Harvard GSD Alumni and Friends Home - Harvard GSD Alumni & FriendsHarvard GSD Alumni & Friends

Current Initiative

GSD Racial Equity and Anti-Racism Fund

Your gift to the Racial Equity and Anti-Racism Fund will help to raise awareness of how race, racism, and racial injustice affect society (with a focus on the design fields) and promote a culture of anti-racism at the GSD.

Alumni Updates

Alumni Spotlight

Seven Alumni Elevated to ASLA Council of Fellows – Class of 2021

Arielle Assouline-Lichten. Photography by Cody Guilfoyle

Arielle Assouline-Lichten MArch ’13 Featured on Ellen’s Next Great Designer

Hou de Sousa, Headed by Nancy Hou MArch ’08 and Josh de Sousa MArch ’08, Named a 2021 Design Vanguard by Architectural Record

Quilian Riano MArch ’09 Appointed Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture Assistant Dean

Kofi Akakpo MArch ’21, Cynthia Deng MArch/MUP ’21, and De Qian Huang MArch ’22 awarded 2021 KPF Fellowships

image of Waterfront sanitation and community infrastructure

Soledad Patiño MAUD ’20 Wins 2020 LafargeHolcim Next Generation Awards

Book cover of "Professional Practice 101

Third Edition of “Professional Practice 101” by Andrew Pressman MDes ’94 Published

News

7 June 2021

Visit the GSD Through Virtual Gund Hall

22 April 2021

Buckminster Fuller’s Legacy Honored at Harvard GSD with New Chair

18 March 2021

Talking Practice: Practice in an Uncertain World

harvardgsd

1,141

View

Jul 22

Open

Get ready for #TokyoOlympics by looking back at drawings of the two national gymnasiums built for the Tokyo Olympic Games of 1964. Part of The Kenzo Tange Archive [丹下健三アーカイブ], Gift of Mrs. Takako Tange, 2011. Yoyogi Gymnasium (Tokyo). Frances Loeb Library, Harvard University Graduate School of Design.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Designed by Kenzō Tange (1913-200), the larger gymnasium’s roof is comprised of main suspended cables anchored to the ground and raised by two concrete pillars; secondary cables hang from the main cables and are tied to two reinforced concrete arch-like structures (bow-shaped in plan). The second gymnasium has a single column, shown in detail in image four.⁣
⁣
Tange was among the most influential architects of postwar Japan. His work incorporates international modern aesthetics with traditional Japanese design. In 1987, he was awarded the @pritzkerarchitectureprize in recognition of his architecture. The Kenzō Tange Archive is comprised of architectural drawings, models, a few manuscripts, and print publications from the professional practice of Tange. Browse the archive online at hgsd.us/tangearchive #LinkInBio⁣⁣
--⁣⁣
#HarvardGSD #FrancesLoebLibrary #GSDSpecialCollections #KenzōTange #KenzoTange #KenzōTangeArchive #Architecture #ArchitecturalDrawing #Olympics #Tokyo2020 #HarvardLibrary #TBT #HarvardGSDTBT @harvard_library @olympics

View

Jul 21

Open

📚 Prof. Megan Panzano @mpanzano shares a look at her current #SummerReading. What books are on your desk right now?
--
#HarvardGSD #GSDFaculty #DesignEducation #Repost

View

Jul 19

Open

"Asignifications: Destabilizing the Colonial Imaginary" by Sum In Sarah Cheung @s_arahc (MArch I '21) — Cheung is one of three recipients of the 2021 Architecture Faculty Design Award. Thesis Advisor: Sergio Lopez-Pineiro @holesofmatter.⁣ #GSDStudentWork #HarvardGSD21⁣
⁣
"This thesis attempts to bring forth an asignification through the rewriting of Hong Kong’s oldest remaining colonial building and its immediate context. The ideological undoing of this building’s symbolism and the creation of interludes and digressions within its simulacra produces an urban ensemble that occupies and solidifies the space in between its two neighboring, and opposing, institutions: that of I.M. Pei’s Bank of China Tower and the High Court of Hong Kong. In considering the complex network of mutations and permutations of nationalism, colonialism, and capitalism so embedded in the city’s built environment, the resultant programmatic entanglement seeks to restore a multivalence in architecture that destabilizes the privileged perspectival space within, which the colonial gaze is cast in place. The constant appearance and disappearance of historical image, typology, and symbolism may perhaps begin to restore a critical distance—a gap, a void—within which a new postcolonial subject might be invented, subsequently encouraging an embracing of the in-between." Learn more about this and other prize-winning projects and students by visiting our 2021 Virtual Commencement Exhibition #LinkInBio⁣⁣⁣
--⁣⁣⁣⁣
#HarvardGSD #Architecture #ArchitectureStudent

