Photos will be available via Facebook and through email in the next few weeks.
If you have additional feedback or questions, please email Brad Quigley, Director of Alumni Relations and Annual Giving.
Join the Sert Council as a leader in support of the School.
The Practice Platform at Harvard University Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) presents “Talking Practice,” the first podcast series to feature in-depth interviews with leading design practitioners from around the world on the ways in which architects, landscape architects, designers, and planners articulate design imagination through practice.
Hosted by Grace La, Professor of Architecture and Chair of the Practice Platform at Harvard GSD, each 40-minute episode provides a rare glimpse into the work, experiences, and attitudes of design luminaries such as Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigematsu, Jeanne Gang, and others. Comprehensive, thought-provoking, and timely, “Talking Practice” tells the story of what designers do, why, and how they do it—exploring the key issues at stake in practice today.
Listen to all available episodes and find program notes on our website, or subscribe to the series via one of these podcast providers: iTunes, Android, Google, Stitcher, and Spotify.
The GSD’s Paul Nakazawa and Grace La record an episode of “Talking Practice.”
Dear GSD Alumni and Friends,
I feel honored to have been given the opportunity to serve the Graduate School of Design and Harvard as dean for the past decade, and am now writing to let you know of my intention to conclude my term at the end of this academic year and to return to teaching and research after a sabbatical.
The GSD has a long history of being the leader in design education, beginning with its founding in 1936. In recent years we have embraced the One Harvard ideal of President Emerita Drew Faust, and have built on and expanded our collaborative ethos. These collaborations, whether between the School’s various departments and programs or with other parts of the University, have shaped new domains of knowledge that have promoted the role and value of design within the context of a research university and the wider world. The newly established Master in Design Engineering program with the Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the joint degree program with the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, the undergraduate program in architecture with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences—all are manifestations of the GSD’s commitment to providing unique and innovative opportunities for pedagogy, research, and scholarship.
The GSD’s students, faculty, staff, and alumni have been an enormous source of inspiration, support, and wisdom. I have learned so much from my interactions with our diverse community and feel fortunate to have worked with an amazing group of colleagues who have been supportive of the School’s many transformative projects, sharing a passion for academic excellence as well as a commitment to change our society for the better.
The GSD’s global engagement, whether through studios or various research initiatives, has helped to bridge the gap between the academy and practice, in the process allowing our students to gain first-hand knowledge of innovations in the building industry and new approaches to housing and public space, as well as the broader challenges facing the built environment, from confronting climate change to pursuing social and spatial justice. All these issues are part of the broader processes of urbanization that are having such radical impact on our world.
The recently completed capital campaign will enable the School to advance its mission and support students and faculty in the years to come. I am grateful to our campaign leadership and everyone involved for making it such a success. The launch of our plans for an addition to Gund Hall will complement our academic plans by providing extraordinary facilities for design creativity at the intersection of different fields at Harvard.
I am thankful to President Bacow, President Emerita Faust, and Provost Garber for their support of the GSD. President Bacow will soon launch the search for the School’s next dean. Over the coming months, I look forward to our working together and to continuing our commitment to new opportunities that will make design an even more indispensable part of Harvard and beyond.
With gratitude,
Mohsen Mostafavi
Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Left to right: Ann Forsyth selected as JAPA Editor; Diane Davis and Lily Song’s thoughts on urban transport in Politico magazine; Dan D’Oca’s MUP ’02 firm’s “Wavelength” installation at Harvard; Ann Forsyth’s award for the book Creating Healthy Neighborhoods; Toni Griffin’s LF ’98 interviewed on her Design and the Just City work.
Left to right: Jerold Kayden’s AB ’75, JD ’79, MCRP ’79 article on Massachusetts zoning law and affordable housing; Alex Krieger MCU ’77 GSD ’85 honored as one of the Harvard Crimson’s annual “15 Professors of the Year; ” Andres Sevtsuk’s keynote on autonomous vehicles and the future of streets; and Abby Spinak’s reflections on teaching.
The Harvard University Graduate School of Design Alumni Council does hereby establish a Policy, Number Nine, as follows:
All Alumni Council members shall ascribe to and adhere to the Community Values Statement, which states:
The Alumni Council is the primary representative body of the Graduate School of Design alumni community. The fundamental goal of the Council is to promote the engagement of the alumni community and the advancement of the GSD in Cambridge and across the world. Council membership represents decades of experience and spans a wide array of fields, demographics, and regions. These distinguished members are highly engaged in not only the design issues of the day but also civic, professional, governmental, and business affairs within their communities. Council members, through programming and events, work to engage and connect the GSD’s alumni and current students.
All members of the Council serve as ambassadors representing the GSD. As such, in all activities, Council members owe to the entire GSD community and to one another to learn, model, and uphold fundamental values that foster and demonstrate the highest standards with respect to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging.
These include:
Our commitment to these values is demonstrated through our showing of regard for and civility toward others through behaviors and interactions among the Council, our ambassadorship to the alumni community, a sustained and intentional support of the student body, faculty, and staff, and contribution to the culture of the GSD. To embrace these values as the Alumni Council we affirm our commitment to equity, diversity, establish a foundation of inclusion in our actions and programs, and advocate for an alumni community that embodies mutual respect and responsibility.
Over the past four years, the Grounded Visionaries campaign has brought together people from around the world who care deeply about the GSD, including students, faculty, alumni, donors, collaborators, and friends. Our Campaign goal of $110 million was, by far, the largest fundraising goal in the School’s history—an audacious goal. In this video, we are pleased to share the reflections of leadership, faculty, students, alumni, and donors on the impact of the Campaign.
As the GSD embarks on another academic year, 966 students, including 361 first-year students, have settled in at Gund Hall ready to engage in an array of core and option studios; public lectures and events; exhibitions; and travel opportunities. There are 126 courses offered this fall semester including 22 option studios. Half of this year’s option studios have a focus on an international area, and 10 of the studios being led by alumni instructors. Students are traveling as far away as Shanghai, Bangladesh, Arles, and Saudi Arabia; the other half is focused domestically as close to the GSD as Miami, New York, North Adams, and Provincetown. The School views the studios as part of its commitment to worldliness and its ethos of contributing and engaging with communities outside the GSD.
With its nimble pedagogy and renowned faculty, it is with great pride that the GSD shares that DesignIntelligence has ranked its architecture program first in the nation for 2019. The GSD has held this leading position for the past six years, solidifying our reputation as a model for design innovation, research, and scholarship.
Among the exciting faculty appointments and promotions that marked the start of the academic year, Mark Lee MArch ’95 joined the GSD as Chair of the Department of Architecture. Lee and his partner, Sharon Johnston MArch ’93, have a special history with the GSD, both as alumni and as members of our faculty. Also, Rahul Mehrotra MAUD ’87 will serve as Director of the Master of Architecture in Urban Design degree program.
An upcoming publication to be released later this fall, Platform 11 has been edited for the first time by a team of students—Esther Mira Bang MArch ’18, Lane Raffaldini Rubin MArch ’19, MLA ’19, and Enrique Aureng Silvavision MDes ’18—who have brought new insight and ideas to this important publication and the associated exhibition next spring.
“Urban Intermedia: City, Archive, Narrative,” the culmination of a four-year investigation funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, argues that the complexity of contemporary urban societies and environments makes communication and collaboration across professional boundaries and academic disciplines essential.
Frederick Law Olmsted Lecture: Michael Van Valkenburgh AM ’88.
The School has an incredible lineup of public lectures and conferences planned for this fall that brings vitality, diversity, and important dialogue to our community. Please visit the GSD’s homepage to sign up to receive periodic emails about the School’s public programs, exhibitions, and other news. If you’re able to visit campus this semester, you are welcome to attend an event or explore an exhibition. If you are not able to join us in person, many of the lectures will be available on the School’s YouTube channel. Highlights include:
With the continued commitment to engaging our community in places afar from Cambridge, the Development and Alumni Relations Office has a robust schedule of events:
Now is the time to update your profile in the Harvard Alumni Directory. With a current profile, you can find fellow alumni, create a contact list of people you keep in touch with regularly, volunteer to mentor students, and build your career network by connecting with alumni by industry, specialty, or company. Please click here for more information.
This is just a glimpse of the rich variety of events, programs, learning, and research happening inside and outside of the classroom this fall. For more information, please visit gsd.harvard.edu.
As a researcher, the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Andres Sevtsuk has been immersed in questions of urban mobility. His work as assistant professor of urban planning and as principal investigator at the City Form Lab covers topics involving urban design and spatial analysis; real estate economics, transit, and pedestrian-oriented development; and spatial adaptability, among others.
Most recently, Sevtsuk has engaged these issues and angles in an investigation of autonomous vehicles. Last year, he and the GSD’s Diane E. Davis launched the Future of Streets research project through the City Form Lab, with the intention of studying how cities might adapt streets to newly emerging transportation technology—ride-sharing, as well as electric and autonomous vehicles—in ways that maximize multi-modal, socially inclusive, and environmentally sustainable outcomes. The project is run in partnership with the planning and transportation departments of Los Angeles and Boston and will feature research and studios in both cities.
Sevtsuk had the opportunity to preview some of this work during a keynote address at the Strategic Visioning Workshop on Autonomous Vehicles in Minnesota conference this June. The conference gathered city and state transportation officials and other experts to take up questions around what the state can do to be well-positioned on autonomous-vehicle deployment within the next decade, and to discuss vision-driven considerations like land use, environmental considerations, traffic operations, and safety, and equity.
Sevtsuk’s keynote addressed possible impacts of autonomous vehicles on the streets of Boston and Los Angeles. To suggest and illustrate these potentials, Sevtsuk presented extreme “heaven” and “hell” scenarios of a post-AV urban landscape in each city. On Boston’s Newbury Street, Sevtsuk showed a “heaven” situation offering extended pedestrian sidewalks, narrow lanes for AVs, new trees and street vegetation, and two-way bike lanes. The “hell” scenario, meanwhile, involved narrow sidewalks, congested traffic, broken-down AVs and degrading street commerce on downtown streets that has fallen victim to a new wave of suburban sprawl.
At Los Angeles’s Vermont/Santa Monica intersection, Sevtsuk’s “heaven” plan included improved public transport systems, shared AV pick-up and drop-off zones, continuous bike lanes, and active retail facades and street vegetation. In opposition, the potential “hell” scenario included, as on Boston’s Newbury Street, an AV-exclusive freeway prone to being blocked by a broken-down AVs, an elevated highway for private AVs, drive-indoors (as opposed to drive through) restaurants as well as railings and Jersey barriers to prevent pedestrian crossings.
The purpose behind these contrasting scenarios of potential AV futures, Sevtsuk says, is to suggest that policymakers, designers, and planners need to act now in order to “nudge the future towards ‘heaven.’”
Sevtsuk also offered two other recent presentations on similar topics: a keynote at the Creative Impact Conference, as part of Tallinn Music Week in Tallinn, Estonia, and UNICEF’s “Making Cities Safe and Sustainable for Every Child” conference in Surabaya, Indonesia.
Last fall, the Harvard Gazette profiled Sevtsuk’s research on urban walkability and the factors that make certain city blocks more or less walkable and accessible.
Sevtsuk has collaborated with a number of city governments, international organizations, planning practices, and developers on urban designs, plans, and policies in both developed and rapidly developing urban environments, most recently including those in Indonesia and Singapore. He is the author of the Urban Network Analysis toolbox, which is used by researchers and practitioners around the world to study coordinated land use and transportation development along networks. He has led various international research projects; exhibited his research at TEDx, the World Cities Summit, and the Venice Biennale; and received the President’s Design Award in Singapore, International Buckminster Fuller Prize, and Ron Brown/Fulbright Fellowship.
Sevtsuk was previously an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Planning at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), and a lecturer at MIT.
More information can be found on the Future of Streets project page.
Visuals are from Sevtsuk’s keynote presentation. Visualizations by Chenglong Zhao MAUD ’18 and Foteini Bouliari MAUD ’18.
It is with great sadness that the GSD shares that our former colleague and good friend, Bill Saunders, passed away earlier this week. Bill worked with many of us over the course of his 29-year career here at the GSD, where he most recently served as the founding editor of the Harvard Design Magazine (2002 – 2011). Bill’s sense of curiosity and interest in design work resulted in the production of some truly valuable publication contributions. Those of you who knew him will surely remember him—and his love of music, friends, and family—fondly.
There will be a public memorial service on Saturday, September 22nd at 2:00pm at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Newton at 1326 Washington St, Newton, MA 02465. We will also be holding visiting hours on Friday evening, the 21st of September, from 4-8pm at the Burke and Blackington Funeral Home at 1479 Washington Street, West Newton, MA 02465.
If you would like to make a donation in memory of Bill:
Donations can be made to the “Communities United Creative Start” Program in Waltham (formerly Head Start). Soon after he retired Bill became an enthusiastic board member there. He also volunteered in the three-year-old class where kids adored him and knew him as, “Mr. Bill.” Information about making a donation is in the comments.
You can donate to the Communities United Creative Start program online at www.communitiesunitedinc.org/donate. Under the donation amount, there is an option, “Write a note” where you can indicate that your donation is for the “Waltham Creative Start – Bill Saunders Memorial fund.”
Checks can be made out to “Communities United Inc.” and sent to 108 Water Street, Unit 2D, Watertown MA, 02472. Please indicate on the check: “Waltham Creative Start – Bill Saunders Memorial.”
Dear Alumni and Friends,
I wish to offer my sincere gratitude for your support of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design as part of our Grounded Visionaries campaign. Through your generosity, the GSD is empowering students, expanding our global reach, and building our future through leading-edge faculty and transformative facilities.
Please view the following video message in appreciation of your generosity.
I look forward with optimism to the GSD’s future as the ambitious work of our students and faculty continues to build momentum. On behalf of all of us at the GSD, I thank you.
Sincerely,
Mohsen Mostafavi
Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design
Dear Alumni and Friends,
I wish to offer my sincere gratitude for your support of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Over the past year, through your generosity we raised over $825,000 toward annual funds, marking a strong end to our Grounded Visionaries campaign. Your continued support helps to empower the next generation of design leaders and innovators to design outside the lines. Please view the following video message in appreciation of your generosity.
I look forward with optimism to the GSD’s future as the ambitious work of our students and faculty continues to build momentum. On behalf of all of us at the GSD, I thank you.
Sincerely,
Mohsen Mostafavi
Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design
Harvard University Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) has selected the Basel-based architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron, design consultant, and New York-based Beyer Blinder Belle (BBB), architect of record, to design a significant transformation of the School’s primary campus building, Gund Hall, into a twenty-first-century center of design education and innovation. The proposed expansion would include new space to be integrated into the heart of the School’s existing structure. The reimagined facility will embody the School’s visionary and cross-disciplinary work at the intersection of design, pedagogy, research, and practice.
As a global leader in each of its fields, Harvard GSD is redefining the future of design as a response to increasingly complex issues faced by cities and ecologies, people and places around the world. This innovative approach involves a cross-disciplinary collaboration among the School’s departments of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design, as well as Harvard GSD’s Doctor of Design, Doctor of Philosophy, Master in Design Studies, and Master in Design Engineering degree programs. This approach also represents a deepening engagement with other academic fields, including medicine, business, government, public health, and the humanities, and degree programs with Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and T.H. Chan School of Public Health. This, along with the growth of the School, has expanded the scope and purpose of Harvard GSD’s pedagogy and mission.
“The GSD’s groundbreaking collaborations with theoretical and applied disciplines, and other professional schools at Harvard, bring collective expertise to bear in addressing the most pressing social and environmental challenges of our time through design innovation,” says Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design, Harvard GSD. “Herzog & de Meuron and BBB have carefully studied and observed the School’s many qualities and characteristics, and they have a bold design vision for the GSD and its engagement with other disciplines and professional schools across Harvard, and for its impact on the world. We are excited to collaborate with both firms on the creation of an important and dynamic center for design innovation here at the GSD.”
The proposed new space will encourage new forms of cross-disciplinary collaboration by creating an anchored point of intersection among the School’s current studio workspace (known as “the trays”), faculty and departmental offices, seminar rooms and classrooms, research library, production and fabrication facilities, and new interior spaces designed for informal meetings, social gatherings, and public programs. The new addition is expected to add only a minimal amount to Gund Hall’s physical footprint, eliminating the need for additional land and thereby preserving Harvard GSD’s green space and basketball court.
“Since the 1980s we have been in close contact with Harvard GSD for teaching and research projects,” say Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, Founding Partners, Herzog & de Meuron. “We’ve met several generations of professors, staff, and students. We learned from the talent and excellence of many of those people from across the world. Also, we have always admired the intellectual spirit and free-thinking atmosphere of the School with its mythic Gund Hall building. We envision transforming this building by excavating, adding, and connecting spaces that will support communication and exchange within the GSD community. We are very excited to be awarded this project, and look forward to working with all our friends and dear colleagues in the years ahead.”
