Courses

Buildings, Texts, and Contexts III

Amanda Reeser Lawrence, Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani

This semester, Buildings, Texts, and Contexts III is structured as a special two-part course, taught by two different instructors. Section I: Modernism. The Canon and…

Making Sacred Space

Christine Smith

This course addresses the current crisis in church design by an in depth consideration of the ideas, images, concepts, and legislation that inform the creation…

Cities, Infrastructures, and Politics: From Renaissance to Smart Technologies

Antoine Picon

Infrastructures play a decisive role in urban development and in the life of cities. This course will envisage this role from a…

Competing Visions of Modernity in Japan

Seng Kuan

The course will trace the parallel trajectories of two of modern Japan’s most influential schools of architectural thought, represented by Kenzo Tange…

14 Things (A Secret History of Italian Design) (offered with FAS)

Jeffrey Schnapp

Fourteen Things explores intertwinings between design, science, technology, society, art, and culture by means of the “excavation” of fourteen objects from different…

Palladio and Raphael: An Innovative Learning Experience

Guido Beltramini, Howard Burns

Two leading scholars of the architecture of Andrea Palladio, Guido Beltramini and Howard Burns of the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio, Vicenza,…

Architecture’s Bodies: Agency and Biopolitics

Lisa Haber-Thomson

The aim of this seminar is to think carefully about how bodies engage with architecture and the built environment. In examining relationships…

Power & Place: Culture and Conflict in the Built Environment

George Thomas, Susan Snyder

This lecture/workshop course studies and analyzes processes and expressions of power in urban form and design in the North American built environment.

Climate Change Resilience and Adaptation

Jesse M. Keenan

Through the lens of climate change, this foundation course surveys the intellectual development of resilience and adaptation in the social, natural and…

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…

Developing for Social Impact

Matthew Kiefer, Sara Myerson

This field studies course will use a combination of readings, lectures, class discussion and a focused development exercise for a Boston site to explore…

Building Simulation

Ali Malkawi, Holly Samuelson

This course is the third of four modules (6121, 6122, 6125, & 6125) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture…

Materials

Jonathan Grinham

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…

Structural Design 1

Patrick McCafferty

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…

Cases in Contemporary Construction

Eric Howeler

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…

Design Survivor: Experiential Lessons in Designing for Desirability (at SEAS)

Beth Altringer

Multi-disciplinary course for students interested in designing products and services that are simple, irresistible, delightful, cool, covetable, viral, and, increasingly these days, much more likely…

Survey of Energy Technology (at SEAS)

Michael Aziz

Principles governing energy generation and interconversion. Current and projected world energy use. Selected important current and anticipated future technologies for energy generation, interconversion, storage, and…

Interface Design: Integrating Material Perceptions

Sawako Kaijima

The course explores the interface between architecture and engineering by examining our perceptions towards materials. Interdisciplinary research has gained interest in recent…

Building Human Interaction

Holly Samuelson

This course investigates the interactions between humans and buildings with a focus on environmental sustainability and health. The exploration will fall into…

Computational Design 2: Time/Design as Signal

Panagiotis Michalatos

In “computational design 1” we focused on space, its structure and representation within the realm of digital media. In this course we…

Mechatronic Optics

Andrew Witt

The drawing as a certain transcription of vision into operational, communicative, and instructional notation is at the very core of design. Deeply…

Informal Robotics / New Paradigms for Design & Construction

Chuck Hoberman

Today new materials and fabrication techniques are transforming the field of robotics. Rather than rigid metal parts connected by mechanical components, robots…

Tokyo Study Abroad Seminar

Mits Kanada

Enrollment in this course was pre-selected.

Integrative Frameworks for Technology, Environment, and Society II

Nabil Harfoush

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,…

Non-Professional Practice

Oana Stanescu

The course aims to study unconventional modes of architectural practice and their underlying implications. It is based on a workshop format,…

Designing with the Urban Stack: A Practice Course for Designers of the Built Environment

Paul Nakazawa

The seminar will investigate critical issues of the Urban Stack for the Kendall Square District, Cambridge, MA. The first half of…

Miami Resilience: Housing & Infrastructure

Jesse M. Keenan

This advanced research seminar in Miami, Florida (USA) is thematically focused at the intersection of community resilience, infrastructure design, housing studies, building science and zoning.

