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Alumni Updates

Alumni Spotlight

In Memoriam: Joseph E. Brown MLAUD ’72

KDesign Studio exhibition, featuring white walls with colorful posters, Olympic t shirts, and tables displaying various objects, such as bags, incense holders, and character drawings.

Hayoun Won MDes ’13 Directed KDesign Studio Exhibition in Paris, France

Neyran Turan and Mete Sonmez pose in black clothing in front of orange background. In the bottom right corner, there is text that reads "Design Vanguard 2024."

Mete Sonmez MArch ’08 and Neyran Turan DDes ’09 Named a 2024 Design Vanguard by Architectural Record

Yiqi Zhao MDes ’20 Won Three 2024 DNA Paris Design Awards

Hazel Ruth Edwards MAUD ’89 Named LAI 2024 Richard T. Ely Distinguished Educator

Christine Mueller MArch ’00 Inagurated Humayun’s Tomb Site Museum

Peitong Chen MDes ’21, MArch ’21 Presented at Adobe MAX

News

22 October 2024

MDE Fall 2024 Update

22 October 2024

Daniel Urban Kiley Teaching Fellowship in Landscape Architecture

12 August 2024

Honoring the 2024 GSD Alumni Council Award Winners

Support the GSD

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Harvard University Graduate School of Design #HarvardGSD

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Nov 19

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The Frances Loeb Library recently hosted Archive Party 01: "Building the Builders", an event that showcased a fascinating collection of Harvard GSD’s archives, highlighting pivotal moments in urban planning and design education. Attendees had the opportunity to explore student works in housing and community building spanning 100 years, along with contributions from influential women faculty in the field, including Catherine Bauer, Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, and Carol Thomas. Led by Li Hou, Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design, and Ines Zalduendo, Special Collections Curator, the event offered an in-depth look into the history shaping GSD's legacy.

#HarvardGSD #Libraries #UrbanPlanning #Design

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Nov 18

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In early October, the nine GSD students enrolled in the option studio Envision Resilience: Imagining a Future Waterfront for Portland, Maine, led by Pamela Conrad and Michael Blier, traveled north to learn about their site and the community's challenges around persistent flooding and sea level rise. The studio is participating in the Envision Resilience Challenge developed by Remain, which connects academia, local leadership, and area residents, while inspiring coastal communities to envision innovative approaches to the impacts of climate change.

#HarvardGSD #LandscapeArchitecture #ClimateChange #PortlandME #Maine

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Nov 15

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Hello sharks! We’d like to congratulate Laptis, the first place winners in the recent event “An Evening in the Shark Tank,” presented by @harvardhbs’s Entrepreneurship Club. The competition featured Kevin O’Leary, @sharktankabc's “Mr. Wonderful,” who shared lessons from his own experience and provided feedback on pitches from the Harvard student teams.

Founded by Andrew Steen (JD/MBA, @harvardlaw + HBS) and Kevin Hu (@harvardmde @harvardseas + GSD), Laptis is building a tech-enabled platform to streamline access to trusted substance use treatment. Laptis improves care coordination in the fragmented substance use disorder treatment landscape by connecting the dots between treatment seekers and treatment providers.

#HarvardGSD #Design #DesignEngineering #SharkTank #Engineering #SubstanceUseTreatment

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Nov 14

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Student Spotlight: Issam Azzam (MUP/MLA I '25)

@issam_azzam's "Fragmented Floodplains" project explores the urban hubs of Cambridge, Somerville, and Charlestown, where the relatively regular urban grid contrasts sharply with the complex urban belt that connects them. This zone, marked by varied scales, land uses, and materials, faces compounding climatic risks and vulnerabilities that cannot be addressed uniformly.

Issam's project exposes these overlapping layers—past, present, and future—transforming them into hybrid fragments that redefine how the urban landscape responds to climate challenges. Each fragment operates independently, generating diverse landscape characters and breaking up Charlestown's developing flood corridor. This approach highlights that resilience comes not from a singular solution but from embracing the fragmented logic of the city, where form, material, and scale must adapt to a non-uniform urbanism.

Issam's work offers a vision of how pluralizing design solutions locally can create more adaptive and resilient urban systems in the face of increasing climate risks.

#HarvardGSD #UrbanPlanning #LandscapeArchitecture #Massachusetts #Camberville #Cambridge #Somerville #Charlestown #Design #ClimateChange

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Nov 13

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Issue 52 of @harvarddesignmagazine, “Instruments of Service,” is hot off the press at Grafiche Veneziane @grafiche_veneziane!

Swipe for an early look at how the guest editors, Elizabeth Christoforetti (@ebchristo) and Jacob Reidel (@jacob_reidel), examine the state of architectural practice today.

Designed by @office.alexismark, this issue features the bespoke typeface AM Service Manual.

Follow @harvarddesignmagazine to see more from issue #HDM52!

[1] Cover featuring an architectural drawing by @bruther_architecture, being inspected on press @grafiche_veneziane
[2] Detail of the inside cover showing @office.alexismark's AM Service Manual typeface
[3] Detail from the interior featuring an architectural drawing by @sauerbruchhutton

#HarvardGSD #HarvardDesignMagazine #Design #Architecture

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Nov 12

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Ethan Chan’s (MArch II '23) project, "Transitions," reimagines a resilient housing model for Boston’s Chinatown that honors the neighborhood’s cultural and social essence while addressing modern housing needs. In response to development pressures that threaten Chinatown’s historic rowhouses and the close-knit, multi-generational families they support, Ethan’s design presents a hybrid rowhouse typology. Designed as "urban cabinets," these rowhouses integrate influences from traditional Chinese cabinetry and mix materials including wood, brick, and steel into a cohesive structural system.

