Required Courses

For students entering Fall 2024

First Semester

4 units ADV-9671 Proseminar in PUBLICS: Of the Public. In the Public. By the Public
12 units Electives or Distributional Electives**

Second Semester

16 units Electives or Distributional Electives**
Choose elective courses to develop the Trajectory

Third Semester

16 units Electives
Choose elective courses to develop the Trajectory

Fourth Semester

8 units Electives
8 units ADV-97XX Open Project

**In the first year, students are required to take a minimum of 12 units of distributional electives from an approved list of courses.
Distributional electives may be completed in the second year with approval from the Domain Head.

Selection of Distributional Electives
Students are required to select 12 units of courses from across disciplines.

Note that courses may not be offered every academic year.

Urban Planning & Design
VIS 2128 Spatial Analysis (please note this is a 2-unit course)
VIS 2469 Public Space, Memory, and Social Dialogue
DES 3348 The Idea of Environment
DES 3521 Moral Leadership: Ethics in Public Life
HIS 4151 Histories and Theories of Urban Form: Transitions as Condition
HIS 4495 Highway, Deforestation and State-driven Colonization in Amazonia
SES 5206 Land Use and Environmental Law
SES 5213 Equitable Development and Housing Policy in Urban Settings (at HKS)
SES 5215 Analytic Methods of Urban Planning (please note this is a 2-unit course)
SES 5347 Urbanization and Development
SES-5380 Experimental Infrastructures
SES 5381 Urban Design & the Color Line
SES 5383 Developing for Social Impact
SES 5386 Urban Ethnographies
SES 5409 Climate Justice
SES 5435 Land Policy and Planning for Equitable and Fiscally Healthy Communities
SES 5443 The (New) Image of the City
SES 5464 Do No Harm: Dilemmas in Planning for Health
SES 5511 Public Transit
SES 5513 Native Nations and Contemporary Land Use

Landscape Architecture
VIS 2467 Images of the Environment: Terror and Beauty
DES 3241 Theories of Landscape as Urbanism
DES 3242 The Nature of Difference: Theories and Practices of Landscape Architecture
DES 3336 Landscape Fieldwork: People, Politics, Practices (with FAS)
DES 3396 Thinking Landscape – Making Cities
HIS 4455 Cotton Kingdom, Now
HIS 4485 Race and Gender: Landscape Architecture as Practice, Profession and Discipline
SES 5382 Making Participation Relevant to Design
SCI 6244 Climate by Design

Architecture
VIS 2314 Responsive Environments: Episodes in Experiential Futures
VIS 2345 Offsite/Onsite: Curating Contemporary Architecture
VIS 2472 Curatorial Practices in the Public Realm: Working Outside the Box
VIS 2484 Interdisciplinary Art and Design Practices
DES 3352 Type and the Idea of the City: Architecture’s Search for what is Common
DES 3364 Knowledge Design: What should or could knowledge look like in the 21st century?
HIS 4362 Structuring Urban Experience: From the Athenian Acropolis to the Boston Common
HIS 4374 Cities, Infrastructures, and Politics: From Renaissance to Smart Technologies
HIS 4395 Environmentalisms: How to have a Politics?
HIS 4468 On Architecture and Property
HIS 4519 Contested Spaces: Architecture and Power
PRO 7448 Products of Practice: From code to plan to code

MIT
MIT 11.422 Law, Technology, and Public Policy

The objectives for core course selection should expose students to the following:
1. General concepts of governance and participation
2. General concepts of societal conflicts, crisis, contestations that effect the built and natural environment
3. Forms of practice that engage the publics
4. Varied forms of public domains

Students contemplating cross-registering for courses at another Harvard school must abide by the dates and policies of the school in which the course is offered. Priority for enrollment may be given to the other school’s students first before cross-registrations are accepted — enrollment is not guaranteed. See https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/resources/cross-registration-policies-procedures/