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Current Initiative

Future Design Leaders Match

Your gift to the Future Design Leaders Match will impact generations of future designers, the design industry, and our alumni community by establishing an endowed Fellowship.

Current Initiative

Student Emergency Fund

Support students who have experienced sudden and unexpected financial hardship due to situations beyond their control.

Upcoming Events

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01 Apr 2023

APA Philadelphia: GSD Reception 2023

05 Apr 2023

Druker Traveling Fellowship Presentations Spring 2023

11 Apr 2023

Plimpton Lecture: Rachel Meltzer, “What We Miss When We Look at Everything: Global Shocks and Local Impacts”

Alumni Updates

Alumni Spotlight

Jonathan Evans MArch ’10 serves as lead architect for Embrace Boston Memorial

Tricia Ebner MArch ’11 Promoted to Director at MdeAS in New York, NY

Jane Wolff MLA ’92 Selected as 2022 Winner of Margolese Prize

Natalia Escobar Castrillón MDes ’13 and co-editor Rayshad Dorsey MArch ’23 release issue no. 4 of academic journal OBL/QUE

“Beyond Sustainable: Architecture’s Evolving Environments of Habitation” by Ryan Ludwig MArch ’09 published by Routledge

Daniel Toole MAUD ’16 begins own practice, Daniel Toole Architecture and featured in the New York Times

Leif Estrada MDesS ’16 & MLA ’16 Promoted to Associate at Kuth Ranieri Architects

News

16 March 2023

Alumni Spotlight: Kotchakorn Voraakhom MLA ’06

8 March 2023

Grace La MArch ’95 Appointed Chair of Department of Architecture

28 February 2023

Alumni Spotlight: Eric Shaw MUP ’00

Support the GSD

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Harvard University Graduate School of Design #HarvardGSD

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Mar 21

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Zeerak Ahmed @zeerakahmed (MDE '18) observed that many non-Latin languages, such as his native Urdu, remain disproportionately underrepresented on the internet and in other disciplines of computing -- largely because existing resources offered insufficient support and were riddled with errors. Zeerak saw this as a perfect opportunity for his thesis for the Master in Design Engineering, a joint program between the GSD and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences @harvardseas. The app, Matnsaz @matnsaz_net, features an algorithm that was trained on a comprehensive corpus of Urdu texts that enables it to lay out the language's 39 letters in a way that makes sense for users. It's currently available on the iOS App Store.

#HarvardGSD #HarvardSEAS #Urdu #Languages #Engineering #Design

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Mar 20

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Happy first day of spring!🌹🌱

#HarvardInSpring #HarvardGSD

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Mar 17

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Today is #WorldSleepDay, so we're celebrating GSD's champion sleeper -- @remytheharvardcat. Here's evidence that Remy doesn't only spend time in Loeb or in the trays -- he also goes to lectures! These pictures are from last week's lecture by economist Raj Chetty. Photos courtesy of Sarah Whiting and Matt Smith.

#HarvardGSD #CatsofInstagram #WorldSleepDay2023

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Mar 16

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Work by @monicamendozaportfolio (MArch II '24)

Course: What’s a Difference?: Two Billboards for the Sunset Strip, Fall 2022

Instructor: Andrew Zago @ofmarginalinterest

Ads by Jay Lynn Gomez, Derek Abella, Pedro Nekoi

This studio designed two billboard structures on the Sunset Strip, conceived in relation to each other and at key locations on the Strip. The billboard structures responded to West Hollywood’s criteria for their Sunset Boulevard Design Excellence Program. The first site, near the western end of the strip at the northern terminus of San Vicente Boulevard, is across the street from the Whiskey-a-Go-Go nightclub. The second site is at the extreme eastern end of the Strip.

#HarvardGSD #Architecture #ArchitectureStudent #LosAngeles #WestHollywood #Advertising

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Mar 14

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@dwellmagazine's March/April issue features work by @the_ladg, founded by Claus Benjamin Freyinger and GSD's Andrew Holder. The project: designing a three-bedroom house in LA for Danielle Rago of PR agency @thisbythat. The LADG's challenge was turning a "Frankenstein" of a house into a space that combined common space and privacy while adhering to city constraints, and they found some creative solutions -- including putting a pole in the middle of the outdoor pool.