By creating a series of oversized urban cabinets, the project mediates between Chinatown’s diverse architectural scales, bridging the gap between high-rise and low-rise structures while retaining a strong sense of place. Each floor is designed as a single unit for a multigenerational family, with adaptable cabinets that can also serve as accessory dwelling units. A shared ground floor transforms into a lively communal space, with a hawker center, gardens, and stoops that activate a long, collective courtyard.

"Transitions" presents a high-density housing model as a tool of cultural preservation to reinforce and reimagine the material and social identity of Chinatown in the face of urban pressures.

Work for Designing the In-Between; Transecting the Heart of Chinatown on a Forgotten Site
Spring 2023
Instructor: Kevin Sullivan @payettepeople

#HarvardGSD #Architecture #Housing #Boston

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Nov 8

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An unforgettable month of events @
the GSD

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Nov 5

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🗳️ Once a year, Gund Hall becomes a polling place as Cambridge residents come to cast their votes on Election Day!

#HarvardGSD

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Nov 4

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🗳️ These 27-foot-tall flamingos in voting booths are now a permanent fixture outside the Palm Beach (Florida) County Supervisor of Elections building thanks to 2018 Loeb Fellow @matthewmazzotta. This installation, titled VOTE!, is meant to be a lighthearted illustration of what goes on inside the building to make the voting process more relatable to people of all ages.

#HarvardGSD #Florida

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Oct 31

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Student Project Spotlight: bubbleBUM™ - an inflatable stool exploring the playful extremes of plasticity.

Designed by @ppkkuuuu, @leah.n.lock, @wendyw0124, and @sihan18215 (all MArch I ’26) for the course "Materials" with Professor Jonathan Grinham, bubbleBUM™ is a playful exploration of plasticity and versatility. The stool consists of a TPU membrane filled with 270 Ziploc baggies containing CNC waste foam and glitter, highlighting the contrasting qualities of plastic—elasticity vs. rigidity, transparency vs. opacity.

With an air pump attached, bubbleBUM inflates and deflates to create endless seating formats, inviting users to deflate, relax, inflate, and repeat. The result? A multifunctional, adaptable stool designed for to be used in a variety of configurations.

#HarvardGSD #Architecture

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Oct 29

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Happy #NationalCatDay to @remytheharvardcat!

📸: @pienakakamol

#HarvardGSD #CatsofInstagram #Cats

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Oct 29

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A–Z: Harvard University Graduate School of Design 2022 will be available for sale later this week at the Frances Loeb Library and through Harvard University Press @harvardpress. Every graduate from the Class of 2022 will receive a copy by mail.

Reminder: The submission deadline for editions for the Classes of 2023 and 2024 is TOMORROW Wednesday, October 30. For questions about submissions or to update your mailing address please contact a-z@gsd.harvard.edu!

#HarvardGSD #Architecture #LandscapeArchitecture #UrbanDesign #UrbanPlanning #RealEstate #Design #DesignEngineering #GSDAlumni

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Oct 29

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This year, housing has not only made an appearance on the political stage, it has taken a leading role. In this election, housing affordability has emerged as a critical issue not just for the country’s poorest households or those on the expensive coasts but for those solidly in the middle class and in the heartland. Chris Herbert, managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, looks at the proposals of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to address housing shortages and affordability.

Read at our link in bio!

#HarvardGSD #Housing

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Oct 28

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Oct 24

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Repost @harvardurbandesign

Reclaiming the Northern Avenue Bridge by Graham Gewirz (MAUD ‘26)
Pre Term 2024 | Future Assemblages

The Northern Avenue Bridge once connected downtown Boston with the Seaport. Its novel design allowed it to rotate 360 degrees to let ships into the harbor. Today, it sits in disrepair, left open, despite the disappearance of cargo ship traffic.

This collage envisions the revitalization of the bridge into a wide urban garden, able to connect the two neighborhoods once more with a new neutral zone on artificial land. The park can also rotate to make itself an island- becoming a new form of public space with the ability to control its own bounds.

➡️ Follow @harvardurbandesign to learn more about what's going on in the Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD) and Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design (MLAUD) degree programs!

#HarvardGSD #UrbanDesign #Boston

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Harvard GSD Alumni and Friends Home

The GSD Fund

Alumni Updates

In Memoriam: Joseph E. Brown MLAUD ’72

Hayoun Won MDes ’13 Directed KDesign Studio Exhibition in Paris, France

Mete Sonmez MArch ’08 and Neyran Turan DDes ’09 Named a 2024 Design Vanguard by Architectural Record

Yiqi Zhao MDes ’20 Won Three 2024 DNA Paris Design Awards

Hazel Ruth Edwards MAUD ’89 Named LAI 2024 Richard T. Ely Distinguished Educator

Christine Mueller MArch ’00 Inagurated Humayun’s Tomb Site Museum

Peitong Chen MDes ’21, MArch ’21 Presented at Adobe MAX

News

MDE Fall 2024 Update

Daniel Urban Kiley Teaching Fellowship in Landscape Architecture

Honoring the 2024 GSD Alumni Council Award Winners

Support the GSD

harvardgsd

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