Recent GSD alum Molly Turner (MUP ’11), has put what she learned about disaster planning to innovative use. She has worked with her employer, Airbnb, to respond to the devastation that Hurricane Sandy caused over parts of the northeast by creating an online platform for people to host Sandy victims for free.
Dean Mohsen Mostafavi has published 5 books in the past two years. In his writing as well as his leadership of the GSD, he is tireless in fostering engagement: between mentors and students, people in communities, the design professions with each other, and the GSD with the world. He’ll sleep later. Read Spencer Bailey’s interview with the dean for Surface.
Theaster Gates (LF 2011) has been named inaugural winner of the Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics at the New School. The biennial prize honors an artist who has taken risks to advance social justice. Read more on the LOEBlog.
Architectural Record just published the annual review by DesignIntelligence, “America’s Top Architecture Schools 2013,” and Harvard once again appears in first place for graduate architectural education, as it has for 12 of the 14 years of the ranking. Not only that, it is number 1 in graduate landscape architecture education as well. What keeps the GSD at the top? “Not only does it have a strong reputation overall, but it scores very well in design, analysis, planning, and the communication skills that graduates need in professional practice.” Read James P. Cramer’s Architectural Record and DesignIntelligence articles or download the entire DI survey.
Carlos Garciavelez (MAUD '12 and teaching associate in urban design) published his thesis research "Concrete Matters: Beyond Stillbirth Infrastructure" in the Mexican journal Arquine. Garciavelez argues for the introduction of a rapid transit bus system to the Periférico, a double decker beltway in Mexico City, to partially transform it into a mass transit infrastructure and create new public amenities for the city. Read “El Periférico como generador ce cuidad.”
Lucas Correa Sevilla (MAUD '12) and Pablo Pérez Ramos (MLA '12, DDesS candidate) recently presented their research "Sustainability Through New Methodologies of Urban and Landscape Design" in the "Ecuador Será Sustentable" congress. The congress, organized by Grupo FARO, pursues a multidisciplinary approach to a long-term debate on the interactions among environment, economy and society in Ecuador.
Chris Reed (adjunct associate professor of landscape architecture) just returned from Asia, where he was a keynote speaker at the 2012 Forum on Resilient Cities, hosted by Kongjian Yu (design critic in landscape architecture and DDesS 95) at the Peking University College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in Beijing.
GSD students recently harvested the first honey from the beehive located on the roof of Gund Hall. The bees have been on the roof since spring 2011 thanks to Connie Migliazzo (MLA I ‘13) and Hallie Chen (MArch I ‘12) who started the hive and Melissa Alexander (MAUD ’13) and Ben Ruswick (MArch I ‘15) who help to maintain it. The honey will be raffled off on October 26 to benefit a local community garden.
Felipe Correa’s (director of the Urban Design Degree Program) new publication, A Line in the Andes, examines the transformative role of the first underground metro line currently under construction in Quito, Ecuador. It sets the stage for well-informed design deliberations regarding the urban future Quito deserves.
Eric Höweler (assistant professor of architecture) and his firm Höweler + Yoon Architecture took top prize in the Audi Urban Future Award 2012 for “Shareway 2030, a reimagining of the Boston to Washington metropolitan region.