Architecture of Time
A film is an act of space making, which makes itself seen, an act of building shaped in time.
This class will examine what we can learn when we consider filmmaking as a critical spatial practice. Using a combination of film theory and practical workshops, students will learn to make films that interrogate our built environment and consider what film can teach us about how we understand, represent, and design space.
Architecture and film share an interdisciplinary correspondence, a desire to build worlds for spectators to inhabit. One may view film language as very different from that of space, but is it? If we accept that buildings and cities are instruments of time, and both are as much of the mind as they are physical, then it is easy to see how film and architecture share a visual and material world. The perception of a space is as much defined by its associations as by its physical qualities. When we watch a film, we register all the mental, sensual, and physical faculties that are engaged in a particular space at a precise time and yet such permanence does not have to be a building that is recognizable by its material appearance. Let us equate filmic experience to that of physical space and consider what film can teach us about how we interrogate and engage with architecture.
The accepted image of architecture on film has become acclimatized to conventional, static, ocular-centric, and binary representations of the so-called ‘man-made environment.’ In response to this position, the course will introduce the idea of the architectural essay film, as an alternative way to think of architecture, where openness, fluidity, and interdisciplinary create links between space making and film language. Drawing on the work of experimental filmmakers, such as Chantal Ackerman, Chris Marker, and Maya Deren, each session will interrogate how film, as a visual essay, can provide an infrastructure where tolerance and hope allow for a slow engagement with the complexities of architecture. Screenings will be accompanied with key texts by critical thinkers in the fields of film and architectural theory, such as Beatriz Colomina, Giuliana Bruno, and Vivian Sobchack, to build on a distinct analytical foundation, from where students will be invited to establish critical perspectives. Supporting ideas not merely advancing in a single direction, but which are interwoven and developed as a carpet, that delve between the gaps of each field of study, architecture and film. The intention is not to fulfill a preconceived goal, but to explore a space built on polysemy and multiplicity, which demonstrates the possibilities that arise from examining space-making from a cinematic dimension.
No prior filmmaking experience is required. The course is designed to support experimentation and critical reflection, welcoming students from all backgrounds interested in exploring the intersection of space, cinema, and design.
Paper or Plastic: Reinventing Shelf Life in the Supermarket Landscape
We tend to assume that supermarkets are static, neutral spaces where little of significance ever happens. The supermarket shelf is actually a highly volatile, hyper-competitive dynamic market landscape. On this shelf, products struggle to maximize every possible advantage, all in a ruthless effort to lure consumers away from competitors. However, what may have once been merely an issue of attention-grabbing graphics applied to packaging has quickly become much more complex. The contemporary consumer in today’s strained economy demands tangible value from the products that he/she consumes. To survive, brands must wrestle with new issues that include the ergonomics of the hand, the complex geometries of the refrigerator, and even sustainable material innovations that determine a product’s afterlife and its impact on the environment. These are multi-scalar, spatial life problems that designers are uniquely suited to address.
This seminar will ask students to operate as brand strategists. However, rather than invent new products, students will instead innovate upon existing brands. Outdated supermarket products will be reconsidered from the top down (brand identity, consumer target, logo, tagline, packaging, etc.). Students will also be required to study their product’s shelf competitors and will learn by presenting their observations through visual arguments rather than those that are explicitly verbal.
Each seminar will open with multimedia presentations on topics such as conducting demographic research, global color psychology, brand architecture, case studies in product launch failures, creating brand touchpoints, crafting a visual argument, and making an effective pitch. These conversations will be supplemented by readings from the business and financial sections of several newspapers, magazine articles, and blog interviews with brand experts.
The deliverables for the seminar will be presented in final review format in front of a cross-disciplinary jury of business luminaries. The output will include a full-scale 3-D print of the product redesign supplemented by graphical data, renderings, and digital animations. Ultimately, the seminar’s ambition is to make real a scenario that finds designers sitting at multiple tables, tackling issues of economics, technology, politics, and media at macro and micro scales.
Drawing as Perception, Experience, and Action
This course is intended as a creative drawing laboratory for designers–an expressive, playful supplement to computer-based work. It will guide students in mastering hand-drawing techniques, refining their sensitivity to detail, and developing the ability to express what they see in a visually convincing and evocative form.
Class projects will include drawing in both indoor and outdoor settings, as well as working with live models. Through the drawing process, students will focus on the world of line, texture, shape, light, shadow, and value. We will use a variety of tools, materials, and techniques, including pencils, vine charcoal, markers, ink, and other wet and dry media–later combining these with cameras, computer renderings, and more.
Over the course of the semester, students will complete three major drawing projects along with several shorter assignments.
• In one nonrepresentational drawing project, students will explore the formal expression of an emotional life experience.
