Courses
-
Integrative Frameworks for Technology, Environment, and Society II
In the spirit of Herbert Simon, Frameworks engages diverse but complementary disciplines, perspectives and techniques to help identify, diagnose and constructively address consequential social challenges,…
-
Giography
Neoliberalism has given globalization a bad name. But the age after World War II has also produced détente – ironic word – the disappearance of…
-
Thesis project / Project Thesis
Andrew Holder, Eric Howeler, Jon Lott
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…
-
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.
-
Architectural Representation II
Architectural Representation II: Projective Disciplines Course Summary This course examines systems of projection as constructs that mediate between our spatial imagination and built form. Projective…
-
Digital Media: Models
This course is an introduction to fundamental concepts, techniques, and methods related to digital media in architecture and design, with a focus…
-
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…
-
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,…
-
Buildings, Texts, and Contexts: Origins and Ends
In the first semester of the Buildings, Texts, and Contexts sequence, our goal is to address architecture in the context of the general rupture caused…
-
Michelangelo Architect: Precedents, Innovation, Influence
An exploration of Italian Renaissance architecture and urbanism through the persona of Michelangelo as witness, agent, and inspiration. We look at architecture…
-
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…
-
Competing Visions of Modernity in Japan
The course will trace the parallel trajectories of two of modern Japan’s most influential schools of architectural thought, represented by Kenzo Tange…
-
Architecture and Construction: From the Vitruvian Tradition to the Digital
The course aims to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between architecture and construction through the study of key historical…
-
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: –…
-
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:…
-
Construction Systems
This course introduces students to methods of construction: conceptually, historically, and practically. We will consider how construction techniques emerge in relation to architectural desires and…
-
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…
-
Innovation in Science and Engineering: Conference Course (at SEAS)
The course explores factors and conditions contributing to innovation in science and engineering; how important problems are found, defined, and solved; roles of teamwork and…
-
Computer Vision (at SEAS)
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 and scene recognition;…
-
Introduction to Computational Design
Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo Lopez
#GSD6338 is an introductory course on Computational Design, with a particular focus on architecture, landscape and urbanism. In this course, we…
-
Interface Design: Integrating Material Perceptions
The course explores the interface between architecture and engineering by examining our perceptions towards materials. Interdisciplinary research has gained interest in recent…
-
Confronting Climate Change: A Foundation in Science, Technology and Policy
This course will consider the challenge of climate change and what to do about it. Students will be introduced to the basic science of climate…
-
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…
-
Integrative Frameworks for Technology, Environment, and Society I
In the spirit of Herbert Simon, Frameworks engages diverse but complementary perspectives and techniques to identify, diagnose and constructively address consequential social challenges, sometimes referred…
-
Frameworks of Practice
How should we practice today? The discipline, the profession, and the practice of architecture are invented and designed things. And the roles, relationships, protocols, and…
-
Elements of the Urban Stack
The Urban Stack is a pedagogical framework for understanding the infrastructures of power that operate in relationship to practice. These constructs shape…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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,…
-
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,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Building Simulation
This course is the third of four modules (6121, 6122, 6125, & 6125) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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,…
-
Geaugraphy
‘Neoliberalism’ has given globalization a bad name. But the ‘age’ after World War II has also produced ‘détente’ – ironic word – the disappearance of…
-
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.
-
Architectural Representation II
Architectural Representation II: Projective Disciplines This course examines systems of projection as constructs that mediate between our spatial imagination and built form. Projective systems have…
-
Digital Media: Telepresence
Telepresence refers to a set of technologies that provide stimuli to a user’s senses, so that the person feels as if they are present or…
-
Digital Media: Artifacts
This course is an introduction to fundamental concepts, techniques, and methods related to digital media in architecture and design, with a focus…
-
Building, Texts, and Contexts: Between Origins and Modernity: 18th- and 19th-Century Architecture
Any account of architecture’s history over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries is faced with the challenge of addressing the general rupture caused…
-
Architecture and Construction: From the Vitruvian Tradition to the Digital
The course aims to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between architecture and construction through the study of key historical…
-
Justice: Ethics in an Age of Pandemic and Racial Reckoning (at FAS)
What is a just society? What do we owe one another as citizens? What is a good life? These questions, long debated by philosophers, arise…
-
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: –…
-
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:…