Category: Architecture

Arthur Huang portrait with reused materials

News Updates

A New Beginning for Trash: Arthur Huang MArch ’04

To most people, trash is just a mixture of discarded things without value. However, to Arthur Huang MArch ’04, trash represents a new beginning. Huang’s Taiwan-based company, MINIWIZ, home of the remarkable TRASHLAB laboratory, revolutionizes the waste and recycling industries through innovation, technology, and design. Essentially, MINIWIZ is on a mission to unlock the upcycling…

A Message to Architecture Alumni from Grace La MArch ’95, Chair of the Department of Architecture and Professor of Architecture

Dear Architecture Alumni, Hello and warm greetings from Cambridge! During my first month as Chair of the Department of Architecture, this summer is a particularly special and exhilarating time—a chance to recharge and imagine all the possibilities for discovery through design. I look forward to working together and I am immensely grateful to Dean Sarah…

A Present and Passionate Voice: Tosin Odugbemi MArch ’24

Tosin Odugbemi MArch ’24 often inhabits several spaces simultaneously, a skill and perspective that deeply benefits her study of the built environment. A child of two doctors, Tosin moved with her family from South Africa to Canada at a young age. She grew up in the prairies of British Columbia in a predominantly white neighborhood, with…

Grace La MArch ’95 Appointed Chair of Department of Architecture

Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) announces Grace La MArch ’95 as Chair of the Department of Architecture, effective July 1, 2023. La is Professor of Architecture at the GSD and principal of LA DALLMAN, a practice internationally recognized for work that integrates architecture, engineering, and site. La is the second woman to be…

Alumni Q&A: Megan Panzano MArch ’10

In this Q&A, Panzano shares insights into the Undergraduate Architecture Studies program, what makes the GSD MArch I model distinctive, and how she keeps busy outside of the GSD.

Greetings from Department of Architecture Chair Mark Lee MArch ’95

Dear Architecture Alumni,It’s a privilege to write to fellow architecture alumni as Chair of the Department of Architecture. It’s been a year of enormous transitions for me, moving from sunny Los Angeles to the more variable climate of Cambridge, opening a satellite office here, and embarking on a new leadership role at the Graduate School…

The GSD’s 2018-2019 Unsung Heroes

On April 12, 2019, during a celebration at the Frances Loeb Library, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) Alumni Council honored three current students—Chantine Akiyama MArch ’19, Sidra Fatima MUP ’19, and Natalie Wang MDes ’19—with the 2019 Unsung Hero Book Prize.

Mark Lee MArch ’95 Appointed Chair of Department of Architecture

Harvard University Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) announces the appointment of Mark Lee MArch ’95as Chair of the Department of Architecture, effective July 1, 2018. Lee has taught at Harvard GSD since 2013 and currently serves as Professor in Practice of Architecture. Lee is a principal and founding partner of Johnston Marklee, established in 1998.

The GSD honors the life, legacy, and inspiration of John Portman (1924-2017)

Last October the GSD’s Dean Mohsen Mostafavi sat down with Metropolis Magazine and Mr. Portman’s son, Jack MArch ’73, to discuss the architect’s impact and the 2017 book “Portman’s America & Other Speculations” (Harvard University GSD and Lars Müller Publishers), edited by Mostafavi.

Knoll Empowers GSD Students to Envision the Future of the Workplace

During the 2016–2017 academic year, the Harvard Graduate School of Design concluded a three-part studio series in collaboration with Knoll, Inc., that imagined the future of the “workplace,” or the environments in which people and industries conduct work.

Dean’s Update: 2017 Highlights from the GSD

As the spring semester culminates in an exciting range of studios and thesis reviews, and as the next class of graduates prepares to embark on new careers, launch new ventures, and drive new lines of research, the Dean writes to share highlights of the important work produced at the GSD over the past year.

GSD’s First MOOC Developed and Taught by K. Michael Hays

For the first time, starting February 28, GSD alumni and architecture enthusiasts around the world will be able to study architecture through a new HarvardX course orchestrated by Michael Hays, the GSD’s Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, as well as Interim Chair for the Department of Architecture.