• In another, they will investigate the performance of the human body in interaction with the built or natural environment.
• The final project will invite viewer interaction with the architectural setting through the design and installation of site-specific, illusionistic drawings physically inscribed on the interior walls of Gund Hall.
Students will also participate in field trips to sketch and draw in outdoor environments. Classwork will be supported by presentations and discussions of relevant works from art history and contemporary art. Students will sketch and draw in outdoor environments around campus. Guest artists will be invited as reviewers for the presentation and exhibition of final projects.
(Re)Envisioning Social Housing in the US
The chronic and broadening nature of the housing affordability crisis in the US has fostered a renewed interest across the country in looking for new models of affordable housing, generally referred to as social housing–a term that is widely used and poorly defined. The current trend echoes earlier movements to build a broader housing sector that is shielded from market forces, often inspired by European approaches. Such a movement at the start of the 20th century ultimately produced the public housing program that emerged in the 1930s and was the principal form of assisted rental housing through the 1960s. The calls for a new form of social housing in the US have flourished over the last five years, emerging from advocacy organizations and think tanks, new approaches by local housing authorities, as well as legislative proposals at the state and local levels. While these proposals differ in their defining elements, most proposals are grounded in a supply of housing that is permanently affordable, includes important elements of resident governance or control, and serves an economically diverse population.
Drawing from this growing movement, students in this course will learn about the rationale for a new or expanded social housing sector; investigate alternative formulations of social housing through the examination of social housing models from other countries and proposals and pilots in the US; assess the current landscape of public, nonprofit and private organizations in the US and their capacity for taking on new roles that could form the foundation of a new form of social housing; and examine in depth key elements of a potential new housing assistance program, including financial supports, resident empowerment, property management, incentives for design and neighborhood siting, oversight, and political support.
The class will often feature guests with experience in each of the domains identified above, including experts in international social housing models, defining and developing proposals and pilot programs for social housing in the US, current public and nonprofit housing providers, and policy makers and advocates who are leading efforts to introduce social legislation across the country.
Students will be required to contribute to an online discussion forum on course readings and complete two papers over the course of the semester critiquing either international or US precedents and then proposing how these precedents could be adopted or enhanced in a specific US market context.
This course may be of particular interest to students in the Urban Planning and Real Estate programs at the GSD and the Public Policy program at HKS. A background in affordable housing policy and/or affordable housing development through course work or professional experience is strongly recommended. Students without this background should consult with the instructor prior to enrolling.
Note regarding the Fall 2025 GSD academic calendar: The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 2nd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. This course will meet for the first time on Tuesday, September 2nd.
The (New) Image of the City
In this course, we will visualize cities as the outcomes of urban design. Through a reflexive method of visual and narrative investigation, each student will uncover and demonstrate a variety of experiential and structural characteristics of their chosen city. Acknowledging contemporary urban design as a decentralized practice, we will develop perspectives that cut across the various disciplines involved in shaping cities, while addressing the many tangible and intangible dimensions that define any given urban condition.
The course interrogates how society perceives cities, their landscapes, and architecture, and the designer’s role in mobilizing imagery to digest existing conditions and project new urban possibilities. Part historical dive, part technical workshop, the class moves between investigations into the historical development of cities through image, and instruction on fundamental two- and three-dimensional representational techniques involved in visualizing the vast array of inevitably convoluted and undetermined aspects of urbanity. The class will review how the city’s evolution has been represented over time in urban design, landscape architecture, architecture, art, politics, and culture, while developing new techniques for representing latent urban conditions and uncertain futures.
Structured around participatory lectures, discussions, and creative exercises, the course necessitates students’ abilities to consume, interpret, and produce. Most coursework focuses on developing a series of visualizations of a chosen urban condition across four scales and correlated perspectives. These exercises break down the process of image conception and execution over several weeks. Each scale builds on the previous and forms a composite image of a particular city when assembled. The final assignment will be curating the work produced to form a visual atlas through a whole-class exhibition.
Designers with a robust representational repertoire will be best suited to communicate their ideas and impact change in the coming generation. Students should take this course to learn how to maximize the impact of the images they create. They will learn to integrate image-crafting into the design process. They will also gain the foundation for harnessing the power of imagery to supplement their intellectual and design ambitions. Students will create impactful visual content structured by meaning, beauty, and emotion. They will develop an eye for strong images and understand how individual details–such as composition, tone, texture, and light–strengthen the larger picture. A student who fully engages with the course will emerge with the conceptual and technical capacity to create compelling images that challenge conventions of representation while also speaking to a broad audience. By representing cities at various scales, students will gain the ability to read diverse urban conditions and engage directly with contemporary pluralistic urbanism.
