Digital Media: Design Systems

The course is an introduction to fundamental concepts, methods, and practical techniques in design computation with emphasis on a systems perspective. We take a view that computational design requires the designing of systems instead of forms/geometries directly and that the quality of such systems reflects the success of the design outcome.

A system can be understood as a set of detailed procedures to achieve a specific objective, which takes input data/signal and transforms it into output/feedback. To design a computational system, it is necessary to adopt a particular way of thinking: identifying, abstracting, and decomposing a design goal. In addition, the data and procedures to achieve the goal require the use of logical and numerical constructs. On the contrary to such a reductionist approach, it is important to note the output of a design system needs to be accessible to human thoughts for holistic and intuitive evaluation. In other words, the system perspective helps elucidate the different modes of thinking embedded within the use of the digital medium for design.

The course will be comprised of three learning segments: (a) computational and geometric notations, (b) data organization and algorithms, (c) data flow and design control; introduced through a series of asynchronous lectures and exercises as well as synchronous workshops. Students will create, analyze, and evaluate computational and geometric constructs within the design-as-a-system thoughtparadigm. Simultaneously, the course provides students with the basis for developing critical thinking towards computational tools through working on a series of design exercises and a final project. We will use Rhino, Grasshopper environment, and C# where we expect the students to be familiar with 3D modeling in Rhino. It is designed for architecture students with little programming experience who are interested in understanding the underlying principles of computational tools and customization of design processes using the tools.

Landscape Representation II

Landscape Representation II examines the relationship between terrain and the dynamic landscape it supports and engenders. The course explores and challenges the representational conventions of land-forming and supports a landscape architecture design process that posits the landscape as a relational assemblage of dynamic physical and temporal forces. It investigates the making of landforms through its inherent material performance in relationship to ecological processes that describe its connectability to the ordering and making of the landscape that is a reciprocation of forces between itself and its context at specific scales.

Measures of time will be utilized to describe and design the landscape through a comparison of sequence and event, and their intervals, rates, and duration in relationship to spatial forces and flows. Time infuses the material reality of the landscape through states of formation: from those that signify stability, through sequences that are predictable and observable processes of change, to those that are uncertain and instantaneous.

Representation is approached as an activity of thinking and making in which knowledge is generated through the work. This facilitates an iterative process of reflection in action, enabling testing in which new knowledge informs subsequent design decisions. The course will introduce methods of associative and generative modelling, and quantitative and qualitative analysis visualized through multiple forms of media. These are decision-making models conceived to imbue interaction between evidence-based variables and design input.

Precedent studies will accompany an engagement in digital media with fluid transitions between documentation and speculation, 2-D and 3-D, static and dynamic, illustrating time-based processes.

The Gentrification Debates: Perceptions and Realities of Neighborhood Change

Gentrification and the real and perceived impacts that neighborhood change has on longtime local residents as well as new dwellers, is complicated to unpack and define.  Many believe displacement is an inherent byproduct of gentrification, yet little research exists to quantify or even confirm if and how displacement occurs.  We are left to speculate about whether residents are being priced out of their rents; do owners chose to “cash out” and sell their properties; and/or do people of color choose to leave the neighborhood because the longstanding cultural character and amenities are eroding. Is displacement inevitable, is it voluntary or involuntary; and if so, is it economic or cultural?

So what definition of gentrification are we to rely on to improve our understanding of neighborhood change.  The gentrification definition that relies on the statistics commonly measured by inflation in housing prices, increases in median household income, and changes in educational attainment, might confirm that neighborhood change through gentrification is real.   Or what about the definition of neighborhood change as presented in the 2014 “Lost in Place” report highlighting that only 100 out of 1,100 urban areas saw reductions in poverty levels between 1970-2010, a change that may be a function of backfilling four decades of neighborhood population decline rather than the upward mobility of long time low-income households.  This report is telling us we are obsessed with the wrong neighborhood change phenomenon– that instead of tracking the smaller percentage of urban areas that are truly “gentrifying”, we should instead be more focused on why the other 1,000 out of 1,100 urban areas and its residents are no better off than they were 40 years ago!

