Courses
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First Semester Architecture Core: PROJECT
Sean Canty, Elle Gerdeman, Iman Fayyad, Jenny French, Lisa Haber-Thomson, Marina Correia
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, Francesca Benedetto, Pablo Pérez-Ramos, Emily Wettstein, Alistair McIntosh, Karen Janosky, Robin Winogrond, Matthew Girard
GSD 1111 is the first in a sequence of four core studios that, together, constitute the foundation of your time at the GSD. The school’s…
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First Semester Core Urban Planning Studio
David Gamble, Ann Forsyth, Pallavi Mande, Ana Gelabert-Sanchez
First Semester Core Urban Planning Studio introduces students to the fundamental knowledge and technical skills used by urban planners to research, analyze, create and implement…
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Third Semester Architecture Core: INTEGRATE
Jeannette Kuo, Jennifer Bonner, Michelle Chang, Eric Howeler, Sergio Lopez-Pineiro, Paul Kassabian, Jon Lott, Yasmin Vobis, Angela Pang
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, Paola Sturla, Rosalea Monacella, Robert Pietrusko, Alex Wall, Amy Whitesides, Eric Robsky Huntley, Azzurra Cox
From Off-Shoring to Near Shore: Littoral Landscapes at Work This studio will explore the complex environmental and social interests of multiple forms of landscape labor—people…
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Elements of Urban Design
Peter Rowe, Rahul Mehrotra, Stephen Gray, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Yun Fu, Michael Manfredi, David Gamble, Alexander Yuen
Elements of Urban Design is the mandatory advanced core studio for the post-professional Urban Design program. The studio introduces critical concepts, strategies, and technical skills…
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Collaborative Design Engineering Studio I (with SEAS)
Elizabeth Christoforetti, Andrew Witt, James Weaver
The first semester studio is a project-based introduction to a range of ideas, methods, and techniques essential for the design engineer. In the studio, students…
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Option Studio
Option Studio…
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Option Studio
Option Studio…
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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 systems of projection as constructs that mediate between our spatial imagination and built form. Projective systems have…
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Representation for Planners
Representation for Planners helps those who are not trained to think and draw spatially how to do so. The half semester course runs in parallel to…
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Spatial Analysis
Planners today have access to unprecedented amounts of data on the built environment and the people who use it. These data come from a wide…
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Landscape Representation I
The first in a two-semester sequence, Landscape Representation I introduces students to the rich and varied discipline of landscape architecture as inextricably intertwined with the…
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Digital Media: Artifacts
This course is an introduction to fundamental concepts, techniques, and methods related to digital media in architecture and design, with a focus…
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Digital Media: Not Magic
According to folklore, Michelangelo fell to his knees upon seeing the Florentine fresco Annunciation, went silent, and eventually concluded that the image of the Virgin…
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Constructing Visual Narratives of Place
The seminar explores the representation of identity and memory in the city and its territory. The case study is Boston, in its…
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Representation First (!!!), Then Architecture
Current tendencies in the discipline suggest a split between two opposing architectural projects: the easy project versus the difficult project[1]. Primarily related to architecture’s form,…
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The Desert We Eat
Explorations on Otomi Diet at Valle del Mezquital In the landscape imaginary of modern agriculture the farm is a water-intensive operation, which according to the…
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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…
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Art, Design and the Public Domain
What is the “public domain”? And what, as artists and designers, is our role in it? How can we wield our tools to make this…
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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 of the design…
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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…
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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 Fifth Plan
In this seminar we will consider the evolution of the floor plan across five iterations: proto-modern, modern, post-modern, sequel-modern, and, most importantly, the present. We…
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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,…
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Migration in Latin-America: Imagining Flux, Rapid Response and Reversibility
Today’s fast-paced, global flow of people and goods is challenging the idea that the city should be an entity that aspires to stability and permanence.
