frameworks are neither ancient nor fixed, even if buildings and the people who design them have existed for millennia. That said, for much of the twentieth century, the pace of change in the discipline, profession, and practice of architecture—and how one navigates these in the course of building a career—has been but gradual.
Crisis, however, is a powerful accelerant. Since the turn of the century, a series of interrelated economic, social, climate, and health crises have not just challenged architectural practices and practitioners, but are necessitating a wholesale reconsideration of the underlying frameworks of practice inherited from the twentieth century. While many architects will struggle to adapt, some are discovering and inventing new frameworks with which to confront not only specific crises, but to take a more proactive role in addressing the needs of society.
In Frameworks of Practice this fall, we will critically examine the challenges and opportunities created by crisis, and seek to understand how architects have designed new ways of practicing in direct response to crises ranging from economic collapse to structural racism to natural disaster to global pandemic. Acknowledging that the discipline, the profession, and the practice of architecture are invented, designed concepts, our ultimate aim is to uncover and imagine new ways of practicing in an increasingly upended world.
Course Format: Lectures by course instructor and guests; full-class and small group workshops and tutorials; discussions and team exercises; collaborative and individual projects.
Requirements: Consistent class attendance and engagement; satisfactory participation in and completion of collaborative and individual projects.
Prerequisites: The course is open to all degree programs at the GSD and certain cross-registration students from MIT. M.Arch I candidates must have completed the core professional practice course (PRO-07212) in order to enroll in PRO-07408. Prior work experience is beneficial but not required.
Note: the instructor will offer online live course presentations on 08/26, and/or 08/27. To access the detailed schedule and Zoom links, please visit the Live Course Presentations Website.
Please note this course will meet online through 9/15.
Practices of Landscape Architecture
This course presents the application of landscape ideas as a process of engagement and building amidst financial, legal, cultural, political, and professional contexts. The course aims to introduce conventions and circumstances that may be encountered throughout one’s career while stimulating new and creative, alternative dimensions of practice in a global, inclusive and universal context.
Course content includes lectures, workshops and discussions led by the instructors and guests from around the globe, and incorporates student research, exercises and readings. Though concepts appear iteratively throughout the term, early topics include design leadership and community agency, professional identity, firm marketing and business development, and states of diversity in practice. Topics then move to conventions and circumstances influencing legal, ethical, financial and operational aspects of practice, particularly those that can contribute to and detract from the success of firms and their projects.
Recognizing that architecture, planning and landscape architecture share many aspects of practice, this course incorporates nuances and scope that are typically the focus of current landscape architectural practice itself, such as soils as a living medium, grading and planting, landscape architectural documentation and construction, landscape advocacy and stewardship, and liabilities specifically associated with the practice of landscape architecture.
The course meets twice a week for 1.5 hours (3 hours total). Key lectures will be recorded. Evaluation is based upon participation in guest lectures and class discussions, graded exercises, and a long-term group paper.
Outcomes
During this course students will develop the ability to:
1) Demonstrate a familiarity with the vocabulary, concepts and processes associated with the financial management of a project and an office.
2) Describe the key elements contained in a contract for landscape architectural design services and typical points of negotiation, risk and opportunity.
3) Review and respond to a Request for Proposal as part of a public solicitation process.
4) Analyze and describe the various ways in which offices acquire work and build their identity.
5) Consider the role and requirements of professional licensure and professional associations.
6) Describe the trade-offs involved with different types of practice and potential career trajectories, and begin to consciously build a professional network.
Please note this course will meet online through 9/15. After that, the course will be taught in person with the exception of two sessions that will be online. Please see the syllabus for more details. This is subject to change.
Integrative Frameworks for Technology, Environment, and Society I
In the spirit of Herbert Simon, Frameworks engages diverse but complementary perspectives and techniques to identify, diagnose and constructively address consequential social challenges, sometimes referred to as "wicked problems". The disciplines – or 'frameworks' – explored include (in no order and to varying degrees) systems analysis, industrial design, scientific methods, behavioral and organizational dynamics, law, economics, risk management, manufacturing, culture, aesthetics, health sciences, history, branding, anthropology, statistics, public policy, ecology and the like. While individual frameworks are presented, the teaching goal over the two semesters is to help students: a) identify problems that are both consequential and tractable; b) select and apply the suite of frameworks best suited to addressing the problem at hand.