But what about the upside of new investment in historically disinvestment neighborhoods? The addition of new, and often better quality amenities, should be a benefit to all residents, incoming and existing.  Long-time homeowners who have not seen increases in the value of their homes should now see increases in their long-term household wealth.  And areas of the city that have been steeped in income and racial divide can become places of mixed income and mixed-race, enabling a more productive social and economic ecosystem of community life.  Does this type of investment always have to be seen as disruptive?

This course will explore the debate about the causes and effects of gentrification, and attempt to document the real and perceived impacts of such change on the physical, economic, social and cultural dynamics of community.  The course will use national and city-specific research on gentrification; neighborhood change measurement methodologies; examine the neighborhood change using data research, literature and media articles and guest lectures.  Students will prepare 1) an opinion-editorial essay, offering a definition of gentrification; 2) participate in a team debate arguing either the positive or negative impacts of gentrification; 3) assign indicators and metrics for measuring the presence of gentrification and 4) prepare a case study presentation on  effective strategies for addressing either the negative impacts and advancing positive impacts of gentrification.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES 
Upon completion of the course, students will be able to: 
– Analyze the causes, characteristics, consequences, actors and tenure of gentrification 
– Develop a working definition of gentrification, indicators for measuring neighborhood change, and the ability to ascertain whether gentrification is occurring 
– Identify the positive and negative impacts of gentrification on multiple stakeholders
– Document examples that mitigate negative impacts or advance positive impacts of gentrification 

COURSE HOURS
5 weeks of Asynchronous (1.0 hour/class) and Synchronous learning (1.5 hours/class)
3 weeks of Synchronous student debates and presentations (3 hours/class)
4 weeks of Synchronous guest speaker presentations and discussion groups (2 hours/class)

The course Zoom site will remain open for an additional hour within the class time for student informal discussion groups and team collaboration as needed.

Affordable and Mixed-Income Housing Development, Finance, and Management

Explores issues relating to the development, financing, and management of housing affordable to low and moderate income households. Examines community-based development corporations, public housing authorities, housing finance agencies, private developers, and financial intermediaries. Identifies, defines, and analyzes development cost, financing, operating, rental assistance, tax credit, entitlement, and project-generated cross income subsidy vehicles. Assesses alternative debt and equity funding sources for both rental and for-sale mixed-income housing and addresses the now common practice of aggregating multiple subsidies into a single financial package. Reviews other aspects of the affordable housing development process, including assembling and managing the development team, preparing feasibility studies, controlling sites, gaining community support, securing subsidies, establishing design objectives, coordinating the design and construction process, selecting residents or homeowners, providing supportive services, and managing the completed asset. Historically, almost all students in this course have participated in the Affordable Housing Development Competition (AHDC) sponsored by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston and others. As part of this competition, teams of multidisciplinary graduate students primarily from Harvard and MIT prepare detailed affordable housing proposals working with real sponsors on real sites in the Greater Boston area. These AHDC proposals serve as the final project for this course. The course includes lectures, cases, exercises, site visits, guest lectures, and student presentations. No prior real estate development or finance experience is expected or required.

Also offered by Harvard Kennedy School as SUP-666

 

Note: the instructor will offer live course presentations on 01/19-01/21. To access the detailed schedule and Zoom links, please visit the Live Course Presentations Website. If you need assistance, please contact Estefanía Ibáñez.

Cities and the Urban Informal Economy: Rethinking Development, Urban Design and Planning

Since the emergence of the concept of the ‘urban informal economy’ in the early 1970s, there have been multiple interpretations as well as applications of this concept for urban development in newly industrializing nations. And yet, many important questions still remain to be addressed. The persistence and, in fact, the continuing growth of the urban informal economy around the world has, on the one hand, revealed the complex livelihood patterns of the working poor; but on the other hand, this trend has also brought to fore many new challenges for designers, urban planners, and social activists who care about good and sustainable city form, equitable and efficient city planning, and bottom-up strategies for good governance. What requires close scrutiny are: regulations, policies, taxation, spatial planning, design principles , and institutions through which development strategies affect the lives of the working poor in the urban informal economy. Conversely, the structure and function of cities’ informal economies has profound impact on the spatial, economic, and political development of cites. Yet, the conventional concepts and techniques of Urban Design and Planning seldom directly address the challenges and contributions of the informal economy as a key driving force which influences quality of urban life. In fact, traditional approaches continue to assume the urban informal economy as a transitory outcome which would wither away as cites and nations modernize spatially, economically, socially, and politically.

