Courses
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First Semester Architecture Core: PROJECT
Sean Canty, Michelle Chang, Iman Fayyad, Lisa Haber-Thomson, Alfredo Thiermann
PROJECT is the first core studio of the four-semester sequence of the MArch I program. With a multiplicity of references, PROJECT may refer to fundamental…
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Landscape Architecture I: First Semester Core Studio
Jungyoon Kim, Pablo Pérez-Ramos, Emily Wettstein, Alistair McIntosh
This studio course problematizes issues of orientation and experience, scale and pattern, topographic form, climatic and vegetative influences, and varied ecological processes that help define…
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First Semester Core Urban Planning Studio
Toni L. Griffin, Lily Song, Ann Forsyth, David Gamble
The first semester core studio of the Master in Urban Planning program introduces students to the fundamental knowledge and technical skills used by urban planners…
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Third Semester Architecture Core: INTEGRATE
Jeannette Kuo, Jennifer Bonner, Eric Howeler, Grace La, Jon Lott, John May, Paul Kassabian
Integration is the agenda for the third-semester architecture design studio. Architecture is fundamentally a part-to-whole problem, involving the complex integration of building components, systems, and…
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Landscape Architecture III: Third Semester Core Studio
Danielle Choi, Craig Douglas, Sergio Lopez-Pineiro, Rosalea Monacella, Paola Sturla, Amy Whitesides
From Episode to Adaptation: Design for a Littoral Landscape This studio explores climate change, adaptation, and risk as fundamental to the design of the built…
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Elements of Urban Design
Peter Rowe, Rahul Mehrotra, Yun Fu, Stephen Gray, Michael Manfredi
“Elements of Urban Design” is the advanced core studio for the post-professional Urban Design program. The studio introduces critical concepts, strategies, and technical skills associated…
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Collaborative Design Engineering Studio I (with SEAS)
Andrew Witt, Joanna Aizenberg, Elizabeth Christoforetti, Cesar Hidalgo
The first-year “Collaborative Design Engineering” studio runs for two semesters, and this year will address the theme of “waste.” The first semester focuses on concrete…
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Architectural Representation I
Architectural Representation I: Origins + Originality Architectural representation is an ideology—a source of ideas and visionary theorizing that has a set of origins and qualities.
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Architectural Representation II
Architectural Representation II: Projective Disciplines This course examines the history, theory, and practice of projective and descriptive geometry. Invented as techniques to draw form, these…
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Spatial Analysis and the Built Environment
Urban planners engage in many complex processes that defy easy representation. This course provides first-semester urban planning students with the graphic and technical skills needed…
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Landscape Representation I
The rich and varied discipline of landscape architecture is inextricably intertwined with the concept of representation. The first in a three-semester sequence, this course introduces…
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Digital Media: Composition
This course proposes a conceptual opposition between “filter” and “fill” to investigate the ways image analysis techniques augment topics in architectural composition.
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Off: On a Tangent
“An art professor once told me that in composition, elements should either overlap or there should be some space between them; that it produces discomfort…
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Mini MOOCs
Distance learning tools are here to stay. This course will introduce students to make their own mini MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), considering many of…
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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…
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Drawing for Designers: Techniques of Expression, Articulation, and Representation
The course is intended as a creative drawing laboratory for designers and an expressive, playful supplement to computer-based labor. This course will master techniques in…
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Public Projection: Projection as a Tool for Expression and Communication in Public Space
The class will focus on the development of original projection projects that can inspire and facilitate artistic expression and cultural communication in public space. In…
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Art, Design and the Public Domain Proseminar
This seminar is intended to serve as a theoretical and practical laboratory for the development of student ideas and concepts toward their artistic, design, and…
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Theories of Landscape as Urbanism
This course introduces contemporary theories of landscape as a medium of urbanism and product of urbanization. The course surveys sites and subjects, texts and topics…
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Culture, Conservation and Design
This proseminar addresses issues of critical conservation, an evolving discipline that illuminates the bridge between cultural meaning, identity, and context as part…
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The Idea of Environment
The environment is the milieu in which designers and planners operate. It is a messy world of facts, meanings, relations, and actions that calls them to…
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An Unsentimental Look at Architecture and Social Craft
Designers of the built environment have had an on-again, off-again relationship with social agency. Progressive design and social outcomes were closely linked in…
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The anatomy of (wild)fire, a design quest?
