Courses
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Teaching Techniques
The course examines foundations for contemporary architectural design pedagogy according to several broad themes — spatial, programmatic, material, structural, technological – defined in dialectical terms…
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Buildings, Texts, and Contexts I
Erika Naginski, K. Michael Hays, Andrew Holder
This course is structured as a dialogue between the historical and theoretical frameworks that have shaped the formulation of architectural principles – what the architectural…
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Authority and Invention: Medieval Art and Architecture
Masterworks of art and architecture in Western Europe from the decline of Rome to the dawn of the Italian Renaissance. Explores the…
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Structuring Urban Experience: From the Athenian Acropolis to the Boston Common
This lecture course examines selected cities between the fifth century B.C. and the seventeenth century A.D., beginning with ancient Athens and ending…
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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…
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Sustainable Real Estate
This introductory course surveys the historical foundations, economic logics and underlying physics that underscore the design, development and operations of sustainable buildings.
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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:To…
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Environmental Systems 2
This course is the second of a two-module sequence in Building Technology (6121, 6122) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture. The objective…
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Construction Systems
This course introduces a framework to know the instantiation of architecture through construction systems. Construction systems will be discovered through the methods of dissection, drawing,…
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Structural Design II
This course is a continuation of GSD 6227 and, after an overview/reminder introduction, furthers understanding of more developed structural systems and materials in architectural design.
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Water Engineering (at SEAS)
Introduces the fundamentals of water biology, chemistry, physics and transport processes needed to understand water quality and water purification technologies. Practical instruction in basic water…
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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;…
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Introduction to Computational Design
Panagiotis Michalatos, Sawako Kaijima
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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Forms of Energy: Nonmodern
Offered for the final time at the GSD, the fall 2017 Forms of Energy course focuses on Nonmodern Forms of Energy and…
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Foundations of Practice
Jeffry Burchard, Jesse M. Keenan
For students in the fifth semester of the M.Arch I degree program, this four (4) credit hour course examines models and…
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Integrative Frameworks for Technology, Environment, and Society I
Woodward Yang, Diane Davis, Martin Bechthold, Chuck Hoberman, Robert Silman
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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Innovation in Project Delivery
Project delivery – the organizational, legal and economic arrangements by which society produces its built environment – has undergone a radical transformation…
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MArch II Proseminar
Jorge Silvetti, Jennifer Bonner
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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Digital Media I: Unseen Harvard: Elements of Ambience
Allen Sayegh, Melissa Franklin
What is an ambiance of a place? Why do you get different feelings from each environment? Are there consistent elements that define ambience? Can we…
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Today’s architects’ ambitions: in search of a new narrative canon
Since the establishment of the canonical narrative of mid-20th century architecture, we have become accustomed to view current architecture as a result…
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Buildings, Texts, and Contexts II
Any account of architecture’s history over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries is faced with the challenge of addressing…
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Film Theory, Visual Thinking
How do moving images transform the way we think? Introduction to film theory aimed at interpreting the visual world, and developing skills to analyze films…
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Property in Common: The Nexus Between Architecture and Real Estate
The course looks at systemic and theoretical issues that underlie contemporary dilemmas in architectural design, real estate, and property systems. It examines…
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Cities, Infrastructures, and Politics: From Renaissance to Smart Technologies
“A Peep at the Gas-lights in Pall Mall”, a humorous caricature of reactions to the installation of the new invention of gas-burning street lighting on…
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Discourses and Methods: Conservation, Destruction, and Curating Impermanence
Natalia Escobar Castrillon, K. Michael Hays
This seminar on critical conservation aims to develop concepts, and strategies able to describe and curate the transitory and dynamic nature of…
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Resilience and Adaptation Science: From Theory to Practice
Through the lens of climate change, this foundation course surveys the intellectual development of resilience and adaptation in the social, natural and…
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Environmental Systems in Architecture
The primary focus of GSD 6125 is the study of ecological considerations in architectural design. These considerations include the thermal, luminous, and acoustic behavior of…
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Structural Design 1
This course introduces students to the design and behavior of fundamental structural systems. The course focuses on providing a qualitative understanding such that students can…
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Structural Design 2
This course is a continuation of GSD 6227 and, after an overview/reminder introduction, furthers understanding of more developed structural systems and materials in architectural design.
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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 buildings…
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Interdisciplinary Design in Practice
This course aims to teach, stimulate and demonstrate “design led” opportunities that exist in the practice of Architecture. Positioned within the space of interdisciplinary…
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Adaptive Architectures
Adaptability is the means by which organisms respond to their environments, individuals interact with each other and new technologies are absorbed into…
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Material Distributions: Digital Immersive Workflows for Design, Simulation, Fabrication
This course explores the interplay between form and structure, between architecture and its material support, in the context of digital design workflows.
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Integrative Frameworks for Technology, Environment, and Society II
Woodward Yang, Antoine Picon, Martin Bechthold, Robert Silman, Ali Malkawi
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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The Practice as Project
Florian Idenburg, Jeffry Burchard
Background: The role of the architect adjusts as society changes. Inevitably, there will be a continual need for numbers of well rounded, licensed and…
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Visual Studies
The course objective is to develop and improve students’ skills in freehand drawing based on direct observation, and to encourage them to incorporate drawing into…
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Projective Representation in Architecture
This course examines the history, theory and practice of parallel (orthographic) and central (perspective) projection. The objective is to provide the tools to imagine and…
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Digital Media II
This class explores the design and science of logical form making, examined through geometry, parametric control, algorithms, and digital tools. The point of departure is…
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Teaching Techniques
The course examines foundations for contemporary architectural design pedagogy according to several broad themes — spatial, programmatic, material, structural, technological – defined in dialectical terms…
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Buildings, Texts, and Contexts III: The Tower and the Sphere: Architecture and Modernity
K. Michael Hays, Bryan Norwood
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,…
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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…
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Structuring Urban Experience: From the Athenian Acropolis to the Boston Common
This lecture course examines selected cities between the fifth century B.C. and the seventeenth century A.D., beginning with ancient Athens and ending…
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The Shapes of Utopia
Utopia's fall from grace in the modern period is tied to architecture's failure in giving shape to dreams of a new society wrought from social…
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Sustainable Real Estate
This introductory course surveys the historical foundations, economic logics and underlying physics that underscore the design, development and operations of sustainable buildings.
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Construction Lab
Why do we build with certain types of materials, and not others? How do the properties and qualities of materials constrain the ways in which…
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Energy in Architecture
This lecture course introduces students to energy and environmental issues, particularly those that must be faced by the discipline of architecture. An overview of the…
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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…
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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 buildings…
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Water Engineering (at SEAS)
Introduces the fundamentals of water biology, chemistry, physics and transport processes needed to understand water quality and water purification technologies. Practical instruction in basic water…
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Introduction to Computational Design
This is an introductory course to computational design and the prerequisite for a spring course that deals with more advanced topics in…