Courses
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First Semester Architecture Core: PROJECT
Sean Canty, Michelle Chang, Iman Fayyad, Jenny French, Alfredo Thiermann, Lisa Haber-Thomson, Max Kuo
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
Anita Berrizbeitia, Danielle Choi, Francesca Benedetto, Emily Wettstein, Jungyoon Kim, 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, Sai Balakrishnan, David Gamble, Lily Song
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
Jon Lott, Ron Witte, Andrew Holder, Grace La, John May, Alfredo Thiermann, 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…
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Landscape Architecture III: Third Semester Core Studio
Rosetta S. Elkin, Robert Pietrusko, Sergio Lopez-Pineiro, 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
Rahul Mehrotra, Peter Rowe, Stephen Gray, Roberto Pasini, Julia Watson, Yun Fu, Mark Heller, Michael Manfredi
Elements of Urban Design is an 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, Elizabeth Christoforetti, Jock Herron
The first year Collaborative Design Engineering Studio runs for two semesters, and this year will address the theme of “mobility”. The first semester focuses on…
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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…
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Architectural Representation II
This course examines the history, theory and practice of parallel (orthographic) and central (perspective) projection. The objective is to provide the tools to imagine and…
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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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Landscape Representation III: Landform and Ecological Process
Landscape Representation III examines the relationship between terrain and the landscape it supports and engenders. It aspires to explore and challenge the representational conventions of…
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Communication for Designers
“The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings. In the end the communicator…
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Curatorial Practice
Today everybody is a curator – we curate our meals, our social media feeds, and our outfits. What does it mean to…
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The Landscape We Eat
“A recipe is more than the food it is made of: the geography of our dinner spills off of the plate.” “The…
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Exhibit: Designing for Decentralization
Can centralized cultural institutions, such as museums, be more egalitarian and inclusive? How can they integrate and represent the various constituents and entities that surround…
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Paper or Plastic: Reinventing Shelf-life in the Supermarket Landscape
The supermarket shelf is a highly volatile, hyper-competitive space. On this shelf products struggle to maximize every possible advantage, all in 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 and a playful supplement to computer based labor.
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Public Projection: Projection as a Tool for Expression and Communication in Public Space
The class will focus on development of original projection projects that can inspire and facilitate artistic expression and cultural communication in the…
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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…
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Advanced Seminar in City Form: Future of Streets
The Advanced Seminar in City Form invites a group of students to research and discuss themes about the form of cities in…
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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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History and Theory of Urban Interventions
Susan Fainstein, Norman Fainstein
This class provides a high-intensity introduction the history and theory of urban planning practice under modern capitalism. Building upon an interdisciplinary literature drawn from planning…
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Buildings, Texts, and Contexts I
Erika Naginski, K. Michael Hays
This course is structured as a dialogue between the historical and theoretical frameworks that have shaped the formulation of architectural principles – what the architectural…
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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 (see week one) in the histories of landscape architecture. In general terms, it…
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Authority and Invention: Medieval Art and Architecture
Masterworks of art and architecture in Western Europe from the decline of Rome to the dawn of the Italian Renaissance. Explores the…
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Structuring Urban Experience: From the Athenian Acropolis to the Boston Common
This lecture course examines selected cities between the fifth century B.C. and the seventeenth century A.D., beginning with ancient Athens and…
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Bavarian Rococo: Heterotopias
This is both a history / theory seminar and a course in contemporary design technique. Its point of departure is the observation…
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Bramante is better than Alberti . . .
