Architecture as an Urban Issue: Challenges & Inventions in the Practice in Tokyo

This Course is for students in the Toyko Study Abroad Program. 

Tokyo today is in a dilemma of urbanism. As a post-growth phenomenon, abandoned houses are increasing in number, especially in the old residential-commercial mix belt occupied with timber structures surrounding the central zone, exacerbating the physical and social vulnerability of living condition. Yet at the same time, as if to revive the bygone growth, massive investment backed up with deregulation is being made for integrated urban redevelopment in the central zone, generating ever more floor areas.
Tokyo’s population is expected to stop growing and begin shrinking in 2025. After the long struggle with chronic overconcentration, which has made the city the most populous in the world, Tokyo is finally slowing down and also due to the aging of the population. This gear change will increasingly give impact on the economy and the urbanism, although there is no sign of will as yet of the national or the local government to control the imminent paradox. Meanwhile, the market of high-end apartment units and small individual houses continues to thrive.

In the Tokyo seminar of Spring 2020, we will take a close look at some of the attempts being made by architects to challenge the current forces of urbanism in the mindset of “cultivating new potential of architecture out of the existing soil.”*

We’ll begin by taking an overall view of Tokyo’s current urban condition and the driving force behind it: the political, economic and social factors forming the backdrop of the urban or architectural phenomena. We will then take a closer look at two contrasting situations – the mega-scale urban redevelopment in the central zone, and the shrinking neighborhood in the periphery – through research, presentation and discussion.

In the second half of the seminar, we will meet several of the aforementioned architects and discuss with them their works addressing the situation and how these works may offer new experiences of living in the city, or give impact on the behaviors and relationships of those using or inhabiting in and around them.
As the final task, everyone is asked to present his/her idea proposal for facing the challenge in the shrinking zone in the periphery. There is no mid-term submission but continuous research by each individual is required throughout the semester, based on which small presentations will be asked for from time to time.

*Kazuhiro Kojima and Kazuko Akamatsu (Coelacanth)

Enrollment in this course was pre-selected.

Demographics and Population Processes

Many of the important challenges that our communities face today, from the persistent racial and ethnic disparities and human rights violations, to climate change and community resiliency issues, and opioids crises and healthcare coverage, are related to demographics and population processes. This course offers an introduction to the substantive areas of inquiry in demographic research -at the intersection of sociological, community, and population research- to understand the causes and consequences of demographic changes in communities. Understanding these demographic concepts can help students integrate a socio-ecological perspective into the study of communities’ social, economic, environmental, and political issues.

Course objectives and outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:
Understand population processes and apply relevant concepts and measures into community decision-making, design, and planning.
Use key concepts related to demographics and population processes to describe a population.
Describe how demographic patterns are intertwined with health and environment.
Identify sources of demographic data.

Course format
This course is a seminar. Class meetings will entail discussion and the exchange of ideas by individuals who have read the assigned materials and thought about the topic at hand, as well as occasional (and limited) lecturing by the instructor.

Method of evaluation
Class attendance and participation (30%)
Weekly discussion questions (20%)
Discussion leadership (30%)
Critical essay (20%)

Designing with the Urban Stack: A Practice Course for Designers of the Built Environment

The seminar will investigate critical issues of the Urban Stack for the Kendall Square District, Cambridge, MA. The first half of the term entails teams researching various elements of the Urban Stack as they relate to conditions in the study area, followed by a charrette to identify key issues and problems of built-environment that may be productively addressed in the second part. Teams for the second half of the seminar are tasked with developing a range of considered speculations/proposals to improve the performance of built-environment for an inclusive spectrum of publics and constituencies. The work of the seminar will be conducted primarily in team format throughout the term. A core group of guest lecturers and visitors will provide additional perspectives and content for the work of the class. Students should anticipate a significant level of effort devoted to research and project development outside of the class meeting hours. The seminar is open to all graduate programs at the GSD. Pre-requisite: MAR I and MLA I students must have completed core.

Pre-requisite: MAR I and MLA I students must have completed core to enroll, otherwise no program restrictions.

 

 

Sections of Every Thing

This course aims to discuss the possibility of sections, made and used in the practice of landscape architecture, as the mean of constructing urban artifacts that could eventually yield the alternative forms and experiences of nature. For this end, both the criticality and imaginariness of landscape sections are to be sought throughout diverse formats during the semester.

