Modernization in the Visual United States Environment, 1890-2035

Modernization of the United States visual environment as directed by a nobility creating new images and perceptions of such themes as wilderness, flight, privacy, clothing, photography, feminism, status symbolism, and futurist manipulation as illustrated in print-media and other advertising enterprise.

Note: This course is offered jointly with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as VES 160.

Prerequisite: GSD 4105 or permission of the instructor.

Jointly Offered Course: FAS VES 160

Histories of Landscape Architecture II: Design, Representation, and Use

This course introduces students to relevant topics, themes, and sites that help us understand the conception, production, evolution, and reception of designed and found landscapes throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It aims at building an understanding of landscapes as both physical spaces and as cultural media that sit at the nexus between art and science and that contribute knowledge about humankind’s relationship with non-human nature. Landscapes are the result of social, political, artistic and intellectual endeavors. The topography, soil and climate of a site also condition their designs, use and habitation. As much as designed and found landscapes are a product of their time, they have also contributed to shaping history, both through their physical materiality and through the mental worlds they enable. Embedding found and designed landscapes into their social, political and cultural contexts, the course also pays close attention to the role of expert knowledge and the professions that have contributed to creating them. Using a variety of sources including texts, illustrations, and film the course offers insights into the development and transfer of ideas between different cultures, countries and geographical regions, and time periods. Course readings that will accompany every lecture will be made available on Canvas. Student assignments for this class will include reading response papers and one final paper.

Buildings, Texts, and Contexts II

 Any account of architecture’s history over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries is faced with the challenge of addressing the general rupture caused by the rise of modernity—that is, by the social, economic, technological and ideological transformations accompanying the political and industrial revolutions marking the end of the European Enlightenment. The transition of architecture to the modern world gave rise to a series of fundamental questions, which might be framed as follows: How did historical conditions place pressure on the time-honored foundations of architecture, on its origins, theories, and pedagogies? How did new conditions of scientific possibility actively reconfigure architecture’s relation to engineering? And finally, how did aesthetic conceptions and approaches, which followed an arc from Beaux-Arts eclecticism and historicism to Modernist avant-gardes, intersect with society and politics?

This course weaves these questions through topics and themes ranging from technology and utopia to ornament and nationalism. We begin with late Baroque polemics and the academic foundations of architecture as discipline. We then consider the multifaceted nature of 18th-century architectural expressions insuch examples as Rococo space, origin theories from Laugier to Piranesi, and the formulation of building typologies. The 19th century, which for us is inaugurated by a utopian imaginary (in Ledoux and Fourier), covers key episodes such as the Beaux-Arts system in Europe and America, architecture and national identity (in Schinkel and Wagner), and, finally, the dream of colossal structures and the infrastructural programs of the modern metropolis. Course requirements include attendance at lectures and sections, responses to readings, and several written assignments.

One hour sections will take place on Thursday afternoon.

 

 

 

The Nature of Difference: Theories and Practices of Landscape Architecture

This course explores how notions of cultural difference are embedded in the design of landscape. Social landscapes—as understood through race, class, nationality, indigeneity, disability, gender, and sexuality—will be the focus of each class. By learning to “read” these landscapes and related projects of landscape architecture, we will study the ways in which landscapes shape identity, produce power and inequality, and commemorate diverse cultural meaning.

The course is organized by two kinds of investigations: one that focuses on built forms and another on the ideas and conceptual frameworks that guide the production of those forms. We will attend to diverse projects and topics, including border regions, urban landscapes, colonial plantations, territories of extraction, zones of environmental risk, national parks, native lands, domestic spheres, and postcolonial gardens. Through these sites, we will critically explore the nature of difference in spatial forms of exclusion, inclusion, conflict, and cooperation.

At the end of this class, students will be able to articulate the diverse social and political dimensions of landscapes and refer to a history of landscape architecture projects oriented to related issues. Assignments will include a combination of written responses to assigned readings and hands-on exercises designed to train students in the social analysis of landscapes in and around the university.

