Courses
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Second Semester Core Urban Planning Studio
Daniel D’Oca, Stephen Gray, Brie Hensold, Mitchell Silver, Dana McKinney
The second semester core planning studio expands the topics and methodologies studied in the first semester core studio, GSD 1121, aiming to prepare students for…
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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…
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Drawing for Designers 2: Human Presence and Appearance in Natural and Built Environment
The course is intended as a creative drawing laboratory for designers, an expressive and playful supplement to computer-based labor. The aim of…
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Urban Design & Planning for Climate Transformation, Intense Migration, & Rapid Urban Growth
We face a vulnerable future due to the accelerated intensity of natural and humanitarian disasters. The resultant scale of unprecedented migration has…
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The History of Heritage and the Heritage of History
This is a seminar course designed for design students who are interested in understanding the cultural background behind heritage theories, conservation practices, and related socio-cultural…
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Agropolitan Futures
This seminar examines the unsustainable relationship between urbanisation and agriculture. It will focus on Monsoon Asia where urbanisation rates are extreme and where most of…
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Urban Grids-3:Grid Plan versus Big Project
Within a larger research scope of exploring open forms for city design, this seminar will focus on a clear discussion of two…
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Histories and Theories of Urban Form and Design
This course provides an introduction to the critical histories and theories of urban intervention and formation, and to the disciplinary practices of urban design in…
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Urban Planning Theory and Praxis: Comparative-Historical Origins and Applications
This course takes as its point of departure the historical and national origins of planning as a discipline, assesses its evolution over time and across…
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Chinese Modern Architecture and Urbanism
Modernity as a topic is generally both a historical period and an ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose…
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Cities, Infrastructures, and Politics: From Renaissance to Smart Technologies
Infrastructure plays a decisive role in urban development and in the life of cities. This course will envisage this role from a historical perspective. History…
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Urban Design Contexts and Operations
The course focusses essentially on modern, including contemporary, contexts and operations that have emerged during the past 100 or so years. Here urban design is…
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Public and Private Development
Cities are developed by a complex blend of public and private actors and actions. This course employs a combination of lectures, discussions, readings, case studies,…
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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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Advanced Real Estate Development and Finance
This course builds on GSD 5204 and comparable introductory real estate courses offered by other schools at Harvard. It is an essential course for anyone…
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U. S. Housing Markets, Problems, and Policies
This course examines the operation of U.S. housing markets, the principal housing problems facing the nation, and policy approaches to address them within the existing…
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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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Urban Design and the Color-Line
We cannot talk about physical infrastructures in the United States without also talking about race. In this seminar/workshop, students will examine the…
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Making Participation Relevant to Design
By trying to understand how participation can make design more relevant to society, we can create more socially just cities. This course starts from the…
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Travel Behavior and Forecasting
All planning is based on planners’ beliefs about the future. In many cases, the most important (and most uncertain) aspects of the future relate to…
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Climate Justice
Recent discourse around climate change—including debates about the Anthropocene, Green New Deal legislation, the dire warnings of the IPCC, to name a few—increasingly make evident…
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Urban Design for Planners
Urban design is a complex and interdisciplinary process that indelibly shapes the economic, social, and physical character of places and communities, large and small. This…
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Native Americans in the 21st Century: Nation Building II (at HKS)
This community based research course focuses on some of the major issues Native American Indian tribes and nations face in the 21st century. It provides…
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Modern Housing and Urban Districts: Concepts, Cases, and Comparisons
This seminar course deals with ‘modern housing’ covering a period primarily from the 1900s to the present. It engages with ‘urban districts’…
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Designer Developer
Design and finance can both be understood as universal languages. Although architects, landscape architects, and planners are trained to produce and interpret design, it is…
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Land Loss, Reclamation, and Stewardship in Contemporary Native America
Daniel D’Oca, Eric Henson, Philip Deloria
This course will explore critical dimensions in American Indian land issues: historical land loss, contemporary tribal governmental efforts at land reclamation, stewardship, and co-management. We…
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Public Finance for Planners: Creating Equitable & Sustainable Communities
Infrastructure challenges are significant and rising. To meet these challenges, urban planners will need to acquire foundational knowledge and skills in the public finance discipline…
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New Towns and Affordable Housing Development in Africa
This course is a research seminar delving into new town development and affordable housing production in Africa. The course provides an overview…
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The (New) Image of the City
The rest of the 21st century is being drawn right now. More than ever before, organizations and individuals rely on projective images that indicate their…
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Experimental Housing: Density and Incrementality
Generations of architects and urban designers have been searching for alternatives for standard apartment typologies. Many experiments have been designed and built…
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Planning Sustainable Built Environments
Modern infrastructure that invisibly delivers clean water and reliable power is often held up as a norm. Yet, in reality, it often fails, or even…
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Affordable and Mixed-Income Housing Development, Finance, and Management
Explores issues relating to the development, financing, and management of housing affordable to very low, low, and moderate income households. Examines community-based development corporations, public…
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Public Space
In a digital age, does physical public space matter? Tahrir Square, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Gezi Park, the streets of Hong Kong, Zuccotti Park, Madrid Rio,…
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Mapping: Geographic Representation and Speculation
Maps both represent reality and create it. It is in the context of this contention that this course presents the fundamentals of mapping, spatial analysis,…
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International Real Estate and Urban Developments
Real estate, in the international realm, is anchored at the intersection of economic activities, capital flows, and the spatial transformation of the environment. While different…
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Independent Study by Candidates for Master’s Degrees
Edward Eigen, Eve Blau, Rahul Mehrotra, Jacob Reidel, Thaïsa Way, Danielle Choi, Rosalea Monacella, Daniel D’Oca, Ewa Harabasz, John May, Enrique Silva
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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Independent Thesis in Satisfaction of the Degree MAUD, MLAUD, or MUP
Following participation in the department’s fall thesis preparation seminar (GSD 9204), the spring term of the second year sees students complete, defend, and submit…
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Independent Thesis for the Degree Master in Design Studies
(Previously "Open Projects”) Prerequisites: Filing of signed "Declaration of Advisor" form with MDes office, and approval signature of the program director. A student who selects…
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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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Thesis in Satisfaction of Degree Doctor of Design
Thesis in Satisfaction of the degree Doctor of Design.
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Discourse and Methods I
This course is open only to Ph.D. students in Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning and Design (Ph.D. students from other departments may participate with…
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Discourse and Research Methods
This pro-seminar is a core requirement for successful completion of the Doctor of Design program. Primarily, it will focus on various thematic areas that range…