The word 'section' is defined as " any of the more or less distinct parts into which something is or may be divided or from which it is made up." in the Oxford Dictionary. As it suggests, a section is not an intellectual and practical property exclusive to this profession. Not to mention those related disciplines like architecture and urban design, experts in geology, physics, medical science, biochemistry and product design make and use sections as their critical mean of research and practice, from the scale of as big as six million magnification to as small as some million reduction.  Landscape sections sit somewhere in-between, both in terms of scale and precision.

The vertical realm of landscape architecture ranges from the crust (of the earth) to the atmosphere (of the earth), incomparably wide and vast. Therefore this profession must deal with almost 'every thing' between the crust and the atmosphere, making sectioning arguably the most important tool that can distinguish this discipline from others. Through making, using, representing sections that are critical and generative, enough landscape architects would be able to lead and involve both architectural and non-architectural professionals in order to create the alternative forms and experiences of nature within ever- increasingly complicated urban context.

This seminar is composed of two general parts: lectures by the instructor and the guests, and presentations by the students. Each class will be composed of one to one and half hour lecture of a speaker and two presentations by two students. Landscape architects whose sections show the criticality of their practices will be invited to speak. Landscape researchers are also to be invited to discuss how recent development in technologies; 'Point Cloud Modeling' for example, can enhance the precision and the richness of landscape sections. Non-architectural experts, such as a geologist and a product designer, are to present what sections mean to their researches and practices. Each student is supposed to make two presentations during the semester. No additional exams or papers will be required.

Evaluation will be based on the class attendance, participation, and presentations.

This seminar is open to all students of the GSD who learned the basics of making and using sections as a design tool through the GSD's core studios.

Design Anthropology: Objects, Landscapes, Cities (with FAS)

In recent years, there has been a movement in anthropology toward a focus on objects, while design and planning have been moving toward the understanding of objects as part of a greater social, political, and cultural milieu. This seminar explores their common ethnographic ground. The course is about both the anthropology of design, and the design of anthropology.

For designers, the goals will be to learn thick ethnographic observation and description; applying theoretical concepts in making connections between ethnographic data; and moving from ethnography to design proposals. Anthropologists will be challenged to think about different forms of fieldwork by collaborating with non-anthropologists and working toward a collective ethnography; using visual information to represent ethnographic information and insights; and applying anthropological skills to the study of objects, materiality, and design processes.

The seminars will be filled with different components and tasks, including lectures and synopses of the weekly topic, fieldwork-based exercises, learning how to take notes or record data using different media, analyzing ethnographic data, sharing thinking on individual projects, and discussing assigned readings.

Students will be expected to engage in two large projects over the course of the semester. The first is fieldwork centered on the border region between Ireland and Northern Ireland, March 15–24, with pairs of students carrying out an ethnography of specific communities. Class periods leading up to that fieldwork will prepare students—methodologically, ethnographically, and theoretically—for this exercise.

After fieldwork, students will analyze their findings in relation to certain conceptual themes that drive much of design anthropology but also bear on the specific nature of design problems and opportunities in Ireland and Northern Ireland. This will prepare students to complete the second large project of the course: a term essay or design proposal capturing their thinking on design anthropology and fieldwork in Ireland/Northern Ireland.

This course will include a trip to Derry-Londonderry, Northern Ireland and County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland for 16 students, 8 from the GSD and 8 from FAS. Travel will take place on March 15–24. All students who travel in this course will be term billed $300. The 8 GSD students will be selected via the limited enrollment course lottery. Students may enroll in only one traveling course or studio in a given term, and are responsible for the cost of all meals and incidentals related to the trip, including visas and any change fees related to modifications to the set flight itinerary.
 

 

This course will meet in Gund Hall 109 for the first class. After that the course will meet in Tozzer room 203.

 

Architecture and Landscape before and after Watergate

In one of the defining moments of the Senate Watergate Hearings, June 28, 1973, Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr., put the “central question” to former White House counsel John W. Dean: “What did the president know, and when did he know it.” If we modify Baker’s question in one simple but crucial respect, the epistemology and practical implementation of space, planning, and representation in modern American politics comes more clearly into view: Where did the president know what he knew, and what did he know about where he knew it? President Nixon might never have asked himself this question, though as his administration unraveled, his own staff and the committees and prosecutors investigating them were increasingly preoccupied by it. In our own hearings, lectures and classroom discussion, we can pose this question in the service of (historical) truth. This course examines the role architecture and landscape—the complicatedly contoured where of political discourse—play in institutions of governance. To restate the initial question: What sorts of places and spaces result from and potentially reveal the uncertain mix of ideals, ambitions, influence, violence, and compromise that define the office of the president?