BBB and a series of consultants will collaborate with Herzog & de Meuron to design the project. Herzog & de Meuron and BBB bring significant institutional experience to Harvard GSD. BBB’s work at Harvard spans over 14 years, including the recent renewal of Winthrop and Adams Houses. Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have previously taught studios and presented a number of public lectures and exhibitions at Harvard GSD over the past three decades.
“We are excited to continue our work on Harvard’s campus, and to be partnering with Herzog & de Meuron. The Gund Hall project goes beyond expansion, to re-visioning a building that is both professionally important and personally meaningful to us as designers,” says Elizabeth Leber, Partner, BBB. “It resonates with our firm’s philosophy of sustainable transformation of existing buildings to adapt to many types of change.”
The architects were selected through a two-stage process organized by Harvard University. The project’s designer selection committee included Harvard GSD faculty and staff members, together with University-appointed design advisors. Concept and schematic design development for Herzog & de Meuron’s proposal has commenced and will continue through the summer months, and is anticipated to be completed during Fall 2018. The launch of the Gund Hall expansion project was made possible by a generous gift by Ronald M. Druker. Harvard GSD will be working to secure further philanthropic support for this proposed project.
Designed by Australian architect and Harvard GSD graduate John Andrews, Gund Hall opened in 1972. The facility offers a stimulating environment for the School’s 900+ students, 100 regular and 70 visiting faculty, and 150 staff, and includes studio and office areas; lecture and seminar rooms; workshops and darkrooms; an audiovisual center; computer facilities; a cafeteria; a project room; Piper Auditorium; and Frances Loeb Library. The yard area is used for outdoor activities; as an exhibition area for class projects; and as the setting for commencement ceremonies. The central studio space extends through five levels under a stepped, clear-span roof that admits natural light and provides views toward Boston. The dramatic facade and extensive glass surfaces make an eloquent statement about the design excellence and professional creativity for which the School is known.
About Herzog & de Meuron
Herzog & de Meuron is a partnership led by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron with Senior Partners Christine Binswanger, Ascan Mergenthaler, and Stefan Marbach. Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have been visiting professors at the Harvard Graduate School of Design since 1994 and professors at ETH Zürich since 1999. Herzog & de Meuron have designed highly recognized public facilities such as the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games, the Tate Modern in London, and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, as well as a number of distinguished private projects including apartment buildings, offices, and factories. Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have been awarded numerous prizes including the Pritzker Architecture Prize (USA) in 2001, the RIBA Royal Gold Medal (UK), and the Praemium Imperiale (Japan) in 2007.
About Beyer Blinder Belle
Beyer Blinder Belle, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, is a broad and award-winning practice in New York City and Washington, DC, with a longstanding commitment to design excellence, social integrity, and sustainable practices. The firm’s multi-faceted portfolio encompasses preservation, urban design, and new construction projects that span a wide spectrum of building typologies and sectors, including cultural, civic, educational, residential, and commercial. In addition to their work at Harvard, BBB has completed planning and design projects for leading academic institutions, including Amherst College, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, New York University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, and the University of Chicago.
About Harvard University Graduate School of Design
The Harvard University Graduate School of Design is dedicated to the education and development of design professionals in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and urban design. With a commitment to design excellence that demands the skillful manipulation of form and technology and draws inspiration from a broad range of social, environmental, and cultural issues, the Harvard Graduate School of Design provides leadership for shaping the built environment of the twenty-first century.
Dear Alumni and Friends,
Over the past four years, the Grounded Visionaries campaign has brought together people from around the world who care deeply about the GSD, including students, faculty, alumni, donors, collaborators, and friends. Our Campaign goal of $110 million was, by far, the largest fund raising goal in the School’s history—an audacious goal.
Now that we have reached the conclusion of the Campaign (June 30, 2018), we are thrilled to share that we have surpassed our ambitious goal by raising over $160 million!
Thank you to the many alumni and friends who have generously supported the GSD. Together, we set a bold vision for the institution focused on our passion to re-imagine the built environment; our fascination with the intersection of art, science, research, and action; and our determination to develop creative solutions to some of the most challenging issues of our time. 2017-2018 was also a strong year of support for the GSD’s annual giving funds with over $800,000 raised!
In the coming weeks, you will hear more about the impact of the campaign and those who contributed to it. In the meantime, we look ahead to the bright future you have helped to shape for our faculty and students and the spaces and communities they will create and transform around the world through the incredible power of design.
With much gratitude,
John K. F. Irving AB ’83, MBA ’89 and Phil L. Harrison AB ’86, MArch ’93
Grounded Visionaries Campaign Co-Chairs
Caroline Chao MArch ’19 talks about her experience as an architecture student at the GSD, collaborating across Harvard, and the importance of financial aid.
GSD alumni are using the knowledge and skills they developed at the School to make contributions to the built environment and society in impactful ways. Key findings from the Alumni Research Initiative, a comprehensive survey of its alumni, sheds light on alumni career paths and their social impact spanning a range of areas including transportation, sustainable cities, resilience, food systems, housing, and water, which are topics of inquiry and research that align with GSD priorities.
This survey of the lifelong community of multigenerational diverse design professionals indicates that with the knowledge and skills attained at the GSD, graduates are leaders and innovators in their fields of practice. Overall, alumni are highly productive in design and planning fields, with 83% creating built projects and 70% generating plans such as master plans and city plans in their professional lives or volunteer work. The findings reinforce the GSD’s legacy of leadership, innovation, and social responsibility as well the School’s top rankings by DesignIntelligence. The GSD has topped DesignIntelligence’s 2017-2018 “America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools” rankings, substantiating the GSD’s exceptional ability to prepare graduates for professional practice. The architecture program has been ranked first for 16 of the past 17 years, and the landscape architecture program has led its field for the last 13 years, which solidifies the GSD’s reputation as a model for design innovation and leadership.
The GSD critically values our robust and engaged alumni community and is proud of its achievements. We are eager to embrace the findings and impacts of the Alumni Research Initiative, as we collectively explore how design can respond to pressing issues around the world.
~Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design
Beyond professional practice, alumni are driven to give back as active volunteers in their communities; many are invested in social impact, the seeds of which were often sown at the GSD. With a design research model and highly collaborative studio courses rooted in real-world inquiry such as: restructuring the ecosystem of Caribbean islands post-hurricanes, disrupting Injustice in St. Louis with 99 provocations, and a study of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas, students are graduating into the alumni community empowered to integrate multiple design disciplines with economic, social, and civic dimensions and to make transformative contributions through design. “My design and built work have made a great impact on the people who use it and interact with it on a daily basis; the most important part of how we as designers can make a difference, being conscious of the social impact, environmental, etc.,” commented one respondent. Master in Urban Planning, Urban Design, and Loeb Fellowship alumni are particularly active across a range of social impact investigated in this study.
The range of social contributions from alumni of all disciplines is remarkable. Since graduating from the School, 40% of alumni focus their volunteer work by serving on boards in the areas of community development; arts, culture, or humanities; education; environment; housing; and 70% of respondents have engaged in mentoring young professionals or youth development. Where in the past year, nearly half have served in various volunteer capacities, contributing an average of 11 hours per month to pro bono work. One alumna commented that she is [dedicated to] “Inspiring the next generation to be design professionals and to make a difference, particularly as a mentor to women.” Through mentorship at all career stages, alumni help foster aspiring design professionals, many of whom are fellow GSD graduates or students. Over two-thirds of alumni have made contributions in the capacities of environmental sustainability, creation of public gathering spaces and green spaces, and community engagement/capacity building. Architecture and Design Studies graduates contribute to a more focused range of social impacts, reporting strong positive contributions in environmental sustainability and (among architects) creation of public gathering spaces.
I am thrilled that the GSD and Alumni Council are engaging with alumni through the collection and analysis of this important information. Through the findings of the Alumni Research Initiative, we can better understand and celebrate the wide-ranging impacts of the global community of nearly 13,000 alumni.
~ GSD Alumni Council Chair Allyson Mendenhall AB ’90, MLA ’99.
The alumni community is emblematic of the value of design education and its increasing relevance in a growing array of tangential and nontraditional professions. Connections made at the GSD can be fruitful throughout one’s lifetime: 44% of organizations established by GSD alumni have come to fruition as a result of ideas developed, research conducted, or personal connections made while at the GSD. The number of alumni who have authored or co-authored publications including books, chapters, journal articles, conference papers, and/or writing for the public such as op-eds since completing their GSD program is significant, with about half publishing.
“Thank you to the 3,000 alumni who shared valuable input with the GSD via the Alumni Research Initiative; we are taking the findings of this survey very seriously,” said K. Michael Hays, associate dean for academic affairs, chair of the Department of Architecture, and Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory. “With this valuable data, we are looking closely at how to strengthen our academic programs, grow student opportunities and collaboration, and find ways to enhance alumni experience.”
Over 3,000 alumni took the time to provide detailed responses on their professional trajectory and contributions of impact to the built environment and community development through both professional and volunteer experiences. This strong response for the 2018 survey, which was developed and administered in partnership with Huron Consulting Group, is an indicator of the high-level engagement of the GSD alumni community.
The GSD’s Office of Alumni Relations welcomes the opportunity to hear from you with news, achievements, and notable work. If you would like to submit an alumni update to share with your alumni community, please contact [email protected]. Recognizing the importance of mentoring opportunities and impacts, as well as 70% of respondents identifying this as a volunteer role they have participated in the past year, the GSD Alumni Council Student Alumni XChange committee has created information and ideas on how you may offer mentoring opportunities to fellow alumni or current students utilizing the Harvard Alumni Directory. They have also created this informational guide to developing and updating your directory profile so students and alumni from across Harvard may learn more about you and your professional experience.
Dear Alumni and Friends,
It is with mixed emotions that I share the news that I will be stepping down from my role of Associate Dean for Development & Alumni Relations aligning with the successful conclusion of the Grounded Visionaries campaign on June 30. Over the past seven years of working with the alumni community and great friends of the School, I am exceedingly proud of what we have accomplished together and find this be the opportune moment for my transition and for reflection.
Discovering Gund Hall on the Harvard campus, I was introduced to both the rigor and expansiveness of design education. It was utterly mind-blowing. What I found most empowering was the importance and relevance of the work of the GSD; the Harvard Campaign presented the unique moment in which to showcase the School to the larger Harvard community, as well as to recognize the work of the almost 13,000 alumni around the world. There is a stunning diversity of work and study that occurs at the GSD and in our alumni community. The opportunity to work with you, the accomplished alumni and friends of the GSD, has been one of the great privileges of my professional career. I want to sincerely thank you for embracing our shared vital, highly relevant work. It’s been a great pleasure meeting many of you over the years and connecting over your time at the GSD, your passions, and your current work. Through our celebration of design at the Grounded Visionaries campaign launch, showcasing your work at our design weekends, hearing your memories during reunion, and countless other GSD events, the connections I’ve made with the alumni community and friends of the School are meaningful and significant.
The Grounded Visionaries campaign generated the occasion for the GSD to connect with a wider audience. By showcasing projects that go beyond traditional notions of design and expanding on GSD’s role in addressing major global challenges, we demonstrated the GSD’s critical role in design leadership and innovation. The Campaign is about balancing the dichotomy of being grounded while visionary—lofty ideas realized with social engagement. By exceeding our fundraising goal, I am gratified that the GSD is making strides in addressing complex issues such as sustainability, affordable housing, resilience, social equality, and urbanism. Together, through these multi-faceted efforts, we have dramatically increased the School’s intellectual footprint on the world stage through deeply engaging design leaders both locally and globally.
Beth Kramer (far right) with (from left) Alexandra Mei MLA ’17, Alberto de Salvatierra MLA ’17, MDes ’17, and Krystyna Breger at the 2017 Fellowship Reception.
Supporting design education is a meaningful and worthwhile action. Through funding passionate, creative, and multi-dimensionally talented students, you are championing the skill sets of design professionals who not only rebuild communities after natural disasters but who care about how to design cities to improve human health and build beautiful and sacred spaces. By elevating the level of financial support during the Campaign, we are making progress in providing the next generation of design leaders with better access to innovative learning, exciting opportunities outside of the classroom and the freedom to pursue meaningful work upon graduation. A lasting impact of my time at the GSD is the new tradition of the annual fellowship reception, an event uniting students with the donors who are enabling their design educations. I am both optimistic and grateful for the immediate and future impact your engagement has on the lives of these aspiring designers.
The Druker Design Gallery.
Transformative environments are critical to the learning experience at the GSD, and I was thrilled to witness two especially memorable milestones during my tenure. In April, the GSD celebrated the commissioning of the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities HouseZero project. Owing to the generosity of the Evergrande Group, an integrated industry leader based in China who gave the Campaign’s largest gift for research, the School was able to launch intensive research and education programs aimed at creating sustainable, high-performance buildings through the retrofit of a 1940s house. Also, importantly, the Campaign allowed the School to strive and look to the future with the $15 million gift from Ronald M. Druker Loeb Fellow ’76 and the Bertram A. and Ronald M. Druker Charitable Foundation. Thanks to Ron Druker for the gift that provides the necessary seed funding for the GSD to launch an ambitious renewal and building expansion of Gund Hall; Harvard and the community will continue to benefit from the primary exhibition gallery, now named the Druker Design Gallery and new exterior GSD signage.
I want to thank Dean Mostafavi, faculty, staff, and students for their unwavering support over the last seven years and willingness to embrace my ideas and the ideas of the Office of Development and Alumni Relations. I will spend the coming weeks saying “thank you” to the countless people who I have worked closely with and who have contributed to the GSD’s success. I look forward to hearing about the great work ahead as the School continues its ambitious and bold agenda.
Best,
Beth Kramer
Alumni Council member Sameh Wahba MUP ’97, PhD ’02, KSGEE ’13 is a true Harvard citizen with his Master in Urban Planning (MUP) degree from the Graduate School of Design (GSD), his PhD from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and completion of the Kennedy School of Government Executive Education’s International Finance Corporation Infrastructure Executive Program.
An Egyptian national who is now based in Washington DC, Wahba is Global Director for Urban and Territorial Development, Disaster Risk Management and Resilience at the World Bank Group where he oversees the formulation of Bank strategy and the design and delivery of all Bank lending, technical assistance, policy advisory activities and partnerships at the global level. Prior to joining the World Bank in 2004, he worked at the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies in Rotterdam and at the Harvard Center for Urban Development Studies.
In this Q&A, hear more about Wahba’s career including how the strong international exposure he received during the MUP program helped to prepare him for his current role, his co-authorship of World Bank’s flagship publication “Regenerating Urban Land: A Practitioner’s Guide to Leveraging Private Investment,” and what characteristics some of the world’s most competitive cities share.
1. What was your work experience/background before coming to the GSD?
I came to the GSD after receiving my M.Sc. in Architecture from Cairo University in 1995. I worked as a teaching assistant at Cairo University’s Department of Architecture and Urban Planning and as a project manager with an architecture and planning practice in Cairo.
2. What made you decide to pursue planning as a career?
I always wanted to work on something that takes architectural design beyond the realm of the individual building, that would have more of an impact on society, and I was really interested in housing and urban development issues. And while design matters, there’s much more that influences the planning and investment decisions made in a city including land and housing markets and politics. So I wanted to approach planning in a way that combines economics, finance, legal, spatial, and policy issues.
3. What made you come to GSD?
The GSD integrated architecture, urban design, and urban planning programs all under one roof (and what a roof is that of Gund Hall!) so it was the perfect transition for an architect wanting to combine spatial issues with policy, economics, and finance. The urban planning program had strong international exposure with excellent faculty including Bill Doebele LLB ’51; José A. Gómez-Ibáñez AB ’70, MPP ’72, PhD ’75; Mona Serageldin MCP ’66, PhD ’72; Francois Vigier MCP ’60, PhD ’67; and Jerold Kayden AB ’75, JD ’79, MCRP ’79. And then there’s all that Harvard has to offer including Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), and Harvard Business School (HBS).
4. What areas of planning interest you the most?
I am especially interested in housing, land, and slum upgrading; spatial and territorial development; local economic development and city competitiveness; urban resilience; and disaster risk management.
5. Tell us about your professional career and how the GSD prepared you for it?
After receiving my PhD in 2002, I worked as a housing and urban specialist at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies in Rotterdam. I then joined the World Bank in Washington DC in 2004. As an Urban Specialist, I led lending projects, policy advisory, and analytical work on urban infrastructure, municipal development, housing and post-disaster reconstruction and recovery in many countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean regions. In 2010, I moved to Brasilia as Sustainable Development Sector Leader responsible for coordinating all World Bank’s infrastructure, urban, and social development programs in Brazil. In 2012, I managed the Global Urban Development and Resilience Unit, which was responsible for the Bank’s global urban strategy, partnerships, and analytics. In 2014, I managed the urban and disaster risk management units in Sub-Saharan Africa. In mid-2016, I became the global director overseeing all World Bank’s regional operations, analytics, partnerships and the global agenda. I oversee a team of 300 urban and disaster risk management professionals and an overall portfolio of $6-8 billion of annual lending and $25-30 billion in commitments.
