Archive

News

Rahul Mehrotra featured in Section Cut launch

Section Cut, a new website of resources for design students, emerging practitioners and design educators, recently launched its new “Giants!” series with a profile of Rahul Mehrotra (chair and professor of urban planning and design).

Jan 31, 2014

News

GSD faculty at Contemporary South Asian City Conference

The current explosive growth of South Asian cities was the impetus for the Contemporary South Asian City Conference this month in Karachi, Pakistan, where Rahul Mehrotra (chair and professor of urban planning and design) gave the first guest lecture, titled “Kinetic City.” He was attending as part of a Harvard team that included Spiro Pollalis (Professor of Design, Technology and Management) and Justin D. Stern (PhD student in urban planning and design), as well as representatives from the School of Public Health, South Asia Institute (a co-sponsor of the conference) and Harvard Medical School.

Jan 28, 2014

News

Finding Opportunity in Disaster: GSD team wins Toyo University academic competition

A GSD urban planning team’s hopeful vision of a sustainable and resilient future for the Tohoku region of Japan - devastated by earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in 2011 - has earned first prize in Toyo University’s Tohoku Recovery invitational academic competition. Maria Ignacia Arrasate (MDes), Elise Baudon (MUP), Natalia Gaerlan (MUP), Karina Gilbert (MAUD) and Trevor Johnson (MUP) collaborated on a team led by Kristen Hunter (DDes) and advised by Jerold Kayden (professor of urban planning and design). They will be traveling to Japan in February to receive the $10,000 award for their project “Here Today, Here Tomorrow.”

Jan 24, 2014

News

Harvard team to travel to Pakistan for Urbanization Conference

Professors Rahul Mehrotra, Spiro Pollalis and PhD candidate Justin D. Stern will travel to Karachi, Pakistan alongside a team of Harvard scholars, students and doctors to participate in the Contemporary South Asian City Conference (Pakistan Urban Forum) from January 9-12.

Jan 8, 2014

News

Marianne Potvin on the perils of humanitarianism

When humanitarian relief organizations substitute for civic structures in states weakened by crisis and conflict, a new type of urbanism prevails, contends Marianne Potvin (MDesS ‘13 and PhD). Too often the resulting agendas ignore or sacrifice the needs of the devastated populations they purport to serve. Potvin examines this phenomenon through the lens of “humanitarian urbanism” in an article for Open Democracy entitled "Kabul: the humanitarian city."

Dec 17, 2013