This interdisciplinary course, led by an urban designer, an urban planner, and a leading global advocate for the urban working poor, intends to scrutinize the different theories and their applications, since the early 1970s, to better understand and influence the informal economy. The objective is to transcend conventional disciplinary approaches with innovative, multidisciplinary thinking regarding how to valorize and enhance the contribution of the urban working poor to good city form, equitable city planning, and democratic urban governance.

This course will introduce the students to both theoretical frameworks and empirical findings to better understand the structure and functions of the urban informal economy, and then assess the effectiveness of past interventions by designers, planners, and social activists to enhance the quality of life of the working poor in the urban informal economy. The ultimate goal is to assist students to transcend conventional thinking with innovative possibilities for more a more humane, sustainable, and convivial cites where the working poor are valued as assets, not a problem. Towards that goal, the course is organized in three modules by three senior faculty across three Institutions (HKS, DUSP-MIT, and GSD). The instructors will be present together  synchronously for the start of the class and then at the end of each module where they will discuss the issues presented ion that module. They will also be all present for other synchronous sessions, which are relevant for their collective interactions but at least for 5 sessions -the end of each module as well as the start and summary class.

Course structure: Each module consists of asynchronous lectures and synchronous class discussions. Pre-recorded lectures, reading, and other materials will be made available through Canvas for students to work on their own time. The class will meet on Thursdays from 10 to 11.30 am for live discussions with the instructor of the module; students are expected to attend this session. The synchronous session will be a combination of lectures , workshops, and discussion (collective as well as in break out rooms). This will vary in each module. Each week an instructor will lead the synchronous meeting. More details will be shared on the syllabus.

Note: the instructor will offer live course presentations on 01/19-01/21. To access the detailed schedule and Zoom links, please visit the Live Course Presentations Website. If you need assistance, please contact Estefanía Ibáñez. 

For mor information on the course logistics please visit: https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/resources/harvard-mit-courselogistics/

U. S. Housing Markets, Problems, and Policies

This course will examine the operation of U.S. housing markets, the principal housing problems facing the nation, and the policy approaches available to address these problems within the existing political, regulatory and market context.  The course is structured around four central housing problems that are the focus of US housing policy:  the inability of a large share of renters to obtain housing that meets generally accepted affordability standards; the challenges facing low-income and minority households in attaining homeownership; the high degree of residential segregation by race/ethnicity and income and associated differential access to public and private resources that results; and how housing policy can support broader efforts at community development.  Each section of the course will develop a detailed understanding of the nature of the problem, how the operation of housing markets either produce or fail to address the problem, introduce the principal federal, state and local policy approaches available to address the problem, and wrestle with critical policy questions that arise in choosing how best to address the problem.

The goal of the course is to build both a foundation of knowledge and a critical perspective needed to diagnose the genesis of the nation’s housing problems, to identify the potential policy levers for addressing these failures, and assess the relative merits of alternative approaches.  Class sessions will be a mixture of lecture and class discussions focusing on the assigned readings.  Students will be expected to come to class prepared to be fully engaged participants in these discussions. Over the course of the semester, students will be required to prepare periodic reviews of assigned readings shared on Canvas, submit a 5-page paper making the case for a specific policy proposal, and complete a take home final exam.  The course is intended for graduate students with an interest in US housing policy, although no previous background in housing policy or disciplinary training is required.

This course is jointly listed with HKS as SUP 670.

Course structure: The class will meet synchronously on Tuesdays and Thursdays  from 1-2 pm ET. A total of one hour of asynchronous class time will be assigned each week generally consisting of short pre-recorded lectures or other video material

Note: the instructor will offer live course presentations on 01/19-01/21. Please visit the Live Course Presentations Website. If you need assistance, please contact Estefanía Ibáñez. 