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Digital landform design seminar
Key words: sensor networks, responsive landscapes, smart landscapes ‘Wherever one finds an extensive frontier (e.g. the skin which defines the extensive boundary of our bodies)…
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Mapping Urbanization: Forms, Processes, and Systems
Urbanization is often framed in terms of human agglomeration. The opening line of the most recent United Nations population dynamics report states that 60% of…
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Original Misunderstandings: Latin American Architecture and Some Genealogies
Tropicália was a Brazilian movement founded in the 1960s by musicians, poets, and other artists. Immersed in the Latin American polarized discussions about the meaning…
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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 malls, highways, suburbs,…
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Building, Texts, and Contexts: Between Origins and Modernity: 18th- and 19th-Century Architecture
In the first semester of the Buildings, Texts, and Contexts sequence, our goal is to address the general rupture caused by the rise of modernity—that…
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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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Michelangelo Architect: Precedents, Innovation, Influence
An exploration of Italian Renaissance architecture and urbanism through the persona of Michelangelo as witness, agent, and inspiration. We look at architecture…
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Structuring Urban Experience: From the Athenian Acropolis to the Boston Common
This lecture course examines selected cities between the 5th century BC and the 17th century AD, beginning with ancient Athens and ending with the rebuilding…
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Competing Visions of Modernity in Japan
The course will trace the parallel trajectories of two of modern Japan’s most influential schools of architectural thought, represented by Kenzo Tange…
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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 facing designers, and…
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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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Materiality and Atmosphere: Media and Environments (at AFVS)
What is the place of materiality in our visual age of changing materials and media? How do media mediate material relations? Can media be understood…
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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…
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Slavery, the slave trade and the built environment
This seminar course is offered as a companion to the conference Landscapes of Slavery, Landscapes of Freedom: the African Diaspora and the American Built Environment,…
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The Sociological Imagination: Conceptual Foundations for the Urban Planning and Design Professions
What does it mean to plan and design for people? In what ways are built environments and social relationships shaped by one another? And how…
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Architectural Strategies against Consumerism
Consumerism, the artificially accelerated cycle of production and consumption, leads to a generation of waste that is both economically and ecologically unacceptable; moreover, consumerism erodes…
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Inscriptions: Recent Experimental Architecture
Andrew Holder, K. Michael Hays
One has heard the characterization of the work of the recent generation of architects as neo-postmodern. The assumption behind this label is twofold: first, that…
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Substantial: The Political Ecologies of Extended Things
Project-based seminar exploring new and emerging materials and material techniques–as they may impact both the representation of architectural ideas in the design studio, and the…
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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
Peter Rowe, Rahul Mehrotra, Eve Blau, Joan Busquets, Farès el-Dahdah, Alex Krieger, Antoine Picon, Yun Fu
“Cities by Design I” is concerned with in-depth longitudinal examination of urban conditions in and among selected cities in the world. The…
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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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Equitable Development and Housing Policy in Urban Settings (at HKS)
An introduction to policymaking in American cities, focusing on economic, demographic, institutional, and political settings. It examines inclusive and equitable economic development and job growth…
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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
Jennifer Molinsky, James Stockard
This course examines housing as both an individual concern and an object of policy and planning. It is intended to provide those with an interest…
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Contemporary Developing Countries: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Intractable Problems (at FAS)
Tarun Khanna, Satchit Balsari, Krzysztof Gajos, Doris Sommer, Rahul Mehrotra
What problems do developing countries face, and how can individuals contribute to solutions rather than await 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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Mapping the Political Economy of Space
There is no such thing as neutral space. Topography and soil history, land use and tenure chronicle, housing demands and construction costs, public policies, plot…
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Reimagining social infrastructure and collective futures
Design tools and spatial approaches can play a vital role in reimagining a twenty-first century social infrastructure—the underlying structures that sustain social life, including spaces…
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Land Policy and Planning for Equitable and Fiscally Healthy Communities
The course highlights the role land policy and land-based financing play in the development of equitable and fiscally healthy communities in developed and developing countries.