View

Jul 15

Open

#TBT to the summer of 1950. German artist Josef Albers was appointed to conduct a course in the Fundamentals of Design (lectures and laboratory work) during the GSD's summer session. The course included the study of basic design and basic color.⁣
⁣
Photos courtesy Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Museum Purchase @harvardartmuseums. ©President and Fellows of Harvard College. Title: Josef Albers Teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Accession Numbers: BR50.536 and BR50.534. Photos taken by David Cooper.⁣
--⁣
#HarvardGSD #Harvard #JosefAlbers #Architecture #ArchitectureStudent #ArchitectureSchool #HarvardGSDTBT

View

Jul 12

Open

View

Jul 10

Open

"Wavelength" is back to bring color and shade to @Harvard's Science Center Plaza. The installation was designed by @interboropartners, the firm founded by Prof. Daniel D’Oca @dand_oca (MUP '02) with Tobias Armborst (MAUD '02) and Georgeen Theodore @georgeentheodore (MAUD '02). Video captured by Prof. Gareth Doherty @garethgerarddoherty.
--
[Video Description: An outdoor installation of hundreds of rectangular red flags with the occasional orange and blue flag appearing waves over lawn chairs and tables.]
--
#HarvardGSD @harvardcommonspaces @harvardurbanplanning @harvardurbandesign #GSDFaculty #GSDAlumni

View

Jul 8

Open

"An Attempt to Approach a Void: Georges Perec, 'Cause commune,' and the Infraordinary" by Proey Liao @proeyliao (MArch II/ MDes HPDM '21) — Recipient of the 2021 Design Studies Thesis Prize. Faculty Advisor: Edward Eigen.⁣ #GSDStudentWork #HarvardGSD21⁣
⁣
"This thesis is an attempt to approach the 'infraordinary' not only as the subject of exploration, but as a method of writing itself. I aim to trace the infraordinary conceptually through the immediate textual context of the fifth issue of 'Cause commune,' the work of Georges Perec, and the work of 'Cause commune’s' other contributors. It is not an origin story, but a text enumerating scales and mediums of everyday life that coalesce in this journal. By excavating what is below everyday life, the infraordinary shows just how unfamiliar we are with everyday life in the first place as we constantly come up against and avoid a void, and how we are equipped to do something about it—through creative acts and life itself." Learn more about this and other prize-winning theses by visiting our 2021 Virtual Commencement Exhibition #LinkInBio⁣
--⁣
[Video Description: Animation quickly shows pages of the thesis, which include columns of text punctuated by images.]⁣
--⁣⁣⁣⁣
#HarvardGSD #DesignStudies #DesignStudiesStudent

View

Jul 7

Open

"ResilientHub" by Kuan-Ting Chen @chenkuanting (MDes EE '22), Sihui (Iris) Chen @iriscsh (MArch I '21), Andrew Gibbs (MDes REBE '21), Kritika Kharbanda @kharbanda_kritika (MDes EE '23), and Lara Tomholt @laratomholt (DDes '22) — Winner of third place in the 2021 U.S. Department of Energy @energy Solar Decathlon Design Challenge @doesolardecathlon (Office Building Division). Faculty Advisor: Holly Samuelson @hollywsamuelson. #GSDStudentWork⁣
⁣
"Situated in Boston's Seaport District, the proposed building design includes 13 floors of office space, in addition to retail, restaurants, a daycare center for children of office employees, and underground parking on the lower floors. The office floors are expected to cater to a diverse range of corporate users from the life sciences, technology, and financial sectors. Adaptable ETFE pillow facades, that feature a novel tunable material developed at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, optimize solar heat gain and daylight access in response to daily and seasonal weather changes, and future global warming and urbanization. A solar chimney, placed prominently at its most optimal position for solar heat gain, provides buoyancy-driven natural ventilation and significantly lowers the building’s cooling loads with future rising temperatures. A series of indoor atria supply the office spaces with a healthy level of natural daylight and provide room for informal social interaction. Situated in a flood zone, the building employs building and landscape-integrated strategies to mitigate flood levels and delay, resist, and discharge flood water." Learn more at hgsd.us/projects⁣⁣⁣ #LinkInBio⁣
--⁣
[Image 3 Video Description: Drawing shows how the building's facade adapts for energy efficiency and occupant comfort level throughout the seasons using gold coated PDMS, mesh, ETFE, temperature sensors, a central computer, and an air valve system.]⁣
--⁣
#HarvardGSD #Architecture #DesignStudies #DoctoralProgram #Energy #Sustainability #ArchitectureStudent @harvardrealestate @gsdmdesee