Housing and Urbanization in Global Cities

Housing and Urbanization in Global Cities examines housing policy and planning in urban societies around the world and especially in the Global South.  Through slide presentations, discussions, guest lectures, texts, and exercises, we examine the dynamic growth of cities; the ideological impulses to combat slum conditions and provide mass housing; the resulting anti-slum and housing programs; the means of financing such programs; and the effects of design and planning on people and their communities.

The first part of the course is devoted to the history and theory of housing and urbanization. We examine the effects of intense urban growth in Europe, especially the emergence of the twin problems of slums and housing; the export of Western housing and anti-slum policies to the developing world; the furious debate over the nature of informal settlements in the Global South; and the fundamental concepts of land use and housing policy. 

In the second part of the course, we take up the practical application of housing policies in different national environments around the globe.  Using the cases of Bogotá, Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Beijing, we study the ways private developers, planners, designers, non-government organization officers, and government officials work within local systems of land use, law, and finance to respond to informal settlements and produce homes for people. Working in teams, students evaluate specific housing programs in Bogotá, Mumbai, and Johannesburg, and propose a planning strategy to improve particular sites in the outer section of Beijing. 

This course helps prepare students for international planning and design studios, housing studios, and courses on housing or social policy in general.  It will appeal to graduate school designers, planners, and public policy students interested in social engagement and the diverse methods of producing low-income housing in global cities. There are no prerequisites.

Course structure: The format of classes will vary. Most classes will be synchronous, and all students will attend on Zoom for the full hour-and-a-half. Usually these classes will be comprised of lectures during the first 50 minutes or so, to be followed by a short break and then class discussion for about 30 minutes. Some classes may start later and last 30-45 minutes. All lectures will be recorded and available to students living in time zones that make it difficult to attend synchronous classes.

Jointly Offered Course: HKS SUP-662

Note: Shopping Day Schedule for SES-5337/SUP-662 at HKS: Thursday, January 23rd from 2:45-4:00 pm in R304.

Note: the instructor will offer live course presentations on 01/19-01/21. To access the detailed schedule and Zoom links, please visit the Live Course Presentations Website. If you need assistance, please contact Estefanía Ibáñez.&nbs

Theories for Practice in Conflict, Crisis, and Recovery

Course topics and objectives:
How do we understand the relationship between crisis, recovery and the built environment at the beginning of the 21st century? Conflicts and disasters (both “natural” and human-made) are both symptoms and evidence of asymmetrical urban, territorial, and social development. For this reason, any ethically defensible response to a catastrophic event should go beyond “mere” reconstruction and imagine new, more resilient, and more equitable forms of urbanization. This research seminar will therefore examine situations of ‘post-disaster recovery’, as an opportunity to rethink, conceptually redefine, and proactively reconstruct or reconfigure new forms of urbanization.

Historically, this class has explored the social construction of crisis, disasters and emergencies through a critical interpretive lens that situates contemporary discourses on disaster response within theories of crisis and the ‘natural’, and with special attention on modernization, globalization, and urbanization. In so doing, we identify the conditions under which certain crises or related challenges are considered normal or routine, as opposed to exceptional. This spring we will modify the class to more purposefully examine contemporary developments that have captured the global imagination, most particularly the emergence of social movements that define themselves as pushing back against ongoing crisis and disaster related to power structures and their disastrous impacts on peoples, territories, and longer-term human sustainability. Specifically, we pay special attention to social movements and other forms of mobilization emerging in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and calls to defund the police; the Covid-19 pandemic; and the intensified destruction of precarious ecologies through resource extraction, urbanization, and statist development projects intended to supplant global political and economic power (i.e. fracking, deforestation, mining, petroleum extraction , and so on).  We move beyond the abstract to ground our inquiry in the physical world and with close attention to the political. In addition to examining the variety of actors involved in these social movements, we will pay special attention to the spatial strategies and tactics they deploy, the languages of individual versus collective rights and responsibilities they may reference, and the degrees to which these movements create social and political alliances at a variety of scales – including with NGOs, citizens, professional planners, political parties, and governing institutions including those operating internationally – that lay the pathway for constructive change. 