The GSD prepared me through a mix of multi-faceted education in various interrelated fields combining practitioners with applied research and professional work through the Center for Urban Development Studies where we worked on various World Bank and other donor-financed housing, urban development and cultural heritage projects.
6. What experiences at Harvard do you look back on as having been most helpful in your career?
Without a doubt, it was the ability to have cross-sectoral education and develop a customized curriculum over the course of both the MUP and PhD programs that was tailored to my aspirations and needs. My classes spanned urban planning, economics, finance, real estate, legal and policy issues across Harvard (GSD, HKS, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), etc.) and MIT. And I also got the chance to work with faculty as interesting and diverse as Ed Glaeser RAE ’17; Rem Koolhaas; Nic Retsinas MCP ’71; and Alan Altshuler at Harvard, and Judith Tendler at MIT.
7. What advice would you give to current and future students?
Work hard, explore all the learning opportunities across the University (if you can work alongside your studies to apply your learning, don’t miss the chance), and above all make sure you have fun and enjoy your time in Cambridge, meet people from all over the world and build your network.
8. You co-authored the Bank’s flagship publication “Regenerating Urban Land: A Practitioner’s Guide to Leveraging Private Investment” that has been downloaded almost 10,000 times. How did this publication come about? Do you have any success stories from local governments who have leveraged private sector investment in urban regeneration initiatives after reading this publication?
Seeing the transformation of Washington DC’s southwest neighborhood and Anacostia riverfront over time and having extensive discussions with the policymakers and technical team that made it happen was an eye-opener. Many of our partner cities are hungry for this kind of practical knowledge about how other cities have done urban regeneration projects: how was the vision formulated, how was planning done, the process of reaching out to stakeholders, how to ensure an inclusive development, how was the land question addressed in terms of ownership and assembly, how was the prioritization of investments carried out, how was the overall development financed, how was it implemented (what institutions and regulations), how were the sequencing and phasing done, and how was social impact, especially gentrification, addressed. We picked eight case studies (DC, Singapore, Seoul, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Shanghai, Johannesburg, and Ahmedabad), which we’ve studied in-depth to extract lessons learned on what worked and what did not work. We organized this material under a project cycle framework and provided a wealth of practical material (including bidding documents, model contracts, etc). Also, we brought Andy Altman LF ’97, who was the deputy mayor of Philadelphia and the head of the Olympics Legacy company, as an advisor to the team. The result is this comprehensively researched and very practical material for policymakers and practitioners. You can find this and other flagship publications and know more about our priorities at www.worldbank.org/urban.
Many of our partner cities today–including Fortaleza, Brazil; Kigali, Rwanda; and Da Nang, Vietnam–are drawing on the lessons learned from this publication and some of the technical training we have arranged for our client cities including learning from the experience of leading Japanese cities in urban regeneration and land value capture.
Sameh Wahba (left) with the Mayor Kizō Hisamoto of Kobe, Japan.
9. 80% of global economic activity is generated in cities today, but not all cities are able to enjoy economic prosperity. You have spoken on how cities can become more competitive; can you share the highlights with us?
The best thing about our work on competitive cities is that it showed that everyone can do it. Our research found that the most competitive cities–in terms of attracting investment, creating jobs, and boosting incomes–are not the largest cities or typical household names; instead, these were medium-sized, secondary cities such as Bucaramanga, Colombia; Tangiers, Morocco; Coimbatore, India; and Kigali, Rwanda. They have developed their competitiveness by working across four areas: (i) policies, regulations and institutions to strengthen their business environment; (ii) streamlined access to land and infrastructure; (iii) skills development and environment for innovation; and (iv) expanding access to capital and finance for firms. Mayors have also combined their policy wedge (the areas they can influence) with coalitions with the private sector, neighboring municipalities for metropolitan area development, and lobbying central governments for adopting national level reforms. You can find more on our work on competitive cities at www.worldbank.org/competitivecities.
10. What are you working on today?
Currently, our top priorities at the World Bank in urban and disaster risk management are to help local and national governments (a) cope with a massive urbanization process occurring at unprecedented speed and compounded by the challenges of conflict and a changing climate; (b) cover a huge urban infrastructure financing gap (in the trillions) by leveraging our funds, attracting private investment, structuring land value capture schemes, expanding municipal own source revenues, and reforming intergovernmental fiscal transfers; (c) tackling territorial and spatial inequities in cities and regions; (b) scaling up city resilience through planning and investment; (e) mainstreaming disaster risk management across development sectors; and (f) strengthening post-conflict reconstruction and recovery efforts.
We are building a major new City Resilience Program at the Global Program and scaling up our local government capacity building support especially in integrated land use planning, municipal finance, and disaster risk management among other things. We are also developing new knowledge and advisory initiatives on urban regeneration and smart cities, which are two issues gaining traction with our partner cities.
11. Tell us about your work/life balance? What occupies you when you are not working?
Work-life balance is, unfortunately, something very elusive to me. I really, really, really like my work. And I am unable to disconnect, although I’ve tried. So I find my balance and sanity in family, music, good food, traveling and discovering new places, and the little pleasures of life (like reading the FT Weekend and The Economist with an expresso in the hammock).
12. What would surprise us about you?
I travel a lot (which is obviously not surprising given my work). This leads to some unusual situations like seeing the cherry blossom in Tokyo last year rather than in DC and knowing the restaurant and music scene in Seoul, Singapore, and Paris more than in DC. I am crazy about football and a huge Arsenal fan.
Dear GSD Alumni and Friends,
The end of each academic year invites the opportunity both to reflect on our community’s accomplishments and to look ahead to the future. This year involved several major milestones for the GSD and for Harvard, including a successful final year of our Grounded Visionaries and the University’s capital campaign. In addition to significant leadership appointments and other exciting developments at the School, our students, faculty, and alumni continue to create meaningful change and generate inspiring ideas both here in Cambridge and around the world. The GSD’s commitment to excellence and innovation is at the core of our collective project.
In 2017, we were honored by the news that we maintained our lead ranking in the annual DesignIntelligence survey of America’s best architecture and landscape architecture programs. Our consistent leadership in this important evaluation exemplifies our institutional values and our belief in the transformative power of design. Surveys for the next rankings in architecture and landscape architecture are now open. Whether you are in a leadership or hiring position in a design-related field, or graduated from the GSD within the past year, I encourage you to submit a response and share your experience by the deadline, which is Friday, June 15.
Meanwhile, I am pleased to recount some of this year’s noteworthy moments with you, and to share news about what the future for the GSD has in store.
New Structures for Innovation and Discovery
HouseZero Commissioning Ceremony on April 3.
Over the past several years, our pedagogy has been converging on the question of how design can respond to today’s urgent challenges and opportunities in cities, nations, and ecologies around the world. Design research and its translation to applied innovation remain a cornerstone of this effort. The Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities (CGBC), led by Ali Malkawi, serves as a key example. In April, the CGBC celebrated the commissioning of its much-anticipated HouseZero project, an unprecedented undertaking to retrofit its headquarters—a 1940s house just steps away from Gund Hall—into a model of a data-absorbing, energy-producing residence and living laboratory. In a celebration featuring Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, our design collaborators at Snøhetta, leadership from the Evergrande Group, and many others, the CGBC offered a first look at the house’s finished construction and energy-producing capabilities. Looking to the future, the Center will expand its research program to include more projects on urbanism and sustainability.
With the generous support of The Knight Foundation, we also launched the Future of the American City initiative this spring, announcing our inaugural research projects in the Cities of Miami and Miami Beach. This fall, we look forward to initiating the first of a series of GSD studios taught by a cross-disciplinary team of GSD faculty focused on the Overtown neighborhood in Miami, including Chris Reed, Sean Canty MArch ’14, and Lily Song RAE ’17. The studios will build on research conducted by Charles Waldheim and Jesse M. Keenan, who engaged a cohort of architects and urban designers, government officials, city planners, and civic stakeholders from within and beyond the design fields this past fall. More broadly, the Future of the American City initiative will bring experts and leaders from around the country together as part of an effort to create a national discourse on the future of cities and urban life in America. In addition to Miami, in the coming years we plan to initiate projects in Los Angeles, Detroit, and Boston.
Final review for Niall Kirkwood’s option studio “KOREA REMADE: Alternate Nature, DMZ, and Hinterlands.
Innovation and discovery continue to thrive at the GSD through our academic and public programming. Students and faculty in our Department of Landscape Architecture have continued to assert the field’s potential to shape and reshape our world. Among other work, Niall Kirkwood, along with Jungyoon (Yuni) Kim MLA ’00 and Yoonjin Park MLA ’00, led a spring option studio on redefining the Korean Peninsula’s so-called Demilitarized Zone, or the DMZ—an investigation that proved especially timely. Eelco Hooftman and Bridget Baines organized a studio around the notion of islands as geological, bio-geographical, and man-made cultural constructs, while Adriaan Geuze and Daniel Vasini also returned with a follow-up investigation of the Boston Harbor Islands and their role as a “frontier city,” a new site for development in a densely urbanized city.
Our Department of Urban Planning and Design undertook projects on cities and regions on every continent, and addressed current topics like gentrification and affordable housing, among many others. With urban transit across the globe in flux and self-driving cars now a reality, Andres Sevtsuk led a seminar on the future of streets, a thread of investigation that he and his City Form Lab colleagues will be pursuing with increasing depth in the coming months. Toni L. Griffin LF ’98 applied the principles behind her Just City Lab—an ongoing examination of how design and planning contribute to the conditions of justice and injustice in cities, neighborhoods, and the public realm—in both an option studio on St. Louis and an immersive exhibition in our Loeb Library.
The Department of Architecture continued to experiment with how the field can question itself, anticipate, and respond to contemporary concerns. Odile Decq’s option studio asked why, where, and how people move on a global scale, while Marina Tabassum led a studio with ramifications for housing across Bangladesh, asking what kind of residential structure students could design—and build—in the delta region on a two-thousand-dollar budget. Following the announcement that Jeanne Gang MArch ’93 would join the GSD as a Professor in Practice, she led a studio focused on the Caribbean islands of St. John and St. Thomas. In the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, Gang encouraged students to approach this island site as an ecosystem where relationships between inhabitants, visitors, and their environment are examined on both macro- and micro-scales.
I hope you saw the special March 2018 Innovation issue of Domus magazine, edited by Allen Sayegh and his REAL Lab. The issue features thought-provoking work from Sayegh and several of our other faculty—Antoine Picon, Sawako Kaijima, and Martin Bechthold DDes ’01, among others—and underscores both the high level of innovative discovery happening within the GSD community, as well as the power and responsibility of sharing our work with the world.
Taking in Toni L. Griffin’s LF ’98 exhibition on the “Just City.”
New Leadership for the University and at the GSD
After 10 years of dedicated leadership, Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust announced plans to step down at the end of this academic year. We have been fortunate to have benefited from President Faust’s intellectual support and enthusiasm for our work, and we were especially moved by her participation in our February “On Monuments: Place, Time, and Memory” event and our commissioning of the HouseZero project. We look forward to working with President-Elect Lawrence S. Bacow as he assumes the presidency.
Mark Lee MArch ’95.
Amid this transitional time for the University, we are excited too about the leadership and faculty changes here at the GSD. After a multi-year search, I was very pleased to announce the appointment of Mark Lee MArch ’95 as Chair of the Department of Architecture. Together with his partner, Sharon Johnston MArch ’95—who we are also excited to welcome this year as a Professor in Practice—Lee leads JohnstonMarklee, one of the most talented architecture practices working in the U.S. today. As Lee transitions into his new role as Chair, I want to express my appreciation to Michael Hays, who served as interim chair and who has showed an unwavering and ongoing dedication to the Department of Architecture and the GSD. Repeating a comment Lee made when his appointment was announced, I am confident that architecture’s best days lie ahead, owing in great part to Hays’s leadership of the department over the past two years.
A Powerful Year of Public Programs
The GSD’s public program continues to be a point of pride for the School, and creates opportunities not only to come together as a community but also to hear new ideas, learn from talented people doing important work all over the world, and bring their perspectives into the conversations happening here. Last October, we convened a symposium in celebration of the 100th birthday of our friend and GSD alumnus I. M. Pei MArch ’46. In February, we organized the symposium “On Monuments: Place, Time, and Memory,” to which we were fortunate to welcome many Harvard luminaries for what was a rich and timely conversation. Taken together, these two symposia were powerful in their examination of the significance of design at the intersection of culture, history, and economics, and in their celebration of the iconic designs and designers from within the GSD community and across the design fields.
As the academic year began, many of you were involved in the second-ever Chicago Architecture Biennial, curated by Mark Lee and Sharon Johnston. The GSD community actively participated in the Biennial throughout its run. Of particular note, we conducted a symposium entitled “New Materialisms: Histories Make Practice | Practices Make History,” featuring several GSD faculty alongside other leading practitioners and theorists in conversation on the role of history in architecture. This event also helped inform the spring exhibition Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech, curated by Michael Hays and Andrew Holder.
A powerful moment with Toni L. Griffin LF ’98.
Here in Cambridge, following the success of the inaugural Black in Design Conference in 2015, our African American Student Union organized a second conference that took place in October. I am always impressed by how passionately our students approach the challenge of enacting social change through design. Set against a very different social context than the inaugural conference, this second installment reminded us all that designers, and our students especially, have the agency and vision to create more equitable, just futures, and to position design as a leading agent of cultural change. Keynote talks by curator Hamza Walker and activist DeRay Mckesson framed one of the year’s most meaningful and dynamic exchanges, which drew over 500 participants from across the country.
One of the most extraordinary moments last year was spontaneous. Fashion designer Virgil Abloh surprised students with an impromptu lecture that filled Piper Auditorium, in which he encouraged those in attendance to find their individual creative directions. Some of you may know Abloh for his projects with his brand Off-White, or his recent work with Louis Vuitton, Nike, and IKEA. In April, as part of our Rouse Visiting Artist series, we also welcomed Raf Simons, chief creative officer at Calvin Klein, together with Los Angeles-based artist Sterling Ruby for a conversation moderated by Jessica Morgan, director of the Dia Art Foundation. Simons and Ruby discussed their ongoing collaboration, which entails an increasing number of projects that now include interior architectural redesigns of Calvin Klein retail stores, the Calvin Klein headquarters, and Raf Simons retail stores.
In a prior announcement, we informed you about a generous gift from Ronald M. Druker LF ’76 and the naming of our main exhibition space in Gund Hall the Druker Design Gallery. Hays and Holder’s Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech was the first show to be presented in the renamed gallery, bringing over 400 images and models from more than 100 design offices to Gund Hall. Our fall 2017 main exhibitions were equally absorbing: Rahul Mehrotra’s MAUD ’87 Soft Thresholds transformed the gallery into an immersive investigation of flexible, porous boundaries, whether physical thresholds or disciplinary perspectives, while Toru Mitani’s MLA ’87 Landscape: Fabric of Details demonstrated how small details can have a significant, perceptual impact on diffuse landscapes. If you missed these or other exhibitions, please visit our Exhibitions webpage, which features rich photo and video content.
“Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech” in the Druker Design Gallery.
Strength of the GSD Community
As always, I am inspired by the talent, drive, and commitment of the whole GSD community. This year, our faculty were honored in a variety of ways for their teaching, research, practices, and more. To mention just a few examples, Megan Panzano MArch ’10, Jenny French MArch ’11, and Anna Neimark MArch ’07 and Andrew Atwood MArch ’07 were featured in Architect magazine, all of whom were profiled in the Next Progressives series. Last fall, the Harvard Crimson named Alex Krieger MCPUD ’77 one of University’s “15 Professors of the Year,” and in the spring Jorge Silvetti received the AIA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education. Both have taught at the GSD for over four decades, including time as chair of their respective departments, and I am deeply grateful for their service to the School. It was also wonderful to see Rafael Moneo another former architecture chair, honored this year with the 2017 Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award for Architecture. Also, I very much enjoyed reading the profile of Toshiko Mori in the Harvard Gazette, published just two weeks ago alongside profiles of President Faust and other notable members of the Harvard community. I encourage you to check our website regularly for news on faculty achievements.
We hosted over 30 alumni events this year in locations across the country and around the world, each of which impressed on us how strong and dedicated our alumni community is. I am deeply grateful for the work of the Alumni Council, which has helped to engage and reconnect members of our community with the activities of the School. The active support of alumni and friends near and far has been crucial to the success of our Grounded Visionaries campaign, which will conclude in the coming weeks. Of the many goals we achieved throughout the campaign, I am proud to note that over the past five years the GSD has created 24 new fellowships—progress that enables us to enroll the very best and brightest applicants from wherever they may come, and makes it possible for our graduates to embark on design careers based on their passions. More news about all that we accomplished during Grounded Visionaries will be shared in the months following June 30, the close of the fiscal year, and the official end of the campaign.