A seminar, in the manner of a forum, devoted to the practice of architectural critique and evaluation. Ten significant and comparable pairs…
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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…
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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 political and…
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Real Estate Finance and Development
Richard Peiser, David Hamilton
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
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, Planning, and Urban Design: Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, and Andover, MA
The Field Study course is designed to provide students an understanding of the dynamics and complexities of real world development challenges that…
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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: Qualitative
How can planners understand places in a rich, meaningful, and yet systematic way? This module examines how qualitative approaches can be used in planning practice…
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Transportation Policy and Planning (at HKS)
The course is intended to develop in students an understanding of the management, policy and planning problems that are peculiar to transportation and other types…
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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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Sustainability in the Built Environment
This introductory course surveys the historical foundations, economic logics and underlying physics that underscore the design, development and operations of sustainable buildings.
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Economic Development Planning
This course will look at the theory and practice of economic development at the local and regional level, mostly in the context…
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Experimental Infrastructures
Infrastructure is an encompassing term that can refer to anything from railroad ties to social media to ecosystems, and one which has…
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Climate Justice
Recent discourse around climate change – including debates about the Anthropocene, Green New Deal legislation, the plight of climate refugees, the dire warnings of the…
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Modern Housing and Urban Districts: Concepts, Cases and Comparisons
This seminar course will deal with ‘modern housing’ covering a period primarily from 1990 to the present. It will engage with ‘urban districts’ in so…
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The Spatial Politics of Land: A Comparative Perspective
This course focuses on the deeply contested and political processes of land-use planning, i.e. of allocating land amongst different, often competing uses,…
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Market Analysis and Urban Economics
This course focuses on the built environment and land-use policy. The course combines readings from the real estate economics academic literature with…
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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:To…
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Environmental Systems 2
This course is the second of a two-module sequence in Building Technology (6121, 6122) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture as well…
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Construction Systems
In this course we examine architecture as the manifestation of logics of systems, assemblies, and materials. We seek to understand how component assemblies have evolved…
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Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies I
This course is an introduction to the understanding of plants from non-managed plant communities to managed living structures. Through field visits, observation,…
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Structural Design II
This course is a continuation of GSD 6227 and completes the introduction to the analysis and design of building structures. Both 6227 and 6229…
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Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies III: Ecology and the Design World
Steven Handel, Christopher Matthews
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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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…
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Mapping: Geographic Representation and Speculation
Maps do not represent reality, they create it. As a fundamental part of the design process, the act of mapping results in highly authored views…
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BROWNFIELDS: Remediation and Regeneration Practices
‘A Brownfields Site is real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence, or potential presence…
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Water, Land-Water Linkages, and Aquatic Ecology
Timothy Dekker, Nicholas Nelson
This course will provide students with an understanding of water that will inform their professional approaches to landscape architecture, architecture, and…
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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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Optimizing Facade Performance: A Deep Dive on Design Decisions
Building envelopes are at the intersection of design, performance, and occupant experience in architectural design. Façades influence many aspects of building performance…
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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 transformable structures have…
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Nano Micro Macro: Adaptive Material Laboratory (with SEAS)
Jonathan Grinham, Joanna Aizenberg
In recent years, a wealth of cross-disciplinary research has produced unprecedented growth in the study of “architectured-materials." At the heart of this…
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Foundations of Practice
For students in the fifth semester of the M.Arch I degree program, this four (4) credit hour course examines models and…
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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
Since the dawn of the technological society that emerged after World War II, the normative practice of architecture, particularly in the United…
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Innovation in Project Delivery
Project delivery – the organizational, legal and economic arrangements by which society produces its built environment – has undergone a radical transformation…
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Elements of the Urban Stack
As our physical and virtual worlds become more and more intertwined, the “Urban Stack” presents itself as an organizational system for…
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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
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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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
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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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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Urban Design Proseminar
The proseminar is a forum for conversation on contemporary urban design. It is structured around three overlapping discussions: the formation of the discipline,…
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Proseminar in Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology
This proseminar is intended for Master in Design Studies (MDES) candidates entering the Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology (ULE) stream as well as Master in Landscape Architecture…
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Proseminar in Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology
This required seminar introduces candidates in the MDesS Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology [ULE] concentration to the range of research on urbanism and landscape presently pursued by…