Course Format: Assigned readings, case studies, research assignments, exercises, outside specialists and class discussions.
Prerequisites: This course is for students enrolled in the Master in Design Engineering (MDE) graduate program. MDE students should enroll in GSD PRO 7231.
Foundations of Practice
For students in the fifth semester of the MArch I degree program, this course examines models and issues that define contemporary professional practice. Requiring students to examine a broad range of legal, financial, organizational, and ethical topics, the course prepares students to engage and lead in the production of the built environment. The course takes advantage of the multidisciplinary programs of the GSD, bringing a wide breath of experienced professionals to share insights and develop the tools necessary for productive collaborations within the complex space of specific professional, practical, and disciplinary obligations.
Each week the course explores professional practice through a critical reading of primary texts that frame key concepts and models, as well as relevant case studies and applications for stress testing the boundaries of these models.
Course format: Combination of lectures, guest lectures, and workshops. Each subject area contains supplemental material that provides standard references and supplemental case studies that highlight the boundaries and thresholds of practice. This is intended to provide students with an exposure to critical aspects of practice—from accounting to contracting and from project delivery to professional ethics. In addition, students will explore the wide-ranging roles of respective professional associations in shaping contractual relationships, public policy, and the parameters of practice itself. In more immediate terms, students will explore:
– Client communications and engagement;
– The drafting and execution of standard AIA contract series;
– The interpretation and due process considerations of local government regulations;
– The strategic advancement of public design reviews or public procurement opportunities; and
– The financial economics of operating a practice.
Connecting each of these dimensions of practice are the codes of professional ethics and various elements of statutory and case law that collectively define the professional standard of care. The intent is for students to develop a reflexive understanding of their duty to clients, third-party consultants, and the general public consistent with their obligations as design professionals and community leaders. This course serves as a foundation from which students may develop further interests and skills in the GSD’s professional practice distributional elective course offerings.
Please note this course will meet online through 9/15.
The first class meeting will be on Wednesday, September 1st. the rest of the semester, classes will meet during the scheduled time.
The Sociological Imagination: Conceptual Foundations for the Urban Planning and Design Professions
What does it mean to plan and design for people? In what ways are built environments and social relationships shaped by one another? And how is the production of space related to notions of community and identity, questions of power, and mechanisms of social and spatial control from either “above” or “below?” In attempting to answer these questions (and more), this course will introduce graduate students to a set of core writings in the field of urban sociology. Topics include the changing nature of cities, how such transformations relate to larger societal dynamics, and the role that racism, inequality, political power, economic growth, and socio-spatial change play in connecting the built environment to the human experience. We will examine key theoretical paradigms that have constituted the field since its founding, assess how and why they have changed over time, and discuss the implications of these paradigmatic shifts for urban scholarship as well as urban design and planning practice. The aim is to educate students about the changing character of the city and the urban experience— including the larger social, political, and economic dynamics of urban change as well as the more grounded physicality of urban infrastructure—so as to provide a more nuanced understanding of the contemporary and historical context in which planning practices and design objectives have been developed and could be applied.
The course is open to students in all programs of the school. However, it will involve intensive discussions of assigned readings. Students will be encouraged to discuss how the theoretical and practical concerns that have preoccupied urban sociologists can be applied to their individual research interests (at both the MA and PhD level). Final grades will be based on both in-class participation and written assignments.
Note: the instructor will offer online live course presentations on 08/26, and/or 08/27. To access the detailed schedule and Zoom links, please visit the Live Course Presentations Website.
Please note this course will meet online through 9/15.
The first class meeting will be on Wednesday, September 8th. The rest of the semester, classes will meet during the official scheduled time.
Architecture and Construction: From the Vitruvian Tradition to the Digital
The course aims to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between architecture and construction through the study of key historical episodes such as the rise of modern tectonic ideals in the 18th century, the development of iron and concrete buildings, the 20th-century quest for light structures, or more recent developments in materials, structure and building technologies. The course will also raise theoretical questions such as what the terms material and structure truly mean, or how does architecture differ from mere construction. Beyond its historical and theoretical scope, the ambition of the course is also to foster students' reflection on the contemporary evolution of the relationship between architecture and construction. Indeed, the rise of digital technologies and more recently the development of strong environmental concerns challenge our received understanding of tectonics, materials, and ultimately design.