Diversity and Inclusion in Design
Lastly, it goes without saying that over the past few months the field of design—across the academy, research, and practice—has been undergoing fundamental and important introspection as part of the #MeToo movement. At the GSD, maintaining an atmosphere of respect is an absolute priority and one of the School’s core values. It is essential not only in cultivating an open exchange of ideas across people and disciplines, but also in upholding the human dignity of individual students, faculty, and staff, so that they may lead full lives as responsible citizens of the GSD and the world beyond.
We take matters of diversity, inclusion, and belonging very seriously, which is why over the past several years we have worked to create and implement new measures intended to identify incidents of sexual and gender-based misconduct. The anger and pain that have surfaced and that have been brought into public conversation, however, is a clear signal that the field of design can and must do better, and at the GSD we are unequivocally committed to doing so.
To that end, I participated in an open discussion with students, at the invitation of Student Forum leaders, to give them an opportunity to share their concerns and their ideas. Since then, there have been many meetings with and among students, department chairs, faculty, and administrators to listen to concerns and generate ideas for how to move forward. We have committed to hiring an Assistant Dean of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, and student representatives have proposed several ideas to the School’s executive committee of additional actions to consider. A few weeks ago, a long list of women on our faculty—including two departmental chairs and members of our executive committee—also issued a statement encouraging the wider GSD community to mobilize together in pursuit of fairness, justice, and acceptance across the field of design. The Alumni Council also met with students and administrators and sent a follow-up statement to the community.
Constructive conversation and open dialogue are essential to keeping the School’s community informed. In the end, what matters most are the actions we take, and with the involvement of our students, faculty, staff, and alumni we will continue upholding our community values while striving to make an impact on the field at large.
Our Next Opportunities
Looking ahead to the next academic year, many of our ongoing activities will continue to offer platforms for deeper engagement. One last example, the WE ALL design-build installation inaugurated in Allston last fall, offered students an opportunity to get involved with our neighbors and show how design can engage communities going through periods of transition. We look forward to continuing our engagement with the Allston community next year and beyond, including a fall option studio led by Shaun Donovan and David Gamble with Henk Ovink, as well as the construction of Harvard’s new Artlab, which the GSD has been involved with at various levels.
Building on this momentum, the future depends on the excellence and accomplishments of our students and the support and engagement of our alumni. We are proud to announce another successful admissions season, with a record number of applicants—an eight percent increase over last year—and an overall yield of 73 percent. Our commitment to increasing the amount of financial aid we offer has been one important factor in our impressive admissions results, year over year; we awarded $15.5 million during the past academic year.
We thank you, our community of alumni and friends, for your contributions to this success and we look forward to your continued support in empowering future design leaders here at the GSD.
As we close this year and look forward to the next, our project at the GSD continues building momentum, and while the field of design and the political and cultural climate we find ourselves presents new and greater challenges, I remain optimistic about what the future holds and about the leading roles our students, faculty, and alumni will play in it.
Best,
Mohsen Mostafavi
Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design
William Baumgardner MLA ’18 talks about his Community Service Fellowship in Albania, traveling to Bangladesh with Marina Tabassum’s “$2000 Home” studio, and the impact of the GSD’s alumni network on the student experience.
The nearly 13,000 alumni of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) represent a lifelong, multi-generational community of graduates across programs and disciplines. The GSD Alumni Council is the primary representative body of GSD alumni, with the fundamental goal to promote the engagement of the alumni community with the School, to advance the GSD in the world, and to model behavior for our community–most importantly the “alumni-in-training” current GSD students. We are comprised of 50 alumni volunteer leaders representing the School’s array of programs who have graduated between two and 50 years ago. It is our responsibility to ensure our body is an accurate representation of our alumni community as defined by geographic location, degree/program affiliation, age cohort, gender, and race/ethnicity. We are also cognizant that it is important for our current students to see themselves represented in the composition of the Alumni Council.
We convened in Gund Hall for our semi-annual meeting this April 11-13 which included significant interaction with current GSD students. Through our experiences and conversations we saw the words of the students (plotted and posted) in the Trays, we heard your concerns, and we grieved for the pain that is so apparent in our community that was triggered by the appearance of the Shitty Architecture Men (SAM) list. Anonymous reports in the SAM list address issues of civility, gender and sexually-based harassment, influence of power, and implicit bias; some of which are principal aspects equity, diversity, and inclusion. We applaud and join the women faculty signatories denouncing discrimination, harassment and acts of aggression. We seize upon this moment and move to take action. For as an Alumni Council, we represent past student experiences and we are honored to serve in our role of modeling future culture. From our experiences and expertise, we can share that Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is essential to design excellence and productive work environments in all forms of practice. We believe we all can do more to lead by example.
As a Council, we have committed to:
Allyson Mendenhall,Chair AB’90, MLA’99
Bill Hammer, Vice Chair MAUD ’68
Gerdo Aquino, MLA ’96
Kaley Blackstock, AB ’10, MArch ’15
Cathy Deino Blake, MLA ’77
Chris Bourassa, AMDP ’09
Justin Chapman, MDesS ’12
Renee Cheng, AB ’85, MArch ’89
Peter Coombe, MArch ’88
Collette Creppell, AB ’82, MArch ’90
John di Domenico, MAUD ’79
Mark Favermann, MCRP ’78
Mary Gardill, MDes ’91
Harry Gaveras, MAUD ’97
Rickie Golden, MDes ’12
Margaret Graham, MDes ’03
Reggie Graham, MArch ’78
Kevin Harris, MAUD ’80
David Hashim, MArch ’86
Trevor Johnson, MUP ’14
Jaya Kader, MArch ’88
Frank Lee, FAIA, MAUD ’79
Michael B. Lehrer, FAIA, MArch ’78
Brenda Levin, MArch ’76
Zakcq Lockrem, MUP ’10
Jennifer Luce, MDes ’94
Thomas Luebke, FAIA, MArch ’91
John A. Mann, MUP ’01
Scott McLain, AMDP ’06
Ed McNamara, LF ’95
Shunsaku Miyagi, MLA ’86
Michael Murphy, MArch ’11
Richard T. Murphy, MLA ’80
Jeffrey Murphy, MArch ’86
Alpa Nawre, MLAUD ’11
James O’Hara, MArch ’73
Ron Ostberg, MArch ’68
Ana Pinto Da Silva, MDes ’05
Ryley Poblete, MArch ’14
Martin Poirier, MLA ’86
Mark Rios, MArch ’82, MLA ’82
Paris Rutherford, MAUD ’93
Eric Shaw, MUP ’00
Bryan Shiles, MArch ’87
Rob Stein, MArch ’72, LF ’94
Yvonne Szeto, MArch ’79
Zenovia Toloudi, DDes ’11
Sameh Naguib Wahba, MUP ’97, PhD ’02
Nick Winton, MArch ’90
Kristina Yu, MArch ’95
Corey Zehngebot, MArch ’09
Sara Zewde, MLA ’15
For the past 18 years, DesignIntelligence has conducted and published the results of America’s Top Ranked Architecture & Design Schools survey, which asks hiring professionals, academics, students, and recent graduates to provide their perspective on the strengths of programs throughout in the United States.
The GSD is proud of the School’s leading position in the 2017 DesignIntelligence America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools rankings; our graduate architecture program was named first in the nation, reinforcing the GSD’s exceptional ability to prepare our graduates for professional practice. Our architecture program has ranked first for 16 of the past 17 years, and our landscape architecture program has led its field for the last 13 years, solidifying the GSD’s reputation as a model for design innovation and leadership.
The 2018 Hiring Professional and Student/Recent Graduate Surveys are now open for architecture & landscape architecture until Friday, June 15. If you are in a leadership or hiring position in a design-related field, we encourage you to complete the Hiring Professional Survey. If you have graduated within the past year, you are invited to complete the Student Survey. Your participation is critical in influencing the results, which are used widely as a resource throughout the industry, the academy, and by prospective students.
Hiring Professional Survey
The survey will require approximately 15-20 minutes of your time.
Architecture: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2018_Architecture_Professionals
Landscape Architecture: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2018_Landscape_Professionals
Recent Graduate (within last year) and Student Survey
Architecture: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2018_Students_Architecture
Landscape Architecture: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2018_Students_Landscape
You can access more information about the methodology and results of last year’s research at the DesignIntelligence website: www.di.net
Thank you for your participation and for your support as a member of the GSD community.
Through a transdisciplinary course of study with global reach, the GSD is training the next generation of design leaders to think collaboratively, cultivate creativity, and design outside the lines.
Complex global challenges cannot be solved with a single perspective or by a single discipline. Design brings together disparate fields through collaborative interrogation and creation. The GSD continually reaches beyond our core disciplines and geographic borders to broaden the scope of design knowledge and inspire our talented students.
The potential of our students is unmatched, but the resources to support them are not. Financial aid remains an area of critical need for the School. You can directly support students through a gift to the GSD Fund. Your contribution allows students to get the most out of the GSD’s unrivaled academic and extracurricular opportunities. Join the Grounded Visionaries campaign with a gift to the GSD before June 30 and invest in a creative future of designing outside the lines.
Presidential Match Challenge: Harvard University recognizes the importance of graduate school financial aid support and will match every dollar raised up to $550K to the GSD Fund. Make your gift to the GSD Fund by June 30, 2018, and your contribution will be doubled by this Harvard University presidential match.
Want to learn more? Check out student photo essays chronicling recent studio travel, browse some of the GSD’s most popular concurrent degree programs, or meet the first two Master in Design Engineering cohorts.
The Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), along with the Chinese nonprofit C Foundation, announces the establishment of the C Foundation Fellowship Fund at the GSD. The C Foundation Fellowship Fund, initiated during the GSD’s Grounded Visionaries campaign, will provide financial aid with a preference for GSD students from China. This fellowship will create opportunities for students to pursue top-tier design education at the school and advance design in Asia, supporting the C Foundation’s mission of fostering design education and professional development.
C Foundation’s gift of $300,000 to establish the C Foundation Fellowship Fund includes $50,000 for immediate use to benefit students at the GSD. The remainder of the gift is invested in the Harvard University endowment, leveraging these dollars for future support. Other members of the C Foundation can contribute to the C Foundation Fellowship Fund, adding their own generosity to the campaign and increasing its impact.
As part of the Grounded Visionaries campaign, the GSD has increased the number of student fellowships by over 50 percent, with 24 new endowed funds created to expand opportunities for talented design students.
Established in 2014 by 10 well-known architects and interior designers from Hong Kong, mainland China, and Taiwan, the Shenzen-based C Foundation subsidizes design education, encourages academic research, boosts artistic innovation and networking, and promotes traditional Chinese design and art culture. The first self-supporting charity foundation established by designers in greater China, it accomplishes these goals by promoting and funding a variety of design programs and activities.
Thomas Holtz MArch ’77
Thomas Holtz MArch ’77 made his first mark on the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) library as an architectural draftsman. Holtz’s drawings in the Frances Loeb Library’s Special Collections trace the arc of his life and design career: the Cologne and Munich cathedrals in Germany, a country where Holtz studied as a Fulbright scholar under a German government grant and worked before and after his time at Harvard; Italian churches, reflecting Holtz’s Catholic faith and membership in the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites and volunteer work with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity; and the National Gallery of Art and other iconic buildings around Holtz’s birthplace and current home in the Washington, DC metro area.
Holtz’s generosity and creativity built his second contribution to the library. The retired architect wanted to honor those who most influenced his graduate education and career: his parents and his design teacher Jerzy Soltan, the esteemed architect and beloved GSD professor who died in 2005. Through a charitable gift annuity and a future bequest, Holtz established the Jerzy Soltan Fund in memory of Leslie and Helen Holtz for the Frances Loeb Library at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
I wanted to give back to Harvard since they gave me fine teachers, and to honor both my parents and Soltan.
“At the beginning of Soltan’s class, we did research in architecture libraries, especially the GSD library, so we could do presentations of both modern and historic art and architecture before going into the design. Even though it was a design class, we made ample use of the library,” Holtz said. “I wanted to give back to Harvard since they gave me fine teachers, and to honor both my parents and Soltan.”
A charitable gift annuity is a great option for alumni who, like Holtz, built an accomplished career but never thought of making a significant gift to the School. Holtz established the annuity with a simple contract with Harvard University. He received an immediate tax deduction for the gift, and Harvard will provide him with a regular income stream throughout his retirement. At the end of his lifetime, whatever money remains from the annuity comes to the GSD for the Jerzy Soltan Fund. Holtz elected to make an additional gift to the Soltan Fund by including a gift for the GSD in his will.
Through this fund, Holtz will honor his parents and help with the acquisition, maintenance and other costs associated with a renowned collection of printed and other materials by and about Le Corbusier, in tribute to his collaborations with Soltan. “Anything to honor the collection is great,” Holtz said. “Le Corbusier was his master.”
As Le Corbusier influenced Soltan, Holtz credits his parents with building a lifelong emphasis on learning. “We had plenty of books in the home, including National Geographic Magazine, and as a child, I would study different countries and different buildings,” Holtz said. “They took us often to the National Gallery, and I learned to love the pictorial arts and inherited my mother’s love of classical music.”
His parents also made an impression on him with their kindness toward others, Holtz said, helping children in his neighborhood and inviting sanitation workers into their kitchen for hot soup during a particularly cold winter. His mother would later volunteer with Harvard’s Semitic Museum and sometimes host lunches for his fellow GSD students when Holtz was at Harvard, he said. When Holtz arrived at the GSD, he saw these qualities in Soltan as well.
“He was very compassionate, and he had a great sense of humor,” Holtz said. “When our studio started with him, he came in at the beginning of the semester and said, ‘Whoever of you doesn’t want to be in my studio is fine with me. I have no lust for power!’”
“Former GSD librarian Mary Daniels once wrote to me about him that it was ‘unusual to find someone who embodied both chic (by the broadest definition) and charity!’” Holtz added. “He was very kind to students.”
After earning his master’s degree, Holtz held positions at private firms in Germany and Maryland before joining the U.S. Department of the Navy as an architect. He worked for the Navy in Carderock, Maryland, and the Washington Navy Yard, where he handled many large and small projects before his retirement in 2013. Holtz’s career recognitions include Employee of the Year in the Senior Engineer/Scientist category in 1994 at Carderock, a finalist for the Civilian of the Year Award in the public works department at the Navy Yard, and a certificate for participation in the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition in 2003.
A number of Holtz’s drawings and prints were also presented to Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, and Holtz remembers Soltan’s appreciation for his drawings, including Le Corbusier’s Convent Sainte Marie de La Tourette in France.
We were thrilled to receive Mr. Holtz’s gift to the library. The connection to Le Corbusier runs deep here at the GSD, and we appreciate what this fund will do for our collection of his works. Professor Soltan was a wonderful man, and Mr. Holtz is truly honoring his legacy.
~ Anne Whiteside, GSD Librarian and Assistant Dean for Information Services
“We were thrilled to receive Mr. Holtz’s gift to the library,” said GSD Librarian and Assistant Dean for Information Services Ann Whiteside. “The connection to Le Corbusier runs deep here at the GSD, and we appreciate what this fund will do for our collection of his works. Professor Soltan was a wonderful man, and Mr. Holtz is truly honoring his legacy.”
Holtz encourages alumni who remember Soltan’s kindness and mentorship to join him in honoring this remarkable educator with a contribution to the Jerzy Soltan Fund and making their own mark on the library. “I would encourage students not only in Soltan’s studio but also those who had experienced him in the juries for other studios that he was invited to critique on, to consider giving to this fund,” Holtz said.
With this unique and accessible giving method, all GSD alumni who want to support the School can have a lasting and significant impact.
North Steeple, St. Paul’s Cathedral (Wren), London, United Kingdom, 1973 Pen & Ink 24.2 X 17.6 cm. Tom Holtz.
On April 12, the GSD Alumni Council honored three current students with the 2018 Unsung Hero Book Prize during a celebration in the Frances Loeb Library. Ernest Haines MLA ’18, Tim Webster MLA ’19, and Sarah Diamond MLA ’19 were among this year’s recipients.
Now in its twelfth year, the prize celebrates GSD students who act in selfless ways to make the School a better place. Winners are presented with a book of their selection by the Council, and a second copy is donated to the Loeb Library with a bookplate commemorating the award. 
