Courses
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Second Semester Architecture Core: SITUATE
Jeffry Burchard, Tomás dePaor, Sean Canty, Iman Fayyad, Yasmin Vobis, Oana Stanescu, Patrick McCafferty
The overarching pedagogical agenda for second semester is to expand upon the design methodologies developed in the first semester such that students acquire an understanding…
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Fourth Semester Architecture Core: RELATE
Jon Lott, Jennifer Bonner, Michelle Chang, Jenny French, Alfredo Thiermann, Charlotte von Moos, Ron Witte, Nat Oppenheimer
The fourth and final semester of the core sequence, this architecture studio tackles the complexity of the urban condition through the design of housing.
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Collaborative Design Engineering Studio II
The spring studio builds upon theoretical and technical concepts already introduced in the MDE program with the emphasis on creative and critical thinking, observational and…
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The American Brick in Arcadia
‘The architect is a bricklayer who has studied Latin.’ – Adolf Loos‘Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together.’ – Ludwig Mies van…
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Intuition and the Machine
This studio combines the experience of a multi-year design research agenda with the fresh outlook of a collaborative design experiment. The purpose of the experiment…
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Midtown, Midrise, Mid-door
The studio will consider three recent and significant shifts in the design of collective housing in London: the viability and desirability of working from home;…
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BRIDGE WHERE YOU ARE: The Anamorphic Double
Uniquely called upon to embody purpose and beauty, bridges tend to be judged (more than any civic construction save the tower) on their singular object…
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Small institutions
Roger Tudó Galí, Josep Ricart Ulldemolins, Xavier Ros Majó
Inspired by Louis Kahn's passionate and enigmatic interest in institutions and their origins, the aim of this studio is to investigate the possibility of a…
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Fudo/Umwelt. Devising Transformative Environments in Japan
This studio is concerned with speculations (formal, material, social, cultural) on the future relations between architecture (design), people, and the city. The site of the…
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Temporary and Ephemeral Structures [M1]
In light of recent global turbulence generated by a series of crises – environmental, economic, political, social, and medical – architecture is once again challenged…
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Parkitecture at Pullman [M1]
The U.S. National Park Service (NPS) has struggled to tell the complex story of America and to reflect the country’s rich diversity. Despite recent progress…
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The Black New Deal [M1]
The Black New Deal Studio is a Design Justice course exploring the architecture made manifest as a result of privilege and power structures that define…
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Porches, Portals and Passageways [M2]
This studio will be the second in a series that explores the potential of a small scale municipal building to engage the urban and social…
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Cancel Architecture II [M2]
This studio continues the investigation of architectural consequences arising from the dismantlement of Confederate monuments presently under way in numerous cities across the United States.
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Underground [M2]
Instructors: Mira Henry and Matthew Au The studio will design two facades and a below level nightclub for an existing retail store along the western…
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FRINGE CITIES: The legacies and future of renewal in the small American city
Across the nation, small, post-industrial cities today occupy a critical boundary between our polarized metropolitan hubs and vast rural landscapes. These are the Fringe Cities.
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Quo Vadis, Addis? Manufacturing-led Urbanization in Ethiopia – Empower Design!