Course format and methods of evaluation:
This course is a reading, writing, and research seminar, with short essays or commentaries due throughout. However, final deliverables can be either an extended paper/essay or a project. Either way, the class requires sustained participation throughout the semester. Readings span multiple disciplines in the social sciences: urban studies, geography, sociology, political philosophy, and science and technology studies (STS). Some assignments will be collective, others individual. Students will use a variety of methodologies such as analytical mapping and design techniques as well as archival, survey, planning, ecological, engineering, and critical conservation practices to offer projective ideas and grounded proposals that put humanism, justice, and values of racial, gender, social, and class equity at the center of any  vision for sustainable futures. 

Course structure: The weekly two hours meetings scheduled for this course require attendance. In addition to the synchronous meeting times, there will be a range of other asynchronous events of different styles (lectures, films, assignments to be done in groups) for each class. 

Note: the instructor will offer live course presentations on 01/19-01/21. To access the detailed schedule and Zoom links, please visit the Live Course Presentations Website. If you need assistance, please contact Estefanía Ibáñez. 

Building and Leading Real Estate Enterprises and Entrepreneurship

This course focuses on how you conceive, build and lead successful real estate companies. By virtue of the industry in which they compete, real estate companies are almost always founded and developed by entrepreneurs. A few grow to become category killers; others are able to compete in a crowded and competitive landscape. Many, however, are eventually closed down; sometimes due to changing market forces, sometimes due to lack of good corporate strategy or execution, and sometimes due to the founder neglecting to institutionalize a lasting organization to succeed him or her.

Taught through a combination of lectures, cases and analytical problems, this course examines (primarily through the lens of real estate investment and development companies), the critical ingredients required to grow and lead long-term competitive enterprises. The course will begin with an examination of how to optimize the performance of real properties and then migrate to the design and development of successful companies that own or service properties.

At the end of this course, students should gain a deeper appreciation of how owners think and act when they oversee their companies. They will specifically be introduced to how to develop a robust strategy, capital plan, corporate culture and execution capability that are part of every great real estate company. Students taking this course should also be able to construct the elements of a simple business plan for a startup. Students are also encouraged to think about how they may launch their own real estate enterprise during the course, and to make active use of other Harvard resources, including Harvard clubs and facilities like the I-lab, as they think through their entrepreneurial opportunities.

Paired Course: Although not mandatory, this course is meant to be taken in conjunction with GSD 5275,  which meets the first half of the semester; it is also 2 credits and meets at the same time as 5276. GSD 5276 will build on many of the questions and concepts that 5275 postulates.

Advanced Real Estate Finance

This course builds on GSD 5204 and comparable introductory real estate courses offered by other schools at Harvard. This year’s course covers five main topics: (1) Advanced Financial Analysis and Deal Structuring for Acquisitions (including waterfalls), (2) Advanced Financial Analysis and Structuring for Land and Development Projects, (3) Debt Financing and Debt Investments, (4) Real Estate Market Cycles and Portfolio Structuring, (5) Management and recovery of Assets in a Distressed Environment

The objective of the course is to give students in-depth financial analytical skills for project acquisitions and development, real estate financing, and portfolio management. Using case studies and lectures, the course focuses on advanced real estate topics for all major real estate product-types including apartments, office, retail, industrial, single-family, and land development. A major emphasis in the class is to build students’ financial modeling skills and their knowledge of advanced industry practices. Many cases will require students to apply a full range of acquisition, development, investment, disposition, financing, and management decisions at the property level. Key decision-making for all phases of the development process including site selection, design, financing, construction, leasing, operations, and sales are stressed throughout the first half of the course. Other strategic requirements for completing successful projects such as acquisition due diligence, debt and equity structuring, market cycle timing, and asset recovery in a distressed environment are covered during the other half.

Paired Course: Although not mandatory, this course is meant to be taken in conjunction with GSD 5276, which takes place in the second half of the semester; it is also 2 credits and meets at the same time as 5275. GSD 5276 will build on many of the questions and concepts that 5275 postulates.