The course is for designers of all types. While we will use the term “urban” to connote the ecological complexity of our contextual focus, designers from various disciplines are encouraged to bring their expertise to the group. Rendering techniques, both in-engine and post-production, will be covered extensively, though expertise in either is not a prerequisite. However, a strong foundation in 3D modeling with Rhino will be helpful, as will a curiosity and determination to acquire new skills and perspectives.
Field Studies in Real Estate, Planning, Urban Design: Kansas City and Chicago
Developing Cambridge Crest overlooking downtown Kansas City, and Reconnecting Freeway-divided Chicago neighborhoods
The field study course is a 4-unit studio format class that combines design and planning with housing, retail, office, industrial, parks and civic development. It provides students with an understanding of the dynamics and complexities of real-world development challenges that create contemporary urban physical environments. The course emphasizes the integration of design, financial, and political feasibility for development of urban spaces that respond to realistic market demand and environmental, and other regulatory constraints–how financial implications affect planning and design, and vice versa. The course is intended for architects, urban planners, real estate students, urban designers, and landscape architects to engage in the process of large-scale urban development, combining private sector real estate implementation within a public sector framework. Students will broaden their understanding of urban development issues and public-private development implementation strategies, while refining their skills in master planning, urban and landscape design and financial analysis. Students will select one of two field studies to work on throughout the semester: (1) Designing and implementing a freeway cap over the Eisenhower Freeway in Chicago knitting together the neighborhoods severed by the freeway through urban design and redevelopment strategies; or (2) Designing and creating implementation strategies for a 40 acre parcel of land near downtown Kansas City bounded by freeways and close to the river. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), affordable housing, and public-private development will be central themes of the class.
Site visits to Chicago and Kansas City will take place from 10/6/25 – 10/10/25. 14 seats are included in the GSD Limited Enrollment Course Lottery – eight seats for Chicago and six seats for the Kansas City site. Students selected in the lottery will be prioritized for placement in the site visits to either Kansas City or Chicago. Professor Peiser will work with the class to assign sites and lists will be fully confirmed by the second week of classes. Cost to students who travel will be $200 (term-billed) plus meals and incidentals. The course is unlimited enrollment and open to students who do not wish to travel..
Note regarding the Fall 2025 GSD academic calendar: The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 2nd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. This course will meet for the first time on Tuesday, September 2nd.
Designers of Mountain and Water: Alternative Landscapes for a Changing Climate
This seminar explores contemporary landscape architecture in Northeast and Southeast Asia to envision the future of sustainable design in the face of climate change. Students will meet world-leading practitioners and scholars, learn about their practices and research, and participate in a workshop and symposium, “Designers of Mountain and Water: Alternative Landscapes for a Changing Climate,” on February 5-6, 2026. At this event, students will share their coursework with the designers they have studied, and selected class work will be exhibited at Druker Gallery.
The seminar begins with the concept of “mountain and water”–shanshui in China, sansui in Japan, sansu in Korea–a Sinographic compound rich in artistic and philosophical meaning across Asia, reflecting traditions that combine vital elements of dynamic landscapes. In the context of climate change, we ask: what contemporary elements are needed to design sustainable places for human habitation and flourishing? Leading landscape architects in the region are addressing this question by rethinking the interplay between social and natural forms to design new, habitable futures. The seminar gathers these “Designers of Mountain and Water” to present their alternative visions for a changing climate.
While working with landscapes is ancient, landscape architecture as a profession is modern. In the U.S., it has just under two centuries of history; in Northeast and Southeast Asia, the profession is even newer, emerging mainly in the latter half of the 20th century. The field developed differently across regions, shaped by local traditions and specific socio-political and economic changes. Initially, landscape architecture in Asia arose as states began large-scale projects to shape nature for specific social purposes, tied closely to political boundaries and modernist ideals. In recent decades, global cultural exchange has brought some of the world’s most innovative approaches to landscape design from this region.
The seminar moves beyond a nation-state framework by focusing on bioregions–areas defined by geography, ecology, and cultural patterns–reflecting how landscape challenges cross political borders. As climate change demands broader solutions, a transnational, bioregional perspective is needed to address issues spanning over 50 sovereign states in Asia. This approach seeks sustainable, regionally appropriate design responses untethered from administrative lines.
By mid-semester, each student will select a landscape architect and a bioregion where the designer has completed a project. Students will analyze the designer’s responses to their chosen bioregion through readings, interviews, project documentation, and lectures. The semester’s final work will be a 1,500-word paper and a deep, comprehensive section drawing, representing the results of their semester- long research.
The seminar welcomes students from all degree programs. Please refer to the course syllabus for more detailed content of the course.