The research seminar examines the anatomy of (wild)fires in the context of climatic disintegration and agricultural practices in managing debris accumulation in forested areas. In…
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Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle: Landscape, Evolution, and Thermodynamics
The structures and forms we perceive in the environment are produced by the simultaneous action of forces that make for some kind of order, and…
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Why Not Cultural Systems? Expanding Our Value System Beyond Nature and Ecology
This seminar will examine the planning, design and stewardship opportunities and constraints frequently encountered when dealing with cultural landscapes. In addition to addressing foundational principles,…
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From Fallow: Equitable Futures for Landscapes of Injustice
Property abandonment is prevalent in places of disinvestment, where vulnerable communities bear the burden of untended land alongside structural racism, unjust policies, uneven capital distribution,…
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Studies of the Built North American Environment: 1580 to the Present
North America as an evolving visual environment is analyzed as a systems concatenation involving such constituent elements as farms, small towns, shopping…
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Building, Texts, and Contexts: Between Origins and Modernity: 18th- and 19th-Century Architecture
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…
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Histories of Landscape Architecture I: Textuality and the Practice of Landscape Architecture
This course introduces students to a number of significant topoi or loci in the histories of landscape architecture. In general terms, it takes the form of a…
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North American Seacoasts and Landscapes: Discovery Period to the Present
Selected topics in the history of the North American coastal zone, including the seashore as wilderness, as industrial site, as area of…
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Screens: Projecting Media and The Visual Arts
How do screens function as interface between us and the world? What is the role of the screen in contemporary visual arts and media culture?…
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Building Conservation and Renewal: Assessment, Analysis, Design
What are the spatial, material, and broad cultural values inherent in a building or site that must be understood to craft interventions…
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Topology and Imagination: Between Chinese Landscapes and Architecture
This course deals with landscape architecture and architecture in contemporary China. Its purpose is twofold: to articulate new perspectives on the challenges…
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Environmentalisms
Today we find ourselves in a paradoxical situation: at the very moment that the idea of “environment” has been placed at the center of our…
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Architecture and Construction: From the Vitruvian Tradition to the Digital
The course aims to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between architecture and construction through the study of key historical episodes such as…
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Cotton Kingdom, Now
In 1852, the New York Daily Times commissioned a 31-year-old Frederick Law Olmsted to conduct an immersive research journey through the Southern slave states. The…
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Open Work
Half a century ago, architecture became open-ended. Buildings would change and grow, architects argued, not unlike cities. Architects embraced impermanence, promoted flexibility, timed obsolescence,…
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Real Estate Finance and Development
This course teaches the fundamentals of real estate finance and development. Lectures and case studies introduce students to the full range of…
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Land Use and Environmental Law
As a scarce and necessary resource, land triggers competition and conflict over its possession and use. For privately owned land, the market manages much of…
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Cities by Design I
Rahul Mehrotra, Peter Rowe, Eve Blau, Joan Busquets, Alex Krieger, Yun Fu, Antoine Picon, Fares El-Dahdah
“Cities by Design I” is concerned with in-depth longitudinal examination of urban conditions in and among selected cities in the world. The broad aims are:…
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Field Studies in Real Estate, Urban Planning and Design
This field study course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the dynamics and complexities of real-world development challenges that create contemporary urban…
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Analytic Methods of Urban Planning: Quantitative
This course introduces students to quantitative analysis and research methods for urban planning. The course begins with an examination of how quantitative methods fit within…
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Analytic Methods of Urban Planning: Qualitative
How can planners understand places in a rich, meaningful, and yet systematic way? This module examines how qualitative approaches can be used…
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Housing and Urbanization in the United States
James Stockard, Jennifer Molinsky
This course examines housing as both an individual concern and an object of policy and planning. It is intended to provide those…
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Healthy Places: COVID-19 and Cities
The connections between health, well-being, and place are complex. This class uses COVID-19 as a starting point for examining how to make healthier places. It…
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Contemporary Developing Countries: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Intractable Problems (at FAS)
What problems do developing countries face, and how can individuals contribute to solutions rather than awaiting the largesse of the state or other actors? Intractable…
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Urban Ethnographies
Planners’ understanding of social process and cultural values is often woefully inadequate, and their thinking is dominated by a “one-size-fits-all” approach and…
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Planning for Climate Change
This seminar explores how public and private institutions and individuals, under labels of “adaptation” or “resilience,” are positioning built and natural environments to respond to…
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Urban Design for Planners
Course ObjectivesThis seminar course introduces physical planners to the approaches, techniques and tools of urban design necessary to structure the spatial…
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Market Analysis and Urban Economics
This course examines contemporary real estate trends and cycles. It introduces students to the concepts, models, and methods used to analyze how…
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Urban Governance and the Politics of Planning in the Developing World
This course starts from the premise that urban politics and governance arrangements shape the definition, form, and practice of planning, and therefore…
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Environmental Systems 1
This course is the first of a two-module sequence in building technology (6121, 6122) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture. Objectives: –…
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Environmental Systems 2
Purpose: This course is the second of a two-module sequence in building technology (6121, 6122) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture. Objective:…
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Construction Systems
This course introduces students to construction systems with the ambition to shape the perception of a designer’s agency in relationship to them. An overview…
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Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies I
This course is an introduction to understanding plants, from unmanaged plant communities to managed living structures. Through field visits, observation, lectures, short…