Focus will be placed on representative episodes in the administrations of John F. Kennedy (Rose Garden and Grassy Knoll), Lyndon Johnson (Highway Beautification Act); Nixon (Watergate and “office landscaping”); Gerald Ford (mineral extraction and “moonscapes”); Jimmy Carter (the “rural South”), to address conceptual questions of distance and proximity, privacy and impropriety, plans and how they fall apart in the conduct and context of special representational arena that is the modern presidency. More general framing questions will address the land holdings of the founding fathers, the planning of the nation’s capital, the creation of the system of national parks and monuments, and landmark policy issues. By striving to bring things more “clearly into view,” we recognize from that outset the place that “cover-ups” have in the shaping of public perception. Witness the all-purpose suffix “-gate” that now serves for all sorts of malfeasance, and our own defining garden narrative of a (lesser) Paradise Lost.

Interdisciplinary Art and Design Practices

The Interdisciplinary Art and Design Practices Seminar investigates art and design work in the interdisciplinary modalities of contemporary culture and the city. As artists and designers respond to challenges of global magnitude and local impact, engage with cross-cultural and often conflicting conditions, and operate in disparate economic and societal realms, the need for increased engagement and collaboration is paramount. The complexity present in the context of action—economic, social, political, cultural, and ecological— frequently requires interdisciplinary approaches accompanied by cross-pollinating knowledge and skill sets.
Socially engaged art, relational aesthetics, and activist and emancipatory design practices challenge disciplinary boundaries not only in the art and the design worlds but also as they cross over and interact with communities, policy makers, and experts in fields such as social and political science, anthropology, economics, and ecology; this leads to the expansion of professional vocabularies, tools, and imaginaries and also cultivates new forms of interdisciplinary knowledge. As art and design practices move from art in public space to art in public interest (Miwon Kwon), their participatory and relational makeup can generate platforms and agencies that question dominant culture, construct new practices, establish new subjectivities, and subvert existing configurations of power (Chantal Mouffe). Historical examples of such approaches include Dada, the Situationists, and other avant-garde movements as well as contemporary art and design practices such as the Silent University, Philadelphia Assembled, and the O.N.E. mile project and Afrofuturism movement in Detroit. Such disseminated practices challenge the boundaries of art and design and their environments.

The seminar will navigate the evolving interdisciplinarity of art and design practices by engaging with the city, its communities, and the art world and by addressing urgent societal concerns.
Practice oriented, the seminar includes a series of workshops dedicated to exploring artistic tools and methods as well as the context in which they perform.

Fundamental goals of the seminar are:

The seminar will include three workshops that investigate the agency of art and design in activating, participating, and responding to public spaces in the city and the communities they inhabit, as follows: 1) 'Boston in Context and Community Engagement' with the Harvard School of Public Health; 2) 'Safe Spaces and Sanctuaries' with the Rotterdam-based artist and community mobilizer Jeanne van Heeswijk; 3) 'The Museum and the City: Reimagining Inclusive and Decentralized Institutions' with the New Museum in New York.

The three workshops will offer complementary and integrated perspectives to help interact and engage with our environment—the city, the community, the artist/designer, and the institute—while bringing societal urgencies such as socioeconomic disparities, race and gender inequality, and climate justice to the foreground. Priority enrollment to ADPD MDes students.

Priority enrollment is given to MDes ADPD students. A limited number of additional seats are available via the limited enrollment course lottery.

AI and Computer Simulation in Landscape Practice

The course aims to imagine and critically investigate the role of AI and computer simulation in landscape practice, considering the perceptual, intangible and context-sensitive aspects that transform a space into a landscape. A critical review providing the introductory knowledge related to the fields of complexity science, complexity theory of cities, and landscape design will guide the process.

Over the past decades, design practices related to globalization shaped an emergent international style for public places, a “new generic landscape” (Jakob, 2017) characterized by highly repetitive patterns. At the same time, innovation in the field of computer science introduced the automation of behavioral analysis, and the simulation of human actions in space through AI, a technology that could be potentially integrated into the most common design and representation tools, such as BIM.

The coeval existence of such technologies and the new “generic” style suggest a dystopian future in which these instances will reinforce each other mutually, fostering the birth of increasingly homogeneous forms. This condition could lead to a potential loss of the diverse and sometimes very particular quality of designed landscapes that take advantage of local specificities. Many questions arise from these considerations, such as: Which will be the designer’s role in the future? How could such technology support the design of culturally relevant landscapes? What is the real function of these tools in the world of contemporary design?

The course will be held in the form of a limited-enrollment seminar, including lectures and class discussions. Students are expected to read the course materials in advance to take part in the debate. Critical opinions, doubts, and ideas are most welcome. The course is open to all the GSD community, and there are no specific prerequisites.

