Courses

A Line in the Andes: Rethinking Quito through its sub-surface

Felipe Correa

This option studio examines how the introduction of a new metro transit system can serve as the backbone for the development of more comprehensive urban…

REDISCOVERING GLORiES

Benedetta Tagliabue

Our studio in Barcelona is an ‘atelier` which for us contains a program balancing between those existing in a professional office and those of a…

Drawing in the City of Rome

Jennifer Riley

While this course takes place in Italy after the end of the Spring semester, it is technically a fall course and units will apply to…

Responsive Environments: DISAPPEARANCE

Allen Sayegh, Nashid Nabian

This course focuses on creating digitally driven interactive experiences in our built environment derived from technological advances in embedded technologies, smart materials, and body-centric interactive…

Intermediate Landscape as Digital Media

David Mah

The course will focus on digital modeling and representational tools for designers. Through the course, students will gain knowledge of digital design media and tools…

Superficial Spaces

George L. Legendre

At a time when architectural discourse and practice are brimming with references to new geometries, this offering investigates the architectural potential of abstract three-dimensional surfaces.

Immersive Environments II

Christopher Hoxie

This is an advanced seminar exploring the spatial temporal qualities of the built environment through the disciplines of still and moving image.  This seminar…

Preservation Media Project: The Hatch Cottage

Christopher Hoxie, Mark Mulligan

In 1960 John Hall, a self-taught architect, designed and built a modest yet innovative summer cottage for Robert Hatch, a magazine editor, and his wife…

Behind Todays Architectural Trends

Rafael Moneo

The Function of Style: 2000-2010

Farshid Moussavi, Jonathan Scelsa

During the 19th and most of the 20th century, discussions of style revolved around pure formalism or pure functionalism. Style, as the way of assembling…

Feeling and Form

Sanford Kwinter

Course will explore problems of perception of space and time and the structures of experience. We will look at historical modernist forms of experiment and…

The Mixed-Reality City

Jesse Shapins

The contemporary city is constituted by multiple overlapping, intermixing realities, articulated between built form and imagined space, individuated experience and collective memory, embodied sensation and…

Buildings, Texts, and Contexts II

Erika Naginski, Antoine Picon

 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…

Frames of Mind: Approaches to Film Theory

Giuliana Bruno

Introduction to the language of film theory aimed at developing analytic skills to interpret films. Historical survey of classical and contemporary theory beginning with turn-of-the-century…

Rome and St. Peters

Christine Smith

The art and architecture of Rome from Antiquity to Modernity with particular attention to the Vatican, where the layering of material artifacts from successive historical…

Michelangelo: Precedents, Innovations, Influence

Christine Smith

An exploration of Italian Renaissance architecture and urbanism through the persona of Michelangelo as witness, agent, and inspiration. We look at architecture and urbanism in…

Visual Fabrics: Film, Fashion and Material Culture

Giuliana Bruno

What is the place of materiality in our virtual world? How do film and fashion communicate as objects of material culture? As powerful image makers,…

Architecture as Global Practice: Expert Culture in the Cold War

Lukasz Stanek

This seminar focuses on the transfer of architectural knowledge from the socialist East and the capitalist West towards the post-colonial South during the…

Refolding the Baroque

K. Michael Hays, Erika Naginski

Misshapen pearl or postmodernist morphology? Stylistic category or generative design principle? Historically-grounded worldview or radical aesthetic credo? The panoply of Baroque concepts in architectural design…

Case Studies in Critical Conservation: Architecture and Urban Design

K. Michael Hays, Rahul Mehrotra

Case studies in the conservation of selected buildings and city fabrics presented by experts in the field provide the focus for discussions of contemporary conservation…

Metabolic Toyko (Tokyo Study Abroad Seminar)

Ken Tadashi Oshima

Tokyo has been rebuilt numerous times through its history following natural disasters, war and intensive development. Most recently, the profound strains on the Japanese urban…

The Archeology of Civic Sustenance: Sea-Side Developments in the Gulf

Andreas Georgoulias

This sponsored-research seminar will address sustainable urban development at the onset of industrial revolution. Going beyond just documenting passive environmental design strategies, the very notion…

Materials, Constructions, Processes

Eric Howeler, Carl Solander

The course introduces a conceptual framework for the design of building assemblies, as informed by a clear understanding of construction technologies and of the properties…

Environmental Technologies in Buildings

Kiel Moe

The primary focus of this course is the study of the thermal, luminous and acoustic behavior of buildings in an architectural context. The course examines…

Analysis and Design of Building Structures II

Martin Bechthold

A continuation of GSD 6201, this course provides students with an enhanced understanding of structural analysis and engineering design concepts. Students learn the fundamentals of…

Innovative Construction in Japan

Mark Mulligan

Modern Japanese architecture has been much admired in the West for its attention to materials, its refined construction details, and its ability to…

In Search of Design through Engineers

Hanif Kara, Andreas Georgoulias

This course aims to teach, stimulate and demonstrate \”design led\” opportunities that exist in the zone between Architecture and Engineering, through the paradigm of Design…

Sustainability

Matthias Schuler

Prerequisite: GSD 6205 or equivalent Course description: Based on basic information form the background lectures the application of a sustainable approach into a…

(Re)fabricating Tectonic Prototypes

Leire Asensio Villoria

The course is framed by a general ambition to develop explorations in digital design, fabrication and parametric tools that is equally informed and enriched by…

Optimizations

Panagiotis Michalatos

Optimization in design problems is elusive due to the inherent multiplicity and ambiguity of the optimal for real world problems. However partial optimization of specific…

