Courses
-
Writing and Urban Life (at FAS)
In this seminar we will study representations of urban experience, and how the evolution of cities has been shaped by writing. Each week will pair…
-
Urban Grids: Open form for City Design-2
The historic evolution of the city can be tied to “regular systems” that have allowed for rational forms of development, which can…
-
Modern Architecture and Urbanism in China
Contrary to many interpretations, by the early Qing Dynasty some modern traits, in the accepted Western sense of modernity, had entered China…
-
Urbanization and Development
This course examines the relationship between urbanization and development, paying close attention to the ways that public and private sector priorities, legal frameworks, land use…
-
Environment, Economics, and Enterprise
Holly Samuelson, Frank Apeseche
This course blends two shades of green: sustainability and money. It focuses on the intersection between environmental and social opportunities in the…
-
Community Development: History, Theory, and Imaginative Practice
Community development is a heterogeneous and contested field of planning thought and practice. The profession has generally prioritized people and places that…
-
Experimental Infrastructures
Infrastructure is an encompassing term that can refer to anything from railroad ties to social media to ecosystems, and one which has…
-
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…
-
Developing for Social Impact
How can real estate development advance social purpose while accounting for development feasibility? With increasing purposefulness, those involved in shaping the…
-
CoDesign Field Lab Black Belt Study for the Green New Deal
Biden’s historic win in Georgia, along with the disproportionate impacts of COVID and heightening vulnerability to climate change, bring into clear relief…
-
Local Government Solutions to America’s Affordable Rental Housing Challenge
Christopher Herbert, James Stockard, Bennett Hecht
There are more than 10 million renters who are severely housing cost burdened – spending more than 50% of their income on…
-
Hidden Figures: The City, Architecture and the Construction of Race and Gender
What hidden figures do our buildings and urban environment conceal? There exists systematic erasure of the contributions of Women of Color…
-
Architectures of the New Silk Road
Sino-African Infrastructure-led Urbanization – Deficits and Potentials China’s Belt and Road Initiative can be considered one of the largest and possibly most…
-
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’…
-
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…
-
Discourse and Research Methods
Research conducted in the Doctor of Design Program (DDes) at the GSD spans a broad range of topics and areas of investigation that not only…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Race, Power, and Resistance in the City
The police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black Americans, as well as the racial health disparities highlighted by the…
-
Urban Governance and the Politics of Planning in the Developing World
This course starts from the premise that politics and governance arrangements can both enable and constrain effective urban planning action. Using a…
-
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…
-
Urban Form: Transition as Condition
The fixed categories by which we have traditionally understood the urban no longer hold. They have been undermined by the multiplicity of…
-
Urban Grids: Open form for City Design-2
Framework: Within a larger research scope on “Revisiting the urban grids in the XXI century”, this seminar will focus on the investigation…
-
Modern Architecture and Urbanism in China
Modernizing influences, largely from the hands of foreign powers, first forcefully entered China in the aftermath of the Opium War and signing…
-
Conservation, Destruction, and Curating Impermanence
“History is what hurts.” -Fredric Jameson. This course deals with the political dimension of architectural, urban, and landscape conservation and aims to…
-
Global Perspectives on Shelter Insecurity and Displacement
This course examines the drivers of, and responses to, global shelter insecurity and displacement. It addresses these issues in both the Global…
-
Environment, Economics, and Enterprise
Holly Samuelson, Frank Apeseche
How can one optimize the benefits of environmental or social sustainability while generating a higher return on investment in buildings? Where are…
-
Community Development: History, Theory, and Imaginative Practice
Community development is a heterogeneous and contested field of planning thought and practice. The profession has generally prioritized people and places that…
-
Developing for Social Impact
How can real estate development advance social purpose while accounting for development feasibility? With increasing urgency, those involved in shaping the…
-
CoDesign Field Lab: Program Evaluation for Change Leadership
CoDesign Field Lab is a project-based research seminar (4 units) in which GSD students will work directly with Boston-based community, civic, and…
-
Queer Spaces
How do queer populations form communities and locate those communities in urban space? How do urban governance structures support and/or regulate these…
-
Local Government Solutions to America’s Affordable Rental Housing Challenge
Christopher Herbert, James Stockard, Bennett Hecht
There are 10.9 million renters who are severely housing cost burdened – spending more than 50% of their income on shelter. The…
-
Public Space
In a digital age, does physical public space matter? Tahrir Square, the streets of Hong Kong, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Zuccotti Park, Madrid Rio, and other…
-
Discourse and Research Methods
Research conducted in the Doctor of Design Program (DDes) at the GSD spans a broad range of topics and areas of investigation that not only…
-
Discourse and Methods II
This seminar serves as an introduction to prevalent critical approaches and methodologies in the history and theory of the design disciplines. The focus will be…
-
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…
-
Experimental Infrastructures
Infrastructure is an encompassing term that can refer to anything from railroad ties to social media to ecosystems, and one which has…
-
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…
-
Action Research for Open Public Realms
"The best way to understand something is to try and change it."—Kurt Lewin Action researchers work with partner communities to define…
-
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…
-
The Spatial Politics of Land: A Comparative Perspective
This course focuses on the deeply contested and political nature of land-use planning. Some would argue that land-use planning is the bread…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Interdisciplinary Art and Design Practices
The Interdisciplinary Art and Design Practices Seminar investigates art and design work in the interdisciplinary modalities of contemporary culture and the city. As artists and…
-
Urban Form: Transition as Condition
The fixed categories by which we have traditionally understood the urban no longer hold. They have been undermined by the multiplicity of…
-
Place-Based Design Inquiry
This workshop will critically and imaginatively engage design that is already embedded in the language of place—in maps, ecologies, histories, films, policies, plans, and everyday…
-
Emergent Urbanizations: Challenges for Theory, Method, and Research
Neil Brenner, Sai Balakrishnan
This course proceeds from a simple premise: new patterns and pathways of urbanization are emerging around the world, and these transformations require a radical rethinking…
-
Urban Grids: Open form for City Design-2
Framework: Within a larger research scope on “Revisiting the urban grids in the XXI century”, this seminar will focus on the investigation…
-
Modern Architecture and Urbanism in China
Modernizing influences, largely from the hands of foreign powers, first forcefully entered China in the aftermath of the Opium War and signing…
-
Environment, Economics, and Enterprise
Holly Samuelson, Frank Apeseche
How can one optimize the benefits of environmental or social sustainability while generating a higher return on investment in buildings? Where are…