Courses
-
Architecture of Peace
We live in an increasingly unstable world, where internal conflicts have become increasingly internationalized, sectarian violence ravages cities and communities, and terrorist…
-
Healthy Places
The connection between health, well-being, and place is a complex one with many dimensions. This class focuses on four topics that will…
-
The Spatial Politics of Land: A Comparative Perspective
This course focuses on the deeply contested and political processes of land-use planning, i.e. of allocating land amongst different, often competing uses,…
-
There Goes the Neighborhood: Perceptions and Realities of Neighborhoods and Neighborhood Change
Gentrification and the real and perceived impacts this form of neighborhood change has on longtime local residents (typically black folks) as well as new dwellers,…
-
Public Space
In an age of digital empire, people will reflect on 2011 as the year in which physical public space reclaimed its lofty status in the public sphere.
-
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…
-
Doctoral Program Proseminar
This pro-seminar is one way of fulfilling a requirement for successful completion of the Doctor of Design program. Primarily, it will focus on various thematic…
-
Type and the Idea of the City
Open to all students, the seminars in this course will compliment Option Studio 1508: The Factory and the City. It will provide the theoretical…
-
Urban Grids: Open form for City Design
Framework: Within a larger research scope on “Revisiting the urban grids in the XXI century”, this seminar will focus on the…
-
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 of the…
-
Cities by Design II: Projects, Processes, and Outcomes
Cities evolve through a complex layering and re-layering of projects, processes, and outcomes. Cities by Design II introduces students to a range of contexts that…
-
Urbanization and International Development
This course interrogates the relationship between urbanization and development. One of the main objectives of the course is to move beyond seeing cities in…
-
Design for the Just City
In “The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger”, Dr. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett present a compelling set of data illustrating that material…
-
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 the opportunities…
-
Creating Real Estate Ventures: a Legal Perspective
The course will examine how a commercial real estate deal is put together to move a project from conception to completion. The course will…
-
Urban Theory Lab Research Practicum: ‘Operational Landscapes’ of Planetary Urbanization
This research practicum is part of an ongoing series of courses which develops the research agenda of the Urban Theory Lab-GSD (UTL-GSD)—namely, to investigate the…
-
Living in the Kinetic City: Mapping Housing in a Landscape of Flux, Mumbai
Increasing concentrations of global flows have exacerbated the inequalities and spatial divisions of social classes in Mumbai. In this context, the creation of an…
-
SURPLUS HOUSING: Models of Collective Living in South America.
Housing as typology is one of the richest representations of a city’s history and evolution of culture. The gradual collection of dwellings in multiple…
-
Genome of the Built Environment: Measuring the Unseen
The built environment is one of the most fascinating yet enigmatic artifact of the human being. We perceive it as a complex entity resulting…
-
Discourse and Methods II
This is one of two seminars fulfilling a requirement for successful completion of the PHD curriculum. The seminar is designed as an introduction to canonical…
-
Interdisciplinary Art Practices
The Interdisciplinary Art Practices seminar investigates the exploratory character of art and design work in the interdisciplinary modalities of the contemporary culture. In the present…
-
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…
-
Reconceptualizing the Urban: Berlin as Laboratory
Berlin is the site of new regional and cultural interactions in a reconfigured post-industrial and post-socialist Europe. The research seminar is concerned with the…
-
Staging the City: Urban Form and Public Life in Istanbul
This course will explore the relationship between urban form and public life in early modern and modern Istanbul. Staging the city’s emerging spatial practices…
-
Healthy Places
Can the way places are planned and designed improve health? It seems obvious that there is such a link between environments and health but…
-
Community Action Planning: Principles and Practices
This course is an introduction to the theories, principles, processes and practices of Community Action Planning (CAP), as well as its underlying tools and…
-
Design, Development, and Democracy in the Future City
This course will meet for the first time on Tuesday, September 1st from 9 am – 12 pm in room 510. This…
-
Deciding Interventions in Urban Development: A Practical Guide to Strategic Design
This course offers guidelines for deciding interventions in Urban Development, given conflicting and often competing needs and aspirations amongst stakeholders. Its objectives are threefold:…
-
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 districts’ in…
-
The Spatial Politics of Land: A Comparative Perspective
This course focuses on the deeply contested and political processes of land-use planning, i.e. of allocating land amongst different, often competing uses, and the…
-
Urban Design Trajectories: Perspectives on Practice
Urban Design, as a professional discipline, has not existed for nearly as long as architecture, landscape architecture, or urban planning, though it has been…
-
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…
-
Doctoral Program Proseminar
This pro-seminar is one way of fulfilling a requirement for successful completion of the Doctor of Design program. Primarily, it will focus on various thematic…
-
The Subject and the City
This seminar takes as its premise that a history and theory of the city cannot be known without an accompanying history and theory of the…
-
Urban Grids: Score for Designing the City: Seminal Projects
Framework: Within a larger research scope on “Revisiting the urban grids in the XXI century”, this seminar will focus on the investigation of…
-
Berlin Study Abroad Seminar: Plattenbau vs. the New Communal. Mass Housing, Alternative Dwelling Models, and a theory of Shared Spaces in Germany
With equal emphasis on historical and theoretical analysis, this seminar investigates the potential offered by various forms of historic alternative dwelling, and new ways to…
-
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 of the Treaty…
-
Berlin Study Abroad Seminar: The Urban Architecture of Berlin: From Schinkel to the Present
After abstract modernist planning lost contact with the physical aspects of the built environment, we returned to looking at the city at the scale of…
-
Territorial Intelligence in Landscapes of Production
In this millennium of intense urbanization, design and its value will strengthen around the assurance of data gathering and its argumentation as evidence of complex…
-
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 the opportunities for…
-
Territorial Organization Beyond Agglomeration: Towards an Atlas of the Global Hinterland
This research seminar starts with an understanding of urbanization as a process of generalized territorial organization where cities, metropolises, megalopolises are the focal points in…
-
20th Century African Cities
General Context Most capital cities in Africa were designed and built during European colonization. Although capital cities were originally modest in size, they were…
-
Research Seminar on New Towns in China
This research seminar is the first phase of a 2 1/2 year research project on new towns sponsored by the China Vanke Co. Vanke is…
-
Livelihoods and Urban Form: Mumbai in a Comparative Perspective
Small-scale manufacturing in workshops and homes, small-scale trading on street corners or makeshift markets, car guarding, waste collecting, among a myriad of informal activities, is…
-
SURPLUS HOUSING: Models of Collective Living in South America.
Housing as typology is one of the richest representations of a city’s history and evolution of culture. The gradual collection of dwellings in multiple forms…
-
REAL: Genome of the Built Environment: Measuring the Unseen
The built environment is one of the most fascinating yet enigmatic artifact of the human being. We perceive it as a complex entity resulting from…
-
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…
-
Planning for Conservation: Urban South Asia Research Seminar
This seminar looks to urban conservation strategies to explore issues concerning contemporary urbanism in South Asia. The course aims to bring together the contingent nature…