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Structural Design II
Martin Bechthold, Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo Lopez
This course is a continuation of GSD 6227 and completes the introduction to the analysis and design of building structures. Both 6227 and 6229 are…
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Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies III: Ecology and the Design World
Required for both MLA 1 and MLA AP students taking the third LA core-studio. Ecological Principles for Design (Steven Handel): The fundamentals of ecological science…
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Climate by Design
Jill Desimini, David Moreno Mateos, Martha Schwartz, Emily Wettstein
Through a series of case studies, this course will explore paradigmatic design responses to the climate crisis including adaptation (both for communities to remain and…
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Material Systems: Digital Design and Fabrication
Digital design and fabrication technologies have become integral to the discourse surrounding contemporary design and architectural practice. The translation from design to…
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Introduction to Computational Design
Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo Lopez
This is an introductory course to computational design and the prerequisite for a spring course that deals with more advanced topics in…
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Interface Design: Integrating Material Perceptions
The course explores the interface between architecture and engineering by examining our perceptions towards materials. Interdisciplinary research has gained interest in recent…
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CLIMATE CRISIS – BEYOND ADAPTATION & RESILIENCY: A Designer’s Geoengineering Toolkit for Mitigation
Currently, education of how landscape architects, architects and planners can address climate crisis (CC) impacts are focused on resilience (the capacity to…
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Domestic Logistics
The class will consider the bright and dark alternate futures of domestic space through the lens of its various augmentations – telepresence & sensory expansion,…
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Advanced Elective in Sustainable Design
This new elective seminar will provide a deeper dive into issues of evidence-based, high-performance, sustainable building design. The course is intended for first and second…
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Transformable Design Methods
Architects have long imagined a built environment that is fundamentally dynamic. Portable buildings, retractable coverings, kinetic facades, and spaces that morph: these…
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Nano Micro Macro: Adaptive Material Laboratory (with SEAS)
Jonathan Grinham, Joanna Aizenberg
This course is an interdisciplinary platform for designers, engineers, and scientists to interact and develop innovative new products. The course introduces ideas-to-innovation…
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Foundations of Practice
For students in the fifth semester of the MArch I degree program, this course examines models and issues that define contemporary professional practice. Requiring students…
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Integrative Frameworks for Technology, Environment, and Society I
Developing and implementing good solutions to real problems facing human society requires a broad understanding of the relationships between technology innovation, science, manufacturing, design thinking,…
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Practices of Landscape Architecture
This course examines landscape architecture practice through the consideration of contemporary frameworks for professional services, the legal and financial contexts in which they operate, and…
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Frameworks of Practice
How should we practice today? Since World War II, a series of paradigm shifts have significantly altered the relationships that had been…
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Elements of the Urban Stack
Paul Nakazawa, Elizabeth Christoforetti
Where does our agency as designers of the built environment lie in current practice? As urban projects grow in complexity, swelling and…
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Landscape Practices
This seminar examines the nature of contemporary landscape architecture and public realm practices. In this context, practice is considered broadly in terms of the various…
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Real Estate Private Equity
Real Estate Private Equity explores, in depth, the analysis, decision-making and challenges private equity investors face when: 1. making and structuring highly leveraged investments, 2.
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The project and the Territory: Japan Story
What is the future of urbanization?What role can design play in shaping that future? What will happen to the conflicting tensions between urban and…
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Forms of Assembly
"Forms of Assembly" is an advanced two semester research and project-based seminar initiated by Art, Design, and the Public Domain MDes, in collaboration with…
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Independent Study by Candidates for Master’s Degrees
Students may take a maximum of 8 units with different GSD instructors in this course series. 9201 must be taken for either 2, or 4…
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Preparation for Independent Thesis Proposal for MUP, MAUD, or MLAUD
Carole Voulgaris, David Gamble
This seminar is intended to provide the theoretical and methodological foundation for completing a graduate thesis in the Department of Urban Planning and Design. By…
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Independent Thesis in Satisfaction of Degree MArch
The Thesis Program encourages students to take advantage of the wide range of resources and research initiatives of the Graduate School of Design and its…
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Preparation of MLA Design Thesis
A thesis is a thematic proposition offered for discussion and debate. A thesis is typically developed through a piece of original research specific to an…
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Independent Design Engineering Project I
Martin Bechthold, Mary Tolikas, Julia Lee
The Independent Design Engineering Project (IDEP) is a two-semester project during which students in the Master in Design Engineering (MDE) program work on understanding a…
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Independent Study by Candidates for Doctoral Degrees
9502 must be taken for either 2 or 4 units. Under faculty guidance, the student conducts an independent reading program and formulates a thesis proposal.
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Preparation of Doctoral Thesis Proposal
Independent study with doctoral advisor to produce a preliminary literature review. Prerequisite: Enrollment in GSD DDes program. …
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Thesis in Satisfaction of Degree Doctor of Design
Thesis in Satisfaction of the degree Doctor of Design.
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Thesis Extension in Satisfaction of Degree Doctor of Design
Thesis extension in satisfaction of the degree Doctor of Design.
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MArch II Proseminar
This course provides a forum for critical discussion of contemporary design practices that is exploratory and speculative in nature. The course emphasizes collaborative thinking and…
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Proseminar in Landscape Architecture
The proseminar introduces MLA II students to a range of theories and methods in landscape architecture and their implications for practice and research. The focus…
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Proseminar in Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology
This required seminar introduces candidates in the MDes Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology (ULE) concentration to the range of individual and group research on urbanism, landscape, and…