#HarvardGSD #Architecture #LosAngeles

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Mar 13

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Happy Monday! Today we're featuring an Instagram takeover by Alisha Kapoor @alisha__kap, who will graduate this year with a Master in Design degree. Alisha's focus (one of several possible Domains within the MDes degree) is Publics -- the study of human groups and their roles, interactions, and experiences within the built and natural environment.

Keep an eye on our Stories today for a look at Alisha's work and daily life at GSD!

#HarvardGSD #Design #DesignStudent

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Mar 10

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In his fall 2022 studio, “The Paradox of Hunger—Rural Mississippi,” Design Critic in Architecture Cory Henry @ateliercoryhenry asked students to examine Mississippi’s food insecurity crisis and investigate what mitigating role architecture and design could play. Though agriculture is the state’s main industry, nearly 19 percent of its citizens are food insecure, including one in four children.

Students in the studio engaged with the Piney Woods School, an independent historically African American boarding school south of Jackson, MS. The school was developed to teach the poor and children of freed slaves how to read and farm; today, the school remains predominantly Black and accepts students from across the US, the Caribbean, and beyond. GSD studio participants worked to propose new spaces on campus that aimed to engage the Piney Woods students with agriculture and green space in a positive way. Projects included a barn with terraced farming and a kitchen, a makerspace where students will work on projects such as sheds for the school’s goats, and an agronomy studies and mushroom lab. Near the new dormitories, each student is provided a small plot of land to manage as they wish.

Photographer Maggie Janik accompanied the studio on their trip last fall. Learn more in the photo essay (text by Charles Shafaieh) at #LinkInBio!

#HarvardGSD #Mississippi #Agriculture #Farming #Architecture #Design

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Mar 8

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GSD announces Grace La (MArch I '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 @ladallmanarchitects, a practice internationally recognized for work that integrates architecture, engineering, and site. La is the second woman to be named Chair of the Department of Architecture, and in 2013 became the first Korean American to be tenured at the GSD.

Read the full announcement at #LinkInBio!

#HarvardGSD #Architecture #GraceLa

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Mar 6

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Another sunny day at Gund!

📸: @palak__gupta

#HarvardGSD #HarvardInWinter

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Mar 4

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Yun Fu, Design Critic in Urban Planning and Design at GSD, writes about the unfolding recovery from the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria and the broader question of how to think and build on seismic ground.

Yun Fu is an architect and scholar whose work focuses on earthquakes and the broader design problem of risk, resilience, and reconstruction. Read more at #LinkInBio.

Image: A man walks past collapsed buildings in Antakya, southern Turkey on February 20, 2023. Photo by Yasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images.

#HarvardGSD #UrbanPlanning #UrbanDesign #Architecture #Turkey #Syria

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Mar 3

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The 2023 MICD Just City Mayoral Fellowship, a partnership of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design (@micddotorg) and the Just City Lab (@justcitylab) at GSD, is taking place this semester in a hybrid virtual and in-person format.

The Fellowship will help mayors develop and strengthen approaches to embedding justice and equity goals within government policy and practices, and help them to design strategies for achieving more just and equitable outcomes within their communities. This year's eight Fellows will take part in presentations and dialogues with experts in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, art activism, housing, and public policy.

The 2023 MICD Just City Mayoral Fellows are: Albany, NY Mayor Kathy Sheehan; Albuquerque, NM Mayor Tim Keller; Arlington, TX Mayor Jim Ross; Kansas City, MO Mayor Quinton Lucas; Monroe, LA Mayor Friday Ellis; Pensacola, FL Mayor D.C. Reeves; Santa Fe, NM Mayor Alan Webber; and St. Louis, MO Mayor Tishaura O. Jones.

Read more at #LinkInBio!

#HarvardGSD #Architecture #LandscapeArchitecture #UrbanPlanning #UrbanDesign #PublicPolicy

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Mar 1

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🚨 TOMORROW March 2, 2023 🚨 Houston Climate Futures by Design event at @uhcoad, co-organized by Dalia Munenzon from University of Houston and GSD's Matthijs Bouw.

In the Spring 2022 semester, Matthijs Bouw's GSD option studio, "Houston: Extreme Weather, Environmental Justice and the Energy Transition," focused on the long-term future of the Houston Ship Channel. Students in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and urban planning researched the area, met with stakeholders, and developed plans and projects that balance climate resilience, community, and economic development. University of Houston has also done work on similar topics, most recently including the studio "A fable for the (no-longer) temperate prairie: visions for the Greens Bayou watershed," taught by Dalia Munenzon.

