Courses
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Second Semester Core Urban Planning Studio
Daniel D’Oca, Cory Berg, Brie Hensold, Wendell Joseph, Mitchell Silver
The second semester core planning studio expands the topics and methodologies studied in the first semester core studio, GSD 1121, aiming to prepare students for…
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Extreme Urbanism 9 – Imagining Housing as Urban Form
In recent years, housing has become an extremely scarce commodity in Mumbai. In 2007, Mumbai was the sixth most expensive city globally to rent an…
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New New Zealand Housing: Recasting the Good Life at Mid-Density
The studio is about housing and recasting ideas of the good life amidst contemporary challenges. It centers on the currently unfolding housing legislation in New…
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Envisioning the Rural Metropolis
With the United Nations estimating 250 million climate refugees by 2050, there are depopulating inner areas in Europe and the United States that, while often…
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Designing the Conditions: The Return of the Public Developer
The studio explores the role of design in emerging forms of public-sector housing development in the United States. Our testing ground is a former industrial…
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City as Resource
”When you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must repair the world around it, and within it, so that…
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Drawing for Designers 2: Human Presence and Appearance in Natural and Built Environment
The course is intended as a creative drawing laboratory for designers, an expressive and playful supplement to computer-based labor. The aim of the class is…
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URBAN GRIDS-3: GRID PLANS versus BIG PROJECTS
The historic evolution of the city can be tied to “regular systems” that have allowed for rational forms of development, which can be understand as…
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Contextual Capacities
Urban analysis, understanding of ‘context,’ and specificity of a place, have long been intrinsic to architectural and urban discourse and practice. Today, this discussion is…
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Redefining Urban Design
The field of urban design is undergoing a process of major transformation. Josep Lluís Sert’s initial definition as the space between planning and architecture, emphasizing…
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Urban Planning Theory and Praxis: Comparative-Historical Origins and Applications
This course takes as its point of departure the historical and national origins of planning as a discipline, assesses its evolution over time and across…
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Cities, Infrastructures, and Politics: From Renaissance to Smart Technologies
Infrastructure plays a decisive role in urban development and in the life of cities. This course will envisage this role from a historical perspective. History…
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Transition as Condition: Ukraine Research- Urbanism, Environment, Infrastructure
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has resulted in the displacement of millions of Ukrainians and the destruction of housing, neighborhoods, urban spaces, rural landscapes, physical…
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Case Studies in Urban Conservation: Principles & Narratives of an Emerging Discipline
Traditional conservation practice is increasingly proving inadequate to address the socio-cultural, economic, and environmental challenges facing the diverse array of sites and districts currently in…
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Fight or Flight: Space Colonization and the Future of Landscape Architecture
This seminar aims to examine the future of the profession of landscape architecture in relation to the two forces that are likely to shape it…
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Writing and Urban Life (at FAS)
In this seminar we will study representations of urban experience, and how the evolution of cities has been shaped by writing. Each week will pair…
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Public and Private Development
Jerold S. Kayden, Kristen Hunter
Cities are developed by a complex blend of public and private actors and actions. Using lectures, discussions, guest case studies, individual and team exercises, and…
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Advanced Real Estate Finance, Development, and Management
5205 It is an essential course for anyone going into real estate development, acquisitions, asset management, or private equity. This year’s course is divided into…
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Cities by Design
Yun Fu, Eve Blau, Joan Busquets, Rahul Mehrotra, Peter Rowe, Dana McKinney White, Alexander von Hoffman, Dan Stubbergaard, Jerold S. Kayden
Cities by Design is concerned with the in-depth and longitudinal examination of urban conditions in and among select cities in the world. The broad aims…
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Equitable Development and Housing Policy in Urban Settings (at HKS)
An introduction to policymaking in American cities, focusing on economic, demographic, institutional, and political settings. It examines inclusive and equitable economic development and job growth…
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The Development Project
Justin Chapman, Matthew Kiefer, Richard Peiser, Bing Wang
The course places students in the role of developer of an international or domestic site for which they will produce project proposals that meet financial,…
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Real Estate Law
This course examines, through the lens of the legal documents involved, the real estate law concepts relevant to the development, acquisition and operations of real…
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Project Management, Construction Management, New Technologies
This course focuses on three crucial aspects of real estate practice: project management, construction management, and new technologies. The project management portion will cover the…
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Introduction to Real Estate Finance, Development, and Management
This course teaches the fundamentals of real estate finance, management, and development. Lectures and supplemental videos introduce students to the full range of financial analysis…
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U. S. Housing Markets, Problems, and Policies
This course examines the operation of U.S. housing markets, the principal housing problems facing the nation, and policy approaches to address them within the existing…
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Urban Design and the Color-Line
We cannot talk about physical infrastructures in the United States without also talking about race. In this seminar/workshop, students will examine the role that race…
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Making Participation Relevant to Design
By trying to understand how participation can make design more relevant to society, we can create more socially just cities. This course starts from the…
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Urban Design for Planners
This seminar course introduces planners and others interested in urban development to the history, principles, and processes of urban design and its indelible impact on…
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Native Americans in the 21st Century: Nation Building II (at HKS)
This community based research course focuses on some of the major issues Native American Indian tribes and nations face in the 21st century. It provides…