The studio ‘Quo Vadis, Addis?’ addresses the question of how to integrate existing manufacturing zones in the textile and garment sector within the socio-spatial fabric…
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Digital Media: Design Systems
The course is an introduction to fundamental concepts, methods, and practical techniques in design computation with emphasis on a systems perspective. We…
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Digital Media: Writing Form
This course offers an introduction to the field of design and computation through the essential pursuit of writing form. Setting aside the…
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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…
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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…
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Off: On a Tangent
“An art professor once told me that in composition, elements should either overlap or there should be some space between them; that…
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Views, With Rooms
Evolving theories on optics, over time and place, have created a set of objects that physically model vision. Each renders vision visible…
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Talking Architecture
What is the use of architects interviewing other architects? Of course, it is about camaraderie, sharing experiences, and providing support. But, if…
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Immersive Landscape: Representation through Gaming Technology
"Soon will come plausible alternatives to our world. You may have failed in this one but what if you had a million…
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Drawing for Designers 2: Human Presence and Appearance in Natural and Built Environment
The aim of the class is to learn how to depict and express the presence and appearance of people in natural and…
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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…
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Type and the Idea of the City: Architecture’s Search for what is Common
Open to all students, the seminars in this course will complement Option Studio 1318: Midtown, Midrise, Mid-door. It will equip students with…
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Experiments in Public Freedom
As places that accept and encourage multiple representations, cities need spaces to enable unregulated, temporary, and spontaneous events. Due to their role…
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Material Practice and its Agency
This seminar introduces an understanding of material discourse in design and architecture that affects cultural, social ,economic and political issues. In addition…
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Acoustic Space: A Media Archaeology of Building Types
This is a seminar on the past and present relationship between architecture, information technologies, and mass media. More than ever before, we…
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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,…
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Regarding an Archive
This will be the last course I will teach before retirement at the end of this academic year. Personally, it is an…
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Philosophy of Technology: From Marx and Heidegger to AI, Genome Editing, and Geoengineering (HKS)
Technology shapes how power is exercised in society, and thereby also changes how the present changes into the future. Technological innovation is all around us,…
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Buildings, Texts, and Contexts: Modernism and its Counter-Narratives
Lisa Haber-Thomson, K. Michael Hays
Modernism has fundamentally to do with the emergence of new kinds of objects and events and, at the same time, new conceptualizations of their appearance,…
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Rome
A seminar on the art, architecture, and urbanism of Rome where the layering of material artifacts from successive historical periods provides an…
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Cities, Infrastructures, and Politics: From Renaissance to Smart Technologies
Infrastructures play a decisive role in urban development and in the life of cities. This course will envisage this role from a…
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Case Studies in Conservation and Adaptive Reuse
Traditional conservation practice is increasingly proving inadequate to address the cultural, economic, social and environmental challenges facing the diverse array of buildings…
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The Ruin Aesthetic: Episodes in the History of an Architectural Idea
One of the arresting images in Michel Serres's Rome: The Book of Foundations is the idea that history is "a knot of different times" —…
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Rules for the Electronic Zoo: A Mediatechnics of the Neoliberal Present
Expanding outwards from a lecture bearing the same title, delivered in the spring of 2020, this course explores the technical and political composition of the…
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Architecture: Histories of the Present
“Poets and prophets, like magicians, learn their craft from predecessors. And just as magicians will invoke the real or supposed source of…
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History of the Art Museum
This seminar explores the development of the modern art museum as an architectural type, measured against the evolving nature of display objects, audience, urbanity, technology,…
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How Houses Build People (at FAS)
People build houses, but how do houses build people? This course will explore the house in both form and concept throughout pre-industrial Western history, with…
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Other(ed) Architecture: Coloniality, Subject, and Space
The aim of this seminar is to think critically about the authors and agents of architecture and the built environment. In examining relationships between ideological…
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Power & Place: Culture and Conflict in the Built Environment
This course studies and analyzes processes and expressions of power in urban form and design in the North American built environment. Focusing…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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The United States and China