Sarah selected the book Imagined Utopias in the Built Environment: From London’s Vauxhall Garden to the Black Rock Desert by Anna Novakov. Tim selected the book Common Grounds: Atelier Descombes Rampini 2000-2015, edited by Julien Descombes, Bruno Marchand, and Marco Rampini. One nominator said of Sarah and Tim:
“They selflessly sacrifice their time and energy to organizing Beer and Dogs, knowing clearly that this is a thankless extracurricular activity. The work that the pair does very much contributes to an environment of camaraderie and community at the GSD, and Sarah and Tim go above and beyond to coordinate the events with other student organizations. The two are incredibly professional and ensure that the wellbeing of others is prioritized during the events, which speak to their character as individuals and unsung heroes within our small community.”
Ernest selected the book Deconstructing the High Line: Postindustrial Urbanism and the Rise of the Elevated Park, edited by Christoph Lindner and Brian Rosa. One nominator said of Ernest:
“His technical knowledge for certain programs makes him a unique asset to the GSD community, and rather than pushing a personal agenda, Ernest does well in sharing his work as part of a larger dialogue/discourse regarding the nexus of tool and technique in landscape architecture. He is also incredibly patient, and ensures that any questions are answered thoroughly and thoughtfully. Ernest was an easy nomination to receive the Unsung Hero Book Prize, and I hope that through this initiative, we may formally thank him and acknowledge the impact he has made to our GSD community.”
Over 30 GSD students were nominated for the Unsung Hero Book Prize this year. Read more about the Prize’s tenth anniversary, celebrated in 2016.
The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), along with Japanese paint manufacturer NIPSEA Group – known throughout Asia as Nippon Paint – announces the establishment of the Gennosuke Obata Fellowship Fund at the GSD. The Gennosuke Obata Fellowship Fund, initiated during the GSD’s Grounded Visionaries campaign, will provide financial aid to GSD students from Asian countries, helping to attract, enroll, and support talented design scholars from the region as they work to become leaders in transforming the social and built environment.
NIPSEA Group’s Inclusive Business strategy embraces the holistic approach by bridging the gap between education and poverty that essentially create the next generation of thinkers, innovators and game changers in their lives, families, communities, and country. This gift is a continuation of the company’s strategy to extend its reach through GSD’s global presence in countries where they are present in providing design students an opportunity to quality education and optimize the opportunity to build an inclusive economy that allows everyone to thrive.
This is in line with its company’s commitment to nurture the next generation of talented designers, reflected in its Asia Young Designer Award (AYDA). Launched in 2008, the event has become one of Asia’s premier design award, serving as a platform to inspire architecture and interior design students to develop their skills and to network with key industry players and peers in the region. The Gennosuke Obata Fellowship Fund represents Nippon Paint’s next step in investing in these young design leaders.
Nippon Paint’s gift of $300,000 to establish The Gennosuke Obata Fellowship Fund includes $50,000 for immediate use to benefit students at the GSD. The remainder of the gift is invested in the Harvard University endowment, leveraging these dollars for future support.
As part of the Grounded Visionaries campaign, the GSD has increased the number of student fellowships by over 50%, with 24 new endowed funds created during the Campaign to expand opportunities for talented design students.
About NIPSEA Group and Nippon Paint Holding Japan
NIPSEA Group and its principal company Nippon Paint Holding Japan, has led the way in changing the landscape of the paint and coatings industry solidifying its position as Asia’s No. 1 Coating Solutions company. With more than 76 NIPSEA companies spread throughout Asia, it understands the local needs of its customers in every community. Each company embraces diversity and operates together with a strong Pan-Asia presence. Headquartered in Singapore, NIPSEA Group has more than 21,000 employees with more than 61 manufacturing facilities and operations in 16 countries. Gennosuke Obata, known as Nippon Paint’s “second founding father,” became the Nippon Paint Japan’s fourth president in 1924. www.nipponpaint.com
Jungyoon Kim MLA ’00 and Yoonjin Park MLA ’00
Jungyoon (Yuni) Kim MLA ’00 and Yoonjin Park MLA ’00 are Founding Principals of PARKKIM. This Spring, they are Design Critics in Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) co-teaching the option studio “Korea Remade: Alternative Nature, DMZ, and Hinterlands” with Professor Niall Kirkwood. The studio will advance alternative futures for a reunified Korean Peninsula through the concerns of ecology, technology, and design. The reunification of the two Koreas will occur in the next decade, and design work will address population displacement, redrawing of boundaries, new industrial development, and a reimagined role for the landscape and its future inhabitation.
They founded PARKKIM in 2004 upon winning the Chichi Earthquake Memorial International Competition. Previously, they worked at West8 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and taught at Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands.Their book Alternative Nature (2016), is a compilation of their published articles. The term ‘alternative nature’ was first presented at their essay Gangnam Alternative Nature: the experience of nature without parks published in the book Asian Alterity (ed. William Lim, Singapore: 2007), rethinking the concept of ‘what is natural?’ within the context of contemporary East Asian urbanism.
Hear more about their practice, “Korea Remade,” and alumni engagement in this Alumni Q&A.
Tell us about your background. Where were you born?
Both: We both were born in Seoul Korea and raised mainly in the Gangnam area of Seoul, which is a relatively new and densely developed residential area. Jungyoon briefly lived in Cambridge when she was six years old thanks to her father’s study. After college education, we lived abroad for about ten years in the US and the Netherlands, so we were exposed to non-Korean culture for most of our mid 20’s to 30’s.
What previous degrees do you have?
JK: I got my Bachelor of Agriculture with landscape architecture major from Seoul National University.
YP: I received my Bachelor of Engineering and Master of Landscape Architecture at Seoul National University.
What is the most significant thing you learned while at the GSD?
JK: I learned that design is the process of logical thinking, not coming from my fingertips. It was the hardest thing to make it mine and took some time to get accustomed. But then it is obviously valid, from the very beginning of design process to the end of construction supervision, because we do need a consistent commonality with which we make everyday decisions.
YP: At that time, globalism at design field was emerging, and I was very excited to learn about it.
What is your favorite memory of the GSD?
JK: I was taught by Professor Peter Del Tredici (now Senior Research Scientist Emeritus) of Arnold Arboretum in the mandatory plant class. The class usually started about 8:30 am, which is too early for core studio students staying late at the studio. One day, the class met in the Boston Common on a chilly morning, and Del Tredici appeared with a huge bag of bagels. The bagel was cold but warmed me up.
YP: Seeing sunrise in the fourth tray of Gund Hall with studio buddies, after staying overnight.
4. Looking back, what experiences at the GSD were the most helpful in shaping your career (these can be seen broadly as courses, student activities, lectures, conferences, etc.)?
JK: People, including my clients, are caught by my Harvard degree in my resume at the beginning. But for me, my time at GSD is not something which ended at commencement. When looking back on my 14 years of practice, there were many crises to overcome. At every moment, the experience of conversation with ‘THE’ biggest designers of that time, of getting myself through those very direct and harsh critics, of attending conferences in Piper and of some of the successful reviews and pinups reassured my confidence and let me go forward.
YP: For me, it was individual talks with instructors and design critics, especially when we discussed our lives as designers.
Yanghwa Riverfront, Seoul Korea (photo credit: JongOh Kim)
5. About what design problems are you passionate?
JK: Limitation not only throws problems to us, but also gives us clues toward solutions. We both like to challenge the limitations imposed by site, budget, time, and clients. When our challenge succeeds, the design process and endeavor always yields quite fulfilling results.
YP: There are many ways to “love nature.” For designers, it is very important to evoke the multiplicity of nature rather than a singular understanding of it—I think this was how we came with the idea of ‘alternative nature.’
6. Who or what inspires you and your work?
Both: We don’t usually spend too much time to look at other designers’ works. Instead, the great source of inspiration is nature itself. We visited Yosemite National Park three times over last four years in different seasons, and the place always showed us totally different faces. We both also like physical exercise. Jungyoon runs at least 3-4 times a week and practices yoga at home. Yoonjin is an amateur yet serious sportsman. The time being away from the office and using my body (not brain) really inspires.
7. The concept of “Alternative Nature” within the context of contemporary East Asian urbanism has been a philosophy and methodology behind your practice. Can you share more about this guiding framework?
Both: It is basically about how we deal with the limitation and how we react to the context we are working with and live in Seoul Korea. We grew up in the Gangnam area where almost no urban parks exist, despite its high real estate value. After we came back from 10 years of living abroad, we started questioning—how are people able to survive without parks in such a dense urban condition? How they acquire the experience of nature without the help from parks? Then we found, instead of western notion of ‘middle landscape,’ there is the way of getting the experience of nature, and we started to call them ‘alternative nature.’
8. This semester (Spring 2018), you are co-teaching the option studio with Professor Niall Kirkwood “Korea Remade: Alternative Nature, DMZ, and Hinterlands” which will advance alternative futures for a reunified Korean Peninsula through the concerns of ecology, technology, and design. What are the central design challenges facing these locations? What sites did the studio trip visit?
Both: The DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) is at the center of the Korean Peninsula and has been dividing it into two parts since the armistice agreement in 1953. It is physically in the peninsula but politically overseen by the UN and international law. There have been many of interesting, imaginative proposals on the topical land, but most of them were thought out within the current boundary which is 2km to the North and the South from the military demarcation line.
The first challenge to our students was to re-territorize the DMZ and Hinterlands with 13 different themes including viewshed, watershed, geology, restoring tiger habitat, valley, landmines, inclination, renewable energy, and so forth. So let’s say, what if two Koreas agreed to open up some part of the current border and to start a dynamic exchange of people and goods? Then the new set of porous boundaries proposed by the studio can function as the spatial infrastructure for a new settlement. The students visited Korea including DMZ and Seoul and are now working on more detailed design within their own territories. While we were in Korea, we also tried to expose them to the essence of Korean Traditional culture, not just K Pop and K Beauty, but also some of the very high-end culture: For example, the Korea Furniture Museum and SungRokWon, which is the only private residence/garden of Joseon Dynasty remained in Seoul showing how a traditional Korean settlement and lifestyle existed within nature.
Jungyoon Kim MLA ’00 and Yoonjin Park MLA ’00 with students on the studio trip for “Korea Remade: Alternative Nature, DMZ, and Hinterlands”
9. What is the importance of students on studio trips connecting with local alumni? I understand that this is a component of the studio trip in South Korea.
Both: There was an alumni forum held on March 24, not only just to welcome the studio but also to exchange the works and ideas of the studio and alumni mutually. There are more than 200 GSD alumni in Korea, both practitioners and educators, and it was a bilateral beneficial event for both students and alumni. There were also some of the non-alumni attendees including Min Cho (who won the Golden Lion at 2014 Venice Biennale with the exhibition on North Korea), Doojin Hwang (Architectural Advisor of Kaesung Industrial Complex) and even some of the government officials related the reunification. Five speakers (three alumni and two guests) presented about their work and research on DMZ and North Korea first, and then students shared their works. There were also very active Q&A and discussion. The event broadened up the perspective of students.
10. How has the GSD changed since you were students?
Both: The number of students has doubled. There is more interaction with the University outside of GSD, having Homi Bahbah, the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for example, and the voice of students got stronger. And I love the book scanner at Loeb.
PARKKIM at the recent GSD Forum for “Korea Remade.”
11. Yoonjin, you have been named as the incoming President of GSD Korea. What is your vision for this organization? Why should alumni in Korea engage with this group?
YP: My vision is to initiate events of intellectual activity such as “GSD FORUM’ at least twice a year. The one we had this month with the “Korea Remade” studio was the first example. Another objective is to make common ground not only within the GSD alumni but also for the student organization KoreaGSD. By participating in this group, alumni in Korea can contribute to the GSD through various ways.
12. Tell us about your work/life balance? What occupies you when you are not working?
JK: We are work partners and more importantly husband and wife with a daughter together. So there is no such thing as ‘work/life balance’ for us. Life has been work. It is not always easy to maintain both the office PARKKIM and family PARKKIM simultaneously at the level we are aiming. But then, we also try to challenge that limitation as well to yield the best result. Other than my time at the office, time with my daughter Jane and our puppy Marie is the most valuable. And we exercise a lot.
What advice do you have for GSD students and/or alumni?
JK: For the students, I would like to share what was lacking when I was in their position–please take advantage of Harvard’s great resources. I have to confess that I’ve never been to the gorgeous Widener’s study room and Harvard–Yenching Library when I was a student. I was just so occupied with the studio mentally. But the more you engage with all the opportunity and resources that the School offers every day, the more you will build up your capacity as a designer.
13. What are you working on today?
Both: In our office, we have several projects in progress including the campus for Hyundai Motors, a civic plaza within Seoul Region, and invited competition entries. Also, we are preparing for a few of design-build projects. Along with the design works, Jungyoon is preparing the lecture at UNSW in Sydney this coming May on Alternative Nature, with a slightly different presentation structure than previous lectures we had, including some contents of the “Korea Remade” studio.
Mark Lee MArch ’95. Photo credit: Eric Staudenmaier
Harvard University Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) announces the appointment of Mark Lee MArch ’95 as 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.
Lee succeeds K. Michael Hays, Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, who has taught at Harvard GSD since 1988 and served as Interim Chair of the Department of Architecture since 2016.
“I am delighted that Mark Lee has agreed to serve as the next Chair of the Department of Architecture,” says Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at Harvard GSD. “Johnston Marklee is one of the most talented practices currently working in the United States and beyond, and Mark deeply understands the contemporary world of architecture. His vision and leadership will enormously benefit our students and our School in the years to come. As we welcome Mark to this role, I am also incredibly grateful to Michael Hays for his unwavering and ongoing dedication to the Department of Architecture and the GSD.”
“I am honored to be entrusted with the chairmanship of the Department of Architecture at the GSD,” Lee says. “In advancing both the discipline and the profession of architecture, the Department has been without parallel; I look forward to building upon the formidable achievements of my predecessors and this deeply-rooted tradition of excellence. We stand on the threshold of a very challenging, but exciting, future. I feel confident that architecture’s best days lie ahead.”
Lee is a principal and founding partner of Johnston Marklee, which since its establishment in 1998 has been recognized nationally and internationally with over 30 major awards. Projects undertaken by Johnston Marklee span seven countries throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Current projects include the renovation of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, which opened in September 2017; the new UCLA Graduate Art Studios campus in Culver City, California; and the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston, to be completed in 2018. Along with partner Sharon Johnston, Lee served as Co-Artistic Director of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial, and participated in the GSD’s symposium at the Biennial last September.
Prior to his appointment as Professor in Practice at Harvard GSD, Lee held the position of Frank Gehry Chair at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, and Cullinan Guest Professor at Rice University School of Architecture, in addition to appointments at ETH (Zurich) and UCLA. Lee has taught as a design critic at the GSD since 2013, and has served as a visiting critic at institutions around the world. He was also a member of Harvard GSD’s 2018 Wheelwright Prize jury. Lee earned a Master in Architecture from the GSD in 1995.
To engage Miami residents in creating new approaches to address pressing urban issues—including affordable housing, transportation and sea level rise—the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today announced $1 million in support to the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD). With the funding, the School will embed urban researchers in Miami and Miami Beach to better understand the cities’ opportunities and challenges, and launch a multi-year study toward building solutions shaped by residents.
“Miami is at the leading-edge of the most vexing challenges that will face major cities around the world in the decades to come. We’re excited to welcome a world-class group of problem-solvers to Miami to partner with leaders and innovators who are already working on these important issues,” said Sam Gill, Knight Foundation vice president for communities and impact.
Part of its Future of the American City effort, which aims to help cities tackle sustainability and resiliency challenges, the GSD study will span the next three years, beginning this spring. Building on the school’s unique, multi-disciplinary model, the effort will use architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning and design, to come up with actionable, efficient solutions that take into account community needs.
“The Harvard Graduate School of Design is eager to partner with Miami and Miami Beach and to bring the school’s design expertise to bear on a set of complex issues affecting nearly everyone living in those communities on a daily basis,” said Mohsen Mostafavi, dean and the Alexander and Victoria Wiley professor of design at Harvard Graduate School of Design. “In employing the model of the School’s design studios, our goal is to work across multiple fields of knowledge and research and develop a set of actionable, design-based recommendations to share with city and community leaders.”
The GSD is consistently ranked as one of the leading design schools in the world. It has led projects to strengthen and revitalize cities around the globe. These include helping cities implement transportation policies; adapt to sea level rise and develop more resilient models of growth; and design urban environments that support the health and well-being of residents.
The School’s researchers have been actively connected with the City of Miami and City of Miami Beach for several years. Since 2012, the school has conducted six courses focused on Miami and conducted several major events in the city. Expanding on this work, the school will convene a range of experts, policy-makers and members of the public to contribute to this new effort.
In its research, the school will focus on urban mobility, affordability and climate change, themes that emerged from a series of previous discussions among its researchers and members of the Miami and Miami Beach communities. Following their analysis, students and faculty will offer toolkits, white papers and other materials for review and use by city managers, mayors, and other civic leaders, many of whom will be directly involved throughout the study.