The evaluation will consider active class participation as well as the quality of the delivered materials, two 1000 words essays and a final 3000 words essay, elaborating personal thoughts on the class topic. Based on each student’s individual creative attitude, both pieces could include visuals, videos, prototypes or any other media aiming to support the argument.

Responsive Environments: Episodes in Experiential Futures

This course introduces to the students the tools and necessary thinking framework to create technologically driven speculative environments in the near future of the built environment. The course takes a critical approach on technological augmentation that is valid spatially, socially and psychologically. By putting the human experience at the center and forefront, from the immediate body scale to the larger environment encompassing buildings and the urban spaces, the course examines new and emerging models, technologies, and techniques for the design of innovative architectural human interfaces and responsive environments.
Taking a holistic view, the class will address multifaceted aspects of our experience of the built environment and how the rapid pace of technological innovation affects our relationship to our daily lives and spaces around us. The course takes advantage of the resources offered by the ongoing research project at the REAL lab with the Italian City of Bergamo, the course aims to build on that research and open up new research and speculative design opportunities. Bergamo – a typical mid-size European city – offers an ideal case study for prototypical interventions that can be possibly replicated in other contexts.
The first part of the course leading to the final project will consist of readings and discussions, background research, site analysis, and emerging technology investigation. Hands-on prototyping will be part of the course requirement and will feed into the larger speculative concepts. The course places an important emphasis on what makes the design of these responsive environments perceptually valid and technically feasible. Topics of in-class discussions include: techniques of digital/physical perceptual correlations, body-centric interaction, user experience design, and technological viability and perceptual longevity. The final group project will be a speculative design intervention, supported by a research paper and prototypes, envisaging potential scenarios ? or episodes of experiential futures.
The course outcomes will be a contribution to a publication. Students from any background and concentration are encouraged to apply to the lottery. No specific prerequisites are needed.

This course will include a trip to Bergamo, Italy for 12 students from February 23rd to March 2nd. Students who travel in this course will be term billed $300. Students can only participate in one traveling course or studio. One set itinerary is made and students are responsible for contacting the travel agent and paying for any changes to this itinerary. Students are also responsible for the cost of all meals and incidentals, such as local travel. Additional limited space in the course will be available for students not participating in the trip. Students from any background and concentration are encouraged to apply to the lottery. No specific prerequisites are needed.

Community Development: History, Theory, and Imaginative Practice

Community development is a heterogeneous and contested field of planning thought and practice. The profession has generally prioritized people and places that are disproportionately burdened by capitalist urbanization and development. In the US, the dominant focus has been on personal or group development and widening access to opportunities, with a growing reliance on market incentives to deliver housing options and spur economic development. Yet for many communities at the margins, development has rather connoted practices of freedom— freedom from oppression and deprivation; freedom to enjoy one’s time, make choices, and experience life as abundance and possibility. Thus conceived, community development is less a question of remedial policy than acts of resistance, claiming rights and power, and strengthening collective ownership and governance capacity over productive infrastructures and resources.

The course begins with an examination of evolving patterns, drivers, and explanations of urban inequality and poverty and corresponding urban policy and planning responses— with a primary focus on the US but in comparative world-historical perspective. We trace the evolution of community development from the Progressive Era to the contemporary period, where global trends such as urban-based economic growth and the new urban agenda are pushing community development practice beyond the neighborhood scale to local, metropolitan, and even supranational scales. In critically analyzing community development concepts and strategies, the course pays close attention to the dilemma of race that has continued to define capitalism, politics, and spatial production in America as well as divided working class and progressive movements, including those defining the field of community development. We also draw insights from historic movements that have sought to change race relations in America in connection with global assaults on capitalism, empire, and patriarchy.

For students to further develop their own community development agendas and skills, the course is built around a speaker series and discussion sessions focused on applied practices and cases. Notwithstanding significant advancements in affordable housing development, social service delivery, and placemaking— the traditional mainstay of community development— the course focuses on emerging community development approaches such as transformative economic projects built on community-labor partnerships, anchor-based strategies, and cooperative ownership and wealth creation. It also surveys innovative sectoral practices focused on renewable energy, mobility and access, food justice and sovereignty, and art, culture, and fashion. Guest speakers will moreover include political organizers and leaders working to build intersectional movements that inform progressive urban policy and planning agendas and community development goals.

Course evaluations will be based on three assignments (blog entry, semi-structured interview, and applied research project) and class participation. It has no prerequisites and is open to graduate students across different disciplines.