Advanced Fabrication

John Nastasi, Rachel Vroman

Digital fabrication techniques have long been a critical component of the GSD culture. Building on methods and capabilities developed in 6317: Introduction to CAD/CAM and…

Forms of Energy

Kiel Moe

Few words can transform the formation of architecture in this century more than a deep and pervasive recognition that matter is but an expression of…

Quantitative Aesthetics: The Environment as a Signal

Panagiotis Michalatos

This course will explore the application of digital media and computational techniques in analysing the sensible aspects of our environment in both their spatial and…

Mechatronic Space

Mariana Ibanez, Simon Kim

The beginning of the 20th century promised a paradigm shift in human life and community as industry and innovation in engineering and science brought about…

Visualization

Hanspeter Pfister

The amount and complexity of information produced in science, engineering, business, and everyday human activity is increasing at staggering rates. The goal of this…

Issues in Architectural Practice and Ethics

Maryann Thompson, Jay Wickersham

This course, for students in the fourth semester of the M.Arch I program, examines basic issues arising in contemporary architectural practice. The course challenges the students to examine critically…

Real Estate Development, Design, and Construction

John Macomber, A. Eugene Kohn, Christopher Gordon

Jointly Listed at Harvard Business School as HBS 1465 General Notes: GSD students should register for this course as GSD 7409.The course GSD 7309,…

Leading the Design Firm

Brian Kenet, Richard Jennings

This course introduces students to the business side of the design industry. It highlights the ways in which a design firm is a business like…

Bibliotheca II: The Library Test Kitchen

Jeffrey Schnapp, Jeff Goldenson

Note: Dual enrollment in 09115 Bibliotheca II and Moneo’s 03211 Behind Todays Architectural Trends is possible. Bibibliotheca II: Library Test Kitchen builds off the…

Evolutionary Productions (Tokyo Study Abroad Seminar)

Yusuke Obuchi

The objective of this seminar is to exam the evolutionary development of Japanese craft culture and production processes through the lens of tools employed to…

Independent Study by Candidates for Master’s Degrees

Daniel D’Oca, Neil Brenner, Panagiotis Michalatos, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Michael Hooper, David Mah, Jeffrey Schnapp, Pierre Bélanger, Iñaki Abalos, Ciro Najle, Ken Tadashi Oshima, Eric Howeler, Ingeborg Rocker, Timothy Hyde, Andreas Georgoulias, Andrea Hansen, Charles Waldheim, Gareth Doherty, Sanford Kwinter, Chris Reed, Felipe Correa, Eve Blau, Bing Wang, Allen Sayegh, Joan Busquets, K. Michael Hays, Peter Rowe, James Stockard, Mark Mulligan, Maryann Thompson, Richard Peiser, Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez, A. Hashim Sarkis, Niall Kirkwood, Peter Del Tredici, Martin Bechthold

Students may take a maximum of 8 credit units with different instructors in this course series.Prerequisites: Graduate standing. Candidates may arrange individual work focusing on…

Independent Study on Multi-Cultural Design Environments (Summer course)

Independent Study…

Independent Thesis for the Degree Master in Design Studies

Richard Peiser, Neil Brenner, Joyce Klein-Rosenthal, Pierre Bélanger, Christoph Reinhart, Rahul Mehrotra, Timothy Hyde, Andreas Georgoulias, Sanford Kwinter, Kiel Moe, Eve Blau, Peter Rowe, K. Michael Hays, Mohsen Mostafavi, Martin Bechthold, Allen Sayegh, Panagiotis Michalatos

A student who selects this independent thesis for the degree Master in Design Studies pursues independent research of relevance to the selected course of study…

Master of Design Studies Final Project

K. Michael Hays, Neil Brenner, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Jeffrey Schnapp, Erika Naginski, Sanford Kwinter

The Final Project will consist of a theoretical/position component, and of a practical/experimental component. The scope of each of the two components will be determined…

Preparation of Doctoral Thesis Proposal

Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez, Charles Waldheim, Martin Bechthold, A. Hashim Sarkis, Peter Rowe, Spiro Pollalis, Anita Berrizbeitia

Under faculty guidance, the student conducts a reading program and formulates a thesis proposal. The course is intended for doctoral students.

Thesis in Satisfaction of the Degree Doctor of Design

Richard Peiser, Charles Waldheim, A. Hashim Sarkis, Peter Rowe, Anita Berrizbeitia, Martin Bechthold, Christoph Reinhart, Spiro Pollalis

Under guidance of a faculty committee, the student conducts investigations and prepares a doctoral thesis.

Discourse and Methods

Timothy Hyde

The seminar is designed as an introduction to the methodologies and disciplines that have shaped the field of architectural history and theory. We will probe…

First Semester Core: Introduction to Design and Visual Studies in Architecture

Ingeborg Rocker, Preston Scott Cohen, Elizabeth Whittaker, Cameron Wu, Kiel Moe, Mariana Ibanez, Yael Erel

Prerequisites: Enrollment in MArch I program.The first of a four-semester sequence of design studios introduces students to the practice of architectural design, discussing the theoretical…

Third Semester Core: Architectural Design

Eric Howeler, Maryann Thompson, Jonathan Levi, Vincent Bandy, Florian Idenburg, Danielle Etzler

Prerequisites: GSD 1101 and GSD 1102, or advanced standing in the MArch I program. The third of a four-semester sequence of design studios brings together…

Itinerant Architecture

Toshiko Mori

The world we live in today is complex, afflicted with various risks and instabilities. This is particularly true for underserved communities, whose situations require, but…