Bridging the languages of design and finance, Justin Tan (MRE ’26) recently completed the Master in Real Estate (MRE) program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). A licensed architect who practiced in Boston for several years, Justin came to the GSD seeking more insight into the development process and more agency “upstream,” where decisions about the shape of cities are made.
At the GSD, Justin took part in the MRE “Development Project,” a course paired with an option studio. Traveling to Mumbai for a site visit, he worked with a fellow MRE student, an architect, and an urban designer on a holistic development and urban masterplan. He brought that approach to his summer practicum in Rotterdam with the developer RED Company. There, he prepared multiphase pro forma underwriting for tender offers to landowners and helped bring institutional partners and pension funds into the firm’s deals.
His classmates came from investment, development, consulting, urban planning, and data science, and working with them shaped how Justin sees the built environment: as a system of many actors working together. With his GSD degree, his aim is to speak fluently as both a designer and an investor and to connect two worlds that too often operate apart.