Contemporary Developing Countries: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Intractable Problems (at FAS)

This course will provide a framework (and multiple lenses) through which to think about the salient economic and social problems of the five billion people of the developing world, and to work in a team setting toward identifying entrepreneurial solutions to such problems. Case study discussions will cover challenges and solutions in fields as diverse as health, education, technology, urban planning, and arts and the humanities. The modules themselves will be team-taught by faculty from engineering, the arts, urban design, healthcare and business. The course will embrace a bias toward action by enabling students to understand the potential of individual agency in addressing these problems. All students will participate in the development of a business plan or grant proposal to tackle their chosen problem in a specific developing country/region, emphasizing the importance of contextualizing the entrepreneurial intervention. The student-team will ideally be comprised of students with diverse backgrounds from across the University.

No prerequisites. Jointly offered at Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) as SW47, Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) as DEV-338, Harvard  T. H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) as GHP-568, Harvard Medical School as IND 520, Harvard Graduate School of Design (DES) as SES 5375, and Harvard Law School (HLS) as 2543.

 

Classes will be held on Harvard University Cambridge campus in Sever Hall room 113.

Offered jointly with the Business School as 1266, the School of Public Health as GHP 568, the Kennedy School as PED-338, the Law School as HLS 2543 and the Graduate School of Education as A-819.

HBS: Fall; Q1Q2; 3 credits

NO AUDITORS. The course is designed around active participation and the completion of a final group project.

LIT: A Survey and Design Research Seminar of Architectural Lighting (Module F1)

Light defines what and how we see; our bodies are intimately tied to cycles of light and dark. Light is also a multi-billion dollar industry selling countless styles of electronic technologies designed for integration into buildings, landscapes, and urban spaces. This module surveys these many shades of light: its effects, metrics, technologies, and logics. We will review vision and color, perception psychology, design with daylight and LEDs, photometric visualization and analysis, media architecture, circadian rhythms, and the expansive industry of lighting products and nefarious characters. Open to anyone interested in light, students will choose to either experiment with a lighting design project, or research a topic their choice. Each session will be split between lecture or local field trip and workshop practicum. To pursue the design project, recommended prior or current enrollment in 6122 Environmental Systems (or similar course), and/or 2223 Immersive Environments. Assessment will be based on engagement in class, efforts, and work product. 

Architectural Acoustics (Module F2)

What does jazz sound like when it is played in a cathedral? How would Gregorian chant sound in a jazz club? And why do footsteps in the apartment above so often sound from downstairs like a herd of elephants?

Architectural acoustics entails architectural design, human perception, material properties, and building systems. Sound and architecture are intrinsically linked. This class will address how buildings respond to and enhance our aural experiences, and how designers can shape the aural environment.

Topics covered:
Topics include the basics of sound and hearing, the acoustic properties of materials, room acoustics, sound transmission, and the acoustics of performance halls. Along the way we’ll touch on computer modeling and acoustics simulation, building systems noise control, the urban soundscape, and other topics.

Objectives and outcomes:
Students will develop a basic understanding of the principles of architectural acoustics: how we hear and perceive sound both indoors and outdoors, appropriate criteria for listening environments, and how architectural decisions of layout, materials, room shape, and design impact what we hear in and around a space. By the end of the module, students will develop sensitivity to the way that architecture affects what we hear, and will be able to implement fundamental design principles that profoundly affect building functionality, our auditory perception, and our sense of space.

Course format and method of evaluation:
This six-week seminar class will meet once weekly for a three-hour seminar that will also include field trips, listening exercises, and hands-on experience with acoustical measurement equipment.

Readings that supplement class discussion will be required most weeks. There will be weekly homework assignments (field reports, problem sets, or short research papers), and one major final project. Students will be graded on the weekly assignments, the final project, and their contributions to class discussions.

Prerequisites:
None.

