Courses
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Ruinophilia & Pentimenti – Chinatown Milan Case Study
Arguably, the conception of ruins has long shaped western architecture historians’ origins narrative dating back to antiquity. Largely shaped by a distinct visual culture and…
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Grafting Adaptations onto Existing Buildings and into the City
Today’s architects have an urgent responsibility to address the climate crisis by radically reducing the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from our work. Reusing and adapting…
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Identity and Difference: Annuated Civic Typologies
This term we will revisit a theme we first explored in the option studios Block Blob Mat Slab Slat (2015) and—to a lesser extent— Intuition…
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Revitalizing Onomichi: Architecture, Community, Territory
Onomichi is a port city in Hiroshima Prefecture in the western part of Japan with a history of ship building. It was one of the…
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Voices of Change
Oliver Lütjens, Thomas Padmanabhan
The tone of our voice is more important than the words that we use. When we speak, we use a common language that we share…
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Barnes’ Barns in the Grid of Des Moines
This studio will explore the typology of the industrial shed – a 60,000 square foot building – developed from a kit-of-parts assembly to accommodate adaptable…
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Reconstructions / Unearthing Traces (On History, Memory and Architecture for Life)
“The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.” James A.
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The Last Free Space [M1]
What can public libraries do that other spaces – schools, community centers, museums – cannot do? This studio will study and speculate on how a…
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An Incomplete Performance [M1]
Our option studio will explore the double meaning of performance – working between the short-lived act of theatrical performance, and the environmental performance of long-lasting…
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Swerves [M1]
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, and…
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Do-It-Anyway: Place, Tectonics, and Time [M1]
In this studio, students will design and fabricate a project at one-to-one scale in the space of seven weeks. Why? We are living in an…
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Designing the In-Between; Transecting the Heart of Chinatown on a Forgotten Site [M2]
A curious “missing tooth” in the chaotic and dense urban fabric of Boston’s Chinatown reveals a vivisection of the neighborhood and provides an opportunity for…
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Building on Buildings [M2]
In pre-Hispanic cultures, pyramids were often built on top of others. Layer by layer, the structures would grow, understanding that each finished building would at…
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Tower for a Collector [M2]
This studio follows on from a teaching program called “City & Utopia” established 10 years ago in Paris with the aim of exploring the world…
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Housing Future: Reclaiming the Chicago 6-Flat as a Site for Architecture [M2]
Lap Chi Kwong, Alison Von Glinow
The pairing of “Housing Future” and the “6-Flat” is somewhat contradictory. Housing Futures typically point towards advancements in new technologies or new configurations. On the…
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TUNISIAN NIGHTSCAPES: Nocturnal Landscapes in the Medina of Tunis
The studio will reimagine six public spaces in the Medina of Tunis, Tunisia. Taking a long-term view over a 5 to 50–year timespan, the studio…
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Biospheric Urbanism – Changing Climates
Critical MomentThe climate crisis poses the urgent question of how to make our built environment more resilient to the challenging atmospheric changes such as…
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CANARY IN THE MINE: De-carbonize, De-climatize, De-colonize rural communities
Canary in the mine is a sequence of Option Studios at the Harvard GSD focused on rural territories addressing communities and landscapes subject to ever-growing…
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Below, Above, and Beyond: Future of Antwerp’s Mobility and Public Space
This studio aims to project the near-future scenario of Antwerp 's mobility and public space. We will challenge the conventional monofunctionality of urban infrastructure by…
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BANGKOK REMADE
Niall Kirkwood, Kotchakorn Voraakhom
BANGKOK REMADE will advance alternative futures for the capital city of Thailand. The studio subtitled ‘Design to Enhance Social Dignity, Climate Resilience and Inspire the…
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Landscape Synergies of the new Energies
Faster than we would have ever thought we will and do already experience sustainable forms of energy production, storage, distribution and transport dominating and profoundly…
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Wild Ways 2.0: A Fifth Ecology for Metropolitan Los Angeles
Playing off Reyner Banham’s classic Los Angeles, The Architecture of Four Ecologies, the studio will explore themes of connectivity, resilience and landscape infrastructure under the…
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Airports and HST Stations as Nodes of Centrality for a New Age
Changes in territorial and urban mobilities play a vital role in addressing the challenges of environmental crisis. The studio will explore long-distance transportation modes as…
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Agropolitan Mats, Rugs and Quilts
This studio will focus designing a suite of buildings, connective armatures and productive landscapes that can catalyse sustainable food regions in the fringes of one…
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Future Proof Neighborhoods: Old and New Housing Ideals
The search for new models for affordable housing in the world’s growing cities has never been more urgent. Good and affordable housing is needed to…
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Designing the Conditions: Cooperative Housing in America
At the heart of how we conceive of housing in the United States lies a paradox: the goals of a house appreciating as an asset…
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The Future of Oil Boom Towns in Ecuadorian Amazonia
Geographers estimate that circa 80% of urbanization in Amazonia is peri-urban in nature. Since the urban frontier in the region is one of the fastest…
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Modulating Change
Mumbai’s urban identity has been in flux since its founding as a colonial port city. Its economy in the post-colonial phase of its history has…