The course will consist of live lectures given online followed discussions. Lectures will be recorded and made accessible to the students of the course. Apart from regular attendance, the students will be asked to produce a short end-of-the-semester paper on a topic related to the course.
Plan of the course:
Towards an Architectural History of Construction, Introduction
Construction and Solidity in the Vitruvian Tradition
The 18th-Century Crisis of Solidity and the Rise of the Structural Approach
Early Iron Construction Development
From Iron to Steel
The Origin of Modern Concrete
The Industrial Challenge from Ruskin to the Arts and Crafts
Building Technologies in the 19th Century
Structure and Ornament in the Industrial Age
Modernist Architecture and Technology
Concrete Engineering
Concrete Architecture
Early Space, Inflatable and Tensile Structures
Buckminster Fuller, Jean Prouvé and the Search for a Revolution in Design
Postwar Technological Utopias and Dystopias from Archigram to Radical Architecture
The High-Tech Temptation
Contemporary Advances in Materials and Structures
Digital Architecture and the Rise of a New Materiality
Digital Fabrication, Between Futurism and Nostalgia
The Environmental Challenge: From Mechanics to Thermodynamics?
Architecture, AI: What is Next? Conclusion
Please note this course will meet online through 9/15. Out of the 26 course sessions, eight will happen in Gund with the instructor, 14 will be live on Zoom, and four will be pre-recorded lectures. Additionally, there will be four in-person Q&A with the course TFs. Please review the syllabus for more details.
Topology and Imagination: Between Chinese Landscapes and Architecture
This course deals with landscape architecture and architecture in contemporary China. Its purpose is twofold: to articulate new perspectives on the challenges facing designers, and to demonstrate the pertinence of issues to a broader range of international discussions.
There are three major aspects involved:
– An expanded vocabulary for understanding design challenges in both urban and rural settings. We shall discuss a range of terms, taken from local Chinese discussions and from Western contexts, that can enable a more precise grasp of issues. In particular, the understanding of Chinese gardens in terms of topology (from the work of Zhu Guangya) shows a way for going beyond the idea of static “composition.”
– Detailed case studies that draw on a broad range of images documenting both design process and construction process. Our goal is to go beyond the usual presentation of design projects in six- or eight-page magazine articles and to attend to process and contingency. The main topics will include: redundant precision versus apparent precision in construction (from the work of Francesca Hughes), hi-fi versus lo-fi architecture (from the work of Jeremy Till), perspectival and aperspectival effects, and proactive intervention in the chain of supply of building materials.
– Cultural dimensions relevant for the understanding of architectural and landscape experience. This part of our study will involve both reading texts (in English translation) and analyzing extant gardens. The main topics will include: long-term and short-term memory, the pitfalls of thinking in dualistic dichotomies, the opportunities presented by different kinds of clientele, and the limitations of various kinds of regionalism.
Course enrollment is limited to thirty. Ten spots will be prioritized for Landscape Architecture students and ten spots will be prioritized for Architecture students who are taking this course to meet their BTC requirement. All prioritized students must select the course first in the lottery.
Note on schedule: The class will meet synchronously on Tuesdays from 10:30 to 11:45 am. Every week there will be 60-90 minutes of asynchronous materials (lectures or seminar presentations). During weeks 4-12, the course will invite a range of designers and scholars from several countries as speakers or discussants. Please note that in 2-3 weeks of the semester, the class will meet with the guest speakers from 8 to 9 am ET (instead of the usual 10:30-11:45 am slot) due to time zone constraints. The online pre-recorded format allows for a much more international range of speakers and discussants, and the 60-90 min lectures on case studies will allow us to get a much more detailed understanding of projects than can be obtained from 6-8 page articles.
Note: the instructor will offer online live course presentations on 08/26, and/or 08/27. To access the detailed schedule and Zoom links, please visit the Live Course Presentations Website.
Please note this course will meet online through 9/15.
Competing Visions of Modernity in Japan
The course will trace the parallel trajectories of two of modern Japan’s most influential schools of architectural thought, represented by Kenzo Tange (1913–2005) on the one hand and Kazuo Shinohara (1925–2006) on the other, and situate their contributions in the broader development of international modernism in the postwar period. Tange and his protégés in the Metabolist group dazzled the world with radical proposals for urban communities built either on the sea or elevated in the sky. Shinohara rejected this techno-rationalist stance through the slogan “A house is a work of art” and turned to the single-family house shunned by the Metabolists. The House of White by Shinohara achieves an almost oceanic spaciousness through abstraction and precision.
