Required Courses

For students entering Fall 2020

First Year

4 units          GSD 3333        Culture, Conservation & Design
4 units          GSD 4479*      Power & Place: Culture and Conflict in the Built Environment
4 units          GSD 4478*      Other(ed) Architecture: Coloniality, Subject, and Space
24 units        Electives

*Students may choose between 4478 and 4479. 4479 is a research and methodology course for Critical Conservation.

Second Year

Coursework Track:
16 units        Electives

Or

Thesis Track:
16 units        Electives
8 units          GSD 9304        Independent Thesis for the Degree Master in Design Studies**

**Students electing to do a thesis are required to participate in monthly (Wednesday morning) Critical Conservation thesis meetings and reviews in addition to coursework.

Recommended Research Methodology Course
Courses that teach skills of potential relevance to thesis projects

HIS-4479  Power & Place: Culture and Conflict in the Built Environment

Other Recommended Courses

History & Theory
DES-3241 Theories of Landscape as Urbanism
DES-3348  The Idea of Environment
HIS-4105  Studies of the Built North American Environment: 1580 to the Present
HIS-4115  History and Theory of Urban Interventions
HIS-4304  North American Seacoasts and Landscapes: Discovery Period to the Present
HIS-4374  Cities, Infrastructure, and Politics: From Renaissance to Smart Technologies
HIS-4395 Environmentalisms
HIS-4455 Cotton Kingdom, Now

Socioeconomic Studies
SES-5213  Policy Making in Urban Settings (at HKS) (not offered 2020/21)
SES-5206  Land Use and Environmental Law
SES-5386 Urban Ethnographies
SES-5486 Gentrification Debates
SES-5502 Urban Governance and the Politics of Planning in the Developing World

Visual Studies, Science & Technology
VIS-2129  Spatial Analysis and the Built Environment
VIS-2415  Paper or Plastic: Reinventing Shelf-Life in the Supermarket Landscape
VIS-2481  Public Projection: Projection as a Tool for Expression and Communication in Public Space
VIS-2482 Art, Design, and the Public Domain Proseminar
SCI-6322  Mapping: Geographic Representation and Speculation
SCI-6354  Applied Urban Analytics (not offered in 2020/21)

at the Harvard Divinity School
HDS-2584  Coloniality, Race, and Philosophy of Religion
HDS-3081  God’s Nations: Religion, Nationalism, and Modernity
HDS-3256  The Shock of the New

at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
TDM-183M  Immersive Storytelling: Using Mixed Media

(Required courses for students who entered in Fall 2017.)

(Required courses for students who entered in Fall 2018.)

(Required courses for students who entered in Fall 2019.)

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/