View

Jul 4

Open

"American Brick and the Difficult Whole" 🧱 by Yuming Feng @arch_ym.feng (MArch II '21) — Recipient of the 2021 James Templeton Kelley Prize, MArch II. Instructors: Mark Lee @johnstonmarklee and Hanif Kara @hanif.kara, @gsdtheamericanbrickinarcadia.⁣ #GSDStudentWork #HarvardGSD21⁣
⁣
"As a multicultural center at @riceuniversity, this project tries to establish a new ground for brick architecture in which brick fulfills both its structural value and cultural purpose. The facade is a brick architecture that inherits the material tradition of the campus; the interior, which makes use of timber, is an architecture with various scales of programs. The coexistence of the timber interior and the brick exterior immediately breaks the continuity between the content and context." Learn more about this and other prize-winning theses by visiting our 2021 Virtual Commencement Exhibition #LinkInBio⁣⁣⁣
--⁣
[Image 4 Video Description: Axonometric gif showing the construction of each of the center's three floors building on top of each other.]⁣
--⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
#HarvardGSD #Harvard21 #Architecture #ArchitectureStudent #Brick

View

Jul 3

Open

"America," the latest issue of @HarvardDesignMagazine, works to trace how the United States gained global definition and influence in the 20th century, and where and how American culture and design provoked unequal social outcomes.⁣
⁣
Browse and buy at 🔗harvarddesignmagazine.org⁣
--⁣
#HarvardGSD #GSDPublications #HarvardDesignMagazine #HDM48 Photo by @office.alexismark / @kristoffer_li, taken @11o.cph.

View

Jun 30

Open

From an airplane or satellite, Picher, Oklahoma, appears as an anomaly in the endless green grid of agricultural land at the center of the United States. Huge irregular gray blots and dark pools interrupt the geometric precision of roads, and the colorful smear of Tar Creek runs diagonally through the town. Abandoned a decade ago—like its neighboring towns—Picher reveals a legacy of environmental indifference and staggering injustice.⁣
⁣
The Environmental Protection Agency designated the area as the "Tar Creek Superfund Site" in 1983 and eventually bought out the residents of Picher, Cardin, Douthat, and Treece. Disincorporated and abandoned by 2010, vestiges of the towns remain among the toxic piles and sinkholes. Cleanup has been exceedingly slow, and until recently, the Quapaw tribal members were excluded from the remediation effort.⁣
⁣
Prof. Niall Kirkwood describes this passionately as "a horrific story. . . 120 years of environmental injustice." By design, the brutal legacy of the mines haunted his spring 2021 #LandscapeArchitecture studio, "Tar Creek Remade: Environmental Legacy, Toxic Terrain and Re-Imagining the Future in the Tri-State Mining Area, Ottawa County, Oklahoma, USA." From the beginning, Kirkwood challenged his 10 students to take on this immense problem of Tar Creek—a project "so utterly terrifying and so utterly complex that any sense of a resolution within a 15-week period is almost impossible"—with energy and creativity, but also realistically, anticipating small steps and a long time frame. It is crucial, he warned, to anticipate that progress will occur only "little by little" over centuries. Accordingly, their task was to "to go down to the micro-scale on the site. . ." and to propose "test experiments. . . they could scale up over the site—a hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times."⁣
⁣
Learn about some of the student proposals on our website in the article "Tar Creek Remade" #LinkInBio. Text by Alex Anderson.⁣⁣
--⁣
Animation by Jinying Zhang @jinying_zhang_625 (MLA '21).⁣
⁣
[Video Description: A drawing of the site morphs over time. The creek goes from a toxic orange to a clear blue.]⁣
--⁣
#HarvardGSD #GSDDesignNews