 

Water, Land-Water Linkages, and Aquatic Ecology

This course will provide students with an understanding of water that will inform their professional approaches to landscape architecture, architecture, and planning, and contribute to protecting, improving, restoring, and sustaining water resources. Emphasis will be placed on both the science and the application of this science in designs for projects involving a wide range of interactions with water including coastlines, inland rivers and lakes, and urban stormwater. With ongoing global changes in climate, urbanization, and the use of water for energy and food production, the relationship between humans and water will continue to grow and evolve. Students will come away from this course with a better understanding of this evolution and how designs can account for hydrologic change and adaptation. While many varied case studies will be discussed throughout the semester, the course content will be discussed in the context of four primary project and research areas:

Discussion of these focus areas will include design challenges, social issues, permitting, and the implementation process. Students will come away with a better understanding of how projects go from conceptual design to a constructed site. Students will be encouraged to bring water and ecology-related projects/challenges from other courses, studios, or projects to the class for an open discussion. This ‘Ecological Seminar’ will be an opportunity for students to cross-pollinate with other studios and departments and receive critical and helpful feedback for their projects.  Hands-on exercises include watershed delineation, hydrologic calculations to estimate runoff and groundwater infiltration and flow, design exercises developing recommendations for stormwater best-management-practices/low-impact design (LID) for neighborhood in Washington, DC, and research and design exercises for river restoration projects. Attendance at two fieldtrips with hands-on field sampling will be mandatory: a 2-day weekend field trip to Plymouth and an in-class fieldtrip to the Alewife stormwater facility.

Evaluation: Based on class attendance and participation (including field trips), short written assignments, quizzes, focused design exercises, and a semester-long project.

BROWNFIELDS: Remediation and Regeneration Practices

‘A Brownfields Site is real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence, or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant”
-From the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act known as the ‘Brownfield Act’ January 2002

This course concerns the reclamation of land altered by prior industrial, manufacturing, commercial and other active uses and in particular those that are derelict, environmentally hazardous and located within neighborhoods and/or close to residential communities. The subject matter addresses recent advances in the legal, regulatory, environmental, and economic and community landscape as well as the remediation of despoiled land in a manner that reclaims and redevelops these sites for future uses. Of interest to the instructor is how these advances can inform more progressive and creative planning research and design work, and conversely, to what extent planning and design work can direct the regeneration and reuse of these urban environments. Under consideration this semester is the class of sites commonly known as ‘brownfields' or ‘brownfield lands'. The class will visit local sites in Somerville and Lowell, MA as well as consider the subject globally. A class assignment will research the subject though international case studies.

Immersive Landscape: Representation through Gaming Technology

Soon will come plausible alternatives to our world.
You may have failed in this one but what if you had a million new chances in a million different new worlds?

The course is aimed at investigating new ways to interpret, conceive and describe landscape and architecture. While traditional methods of representation will prevail for some time, they make the cognitive process a one-way circumstance with an “emitter” and a “listener” that barely interact. Game technologies permit the creation of realistic, oniric, utopian as well as dystopian universes. It is possible to use, disregard, twist, bend or re-invent the laws of physics, the flow of time, the hazards of weather, the perception of depth, but most importantly, it permits absolute freedom.Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, connections will need to be made through studies of landscape representation in the arts, movies and, not surprisingly, video games.

Through the investigation, conception and construction of virtual “altered states” you will acquire the techniques required to develop your ideas from the early stages of preparatory work to the deployment phase, bearing in mind that technical skills matter less than the search for smart and imaginative solutions. Game fabrication should be envisaged as a mental layout where elements have to be structured and organized in a way that they are not perceived as being intrusive, unless, of course, you want them to be.

Some of the topics that will be covered include: “mastering planning and research”, “Strategies of representations”, “the finding of a graphic style”, “creating meshes and textures for game engines”, “building nature in Unity”, “realistic vs. non realistic approaches”, “sound design”, “navigation and interaction”, “document.write(“Hello World!”)”, “targeting different platforms”, “having fun” – while it's not exactly technical, it's a fundamental notion that should not be lost, especially when speaking of games.The classes will be divided in two parts, alternating weekly, where one class will be focused on theory, methods, and criticism, and the other will focus more on the technical, where will be put into practice what has been investigated. Both sessions will include lecturers and other guests.

Our software of choice will be “Unity3D” (https://unity3d.com), a real time 3D engine, which is an industry standard in game creation and simulation (most of the processes can actually be easily transferred to other engines). “Cinema 4D” (https://www.maxon.net/en/products/cinema-4d/overview/) , because of its very stable and simple workflow, will be used for most of the 3D operations. Students familiar with other 3D packages are free to use them as a possible replacement. Still, the most important tools will be a pencil, a piece of paper and your brain.