Plants of Ritual: Creating a Spiritual Connection to the Designed Landscape
The seminar aims to investigate and catalog plants that have a spiritual/emotional value to the public and individuals in the designed landscape. The seminar’s goal is to structure a collection and an archive of plants used during rituals and ceremonies in different cultures and beliefs. Moving from the four sacred medicines for the Native American people (tobacco, sweetgrass, sage, and cedar) to boneset for African-American People or pomegranates and citrons in Jewish traditions to plants that typify the Christian tradition (lilies for the Virgin Mary and thorny vines as an icon of the crucifixion, for example), we’ll unveil a more intimate and ritualistic relationship between human beings and nature in everyday life. This can inform and expand emotional connections between culture and landscape architecture. The seminar is divided into sections, each focused on the role of these plants during life cycle ceremonies such as birth, marriage, and death, as well as the religious and pagan cycle of festivals.
The narrative about each plant will be combined with an illustrated herbarium and focused interviews with representatives of each spiritual community. In this plant exploration, a crucial role is also given to the common name of a plant that often assumes a cultural and ritual meaning instead of a purely botanical one. This type of nomenclature also builds connections between spiritual value and the designed landscape. This collection aims to have an impact in the design fields: in the past, plant palettes were chosen for visual beauty or screening, then, more recently, plants also started to be selected for their ecological value. Through this atlas, we extend the criteria for how plants are chosen by introducing a spiritual connection to designed landscapes.
The goal is to have a more cultural reading of the landscape and to offer opportunities to the different communities to live in an environment that represents the spiritual values of the settled communities, their collective memory and identity, their aspiration, and their needs for the designed landscape to contain more of their emotional approach to plants and the intimate living environment.
Making Sacred Space
Many recently built churches are ugly as sin. Others are great as design but don’t work well functionally or symbolically. Most are just boring. How it can be that, having been the avant garde of design and engineering for almost two thousand years, church design today has so failed? A major cause is the lack of productive dialogue between the client and the architect due to mutual ignorance of each other’s culture and values. This course intends to address that gap from the architect’s side, giving you, the architect, a greater voice in the decision process. Accordingly, in this course church design is approached primarily (but not exclusively) from the client/user point of view: understanding the assumptions, expectations, and requirements of your client will enable you to either meet these or offer well-informed arguments against them. The course also furnishes you with a dossier of written and visual materials relevant for professional practice in this area today. Lectures cover cultural, historical, theological, and aesthetic aspects of church design. While many of our examples will be either modern or contemporary structures, the course includes churches from every period of West European Christian history furnishing you with alternative models for how particular design problems may be resolved. These are not intended as paradigms to be repeated, but rather as seeds for new ideas. This course responds to the current crisis in church design by equipping participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to address it and to propose fresh, better, solutions; not only competence, but creative innovation are desired outcomes.
The course begins by examining the current controversies and competing theories about the nature and purpose of sacred space, preparing participants for the issues inherent in this kind of commission. We then consider function in relation to liturgy with particular attention to the new requirements of Vatican II (1962-1965, but only fully implemented in 2000), placing these within a broader historical context of historical patterns of use in church buildings. Next comes a deep reading of the symbolic and metaphorical meanings of churches and how these ideas may be translated into material form. The last part of the course is a sustained consideration of beauty, first as philosophical and theological ideas and then as applied to as proportion, light, color, and function. We end with two lectures on wonder — what it is and how to produce it.
In this course, Christianity is considered as culture, not as creed.
Note regarding the Fall 2025 GSD academic calendar: The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 2nd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. This course will meet for the first time on Tuesday, September 9th.
Material Practice and its Agency
This seminar introduces an understanding of material discourse in design and architecture that affects cultural, social, economic issues. In addition to their pragmatic functions the basis for construction means and methods–materials also carry a long history of human civilization and tradition. This seminar aims to embed material practice into the history and culture of its origins, resource utilization, craftsmanship, fabrication and its role in performance within building assembly and beyond to its atmospheric effect both as perceptual experience and thermodynamic performances. We will look at the material use through the lens of various global and environmental topics. Material practice carries affects such as ambience and atmosphere. It impacts acoustics, lighting, tactility, aesthetics and environmental performance. This seminar aims to bring forth more comprehensive, complex and holistic understandings of material culture which varies in diverse scales–from personal to communal and local to global. Topics include specific focus on contemporary material practice which also includes traditional materials. The ethics and ecology of material culture and its life cycle will be addressed.
We will look at a range of fabrication methods–handmade, mechanical and digital–within different economies, from vernacular building materials and techniques to new and advanced material explorations.
Each student will be expected to choose one material practice as a focus for research, exploring its application and the possibilities for its role, meaning, effects and message in contemporary practice. The class is an interactive seminar format encouraging active participation in the class presentations and discussion.