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Modern Housing and Urban Districts: Concepts, Cases, and Comparisons
This course deals with ‘modern housing’ covering a period primarily from the 1900s to the present. It engages with ‘urban districts’ in so far as…
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Public Finance for Planners: Creating Equitable & Sustainable Communities
Infrastructure challenges are significant and rising. To meet these challenges, urban planners will need to acquire foundational knowledge and skills in the public finance discipline…
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Learning From Failure 1 [Module I]
It’s all too easy to learn from success. This course explores how real estate stakeholders can learn from concepts and examples of failure. The course…
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Learning From Failure 2 [Module 2]
It’s all too easy to learn from success. This course explores how real estate stakeholders can learn from concepts and examples of failure. The course…
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International Real Estate and Urban Development
Real estate, in the international realm, is anchored at the intersection of economic activities, capital flows, and the spatial transformation of the environment. While different…
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Climate Change, Real Estate, and Public Policy [Module 1]
Climate change is increasingly affecting people and cities worldwide. The impacts of sea level rise, storms, heat waves, droughts, and wildfires are growing. Yet, while…
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Real Estate Private Equity and Capital Markets [Module 2]
Daniel Dubrowski, Dan Cummings
Through lectures, case studies, and expert panel discussions, this module will explore the evolution of institutional real estate capital markets with a particular focus on…
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Community-Informed Urban Design
In Community-Informed Urban Design, we will explore the role of urban design, architecture, and placemaking in shaping social conditions within the built environment. We will…
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Urban Adaptation
In an era of accelerating climate disruption, the ways that people live in cities are changing in real time and urban planning must grapple with…
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Planning for Pedestrians and Cyclists
Meeting the ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets that will be required to reduce, prevent, or delay catastrophic changes to the global climate will require…
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Urban Governance and the Politics of Planning in the Global South
This course starts from the premise that urban politics and governance arrangements shape the character, form, and function of cities as well as the planning…
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Spatial Design Strategies for Climate Migration
Climate change has emerged as one of the most pressing global challenges of our time, with far-reaching implications for human societies and the environment. A…
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Independent Study by Candidates for Master’s Degrees
Andrew Holder, Kathleen Brandenburg, Diane Davis, Rahul Mehrotra, Andrew Witt, Ann Forsyth, Lisa Haber-Thomson, Edward Eigen, Martin Bechthold, Anita Berrizbeitia, Mark Lamster, Ewa Harabasz, Rosalea Monacella, Holly Samuelson, Luis Callejas, Allen Sayegh, Elizabeth Christoforetti, Jock Herron, John May, Lorena Bello Gómez, Malkit Shoshan, Ali Malkawi
Students may take a maximum of 8 units with different GSD instructors in this course series. 9201 must be taken for either 2, or 4…
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Independent Study on Multi-Cultural Design Environments
An examination and comparison of design practices in a professional setting. This course is open only to students who will be undertaking an internship or…
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Independent Thesis in Satisfaction of the Degree MAUD, MLAUD, or MUP
Following participation in the department’s fall thesis preparation seminar (GSD 9204), the spring term of the second year sees students complete, defend, and submit…
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Independent Thesis for the Degree Master in Design Studies
(Previously "Open Projects”) Prerequisites: Filing of signed "Declaration of Advisor" form with MDes office, and approval signature of the program director. A student who selects…
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Independent Study by Candidates for Doctoral Degrees
Holly Samuelson, Ali Malkawi, Antoine Picon, Peter Rowe, Richard Peiser
9502 must be taken for either 2 or 4 units. Under faculty guidance, the student conducts an independent reading program and formulates a thesis proposal.
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Thesis in Satisfaction of Degree Doctor of Design
Martin Bechthold, Diane Davis, Gareth Doherty, Mohsen Mostafavi, Peter Rowe, Carole Voulgaris, Charles Waldheim
Thesis in Satisfaction of the degree Doctor of Design. DDES stduents should search the my.harvard course catalog for their advisor's name and enrol in the…
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Discourse and Research Methods
This pro-seminar is a core requirement for successful completion of the Doctor of Design program. Primarily, it will focus on various thematic areas that range…
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Discourse and Methods II
Antoine Picon, Divya Subramanian
The objective of the seminar is to examine and discuss in depth some of the main methodological issues that students enrolled in the PhD program…
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MDes Open Project: Forms of Assembly. All Things Considered
“When bodies congregate, move, and speak together, they lay claim to a certain space as public space.” – Judith Butler. In the public space, we…
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MDes Open Project: O(perating)S(ystem)1.1
Illumination is hard wired. Lighting networks require electric grids, digital chips, insulated conduit. Material infrastructure allows for immaterial transmission. Illumination blurs a building’s boundaries, creating…
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MDes Open Project: Physical Realms Synthetic Realities
This OP explores the notion of reality and authenticity of experiences in the built environment through the lens of current emergent technologies. By harnessing emergent…
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MDes Open Project: Experimental Infrastructures
Infrastructure is an encompassing and promiscuous term that has been enjoying a renaissance in design, the social sciences, and public discourse. We are inundated by…
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MDes Open Project: Framing Regenerative Futures
Framing Regenerative Futures is a platform to critically examine contemporary challenges to settlement and society and then, in collective and individual work, to create imaginative…
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MDes Open Project: Revisiting the Space of Appearance, the Implication of the “Self”
In considering the social dimension of space, the designer, (architect, landscape architect, urban designer, artist) is called to engage reality in all its messiness, indeterminacy…
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MDes Open Project: Communicating Climate – Representing Risk
In contemporary practice, designers are often called upon to visualize the implications of and potential responses to climate adaptation on behalf of individuals and institutions,…
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Master in Real Estate Practicum Prep
Frank Apeseche, Matthew Kiefer, Weijia Song
This 0-unit seminar is part of the 12-unit Master in Real Estate Practicum. Participation is limited to students in the Master in Real Estate program…