View

Jun 28

Open

"The Block" by Daniel Garcia @_danielalexis_ (March II '20), Kyle Ryan @ky_ry_ (MDes REBE '21), and Peeraya Suphasidh @anothershore (MArch II '20) — Recipient of the 2021 #PlimptonPoorvuDesignPrize, Second Place. Faculty Advisor: Bing Wang #GSDStudentWork⁣⁣ #HarvardGSD21⁣
⁣
"'The Block' is a mixed-use, transit-oriented development proposal of a 10 acre shopping center in Allston, MA. Located at the new Boston Landing @thembta rail stop, this project envisions diverse spaces for living, working, and retail in the form of a new elevated urban square, forming the foundation for a 15-min city." Learn more at hgsd.us/projects⁣⁣⁣ #LinkInBio⁣⁣
--⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
#HarvardGSD #Architecture #DesignStudies #MDesREBE @harvardrealestate

View

Jun 25

Open

What's on your #SummerReading list? 📚⁣⁣
⁣⁣
@pairs.gsd makes a great beach read—for you and a friend. Dedicated to unguarded conversations about design, the inaugural issue contains reflections on major personal, disciplinary, and political turning points, as well as discussions on gardening, book-making, publishing, and the conversation itself.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Get your copy of Pairs 01 for $15 plus shipping at the link in @pairs.gsd's bio or 🔗hgsd.us/orderpairs⁣⁣
--⁣⁣
#HarvardGSD #Harvard #GSDPublications

View

Jun 23

Open

"Animated Spaces" and "Creature-Like Objects: Animistic Interactions With Smart Buildings + IOT Objects" by Matthew Pugh @matte_pugh (MArch II '21) — Recipient of the 2021 Digital Design Prize. Faculty Advisor: Allen Sayegh @allensayegh.⁣ Instructors: Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo Lopez @garciadelcastillo, Humbi Song @humbi__, and Andrew Witt. #HarvardGSD21 #GSDStudentWork⁣⁣
⁣⁣
"At the GSD, I’ve been engrossed in a strange new world of objects with digital organs, of spaces animated in response to their occupants’ daily lives, and of empathetic interactions between humans and the objects they live with. My submission showcases design work emphasizing digital animism on two parallel tracks: one interested in animated interactions within architectural spaces—bringing them to life with kinematic actuation—and the other with anthropomorphized interactions with our IOT-laden objects." Learn more hgsd.us/projects⁣⁣⁣⁣ #LinkInBio⁣⁣
--⁣⁣
Image 2: Clip from "Animated Spaces" [Video Description: The screen is divided into four sections each showing an interior scene decorated in a different color. Inhabitants interact with the smart building, which includes moving walls and roving bots.]⁣⁣
Image 3: Clip from "Creature-Like Objects" [Video Description: A man works at his desk while objects from his smart home move around him. A productivity bot shows his productivity falling. Exasperated, he gets up to look out the window and drink some coffee while a heat gazer analyzes his temperature. A prism smart hub provides color therapy.]⁣⁣
--⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
#HarvardGSD #Architecture #ArchitectureStudent #Computation #ResponsiveEnvironments

View

Jun 22

Open

#Repost @harvard "Even with a remote year, I've been able to find such a wonderful queer community already at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The Queers in Design (@queersindesign) group was my connection to other students and provided some really wonderful discussions around gender identity, queer experiences at Harvard past and present, and other resources. I am excited to return to in-person learning with everyone in the fall and to expand my community at Harvard even more!" - Shannon Slade (MDes RR '22)⁣
⁣
#Pride #PrideMonth #Harvard #HarvardGSD

Support the GSD

No matter the size, every gift matters.

We inspire philanthropy and build a global community that supports the future of design education at Harvard and beyond.

GSD Racial Equity and Anti-Racism Fund

Alumni Updates

Seven Alumni Elevated to ASLA Council of Fellows – Class of 2021

Arielle Assouline-Lichten MArch ’13 Featured on Ellen’s Next Great Designer

Hou de Sousa, Headed by Nancy Hou MArch ’08 and Josh de Sousa MArch ’08, Named a 2021 Design Vanguard by Architectural Record

Quilian Riano MArch ’09 Appointed Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture Assistant Dean

Kofi Akakpo MArch ’21, Cynthia Deng MArch/MUP ’21, and De Qian Huang MArch ’22 awarded 2021 KPF Fellowships

Soledad Patiño MAUD ’20 Wins 2020 LafargeHolcim Next Generation Awards

Third Edition of “Professional Practice 101” by Andrew Pressman MDes ’94 Published

News

Visit the GSD Through Virtual Gund Hall

Buckminster Fuller’s Legacy Honored at Harvard GSD with New Chair

Talking Practice: Practice in an Uncertain World

harvardgsd

Support the GSD

Make a Difference. Support the GSD.