Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology

"Lines in the Sand: Rethinking Private Property On Barrier Islands" by Maggie Tsang (MDes '19) and Isaac Stein (MLA/MDes '20) — Recipient of the 2019 Design Studies Thesis Prize

Over the past decade, longstanding disciplinary divides between the urban and the ecological have given way to more fluid, polyvalent and potentially more productive relations.

The challenges of the built environment have rarely, at any time, corresponded to traditional disciplinary or professional boundaries. Today, contemporary practices of urbanism are shaped by thinking from subjects as diverse as landscape architecture, geography and economics, while increasingly being informed by sensibilities and stores of knowledge broadly associated with the study of the natural world. In this milieu, the MDes Program invites candidates to examine contemporary practices of design and modes of production as they inform and manifest urbanism. As model and metaphor on the one hand, and as applied science on the other, urban and architectural practices and habits of thought are increasingly engaged with ecological thinking. In this space of intellectual inquiry and advancement of the design arts, the MDes Program aspires to be a leading venue for post-professional studies of contemporary urban practice. MDes candidates in the Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology concentration pursue advanced studies in topics related to contemporary urbanism, landscape, geography, or territory within the broader contexts of the global, social and natural environment. Candidates are invited to construct their own program of study from among the course offerings at the GSD, across the Harvard University campus and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Candidates may propose research topics related to the description of contemporary urban forms; the empirical observation of urban or environmental subjects; the representation of ecological or urban sites and systems; cartographic or projective representations of urban, regional, or global orders; ecological orders as determinants of urban, regional, or territorial spatial organization; the histories and theories of landscape as elements of urban or regional order; infrastructure, logistics and material economies associated with urban or regional form; emergent economic orders and their impact on urban form; energy production and consumption in relation to urbanism; agricultural production and consumption in relation to urbanism; water and waste networks in relation to urbanism; large-scale and ultra-rapid development and emergent forms of modernization and their ecological and economic impacts and possibilities; as well as advanced studies in landscape urbanism, ecological urbanism and weak urbanism.

Affiliated Faculty

Anita Berrizbeitia, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture
Eve Blau, Adjunct Professor of the History and Theory of Urban Form and Design & Director of Research
Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich, Lecturer in Landscape Architecture
Jill Desimini, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture
Gareth Doherty, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture & Director of the Master in Landscape Architecture Program
Craig Douglas, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture
Ed Eigen, Senior Lecturer in the History of Landscape and Architecture
Ann Forsyth, Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Planning & Director of the Master in Urban Planning Program
Stephen Gray, Associate Professor of Urban Design
Toni L. Griffin, Professor in Practice of Urban Planning
Sergio Lopez-Pineiro, Lecturer in Landscape Architecture
Rosalea Monacella, Design Critic in Landscape Architecture
David Moreno Mateos, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture
Mohsen Mostafavi, Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design and Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
Pablo Pérez-Ramos, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture
Robert Pietrusko, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture
Chris Reed, Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture & Co-Director of the Master in Landscape Architecture in Urban Design Program
Peter Rowe, Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
Belinda Tato, Associate Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture
Charles Waldheim, John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture & Director of the Office for Urbanization
Alex Wall, Design Critic in Landscape Architecture
Sara Zewde, Assistant Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture

Research Affiliations

Harvard GSD Office for Urbanization
Harvard University Center for the Environment
Harvard University Center for Geographic Analysis
Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities
Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
Harvard GSD Future of the American City Project
Harvard GSD Critical Landscapes Design Lab
Harvard GSD Healthy Places Design Lab
Harvard GSD Just City Lab

Read about the Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology concentration in Harvard Magazine.

Affiliated Faculty

Research Affiliations

Projects