GSD Korea Builds Community with Year-End Events

Members of the GSD alumni community in South Korea celebrated architectural, design, political, cultural, and societal interests in Korea with four GSD Korea year-end events for 2016. The December events served as a platform for engagement in cultural, professional, and academic practices of contemporary Korea and furthering relationships with the larger academic community, including the…

Studio Reviews: Fall 2016 Highlights

During the Fall semester, students investigated pressing global, regional, and local issues through studio work. Courses tackled a range of complex topics, from perceived notions of materials and their use in architecture, to how design can address racism, segregation, and poverty in our inner cities.

Call for Alumni Submissions: Harvard GSD 2017 Wheelwright Prize

The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is pleased to announce the fifth cycle of the Wheelwright Prize, an open international competition that awards $100,000 annually to a talented early-career architect to support travel-based research.

Imagining a New Model for Cross-disciplinary Design

Interdisciplinary, experimental design is integral to the work of Sheila Kennedy, FAIA, MArch ’84 and J. Frano Violich, FAIA, MArch ’84. Their firm, Kennedy & Violich Architecture (KVA MATx), located in Boston’s emerging Newmarket District, has established a new model for practice that integrates material research with the practice of architecture.

Student-designed Alpine Shelter Skuta Honored in Core77’s 2016 Design Awards

A Harvard Graduate School of Design student design project has been named the 2016 Student Winner in the Built Environment category of Core77’s annual Design Awards.  Core77 awarded the honor to Alpine Shelter Skuta, designed by Frederick Kim, Katie MacDonald, and Erin Pellegrino (all MArch ’16). The trio designed the project as part of Fall 2014 option-studio…

New GSD Faculty Appointments of Four Alumni

Dean Mohsen Mostafavi recently announced faculty appointments and promotions—all of whom are GSD alumni. The appointments will strengthen the intellectual underpinnings of cutting-edge pedagogy and research at the GSD. In the Architecture Department, Jeannette Kuo MArch ’04 was appointed Assistant Professor in Practice of Architecture. In the Urban Planning Department, the appointments include Daniel D’Oca…

Alumni Q+A: Susannah C. Drake MArch ’95, MLA ’95

Making urban environments more resilient is a charge taken on with urgency for many city leaders, the United Nations, and recently the Rockefeller Foundation with its 100 Resilient Cities initiative. For over a decade, Susannah C. Drake MArch ’95, MLA ’95, has tackled challenges of resiliency and ecologically productivity with her firm DLANDstudio, an award-winning…

GSD and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners collaborate on London symposium

The Harvard Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD), with Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP), is pleased to announce the symposium Collaboration: The Lineage of an Architectural Practice, to be held Thursday 17 March from 4.00pm – 8.00pm at the Leadenhall Building in London. RSHP’s history offers a remarkable lens on the task and the potential of…

Alumni Q+A: Ralph Johnson MArch ’73

Designing some of the world’s most respected cultural institutions at global design firm Perkins+Will has garnered Ralph Johnson MArch ’73 much national and international acclaim. Johnson is a humble visionary who was honored to hear the news in October 2015 that he was elected to the National Academy – an institution devoted to building and sharing the heritage of the arts in America – for his profound contributions.

GSD Student Team Awarded Design Miami Pavilion Commission

The annual Design Miami fair traditionally features an entry pavilion designed by early-career architects, a public installation that serves as a beacon for the fair and that provokes consideration and curiosity among the thousands of visitors who visit the fair’s programs and galleries. For the 2015 pavilion design, Design Miami announced a first-of-its-kind collaboration with…

Taking the Stairs

Stairways inhabit the spaces where we live and work. Whether they’re tucked into cavities in the wall or suspended in grand ceremonial style for all to see, we travel along their treads. Preston Scott Cohen, Gerald M. McCue Professor in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, delights in stairwells: “They bind spaces together….

Studio Today: Welcome to Berlin

The GSD’s studio abroad program took students to Berlin, Germany for the spring semester to study alongside Frank Barkow of Barkow Leibinger, and Arno Brandlhuber of brandlhuber+.

Jeanne Gang MArch ’93 Visits Cambridge

The founder and principal of Studio Gang Architects spoke about her firm’s compelling work and research-based approach to design at the GSD on February 12.

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