Master in Design Studies Pre-Fall 2021

Technology

"TransVision: Exploring the State of the Visual Field" by Jiabao Li (MDes '18) – Recipient of Project Prize in Design Studies.

Coupling an intensive critical and theoretical approach with practical, lab-based projects, Technology advances innovative methods for making and understanding form and technologically driven design through technological experimentation.

As a separate concentration area within the Master in Design Studies program, the Technology track allows post-professional students to pursue a broad spectrum of inquiries, including design computation, digital fabrication, robotics, and the exploration of responsive environments. Cutting across scales, students engage subjects from the level of a single artifact or building to landscapes and urban systems. Despite the range of scales and subjects, each project shares this in common: a commitment to challenge existing modes of practice and design through technological invention.

With a roster of faculty members, each recognized experts in a respective specialty, the program offers students full access to state-of-the-art facilities—fabrication labs, robotics, CNC equipment, and rapid prototyping—as well as to courses and initiatives across the GSD and throughout Harvard University. Underscoring its emphasis on innovation and empiricism, the concentration area is closely aligned with several of the school’s research initiatives, particularly Design Robotics and Responsive Environments and Artifacts, where students can develop fully conceived prototypes.

 

Affiliated Faculty

Martin Bechthold, Kumagai Professor of Architectural Technology
Chuck Hoberman, Pierce Anderson Lecturer in Design Engineering
Hyojin Kwon, Lecturer in Architecture
Hanspeter Pfister, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science; Director of Visual Computing in the Initiative in Innovative Computing, SEAS
Rachel Vromann, Manager, Digital Fabrication Laboratory

Research Affiliations

MaP+S Group
Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University

Projects