Laboratory for Design Technologies

A snapshot from Air Travel Design Guide, illustrating artifacts, spaces, and systems that impact the passenger experience in travel.
A snapshot from Air Travel Design Guide, illustrating artifacts, spaces, and systems that impact the passenger experience in travel. Illustrations by Isa He

Technology is accelerating profound changes throughout society, affecting everything we do—how we live, work, produce, build, and think. To advance our understanding of how design technologies can improve the human condition, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) has established the Laboratory for Design Technologies (LDT).

Work within LDT is geared towards leveraging design research to understand the architecture of complex contemporary challenges and develop prototypes for a more resilient, responsive, and productive future, from the scale of components to systems at regional scales.

Designing Change

The Lab creates a collaborative platform for the GSD’s design technology research units and related GSD faculty, whose specialties are responsive technologies and sensing, sustainable material systems, robotics and additive manufacturing, computational design and modeling, urban data analytics, and transport systems design. The researchers’ work is forward-looking, speculative, and imaginative. It projects into the future, yet remains grounded in deep knowledge of science, construction, engineering, and industry practice. LDT is closely aligned with the GSD’s Advanced Studies Programs, including the Master in Design Studies Program and the Doctor in Design Program as well as the Master for Design Engineering Program at Harvard, a collaborative degree program by the Graduate School of Design (GSD) and the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

Participating Faculty and Research Units

Geometry Lab
Faculty: Andrew Witt MDes ’02, MArch ’07

Materials Processes + Systems (MaP+S)
Faculty: Martin Bechthold DDes ’01, Jonathan Grinham DDes ’18, and Daniel Tish DDes ’23

Responsive Environments and Artifacts (REAL)
Faculty: Allen Sayegh MDes ’96

Laboratory for Values in the Built Environment (ViBE Lab)
Faculty: Elizabeth Christoforetti MArch ’09,  Carole Voulgaris

Karen Lee Bar-Sinai: Her research focuses on the relationships between matter, environment, and technology, exploring how precise tools can be leveraged to rethink materials, design, and construction at multiple scales.

Support for LDT

Support for LDT comes from the Experimental Foundation, which sponsors two post-doctoral fellows. We are eager to expand our partnerships with other organizations and welcome you to contact us to learn how your company or foundation may become involved.

If you would like to learn more about the Laboratory for Design Technologies or would like to participate, please contact the Associate Dean, Development and Alumni Relations, Alice Roebuck.