“This effort will bring a new community of problem-solvers to Miami, while calling on Miami leaders and innovators to creatively engage around some of our most pressing challenges. At the same time, lessons learned through the experience can be shared with cities across the nation facing similar challenges,” said Sam Gill, Knight Foundation vice president for community and impact.
The research will be led by Mostafavi as well as GSD professors Charles Waldheim, John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture and Jesse M. Keenan, lecturer in architecture. The study will include a three-part series of courses being led at the school. This fall, a course will focus on mobility and transit in Miami, particularly Brickell, with a site visit in October 2018. A second course in Fall 2019 will examine the roles of higher education and medical institutions in Miami’s economy, and a third in Fall 2020 will focus on the roles of Miami’s various ethnic neighborhoods in shaping the city’s cultural identity.
Each GSD course will involve 12 graduate-level Harvard students and a professor working in a “design studio,” which involves conducting independent research, then discussing plans with fellow researchers to modify and strengthen their proposals. Each team of students will spend at least one week in Miami to speak with local stakeholders, civic organizations and political and administrative leaders. Representatives from Miami’s civic and political organizations will provide feedback throughout the study.
The GSD’s upcoming Miami research is the first phase of its Future of the American City project, a broader urban-study initiative intending to also examine the cities of Los Angeles, Detroit, and Boston. The school plans to host a summit to convene experts from each city to create a national discourse on the future of cities and urban life in America.
Knight Foundation supports informed and engaged communities by identifying and working with partners to help our cities attract and nurture talent, promote economic opportunity and foster civic engagement. This effort will advance Knight Foundation’s work in Miami focused on building the city’s innovation ecosystem, while fueling entrepreneurship and new ideas. It will also help drive a national conversation about how communities can be more engaged in designing their cities to face the challenges of the future.
Dan Borelli MDes ’12
Today, art and design find a natural home in the GSD exhibition galleries—in the course of a single year, GSD Director of Exhibitions Dan Borelli MDes ’12 and his team stage five major exhibitions and twelve smaller exhibitions featuring a wide variety of work. By providing access to the School’s rich body of design research, collaborative innovation, and impactful theory, the Druker Design Gallery and the other gallery spaces under Borelli’s purview, educate and inspire the community about the power of design through exhibits by leading designers, planners, and artists from around the world. With Gund Hall’s position along the Harvard Arts Corridor of Quincy Street, the Druker Design Gallery joins the Harvard Arts Museums and Carpenter Center which invites members of the Harvard community and beyond to the spaces and exhibitions of discourse.
Borelli is a 2012 graduate of the inaugural class of Master in Design Studies (MDes) program in Art, Design, and the Public Domain and has served as Director of Exhibition since 2000. In addition to his work inside the walls of Gund Hall, Borelli has collaborated with students on student-designed projects including a DesignMiami/ pavilion and the “WE ALL” installation in Allston. Outside of the GSD, he is deeply involved in an art-based research inquiry into an EPA Superfund Site in his hometown of Ashland, Massachusetts. To read more about Borelli’s work and what is ahead for spring exhibitions at the GSD, continue reading below.
1. Tell us about your background.
I was born in Ashland, Massachusetts and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking and Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). During a year studying in Rome with the RISD in Rome program, I looked at a specific set of asymmetrical paintings by Caravaggio in the Francesi Chapel. The professor who ran the Rome program was Kyna Leski MArch ’88 was a GSD alumna. During my travels, we investigated the built work of Carlo Scarpa and went to Castelvecchio, which is known as one of the finest examples of restoration architecture and exhibition design. That is when I fell in love with exhibition design and making, to see and understand materials, color, light, and space.
2. You were one of the first graduates of the MDes program in Art, Design, and the Public Domain, which seeks creative and ambitious individuals with a keen interest in contemporary issues of urban, historical, aesthetic and technological culture, and with a predilection for intervention, exhibition, and public work. Tell us about your experience with this program and how it helped to prepare you for your current role as Director of Exhibitions.
With the MDes program, I wanted to take everything I learned about exhibition making and put it into a creative practice looking at social and political issues. I posed the question about how to fuse arts administration, team building, fabrication, space making in the public space in a way that is issue-driven.
In my first semester, I took a survey class with Krzysztof Wodiczko, professor in residence of Art, Design and the Public Domain. It was his first-semester teaching, and the program was centered on the ethics of his type of practice. During the class, I was exposed to late 20th century critical writing, thinking, and practices. Instead of being gallery driven, the class was taught from an interventionist approach in the space of everyday life.
3. As part of your work in the MDes program, you started an art-based research inquiry into the Nyanza Superfund Site in your hometown, Ashland, MA, a site for the EPA’s long-term effort to clean up hazardous material contaminations. Through a combination of art, community engagement, and activism, you created a public garden memorial on the site that was once a Native American settlement. How did you involve the community to create an activist team that helps the townspeople come to grips with the severe effects water and soil contamination?
CHASING COLOR created by Dan Borelli MDes ’12.Through filters on the lights, this large-scale lighting project visualized the below-grade contaminants of environmental degradation.
In my interrogative design class, in which students investigate a big issue through a creative approach, I considered the phenomenology color, light, and space. The big issue that I raised was around the Nyanza Superfund Site in my hometown of Ashland. Massachusetts. I was previously unaware that this site was one of the first synthetic color plants for textile dyes in the United States. At this point light, color, and space morphed from phenomenology to ecology and from seducer to carcinogen for me in my project, which I called “CHASING COLOR.” What was great about the openness of the ADPD program is that I could curate my classes to match my subject. Through art-based research inquiry, I considered the mechanism in which the EPA and the federal government make knowledge public within Superfund. Through a class titled Bibliotheca, I examined how the people of Ashland are being informed regarding the toxicity in their built environment. Another Harvard connection formed when the Harvard School of Public Health began teaching a class on the cancer cluster caused by the dye contamination. At this point, I decided to apply for a Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) grant for further research. With this grant funding, my research and findings were used to conduct interviews around the idea of hidden contamination became the basis of a teaching case at the School of Public Health. With making these buried narratives public, I juxtaposed the stories of human impact with the EPA’s findings on remediation.
After graduation, I received grants from Art Place America and the National Endowment of the Arts Our Town Creative Placemaking program to take the proposition that I explored in ADPD and implement it back to the public space of the town for the community to be able to viscerally experience the site of contamination. I partnered with the Arts Company and the Laborers’ International Union of North America on a multi-phase project. The first part was focused on public knowledge with an exhibition at the local library. The second was a temporary intervention in the public space to bring experiences of color back to the town; I mapped the color gradients of toxicity to the nearest streetlights. Through filters on the lights, this large-scale lighting project visualized the below-grade contaminants of environmental degradation. The third part is a permanent public garden that became a site of retreat and contemplation for the community on a two-acre site that abutted school athletic fields, which was built in partnership with the New England Laborer’s Training Academy. Also in my research, I found out that this land was an important Native American site, and I reached out to the Harvard University Native American Program to learn more. On the site used to be a meeting house for the Nipmuc tribe over 300 years ago; the tribe came to the opening of the site and performed a healing ceremony, which was very powerful. For the final phase, we are planning for a series of plantings and a public re-launching of the site following some very unfortunate community vandalism.
Upcoming event: For those in the Boston area who are interested in learning more about this project, please join Dan for “CHASING COLOR: Art and the Hidden Narratives of Industrial Waste” on Monday, February 5, 2018, at Le Laboratoire in Cambridge. More information and tickets are available at this link.
4. Tell us about your professional career. What has kept you at the GSD?
I see myself as a project person, and I love working on projects that bring people together. What is great about my role at the GSD is that exhibitions are intended to make discourse public. Very few galleries have dedicated space to architecture and design and tackle the challenging issues around the built environment that the GSD galleries address. It is infinitely fascinating.
5. In the course of a single year, you and your team stage five major exhibitions and twelve smaller exhibitions featuring a wide variety of work. How do you approach curating exhibitions at the GSD?
I see my role as being a support mechanism for the respective curatorial teams involved with us- these range from students, faculty and visiting faculty. Overall, exhibition-making is a very collaborative process with lots of discussions with faculty and leadership. I work with current and visiting faculty who deeply research their issue, and my team partners with them to help them make the most of their concept in the public space of the GSD. I see myself as a “creative producer” who translates their research and narrative in the public space of the Druker Design Gallery and view exhibitions as making public the interrelationship between concept, aesthetic and logistics. Our program follows the pedagogy of the GSD, so we aspire to be timely to issues that are important to our students.
My team is comprised of local artists, furniture makers, and craft makers. It is a good marriage between the focus of GSD faculty and students and the local Boston art scene. My team translates materials for the space and supports the local creative economy. We are constantly learning new things and being experimental. Our exhibitions in the Druker Design Gallery are built in the center of Gund Hall. Outside of the GSD, it is rare to have the opportunity to witness the process of an exhibition being built. At the GSD, students, faculty, staff, and the public are able to view the construction of an exhibition.
6. With the naming of the Druker Design Gallery, the GSD’s primary exhibition hall, do you think there will be an opportunity for a heightened impact of the Gallery space for the School, the Harvard community, and the greater Boston community?
The naming of the Druker Design Gallery is recognition of the strong and inspiring exhibitions that the GSD has produced over the years. I hope that the Gallery will gain visibility externally and encourage a broader audience to come to visit, including the local communities.
Exhibitions are fantastic opportunities for designers to test mid-scale models of their architecture and design concepts. The biggest challenge for students is that they are mostly limited to the scale of their desk or computer monitor. Students desire to test their concepts beyond this scale and to start to apply material systems and assembly logic to their ideas. It would be great if we have more funding to do more design-build projects with students.
“We the Publics: A Manifesto to Restore Democracy and Truth in the Republic,” created by Emmanuel Pratt LF ’17 (left) and Dan Borelli MDes ‘12 (not pictured).
7. Your artistic process is highly collaborative and team-oriented. You created “We The Publics,” with Emmanuel Pratt LF ’17 after participating in a series of town halls, forums, and public talks within the GSD regarding the state of humanitarian and political crises. The piece was on view at the GSD in Spring 2017 and at the Smart Museum in Chicago in Fall 2017. How did you and Emmanuel decide to collaborate and what have been some of the reactions to this exhibit?
Emmanuel and I decided to explore the deeper issue of the splintering of the collective simultaneously with the pressure to move to privatization of certain basic rights that should be delivered to the collective, like clean water and education. With the presidential election, it became apparent there was a strong move to disarm the EPA and defund large urban centers that are supportive of immigration. We wanted to remind people within the GSD community that we need to speak up and create a platform for “design for all.” If we allow the current dialogue to play out without any friction, people may very quickly lose the basic human services that make society a little bit more just and equitable across socio-economic divisions. We worked with the graphic designer Andrew LeClair to make a visual installation for the “Experiment’s” wall with a provisional list of publics and prompted the community to contribute. This was one of the first times that the GSD did a participatory exhibition in which the audience helps to generate content during the duration of the exhibition. It was a way of flattening boundaries between the community. It was important for us to pluralize publics—there are multiple publics. In Chicago, the exhibit is in the entryway of the Smart Museum, and participation was strong. There are other venues that are interested so Emmanuel, and I are considering how to move it forward.
“WE ALL” designed by Master in Design Studies trio Francisco Alarcon MDes ’18, Carla Ferrer Llorca MDes ’17, and Rudy Weissenberg MDes ’18. Photo credit: Justin Knight.
8. You worked with students on a design-build competition for an installation at The Grove, located at the nexus of N. Harvard Street and Western Avenue in Allston. The chosen design “WE ALL’” created by a trio of MDes students aims to create a space together with Allston neighbors to foster commonality and connectivity while serving as a testament to the community-building powers of public art and design. What was your role in this competition and working with the selected students to bring their design to fruition?
I was approached about doing an art installation at The Grove site and worked in partnership with the Harvard University Office of the Executive Vice President, Harvard Campus Services, Harvard Planning Office, Graffito SP, and the Zone 3 initiative on the idea of doing a competition for groups of GSD students to bring design across the river. It was a wonderful marriage of interest for this parcel of land that is on the boundary between Harvard’s future campus in Allston and the existing city. The task was could the GSD do something to activate the parcel in a way that acknowledges the possible future of the campus through a transformation of space and place? We assembled a jury with GSD faculty, Harvard Campus Services, and an Allston Community Representative and we all agreed that we liked the idea of “WE ALL” as it had a very clear message with the politicization of walls and boundaries in the current US political climate. It was important for us to involve the community through interviews and open previews of the five finalists and Dan D’Oca MUP ’02 was instrumental in working with us on that process. I hope that the GSD can be involved in the transformation of other land parcels on the Allston campus.
9. As part of an Art Basel, you spoke on the panel “New Cultural Hubs: How Art Transforms Neighborhoods.” What was the most memorable part of this experience?
I think that creative practices and how they participate in shaping public space, especially in urban environments, need to be careful that they aren’t co-opted into being a tool for neo-liberal capitalists. There is now a word within the art world of “art washing” in which creative placemaking projects are made in the spirit of beautification but eradicate existing social fabrics and exhaust economic, and political divisions. It becomes a tool of gentrification. My role on this panel was to share about critical practice and how important it is for creative practices to have genuine engagement with the community or else they risk becoming a new form of exclusion and encroach on those who currently live there.
10. Can you provide a preview of what exhibitions are planned for this spring at the GSD?
The first main exhibit in the Druker Design Gallery is “Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech,” which opened on Monday, January 22. It is curated by K. Michael Hays, Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and Interim Chair of the Department of Architecture; and Andrew Holder, Assistant Professor of Architecture, in collaboration with GSD Exhibitions. It has been a long time since we’ve had faculty from the world of history, theory, and criticism do a survey exhibition on architecture. Having Michael Hays and Andrew Holder curate an exhibition on contemporary architecture and culling through the work of faculty is very exciting. This exhibit makes pedagogy public—the exhibit shared important practices and important concepts.
Another exhibit coming up this spring is that Toni L. Griffin LF ’98, professor in practice of urban planning, will be sharing the work from The Just City Lab; it will be the first time that the work from her research lab will be made public to the GSD community. Also, we are working on the “Platform 10: Live Feed” exhibit with John May MArch ’02, director of the master in design studies program and assistant professor of architecture, and Jon Lott MArch ’09, assistant professor of architecture and director of the master in architecture I program, which is framing of how we engage with our own culture via feeds.
11. What would surprise us about you?
I am very close to my wife’s family who is Swedish. I speak Swedish and lived in Sweden almost a year. My daughter spends her summers there, and it has been incredible to see her confidence and engagement with another language and culture as it is an interesting comingling of cultures.
THE SURVEY IS NOW CLOSED; RESULTS TO BE SHARED IN THE COMING WEEKS.
GSD alumni are members of the alumni community of nearly 13,000 graduates spanning 105 countries. This community of brilliant and diverse professionals makes an impact across a growing array of disciplines and industries. In 2014, the GSD undertook an all alumni survey to better understand the School’s alumni community and identify ways to strengthen alumni connections to the School; and prepare for the Grounded Visionaries campaign. This initial survey provided insight into the how well the GSD experience prepared them for their careers, their communications preferences, and their levels of engagement. It also identified that nearly half of the initial 3,000 respondents were no longer practicing in the field they studied at the GSD. The results of this investigation helped to inform and direct the ways to engage alumni. Consequently, there has been an increase in the number of alumni who are participating in activities, as well as connecting with the School through social media, email communication, and website visits. However, there has been continued interest to gain a greater understanding of careers alumni are pursuing either inside their disciplines of study or the growing number of professions embracing the value of design education.
In the final year of the Grounded Visionaries campaign, the GSD is interested in building on these findings through a second alumni research initiative. This follow up investigation aims to gain a greater understanding of the range of disciplines in which alumni may be involved professionally and how the knowledge and skills developed at the GSD may have prepared them for these endeavors. The School is also interested in understanding the social impact our alumni have on their local and broader communities through their professional contributions and volunteer endeavors. A collaborative process engaging a number of alumni, the GSD Alumni Council, and faculty helped inform the survey development, which included Anita Berrizbeitia MLA ’87, chair of the department of landscape architecture and professor of landscape architecture. “As a Department Chair and Professor at the GSD, I want to learn more about the varied and multifaceted career paths of our alumni, so we can better prepare our students for their professional lives after the GSD, said Berrizbeitia. “At the School, we are also interested in celebrating the lasting impact of our alumni on the built environment and society.”
As a Department Chair and Professor at the GSD, I want to learn more about the varied and multifaceted career paths of our alumni, so we can better prepare our students for their professional lives after the GSD. At the School, we are also interested in celebrating the lasting impact of our alumni on the built environment and society. ~ Anita Berrizbeitia MLA ’87, Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Professor of Landscape Architecture
Feedback from alumni is vital in helping the GSD to understand if and how the knowledge and skills they refined at the School have influenced their careers and professional specialties. We want to ensure that efforts for both current students and valued alumni will be meaningful and well-served for the professional paths created after graduation. Regardless of current professional pursuits, participation in this research is of great value and will help define the value and relevance of design education.