This event has three parts:

Youth Environmental Summit (1-3 p.m.)
Students from Houston high schools will meet with GSD and UH students to talk about the work they are doing in integrating equitable resilience and sustainability into their curriculum.

"Futuring" Panel (4-6 p.m.)
GSD and UH students present their projects and discuss them with designers, community activists and elected officials.

Reception, pop-up exhibition and book presentation (6 p.m.)
The studio projects will be shown in a pop-up exhibition during the reception.

The GSD studio and the event are supported by @aecom. Read more about this studio and other examples of design in a crisis at #LinkInBio!

#HarvardGSD #UHCoAD #Houston #Architecture #LandscapeArchitecture #UrbanDesign #UrbanPlanning #Climate

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Feb 27

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A vacant Downtown Crossing storefront has recently become host to 3rd Space, described by the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District @downtownbostonbid as a free public cultural and community gathering space. It is part of the group's effort to create a community for those who live, work, and spend time in downtown Boston, and to consider the future of the area.

The group just practice @just__practice, founded by Amanda Ugorji @amandaugorji and Sophie Weston Chien @swchien (MLA, MUP '24), installed its large-scale textile series “Soft City,” which recounts Boston’s systemic history of racist redlining and its past, present and future impact on Black residents in Greater Boston. “‘Soft City’ tells a familiar story of the city in a new way: through touch and texture,” Chien says. The studio VERS Collab @verscollab, founded by Chelsea Jno Baptiste (MArch 1 '23) @chelseajbaptiste, Sahil Mohan @sahilmohan, and Savannah Cheung @Ohhhsosavvy, brings “ISUs” (short for “integrated shelter units”) – an interactive, socio-political artwork that comments on concepts of shelter, housing equity and “hostile architecture.”

3rd Space will host a Closing Reception & Artists Talk on March 2 7pm, featuring a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Lily Song @lilysong_says, Northeastern University Assistant Professor of Race and Social Justice in the Built Environment.

All images courtesy of @just__practice

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#HarvardGSD #UrbanPlanning #Boston #DowntownBoston

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Feb 24

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In a piece originally written for and printed in @harvarddesignmagazine 50: “Today’s Global” in spring 2022, Jerold S. Kayden writes about his experience in the 1990s, after the dissolution of the USSR, advising the Ukrainian government on issues of land reform, housing, and privatization: "I remember seeing verbatim excerpts from Connecticut’s housing condominium law being circulated for adoption in an Eastern European country as it worked to privatize hundreds of thousands of housing units in multifamily buildings. That type of copying of laws and policies from an entirely different context constitutes the worst kind of technical assistance delivered by international consultants."

Jerold S. Kayden is the Frank Backus Williams Professor of Urban Planning and Design at GSD and Founding Director of the Master in Real Estate Program, which will welcome its inaugural cohort of students in fall 2023.

Read more at #LinkInBio!

📸: Christina E. Crawford

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#HarvardGSD #UrbanPlanning #Ukraine

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Feb 23

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Snow at Gund ❄️

🎥: @oonagh290

#HarvardInWinter #HarvardGSD

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We inspire philanthropy and strengthen global connections to advance design education at Harvard and beyond.

Future Design Leaders Match

Student Emergency Fund

Upcoming Events

APA Philadelphia: GSD Reception 2023

Druker Traveling Fellowship Presentations Spring 2023

Plimpton Lecture: Rachel Meltzer, “What We Miss When We Look at Everything: Global Shocks and Local Impacts”

Alumni Updates

Jonathan Evans MArch ’10 serves as lead architect for Embrace Boston Memorial

Tricia Ebner MArch ’11 Promoted to Director at MdeAS in New York, NY

Jane Wolff MLA ’92 Selected as 2022 Winner of Margolese Prize

Natalia Escobar Castrillón MDes ’13 and co-editor Rayshad Dorsey MArch ’23 release issue no. 4 of academic journal OBL/QUE

“Beyond Sustainable: Architecture’s Evolving Environments of Habitation” by Ryan Ludwig MArch ’09 published by Routledge

Daniel Toole MAUD ’16 begins own practice, Daniel Toole Architecture and featured in the New York Times

Leif Estrada MDesS ’16 & MLA ’16 Promoted to Associate at Kuth Ranieri Architects

News

Alumni Spotlight: Kotchakorn Voraakhom MLA ’06

Grace La MArch ’95 Appointed Chair of Department of Architecture

Alumni Spotlight: Eric Shaw MUP ’00

Support the GSD

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