The United States and China are global economic and military powers. They have a rich history of commerce, friendship, alliance, and antagonism. Both countries have…
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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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Building Simulation
This course is the third of four modules (6121, 6122, 6125, & 6125) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture…
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Materials
This course explores the science of stuff. How do we classify stuff? How do we build with stuff? What are the energy, health, and societal…
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Structural Design 1
This course introduces students to the analysis and design of structural systems. The fundamental principles of statics, structural loads, and rigid body equilibrium are considered…
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Cases in Contemporary Construction
As the final component in the required sequence of technology courses, this professionally-oriented course develops an integral understanding of the design and construction of…
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Product and Experience Design for Desirability (at SEAS)
Multi-disciplinary, project-based course for students interested in designing products, services, or ambitious art or educational works that are meaningful, beautiful, useful, as simple as possible,…
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Enactive Design: Creative Applications through Concurrent Human-Machine Interaction
Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo Lopez
Enactive Design is an advanced research seminar on human-computer interaction. We will explore the role of real-time, bidirectional communication between human and…
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Pre- and Post-
Pre- and Post– is an introduction to fundamental concepts, techniques, and methods in digital design, with a focus on the processes of…
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Constructing Heterogeneity
Contemporary buildings are inherently heterogeneous; more often than not they are assemblages of different materials, programs, and subjects. Although homogenous finish layers…
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Data Analysis and Data Physicalization through ‘Wagashi’ Expressions
Data Analysis and Data Physicalization is a research seminar that explores the analysis and communication of data. We use python as a…
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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…
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Informal Robotics / New Paradigms for Design & Construction
This course teaches how to create original robotic devices made of light, compliant – informal – materials. New fabrication techniques are transforming…
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Integrative Frameworks for Technology, Environment, and Society II
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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Non-Professional Practice
"I've never worked for a living. I consider working for a living slightly imbecilic from an economic point of view. I hope…
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Products of Practice: From code to plan to code
A research seminar that critically mines historic systems of representation, instrumentation, and the product (or media) of the architect in relationship to…
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Forms of Assembly (semester two)
"Forms of Assembly" is an advanced two semester research and project-based seminar initiated by Art, Design, and the Public Domain MDes, in…
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Geaugraphy
‘Neoliberalism’ has given globalization a bad name. But the ‘age’ after World War II has also produced ‘détente’ – ironic word – the disappearance of…
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Independent Study by Candidates for Master’s Degrees
Ann Forsyth, Mohsen Mostafavi, Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo Lopez, Paul Nakazawa, Lisa Haber-Thomson, Lily Song, Rosalea Monacella, Iman Fayyad, Hyojin Kwon, Allen Sayegh, Ewa Harabasz, Sharon Johnston, Joan Busquets, Jock Herron, Andrew Witt, Martin Bechthold, Karen Janosky, Preston Scott Cohen, Jacob Reidel, Alex Wall, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Gareth Doherty, David Gamble
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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Thesis project / Project Thesis
Andrew Holder, Jon Lott, Eric Howeler
As the culminating effort for the Master of Architecture degree, a “Thesis” entails multiple expectations. It is a demonstration, not only of competency and expertise…
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Independent Thesis in Satisfaction of Degree MArch
The Thesis Program encourages students to take advantage of the wide range of resources and research initiatives of the Graduate School of Design and its…
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Independent Thesis for the Degree Master in Design Studies
Abby Spinak, Jonathan Grinham, George Thomas, Ali Malkawi, Allen Sayegh, Ann Forsyth, Charles Waldheim, Chuck Hoberman, Danielle Choi, Diane Davis, Edward Eigen, Eric Howeler, Eve Blau, Gareth Doherty, Holly Samuelson, Jacob Reidel, Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo Lopez, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Lisa Haber-Thomson, Malkit Shoshan, Pablo Pérez-Ramos, Sarah M. Whiting, Sergio Lopez-Pineiro, Susan Snyder
(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 Design Engineering Project II
Mary Tolikas, Martin Bechthold
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
Ann Forsyth, Peter Rowe, Ali Malkawi
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 Extension in Satisfaction of Degree Doctor of Design
Martin Bechthold, Diane Davis, Neil Brenner, Ann Forsyth, Niall Kirkwood, Alex Krieger, Ali Malkawi, Erika Naginski, Antoine Picon, Peter Rowe, Charles Waldheim, Anita Berrizbeitia
Thesis extension in satisfaction of the degree Doctor of Design.
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Methods of Research in Art and Design: A Workshop-tutorial
Methods of Research is a workshop for the development of individual projects in art and design. There is no preset syllabus. Our…
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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
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…