We are asking alumni to share their thoughts in an online questionnaire, which should take about 10-12 minutes to complete. Participation by Monday, January 29 is essential to this effort. All alumni should have received an email with a personal link to take the survey.
As of Monday, January 22, over 2,000 alumni had completed the survey with nearly 500 others who had started, but not completed this questionnaire. We hope you will participate or complete this investigation to provide useful information for the School. Thank you in advance to alumni for their support on this important research initiative and for helping the GSD strengthen its understanding of the alumni community and enhance the education for its students. The School looks forward to sharing key learnings in our research with you in the coming months following the completion of this investigation and complete review of outcomes.
Jeanne Gang MArch ’93 (left), Sharon Johnston MArch ’95 (middle), and Mark Lee MArch ’95 (right) will join the GSD faculty as Professors in Practice of Architecture, effective July 1, 2018.
The Harvard University Graduate School of Design is pleased to announce three appointments to the position of Professor in Practice of Architecture: Jeanne Gang MArch ’93, Sharon Johnston MArch ’95, and Mark Lee MArch ’95, effective July 1, 2018.
Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at the GSD, commented: “We are incredibly pleased to welcome Jeanne, Sharon, and Mark, who will make a great contribution not only to the Department of Architecture, but also to the whole School, with the vast wealth of experience, leadership, and vision they bring.” He continued, “Students in particular will benefit from the opportunity to learn from architects whose practices are at the same time thriving and operating globally at a very high level.”
Prior to commencing their faculty appointments, the three architects also will be teaching option studios at the GSD this spring.
Jeanne Gang is the founding principal of Studio Gang, an international architecture and urban design practice is based in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. Her analytical and deeply interdisciplinary approach has produced award-winning projects across scales and typologies, from cultural and public buildings to urban parks and high-rise towers. Professor Gang’s projects include Writers Theatre and the 82-story Aqua Tower in Chicago. She is currently designing major projects throughout the Americas and Europe. These include an expansion to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and the new United States Embassy in Brasília, Brazil. Professor Gang received a Master in Architecture with Distinction from the GSD in 1993, has taught at the GSD as Design Critic in Architecture since 2011, and was the John Portman Design Critic in Architecture in 2017.
Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee are founders and principals of Johnston Marklee, established in 1998. Projects undertaken by Johnston Marklee span seven countries throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Current projects include the renovation of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, which opened in September 2017; the new UCLA Graduate Art Studios campus in Culver City, California; and the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston, to be completed in 2018. They also served as Co-Artistic Directors of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial and participated in the GSD’s symposium at the Biennial last September. Professors Johnston and Lee each earned a Master in Architecture from the GSD in 1995.
Prior to their appointment as Professors in Practice at the GSD, Johnston and Lee have taught at several other schools. Johnston previously held the position of Frank Gehry Chair at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, and Cullinan Guest Professor at Rice University School of Architecture. Lee has held the position of Frank Gehry Chair at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, and Cullinan Guest Professor at Rice University School of Architecture, in addition to appointments at ETH (Zurich) and UCLA. Johnston and Lee have taught as design critics at the GSD since 2013, and each has served as a visiting critic at institutions around the world.
Above photo: Mr. Portman at the final review for the Spring 2015 option studio “Portmanian Architecture” led by Professor Preston Scott Cohen MArch ’85.
Read about the legacy of John Portman (1924-2017) in Architect Magazine in his obituary “Atlanta Architect John Portman Dies at 93.”
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. Read the interview here.
The Daniel Urban Kiley Teaching Fellowship is awarded annually to an emerging designer whose work articulates the potential for landscape as a medium of design in the public realm. The Kiley Fellow will be appointed Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design for the 2018-19 academic year. While the Kiley Fellowship is awarded competitively on an annual basis, successful Fellows are eligible to have their academic appointments renewed for a second year at the rank of Lecturer, dependent upon review of their teaching, research, and creative practice.
This initiative is intended to recognize and foster emerging design educators whose work embodies the potential for landscape as a medium of design in the public realm. The Daniel Urban Kiley Fellowship builds upon the history of pedagogic innovation at the GSD as well as the century of leadership in landscape education within the Department of Landscape Architecture.
Deadline for receipt of applications: February 1, 2018
For details and more information, please visit Kiley Teaching Fellowship or send an email to [email protected].
Hometown: San Diego, CA
Current City: San Francisco, CA
Current Position: Senior Program Coordinator, Metropolitan Transportation Commission (San Francisco Bay Area)
Other Degrees: B.A., Mathematics, UC Berkeley
1. What was your work experience/background before coming to the GSD?
Before coming to the GSD, I mainly worked in consulting. My first job was as an actuarial consultant in the healthcare industry. I then moved to more traditional management consulting, and a number of my clients were transportation agencies.
2. What made you decide to pursue planning as a career?
I have always viewed transportation planning and transit as blending three areas that I find most important – the environment, the economy, and social equity. Public transportation is often used by those with less means to go to and from jobs, so there needs to be a major social equity focus when planning transportation systems.
3. Why did you choose the GSD?
I got into Harvard, Columbia, Berkeley, and UCLA, but I chose the GSD because of the ability to take classes at a number of different schools. I was excited about the Kennedy School, which focuses on policy, MIT, where there is an emphasis on infrastructure and engineering, and then, of course, the GSD, which deals with design. That variety was one of the biggest factors to me. I ended up taking classes at MIT, HKS, and the Business School, in addition to the GSD.
Also, I went to UC Berkeley for undergrad, so I wanted to spend time on the East Coast and take advantage of the vast Harvard network. In addition, I learned that Harvard pretty much founded the Urban Planning field, so how could I go wrong?
4. What areas in planning interest you the most and how are you addressing them in your career?
I think transportation can be the great equalizer. Cities cannot be what they are if the transportation infrastructure cannot support it. In cities, productivity plummets if public transportation shuts down. A strong economy also means that you can better allocate public benefits to those in need. I am also dedicated to getting people out of their cars and off the road.
In my current role, I work on the regional fare collection system. You can use the Clipper card on 23 different transit agencies in the Bay Area, and there is a strong need as the MPO to interact with each of them to ensure that the system runs smoothly. This is challenging because the municipalities range from being extremely dense and urban like San Francisco and Oakland to agricultural in Napa and Sonoma County, or suburban in nature like Silicon Valley, so there is a lot of variation in service and need.
5. Can you summarize the path you have taken since graduation that has led to your current position and how the GSD prepared you for it?
My first job outside of the GSD was a fellowship to help plan a transportation network in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is building a high-speed rail line between Mecca and Medina, the two holy cities of Islam, and one of the stops on the new line will be in a new city, King Abdullah Economic City. The two other fellows and I worked on one group project focused on how to activate strategic sites to create a sense of community in this new city. I also completed an individual project on how to implement the transportation plan. For the fellowship, we wanted to engage the community, so the experience doing direct community engagement work in studio courses at the GSD was incredibly helpful.
I often think of the skills I learned and how I can apply them to my current job. For instance, at the time that the interstate system was planned, planners were using the tools of government to build infrastructure that did not necessarily distribute benefits equitably. My agency currently develops a long-range regional plan that considers where to invest in infrastructure, where we can connect housing across dense corridors and near jobs, and how to accommodate a growing population sustainably and equitably. We constantly ask how to address these issues environmentally and economically and work to provide a high quality of life for everyone. In this position, I deal with a variety of governance structures, so I have to understand how resources are allocated and how best to leverage those resources to achieve our goals.
I also hold regular public meetings, so I create materials to distribute to the public, board members, and other stakeholders. I learned that at the GSD.
6. What’s your favorite memory of the GSD?
Our class really came together during our time at the GSD. We were students during the Boston Marathon bombing, and it was a scary time, and I think that we grew together as a community as result. Right now, there are about six to seven people from my class in San Francisco, and we get together once a month for a book club.
In this era of philanthropic mega-donors, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) is grounded by the generosity and commitment of some of our most loyal and steadfast supporters. The cohort of alumni who provide unwavering annual support to the GSD Fund for student financial aid is growing, and their total contribution has almost doubled in the last five years. Among these loyal donors are established professionals, as well as recent graduates, who understand the power of design, value a quality design education, and remain committed to the tradition of giving back.
Christine Carlyle MAUD ’91 with Eric Keune, design director at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, at the Grounded Visionaries Campaign Impact Reception.
Christine Carlyle MAUD ’91, a principal and director of planning for Solomon Cordwell Buenz in Chicago, has donated to the GSD nearly every year for the past 21 years. She has consistently directed her annual giving toward financial aid. Married to a fellow architect, Carlyle describes her annual gifts as modest but acknowledges she is motivated to return the benefit because she was a recipient of financial aid as a student at the GSD. “Unfortunately, the starting salaries of young designers are low for their cost of living, especially in urban areas, and many are saddled with an enormous amount of student debt when they start out. I believe that every little bit counts, so I give what I can.” Carlyle’s engagement with the GSD goes well beyond her giving. She was involved with the GSD Alumni Council for nearly 10 years and said the experience was “in a word, tremendous. I enjoyed going back to Cambridge, getting updates on the School, talking with students, and participating in project reviews. It was an enriching experience.
Amy Delson AB ’67, MArch ’72,
Silicon Valley–based Amy Delson AB ’67, MArch ’72, a principal with Strategic Facilities Planning in Atherton, California, remembers choosing to enroll at the GSD: “Architecture is the synthesis of my interests in art, science, and writing. Being at the GSD was a wonderful experience, challenging me to be the best I could be among a group of classmates and professors who were intent on making the world a better place through design and social engagement.”
Although Delson attended both Harvard College and the Graduate School of Design, she acknowledges that her philanthropic support has greater impact at the GSD: “I feel it is important to support the next generation of innovative architects and design leaders; the tools they acquire at the GSD will enable them to influence the course of the global environment.”
Delson has given to the GSD almost every year for 35 years. With her gift this year, she joins the Josep Lluís Sert Council, a community of annual leadership donors who believe in the transformational power of design and share in an offering of curated design experiences.
Through their dedicated annual giving, supporters of the School like Carlyle and Delson create opportunities for the next generation of design leaders and help to shape design in the 21st century. For the GSD, every gift matters.
The Harvard University Graduate School of Design brings together the most talented students to study, investigate, and address complex design challenges at all levels—from housing shortages and community development in Boston to the effects of climate change and rapid urbanization around the world. Through practice, research, and teaching, our extraordinary faculty and staff guide students as they engage in local action, global thinking, and the pursuit of a better tomorrow.
Your donation to the GSD Fund will provide immediate access to the activities and experiences that are hallmarks of a GSD education. Empower our students to join the ranks of GSD alumni who are design leaders practicing in multiple fields.
The GSD is dedicated to allocating a quarter of its operating budget to student financial aid, yet this figure remains well below the full cost of providing the GSD’s unparalleled educational experience. We invite you to support today’s GSD students—your gift will give them the opportunity to freely imagine and create in the global classroom and the local community.
Design education is expensive. In addition to tuition, 3D printing and making models are quite costly. Financial aid allows for a level playing field.
— Dana McKinney MArch ’17, MUP ’17
Community-Driven Public Art
Harvard University engaged the GSD as a partner in the planning, design, and execution of a new public art installation in neighboring Allston. The “WE ALL” student design team responded best to the core competition ideal: merging art, design, and interaction within the context of the neighborhood and its residents.
Civic Engagement
Eight students received funding through the GSD to pursue internships with local organizations serving the greater Boston area last summer. Their work included mentoring young people with YouthBuild Boston, developing an open-source app to increase civic engagement with the City of Cambridge, and helping to increase access to affordable housing in Boston with the Department of Neighborhood Development.
Teaching the Next Generation of Students
Project Link is an intensive summer program developed by GSD alumni and run by students that immerses Boston-area high school students in the world of design. The program strives to foster skills in local teens not previously exposed to art or architecture training and put students on track to explore design at the collegiate level.
Investigating Kuala Lumpur’s Urban Landscape
With a focus on alternative methods of planning, this studio asked students to rethink a complex area inside the dense urban core of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Proposals aimed to make quality-of-life improvements by merging private and public spaces and developing an urban plan with architectural forms, connections, and programming.
Building Industries in African Water Cities
Led by 2017 Aga Khan Design Critic Kunlé Adeyemi, this studio looked at the city of Durban, South Africa, as a way of examining the challenges and opportunities presented by the impacts of urbanization in Africa.
São Paulo: Rescaling of Rail Infrastructure and New Models of Domestic Life
Students in this studio considered how changes to transportation infrastructure in São Paulo, Brazil, bring the potential for new models of collective urban life.
Financial aid is a key component of the GSD remaining a diverse institution. It allows us to bring students from many different backgrounds, many different places in the world, and to really create an environment in which we can have impact and influence in those places but also benefit from the knowledge of all the people who become part of the GSD community.
— Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design
In this final year of the Grounded Visionaries campaign, financial aid remains an area of critical need for the GSD. With your gift to the GSD Fund, you will help ensure that the next generation of design leaders has access to the School’s transformative pedagogy and unrivaled academic opportunities.
Rendering of a laboratory space by Manus Leung MArch ’17 and Lilian Taylor MArch ’17 for the second “Work Environments” studio.
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. Supported by the philanthropic initiative of Knoll and its CEO, Andrew Cogan AB ’84, each of the three spring-semester studios examined a different type of work environment and speculated on its future. In the inaugural Spring 2015 studio, students and faculty examined two interrelated domains of work—the corporate campus and the industry-wide event (such as conferences, exhibitions, and festivals)—and also considered the evolving landscape of work beyond the traditional office environment. The second studio studied a single company, Corning Incorporated, as a template for the future of laboratory and factory workspaces. The final studio, held this past spring, investigated the government’s work environments, with a particular focus on the needs of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The GSD should be at the forefront of the discussion, as the new work configuration affects people’s mental, social, and economic well-being.
Led by the GSD’s Florian Idenburg, associate professor in practice of architecture, with aid from teaching associate Duncan Scovil MArch ’15, the “Work Environments” studios urged students to produce innovative design solutions to accommodate the large-scale technological, economic, and cultural disruptions that are altering traditional workplace structures. “The Harvard GSD understands the relevance of these shifting dynamics and the need for its students to develop knowledge around the subject,” wrote Idenburg in the 2015 studio report Work Environments, documenting the first of the three studios. “The GSD should be at the forefront of the discussion, as the new work configuration affects people’s mental, social, and economic well-being.”
A leader in workplace design for over 75 years, Knoll provided both conceptual and financial support for the studio series. Executive Vice President and Design Director Benjamin Pardo worked with Idenburg on the series at various levels, participating in reviews and other events over the past three years.
“The partnership with Knoll was one of the reasons I was interested in participating in the “Work Environments” studios,” said Abigail Chang MArch ’16, who was a student in the first studio and served as the teaching assistant for the second. “The topics proposed were really large-scale, yet Knoll, as a furniture company, brought the focus to a much smaller, more intimate level. I was curious about how these would come together.”
During the semester, each studio traveled to a location in the United States, as well as around the Boston area, for site visits and meetings with experts. After studying the history and environmental context of the workspaces in question, students were asked to present speculative designs of future work domains based on scenarios devised for each course. The resulting projects range from wildly fantastical to utterly dystopian. Student work from the series is represented in three studio reports, the last of which will be published this fall.
Students tour an abandoned corporate campus in Austin, Texas
“Studios like those supported by Knoll serve as laboratories for developing imaginative, sustainable solutions to real-world challenges,” said GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design. “We are deeply grateful to Andrew Cogan for his partnership as we strive to create a better, more humane, and more beautiful world.”
The Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) announced today that it has received a $15 million gift from Ronald M. Druker Loeb Fellow ’76 and the Bertram A. and Ronald M. Druker Charitable Foundation. The gift provides the necessary seed funding for the GSD to launch an ambitious renewal and new building expansion of its main facility, Gund Hall, to support focused work in design innovation. In recognition of the gift—the largest made to date to the GSD’s current Grounded Visionaries campaign as well as the largest single gift from an individual in the school’s history—the GSD will name its primary exhibition gallery the Druker Design Gallery.
Druker’s gift provides the foundation for the school’s effort to reimagine the role and ambitions of design education in the twenty-first century and in the context of a leading research university, beginning with the school’s physical plant. The success of the Grounded Visionaries campaign—the GSD’s portion of the university-wide Harvard Campaign—has put the school in a position to think openly and fundamentally about future practices of design pedagogy, their integration into research in the sciences and the arts, and their capacity to have an impact on practitioners working at all scales of the built environment.