Entanglement of Movement and Meaning: The Architect, Spatial Perception and the Technological Body

Krzysztof Wodiczko, Ani Liu

One century ago, Schlemmer conducted a sequence of seminal experiments merging the body/design, movement/architecture, emotion/technology to break the relationships between body and…

Independent Study by Candidates for Master’s Degrees

Yusuke Obuchi, John May, Jerold S. Kayden, Joan Busquets, Niall Kirkwood, Steven Handel, Eric Howeler, Sawako Kaijima, Emily Wettstein, Stephen Gray, Danielle Choi, Teresa Gali Izard, John Peterson, Abby Spinak, Daniel D’Oca, Peter Rowe, Rosetta S. Elkin, Andres Sevtsuk, Rosalea Monacella, Jesse M. Keenan, Jennifer Molinsky, Ewa Harabasz, Tomás dePaor, Oana Stanescu, Mark Lee, K. Michael Hays, Rahul Mehrotra, Lily Song, Andrew Witt, Jennifer Bonner, Kayoko Ota, Antoine Picon, Jock Herron, Anita Berrizbeitia, Jon Lott, Remment Koolhaas, Martin Bechthold, Alice Friedman, Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez, Panagiotis Michalatos, Diane Davis, Richard Peiser, Ann Forsyth

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…

Thesis project / Project Thesis

Andrew Holder, Jon Lott, John McMorrough

As the culminating requirement of the Master in Architecture degree, “Thesis” entails multiple expectations. It is a demonstration, not only of competency…

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…

Independent Thesis for the Degree Master in Design Studies

John May

(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…

Independent Design Engineering Project II

Martin Bechthold, Mary Tolikas, Peter Stark

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…

Independent Study by Candidates for Doctoral Degrees

Niall Kirkwood, Ali Malkawi, Ann Forsyth

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.

Thesis Extension in Satisfaction of Degree Doctor of Design

Martin Bechthold, Anita Berrizbeitia, Neil Brenner, Joan Busquets, Mohsen Mostafavi, Richard Peiser, Antoine Picon, Peter Rowe, Charles Waldheim, Diane Davis

Thesis extension in satisfaction of the degree Doctor of Design.

Discourse and Methods I

Diane Davis, Neil Brenner

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

Martin Bechthold

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…

First Semester Architecture Core: PROJECT

Sean Canty, Jenny French, Elle Gerdeman, Lisa Haber-Thomson, Zeina Koreitem

Project is the first core studio of the four-semester sequence of the MArch I program. With a multiplicity of references, Project may refer to fundamental…

Third Semester Architecture Core: INTEGRATE

Jon Lott, Grace La, John May, Jay Siebenmorgen, Oana Stanescu, Belinda Tato

Integration is the agenda for the third semester architecture design studio. Architecture is fundamentally a part-to-whole problem, involving the complex integration of building components, systems…

Collaborative Design Engineering Studio I (with SEAS)

Andrew Witt, Jock Herron, Peter Stark

The first year Collaborative Design Engineering Studio runs for two semesters, and this year will address the theme of “mobility”. The first semester focuses on…

UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA: Living Post-Work

Annabelle Selldorf

Today, at an unprecedented rate, new technologies and global networks (underground, in space, in the cloud) are transforming the ways in which we understand and…

Dwelling / Garden / Being, Suzhou

Zhang Ke

“Poetically man dwells on this earth”, the phrase by Hölderlin inspired Heidegger to write an essay entitled “Building Dwelling Thinking”, in which he reveals how…

The House: The Waken Desire

Tatiana Bilbao, Iwan Baan

“An old house, a shadowy porch, tiles, a crumbling Arab decoration, a man sitting against the Wall, a deserted Street, a Mediterranean tree: this…

On Health II: Amsterdam Health Kitchen

Ben van Berkel, Christian Veddeler

The widespread emphasis on healthy living and the demand for creating environments, cities and buildings accordingly has aligned with the ongoing integration of technology into…

Natural Monument

Mauricio Pezo, Sofia von Ellrichshausen

It would be deceiving to claim a return to nature since there has never been a real departure from it. Buildings complete nature as…

An American Plan

Kersten Geers, David Van Severen

This is the first of a series of studios focusing on American Architecture. The research will happen sideways. Not through analysis of local phenomena,…

reCYCLO: Architectures of Waste

Caroline O’Donnell

Human beings have traditionally built enclosures from close-to-hand materials: tents from animal hides in the desert, log cabins in forests, stone huts in rocky areas,…

Architecture as a Tool to Improve Lives: Development of a Day Care Centre for Rohingya Children

Anna Heringer

For decades, construction in the context of international aid has predominantly followed a specific pattern: foreign organizations erect their structures, made of industrialized and…

Soft Spaces

Simon Frommenwiler, Simon Hartmann, Tilo Herlach

Architectural design has to deal increasingly with given and inflexible concepts describing separation of functions, perimeters and areas of control. The three-year HHF Option Studio…

New Formations for the Social Metropolis

Alison Brooks

This studio will explore housing architecture’s latent potential to transform the global project of urbanisation to one of productivity, inclusivity, hybridity and resilience. We…