Courses
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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 of origins and qualities.
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Architectural Representation II
Architectural Representation II: Projective Disciplines This course examines the history, theory, and practice of projective and descriptive geometry. Invented as techniques to draw form, these…
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Spatial Analysis and the Built Environment
David Gamble, Carole Voulgaris
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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Digital Media: Manipulations
This course is an introduction to fundamental concepts, techniques, and methods in digital design with a focus on reciprocal processes of translation…
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Digital Media: Composition
This course proposes a conceptual opposition between “filter” and “fill” to investigate the ways image analysis techniques augment topics in architectural composition.
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Landscape Representation III: Landform and Ecological Process
Craig Douglas, Seth Denizen, Rosalea Monacella
“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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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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Domestic Architecture: (Groups of Residences)
The categories listed below do not imply any particular order. I tend to teach everything every time. Theories in GeneralTheories with AdjectivesResidential versus…
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History and Theory of Urban Interventions
Susan Fainstein, Norman Fainstein
This course uses historical and analytical readings and case studies to address several major theoretical questions concerning the aims and outcomes of urban interventions. The…
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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 historian Rudolf Wittkower called…
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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 in the histories of landscape architecture. In general terms, it takes the form of a…
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Authority and Invention: Medieval Art and Architecture
This course covers masterworks of art and architecture in Western Europe from the decline of Rome to the dawn of the Italian…
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Structuring Urban Experience: From the Athenian Acropolis to the Boston Common
This lecture course examines selected cities between the 5th century BC and the 17th century AD, beginning with ancient Athens and ending…
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One Century of Modernization in Latin America: 1880-1980
This course focuses on how the processes of modernization in Latin America affected the fields of architecture and landscape design as well…
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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, Alex Krieger, Farès el-Dahdah
“Cities by Design I” is concerned with in-depth longitudinal examination of urban conditions in and among selected cities in the world. The broad aims are:…
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Field Studies in Real Estate, Urban Planning and Design
Minneapolis Riverfront & Medford Urban Mixed-Use Redevelopment This field study course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the dynamics and complexities of…
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Policy Making in Urban Settings (at HKS)
This course is an introduction to policymaking in American cities, focusing on economic, demographic, institutional, and political settings. It examines economic development and job growth…
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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 of Urban Planning: Qualitative
How can planners understand places in a rich, meaningful, and yet systematic way? This module examines how qualitative approaches can be used…
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Transportation Policy and Planning (at HKS)
This course provides an overview of the issues involved in transportation policy and planning as well as an introduction to the skills necessary for solving the…
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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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Contemporary Developing Countries: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Intractable Problems (at FAS)
This course will provide a framework (and multiple lenses) through which to think about the salient economic and social problems of the five billion people…
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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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Green Cities: Health and Environmental Planning
How are health and environmental planning actually done? Solution-oriented, this class focuses on key areas where physical planning and associated programs and policies…
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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…
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Principles of Collective Learning (at SEAS)
How do teams, cities, and nation learn? How do they acquire the knowledge they need to improve their capacities, or enter new activities? This course…
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Built Environment, Human Energy Expenditure and Public Health (at HSPH)
At the completion of this course, students will have an understanding of different built environments and human energy expenditure in those environments. As two examples,…
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Market Analysis and Urban Economics
This course examines contemporary real estate trends and cycles. It introduces students to the concepts, models, and methods used to analyze how…
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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: –…
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Environmental Systems 2
Purpose: This course is the second of a two-module sequence in building technology (6121, 6122) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture. Objective:…
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Construction Systems
This course introduces students to construction systems with the ambition to shape the perception of a designer’s agency in relationship to them. An overview…
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Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies I
Teresa Gali Izard, Matthew Cunningham, Doug Reed
This course is an introduction to understanding plants, from unmanaged plant communities to managed living structures. Through field visits, observation, lectures, short…
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Structural Design II
Martin Bechthold, Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo Lopez
This course is a continuation of GSD 6227 and completes the introduction to the analysis and design of building structures. Both 6227 and 6229 are…
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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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Computer Vision (at SEAS)
This course explores vision as an ill-posed inverse problem: image formation, two-dimensional signal processing; feature analysis; image segmentation; color, texture, and shading; multiple-view geometry; object…
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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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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 planning,…
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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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Foundations of Practice
Jeffry Burchard, Gregg Garmisa, Timothy R. Twomey
For students in the fifth semester of the MArch I degree program, this course examines models and issues that define contemporary professional practice. Requiring students…
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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
How should we practice today? Since World War II, a series of paradigm shifts have significantly altered the relationships that had been…
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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 over the past half…
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Elements of the Urban Stack
Paul Nakazawa, Elizabeth Christoforetti
Where does our agency as designers of the built environment lie in current practice? As urban projects grow in complexity, swelling and…
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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, critiques of…