Early Design Education
Early Design Education (EDE) at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) is a set of five academic programs, including Design Discovery, that introduce design and its potential to change the world to audiences of varied ages and familiarity with design.
All programs are crafted to engage participants with design methods across scales with the assumption that the program is one of the earliest experiences of thinking through making encountered. We invite high school through mid-career professionals to join us! Each program connects the breadth and depth of design talent at Harvard’s GSD to a global public.
Early Design Education programs
Design Discovery
An in-person program for individuals interested in gaining knowledge within a single design discipline – Architecture, Landscape, or Urban Planning and Design. This program directs making to engage the material and scale of each discipline.
Design Discovery Virtual
A virtual program emphasizing digital media for design drawing and modeling for an international audience interested in design across Architecture, Landscape, and Urban Planning and Design.
Design Discovery Youth
An in-person summer program for Boston area high school students interested in learning about design and the material, processes, and scales it involves. This program teaches the translation of participants’ varied and valuable observations of the world into the visual and spatial language of design.
Equity in Design Mentorship
An in-person spring program for Boston area high school students interested in learning about design and the material, processes, and scales it involves. This program teaches the translation of participants’ varied and valuable observations of the world into the visual and spatial language of design.
Undergraduate Architecture Studies
A 4-year undergraduate degree program in Architectural Studies that teaches design thinking through making within the liberal arts context of Harvard College, run in partnership with the Harvard College History of Art & Architecture department.