The course will be structured as a series of discursive narratives and debates, such as tradition, transparency, lightness, and technology, which defined architectural practice and criticism in Japan after 1945. Major figures, notably Toyo Ito, successfully overcame these differences and established new paradigms. We will also position young Japanese architects today, Ishigami, Fujimoto, and Hasegawa, in terms of these historical genealogies and the evolution of a critical discourse.
The course will make extensive use of the Kenzo Tange Collection housed at the Loeb Library. We will also engage recent exhibitions on modern Japanese architecture examine the framing of modern and contemporary architecture in Japan to public and professional audiences.
Note: the instructor will offer online live course presentations on 08/26, and/or 08/27. To access the detailed schedule and Zoom links, please visit the Live Course Presentations Website.
Please note this course will meet online through 9/15.
The first class meeting will be on Wednesday, September 8th. The rest of the semester, classes will meet during the official scheduled time.
Structuring Urban Experience: From the Athenian Acropolis to the Boston Common
This lecture course examines selected cities between the 5th century BC and the 17th century AD, beginning with ancient Athens and ending with the rebuilding of London after the great fire in 1666 and the founding of Boston. It is not, however, a survey. Rather, the lectures take up one city at one “golden moment” of its development and propose a theme or themes for discussion. The course, therefore, is both chronologically and thematically structured.
The first half of the semester addresses the ancient and late antique city, beginning with Athens and continuing with Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople, and Antioch. This section concludes with a consideration of the effects of Christianization on urban form, the widespread decline of urban habitation in the early Middle Ages, and the rising importance of ideal or symbolic “cities of the mind.” The second half of the semester looks at selected instances of Renaissance and Baroque urban interventions, beginning with Florence, returning again to Rome, and then moving to Venice, Madrid, Paris, London, and Boston.
Course format:
Lectures, lecture/discussions, and discussions. Each lecture is normally devoted to one city. It covers urban layout and topography, infrastructure, patterns and types of housing, and typologies of the major monuments and treats in more depth those features relating to the themes for the week—the relation of the city to countryside, for instance, or the city as center of cultural activity, the city and ideas about space, and so on. The lecture/discussion sessions introduce additional material (sometimes a new city, sometimes a more in-depth treatment of one of the assigned readings) and then move to discussion of the lecture and readings. The discussion sessions sometimes compare two cities and sometimes deepen or amplify the themes and ideas covered in the lecture(s) and readings. Students are required to prepare for the discussions by reviewing the relevant lecture(s) (PowerPoints are on the course site), doing the readings, and thinking about how the readings relate to the weekly topic.
Throughout the semester, you will be working on what will become a final research paper of 12 pages of text plus endnotes, illustrations, and a bibliography on a city of your choice during its “golden age.”
Please note this course will meet online through 9/15. The course lectures will be pre-recorded and posted on the course site for asynchronous viewing. All discussion meetings will meet live on Zoom on the following dates: 9/2, 9/9, 9/16, 9/23, 9/30, 10/7, 10/14, 10/21, 10/28, 11/4, and 11/11. The instructor will meet individually with students in person during office hours before 10/7. Additionally, the class meetings in which there are student reports will be in person: 11/16, 11/18, 11/23, 11/30, and 12/2.
Histories of Landscape Architecture I: Textuality and the Practice of Landscape Architecture
This course introduces students to a number of significant topoi or loci in the histories of landscape architecture. In general terms, it takes the form of a conspectus, a survey of the field, but one in which the underlying nature (made and found), boundaries, contours, and texture of this field—in fact several disparate fields—is made the object of close scrutiny. We will define landscape architecture as we survey it. In pursuing an intermittent chronological narrative, the lectures will place site-specific emphasis on a number of cognate disciplines (hydrology, forestry, geology, agronomy, geography, hunting, inter alia), in the context of endemic and transplanted visual and textual traditions. While inspecting the grounds of villas, cloisters gardens, parks, and cities, we will be attentive to surrounding formations of discourse (the pastoral, the picturesque, the emblematic, the Adamic and Edenic) that have and continue to imbue them with meaning.
Please note this course will meet online through 9/15.