Allen Sayegh

Design Critic and Senior Interaction Technologies Fellow, MDes Domain Head: Mediums

Contact

• [email protected]
• 617-496-3246

Office Location

Gund 215b

Affiliations

• Laboratory for Design Technologies
• Responsive Environments and Artifacts Lab

Research Area

• Responsive Environments

• Architecture
• Advanced Studies Programs
• MDes

Allen Sayegh is Design Critic and Senior Fellow in Interaction Technologies at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he is Head of the Master in Design Studies Mediums Domain and Founding Director of REAL, the Responsive Environments and Artifacts Lab. He is also Principal of INVIVIA, the Cambridge-based design and technology practice he founded in 1999.

Sayegh’s work explores the evolving relationship between people, technology, and the built environment. Moving between design research, teaching, and practice, his work investigates how emerging technologies shape human experience, perception, behavior, and new forms of spatial interaction. His research spans responsive environments, human-machine interaction, AI, sensing and biometrics, mobility, and hybrid physical-digital environments.

At Harvard GSD, Sayegh previously served as Associate Professor in Practice of Architectural Technology and as Director of the MDes Technology concentration. Over more than two decades at Harvard, his teaching and research have evolved from questions of architectural technology and fabrication toward interaction technologies and the ways computation is increasingly embedded within everyday environments. He has also contributed to interdisciplinary research initiatives across Harvard connecting design with engineering, technology, and the sciences.

Through REAL, Sayegh develops experimental research in which making and prototyping become ways of investigating emerging relationships between humans, machines, and environments. Recent work includes Project Synthia, a multisensory exploration of technological agency and perception, and ongoing research into mobility and the experience of air travel. This research extends into practice through INVIVIA, including current work at Boston Logan International Airport examining passenger behavior, movement, attention, and the possibilities for responsive public environments.

Sayegh’s work has included long-term collaborations with Microsoft on natural user interfaces, tangible interaction, and Inclusive Design, as well as projects with cultural institutions, cities, technology companies, and public agencies. His installations and research have been exhibited internationally, including at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and international architecture and art biennales.

He is the author and editor of Responsive Environments: Design, Technology, and the Human Experience (Actar, 2021). His current research and teaching increasingly examine the implications of generative AI for design, creativity, and human agency, including the development of Interpretive Wandering, an approach to open-ended inquiry exploring the role of human interpretation and abductive reasoning in an increasingly computational design culture