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The Theory and Practice of Sustainable Urban Development: SDG #11 and Beyond
This project-based course seeks a critical yet constructive approach to the emerging urban agenda formulated within the UN’s 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The inclusion…
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Transportation Economics and Finance
We can define transportation infrastructure to comprise all the physical objects that provide mobility: including everything from trains, highways, and ports to sneakers, trails, and…
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Urban Economics for Planners and Policymakers
This course introduces economic frameworks for understanding both the benefits and challenges of living in, working in and managing cities. Urban economics…
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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 methods of construction: conceptually, historically, and practically. We will consider how construction techniques emerge in relation to architectural desires and…
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Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies I
This course recognizes plants as one of the most expressive materials of the artform — a living medium that distinguishes the discipline from the other…
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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
David Moreno Mateos, Christopher Matthews
Required for both MLA 1 and MLA AP students taking the third LA core-studio. Ecology and the Design World (David Moreno-Mateos): Landscape architecture incorporates an…
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Climate by Design
Jill Desimini, David Moreno Mateos, Martha Schwartz
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 realization is mediated…
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Introduction to Computational Design
Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo Lopez
#GSD6338 is an introductory course on Computational Design, with a particular focus on architecture, landscape and urbanism. In this course, we will understand "Computational…
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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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Health and Buildings
This course investigates the interactions between humans and buildings with a focus on environmental sustainability and health. The exploration will fall into…
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Working Landscapes: Natural Resiliency And Redesign
Steven Apfelbaum, Katharine Parsons, Robert Zimmerman
Ecological principles and their application to design and planning will be emphasized. Topics will include coastal wetland development, sediment movement in estuaries and long-shore, natural…
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Designing with/for Micro-climates
Designing with/for Micro-climates is a hands-on seminar dedicated to the making of thermal environments through multiple techniques at different scales of design – from the…
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Science and Technology Seminar
Instructor: Brett Schneider…
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Optimizing Facade Performance: A Deep Dive on Design Decisions
Building envelopes are at the intersection of design, performance, and occupant experience in architectural design. Facades influence many aspects of building performance, from energy usage…
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Transformable Design Methods
This course is intended for students interested in how to create products, buildings, and environments that utilize physical transformation to realize enhanced…
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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 processes in a…
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Foundations of Practice
Jeffry Burchard, Gregg Garmisa, Timothy R. Twomey
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
In the spirit of Herbert Simon, Frameworks engages diverse but complementary perspectives and techniques to identify, diagnose and constructively address consequential social challenges, sometimes referred…
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Practices of Landscape Architecture
This course presents the application of landscape ideas as a process of engagement and building amidst financial, legal, cultural, political, and professional contexts. The course…
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Frameworks of Practice
How should we practice today? The discipline, the profession, and the practice of architecture are invented and designed things. And the roles, relationships, protocols, and…
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Elements of the Urban Stack
The Urban Stack is a pedagogical framework for understanding the infrastructures of power that operate in relationship to practice. These elements shape the design and…
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Real Estate Private Equity [M1]
Real Estate Private Equity explores, in depth, the analysis, decision-making and challenges private equity investors face when: 1. making and structuring highly…
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Real Estate Private Equity [M2]
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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Real Estate and City Making in China
Real estate has increasingly become a compelling force in the process of city making, one uniquely capable of leading and guiding multiple steps in the…
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Preparation for Independent Thesis Proposal for MUP, MAUD, or MLAUD
What does it take to complete a graduate thesis in the Department of Urban Planning and Design? The seminar introduces different types of theses that…
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Preparation of MLA Design Thesis
“The natural sciences are concerned with how things are . . . Design, on the other hand, is concerned with how things ought to be.”…
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Independent Design Engineering Project I
Martin Bechthold, Mary Tolikas
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
Martin Bechthold, Anita Berrizbeitia, Gareth Doherty, Ann Forsyth, Ali Malkawi, Richard Peiser, Peter Rowe, Holly Samuelson, Carole Voulgaris
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
Martin Bechthold, Ann Forsyth, Rahul Mehrotra, Peter Rowe, Charles Waldheim
Thesis in Satisfaction of the degree Doctor of Design.
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Thesis Extension in Satisfaction of Degree Doctor of Design
Martin Bechthold, Charles Waldheim, Diane Davis, Anita Berrizbeitia, Neil Brenner, Ann Forsyth, Alex Krieger, Ali Malkawi, Erika Naginski, Antoine Picon, Peter Rowe
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
How do we understand a landscape? This proseminar explores epistemologies that constitute the field of landscape architecture. The proseminar will introduce MLA II students to…
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Proseminar in PUBLICS: Of the Public. In the Public. By the Public
Public, as a noun or adjective, is not confined to a single discipline, practice, narrative or theory. It is instead, a complicated construct that can…
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Proseminar in NARRATIVES: Word and Image as Narrative Structure
In our Proseminar, we will grapple with a selection of critical discussions on word and image as these have been formulated in aesthetic philosophy, literary…
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Proseminar in ECOLOGIES: Interrelated, In-between, Dynamic
Our aim in the proseminar is to explore the inherent inventedness of ecology as a field of inquiry, its distinctly relational nature, and the potential…