Toward that end, for the past several years, Druker has worked closely alongside Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at the GSD, to help define and develop a strategy for the future spatial and facility needs of the school, taking into account the school’s increasing focus on design innovation. Druker’s gift will carry forward planning for a new building expansion of Gund Hall.
The Druker Design Gallery features the work of faculty, students, and researchers and scholars from across the design fields. Located at Gund Hall, the gallery serves as a site for experimentation and explication of ideas and plays a fundamental role in the pedagogical life of the school. The gallery is open to the public, and has a long and rich history of exhibitions that engage the historical and contemporary conditions of design discourse across physical, digital, and spatial media.
Together with the Harvard Art Museums and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, the Druker Design Gallery stands as part of Harvard University’s arts corridor along Quincy Street in Cambridge. Highlights from the gallery’s past exhibitions include: “Utopia Across Scales,” featuring a selection of drawings by Kenzo Tange (2009); “The Divine Comedy,” a three-part exhibition featuring works by Olafur Eliasson, Tomas Saraceno, and Ai Weiwei (2011); “Motion Matters: UNStudio” (2011); “Transformative Mobilities: Porto & Medellín,” featuring two projects awarded the 2013 Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design (2013); “Architectural Ethnography,” featuring the work of Atelier Bow-Wow (2017); “Soft Thresholds: the Works of RMA” (2016); and “Landscape: Fabric of Details: the Works of Toru Mitani and Studio On Site” (2017), among many others.
“I am delighted that this generous gift from Ron, one of the GSD’s most prominent, committed, and long-standing advocates and supporters, will provide resources crucial to helping us move forward our plans to build new, innovative spaces of research and learning,” said Mostafavi. “It is equally meaningful and fitting for the school to be able to name its primary exhibition space in his honor.”
“For more than four decades, the GSD has played an integral role in both my professional and personal life. I’m pleased to have this opportunity to serve as a catalyst in creating the environment that fosters innovative design education,” said Druker. “This gift reflects my admiration and respect for the school, Dean Mostafavi, and his vision for the future.”
“It is only through the dedication of bold thinkers like Ron Druker that allows the GSD to think audaciously about shaping the future of its campus,” said GSD Grounded Visionaries campaign co-chair John K. F. Irving AB ’83, MBA ’89. “It is an honor to recognize Ron’s remarkable generosity through the naming of the Druker Design Gallery, which will have an extraordinary impact on the arts and design at the GSD, at Harvard, and for the wider community.”
Though best known across the Boston area for transformational developments like The Heritage on the Garden and Atelier|505, Druker has an unyielding passion for architecture and design that is best manifested in his more than 42-year relationship with the GSD. His relationship with the school began in 1975, when Druker became one of the early inductees into the school’s prestigious Loeb Fellowship program, a time during which he first articulated many of the principles that define not only his projects, but also his perspective on urban planning and design across the region.
Continuing from 1975 to 1983, Druker taught as a member of the school’s faculty in urban design. Cherishing his growing connection to the GSD, Druker established an endowment creating the Druker Traveling Fellowship in 1986. The program reflects Druker’s firm belief that travel and exposure to different points of view are critical components to the development of one’s professional practice. Since then, the fellowship has supported a corps of rising designers who, following the example set by Druker and his father (Bertram Druker), are dedicated to advancing the study and practice of urban design in the United States and around the world. Druker has formed and maintained lasting friendships with many past fellows.
More recently, Druker has served on the school’s Visiting Committee, on the Dean’s Advisory Council, and as Chair of the school’s Strategic Planning Committee. Druker’s gift to the GSD represents not only his deep involvement in and connection to the school over a period of more than four decades, but also his continued commitment to supporting education in the arts and cultural production across several of the Boston area’s leading institutions, including the Museum of Fine Arts and the Boston Public Library.
Read more about this story in the Boston Globe and the Harvard Gazette.
Architect Brenda A. Levin, FAIA, MArch ’76 is known for revitalizing Los Angeles’ urban, historic, and cultural form. For over 30 years, her architecture and urban design firm, Levin & Associates Architects, has pioneered the preservation and redefinition of significant and iconic landmarks in Los Angeles including City Hall, Grand Central Market, Griffith Observatory, and Wilshire Boulevard Temple. In June 2017, Levin was honored with the Los Angeles Architectural Angel Award for her “leadership, innovation, and true dedication towards the revitalization of the City of Los Angeles.”
Levin is actively engaged as a member of the GSD Alumni Council and serving as Co-Chair of the Student/Alumni Xchange Committee, which fosters a wide variety of formal and informal interactions between current and former GSD students. Activities include mentoring breakfasts, portfolio reviews, the Unsung Hero Book Prize, and a variety of other exchanges. Additionally, last winter, Levin, along with fellow Alumni Council member Michael B. Lehrer, FAIA, MArch ’78 hosted a breakfast for alumni to welcome GSD students and faculty on their trip to Los Angeles for the option studio “Work Environments 3: Space Work.”
She is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and the AIA/Los Angeles selected her to receive the 2010 Gold Medal, the highest honor it can bestow on an individual.
In this Alumni Q&A, Levin recalls fond memories at the GSD and shares her process for understanding the heritage of historical sites.
1. Tell us about your background.
I was born just five miles from the George Washington Bridge in Jersey City but raised in Teaneck, New Jersey. Neither the bridge nor Hudson River kept me from considering myself a New Yorker by choice and using the city as a youth for arts and culture and, more importantly, enrolling in classes at the Art Students League. I attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) as a design major and transferred (to follow a fella) to New York University to complete my Bachelor of Science degree in Graphic Design.
2. What is the most significant thing you learned while at the GSD?
That charrettes, although exhausting, are a microcosm of the actual practice of architecture.
3. What is your favorite memory of the GSD?
Day One—Walking into Gund Hall for the first time and later that day watching the Fountainhead in Piper; my future husband’s visits to the trays; and sharing the total experience of GSD with my classmates, several of whom have become lifelong friends.
4. Looking back, what experiences at the GSD were the most helpful in shaping your career (these can be seen broadly as courses, student activities, lectures, conferences, etc.)?
Crits–believe it or not.
Architecture is by its very nature a collaborative profession. We work with engineers, acousticians, material specialists, geologists, lighting designers, landscape architects and more. The ability to communicate and share ideas, not only with our colleagues but also with our client and the community, is a critical component of the skill set we must develop and hone over the arc of our career. The design process is iterative, constantly going back and refining ideas, working in a spiral fashion towards a preferred design. While crits were not necessarily the “best “ experiences at GSD, they did introduce me to the importance of being able to clearly and successfully articulate design ideas
5. About what design problems are you passionate?
Each new building commission. From the start, you engage in a process of education, analysis, creation, invention, discipline, and perseverance, which is an intellectual and creative test of one’s imagination.
I have had the good fortune to have architectural commissions that are unique, each offering an opportunity to learn something new–the Griffith Observatory required a crash course in astronomy; the Wiltern Theatre was a primer on theater operations and technical requirements; Grand Central Market involved appreciating the sociology of at once honoring legacy tenants while including new changing demographics; Dodger Stadium required the creation of a new architecture that respected the character of the 1962 stadium, the third oldest in the United States; and most recently, a new middle school campus that asks what constitutes a 21st-century classroom? It is exciting to expand one’s skill set, knowledge base and to collaborate with colleagues and visionary and respectful clients who bring their own hopes, dreams, and aspirations to a project.
6. Tell us about your professional career.
When I graduated from GSD in 1976, I moved with my soon to be husband, David Abel CAS ’70, GSE ’80, to Los Angeles. At the time, I mistakenly believed that we would return to the East Coast at some point. The Los Angeles of the ‘70s was not the rich, vibrant architectural community that it is today. I think my classmates’ perception was that I was going to an architectural wasteland, dominated by theme parks and movie studios.
My first job was with John Lautner, the legendary architect, who studied at Taliesin with Frank Lloyd Wright and was influenced by his notion that architecture is rooted in the idea of integrating the house into its location and creating an organic flow between indoor and outdoor spaces. I was hired at $5/hour to build a model of Bob Hope’s house in Palm Springs. I had not known of Lautner’s work—he was never referenced at GSD—and I think his work is still less known on the East Coast, in spite of his buildings being featured in countless publications, in the James Bond and Die Hard films, exhibitions, and a retrospective of his life and work in 2008 at the Hammer Museum.
My move to Los Angeles and my exposure to Lautner’s design and his craftsmanship was perhaps more profound because of the contrast between his design philosophy, my GSD experience, and the pedagogy at the time.
In spite of my East Coast bias, I soon realized Los Angeles was unusually open to experimentation and receptive to adaptation and self-invention. I grew to appreciate how transplants, like myself, were embraced based on merit and given opportunities that were often beyond the reach of women and minorities in more traditional locales.
I did not intentionally direct my career to the preservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings–it happened in a real sense because Los Angeles was open to new ideas and individual talent and initiative. With good luck and opportune timing, I met two developers in quick succession, both of whom captured my imagination, embodied my own ideas of city making, and afforded me the chance to contribute to not only the preservation of iconic landmarks but to the evolving form of Los Angeles.
7. Who or what inspires you and your work?
My mentors and inspiration for over the almost forty years of my practice include developers, contractors, architects, and iconic heroes. The top of the list: developers Wayne Ratkovich and Ira Yellin who are committed to revitalizing the city; contractor Paul Matt, an out of the box thinker whose dedication to craftsmanship and respect for architects brought our designs into reality; architect Julia Morgan for her prolific work and being the first woman graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts; and because I am just back from Japan, the Teshima Art Museum designed by architect Ryue Nishizawa and artist Rei Naito, which is a most sublime and spiritual space.
8. What is your process to understand the heritage of these sites, and how do you balance it with the needs of current and future generations?
After three decades of architectural practice, the personal and professional rewards have been many. I love complexity, and energy of cities. The belief that I might be able to shape and impact the urban built environment drew me to architecture. It may seem hard to imagine now, but in the 1980s, two of our first renovation projects the 1926 Art Deco Oviatt Building and the 1931 Wiltern Theatre were in their own way revolutionary and led to the nascent preservation movement in Los Angeles. These projects provided an example of how to give life back to buildings that were at first glance, hopelessly lifeless. These projects revived buildings. However, by injecting new uses as well, they also revived the City, a downtown that had been given up for dead.
The Wilshire Boulevard Temple (Photo credit: Tom Bonner)
By definition, historic preservation seeks to transmit our material heritage to future generations. Therefore, it may seem that decisions about design and the use of a historic building and the treatment of architectural fabric are obvious, or alternatively, dictated solely by preservation standards. In fact, the design decisions are challenging, complicated, and creative in nature. Preservation projects are by their very nature architecturally complex. They require sensitivity and profound respect for historical context, knowledge of the treatment, repair of historic materials, and the vision to deconstruct and reconstruct a building where new elements, infrastructure, and sustainability goals have been introduced and integrated into existing architecture. Add to the mix a change of use, adaptive re-use, or a new addition to the existing building and the project becomes a very challenging and complex design problem.
When I was working on Wilshire Boulevard Temple, Rabbi Leder spoke about the ancestors who built the original building. What struck a chord with me is the fact that architects engage in the city and place making with the future in mind.
So it is not a stretch to call ourselves “future ancestors” who have the responsibility to help heal and renew our society to the benefit of the next generation. That is what I hope our projects represent.
9. You recently completed the renovation of the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, a 1,200-seat open-air amphitheatre originally built in 1930 in the Hollywood Hills. What inspired you to take on this project? What were the biggest challenges you faced in working with a historic theatre nestled in a canyon?
How do you reimagine a Los Angeles icon, while preserving both the integrity of the architectural and cultural history of a place and ensuring that a generation of artists and audiences experience a state of the art venue in a distinctive and memorable natural setting? That was the challenge put forth by the Ford Theatre Foundation and the County of Los Angeles.
The John Anson Ford Amphitheatre (Photo credit: Elizabeth Daniels)
The project was particularly appealing to me because the Ford was a hidden jewel. It is located across the freeway from the larger and more well known Hollywood Bowl. The siting of the Ford deep in the canyon, made it almost invisible. The programming focused on emerging artists from Los Angeles County in a partnership series whose goal was to help them build their audience, technical, and marketing skills. I was drawn to the challenge of making the Ford a state of the art theatre, visible and re-imagined as a venue for local, national, and international talent.
The 1,200-seat outdoor amphitheatre complex was originally built in 1931 as a replacement structure for a previous theatre that had burned down. The complex—then known as the Pilgrimage Theatre—was built out of board formed concrete to resemble the fabled gates of Jerusalem, including crenelated towers and walls that make up the theatre’s stage areas.
The renovation and expansion took place over four years and is phase one of a three-phase master plan that our firm designed.
The natural setting was augmented by new rock clad retaining walls and native landscaping to allow artists to cross over in the hillside, from opposite sides of the stage. The two-level stage was reconstructed in wood. New and improved performer dressing rooms were carved out of the rock below the stage and seating areas, allowing us to address rampant drainage issues from storm water runoff. The new control and projection booth is incorporated into a soundwall that provides two levels of theatrical lighting catwalks. The sound wall, along with the surround sound speakers, greatly improves the acoustics within the amphitheatre and substantially reduces the noise from the adjacent freeway. A new loading dock provides direct access to the stage and dressing rooms and universal access for the first time. Above the loading area is the new terrace with views of the Cahuenga Pass that serves pre and post-performance receptions and intermission concessions, and a new two-story building that includes a commercial kitchen and offices for the Ford staff.
The scale and scope of the improvements and technical components were as complex as any project we have designed. They are best described as a new state of the art theatre within existing perimeter concrete walls.
The musician Beck recently appeared at the Ford and announced from the stage “Has anyone ever been here before? They’ve fixed this place up real nice. It’s just magical now–a very special venue.” We were pretty pleased with the impromptu review.
10. The landscape design for the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre was created by landscape architect Mia Lehrer MLA ’79. Tell us about your collaboration. Are there advantages to working with fellow GSD alumni?
I have known Mia for more than 40 years and collaborated with her firm Studio MLA on many projects. Of course, knowing each other for our entire careers gives us the advantage of a perspective and understanding of how we, as GSD alumnae, have developed our design philosophy post-GSD.
I believe that our design approach is similar–we solve the problem, but we also focus on iteratively exploring the possibilities of what could be by maximizing the impact of a design within the context of those goals
11. You are a member of the GSD Alumni Council. How can the larger alumni community support the important work of the Council?
I am privileged to serve on the Alumni Council and truly enjoy co-chairing the Student/Alumni Xchange Committee. The Council did not exist when I was a student, and I, unfortunately, did not have any sense of alumni involvement other than those invited to the lecture series. With the perspective of my present involvement, I believe that connecting students with alumni in meaningful ways is the best way for alumni to support the work of the Council.
12. Tell us about your work/life balance? What occupies you when you are not working?
Balance is a term that implies equal or “correct” proportions, which I never found to be possible. In 1980, we had a child, built a house that I designed, and I started my architecture firm. It was needless to say chaotic, stressful, and anything but balanced. I figured that if we survived, divorce would probably not be in our future. I was right.
Fast-forward 37 years later, our son is married to a wonderful woman, we have an energetic 18-month-old granddaughter, and a grandson on the way. They live in Denver, so in addition to travel for pleasure (we just returned from Japan), we will be making our way to the Rockies as often as possible.
Also, my husband (with whom I share offices), and I are both active civically and politically. I have served on many civic boards over the years; and today enjoy being on the Board of the Claremont College Consortium, a Center for Homeless Women, and the Martin Luther King Development Corporation, which is focused on re-purposing the former hospital.
13. What advice do you have for GSD students and/or alumni?
Lift your head up and expand your horizons–don’t get stuck in a silo (ie: the studio), take advantage of classes with other schools at Harvard and other departments within GSD, and also find meaning outside GSD classes/studios in projects that engage you in positively impacting your community/world.
14. What are you working on today?
I am working with a Canadian developer on the Los Angeles Times complex−three buildings built specifically for the newspaper in 1935 located in the Civic Center. The project includes their re-use as creative office and retail and the development of a new paseo to connect two new proposed residential towers.
We are continuing our work at Dodger Stadium and are just starting schematic design on a new middle school campus at an independent school, where we have previously designed a math-science building and a music dance athletic center.
Last year the 110’ long pedestrian bridge, we designed for the school was constructed to create safe passage for students over a very busy street. That design solved a safety problem and brought into existence, a new and signature identity for both the school and the community
Additionally, we are developing a master plan for the American Film Institute (AFI).
15. What would surprise us about you?
I am a (Dodger) baseball fan and still love the Four Seasons/Jersey Boys.
Professor Eduard Sekler in 2013 delivering a talk at Gund Hall in honor of the Carpenter Center’s 50th anniversary.
When Eduard Franz Sekler, Harvard University’s Osgood Hooker Professor of Visual Art Emeritus and Professor of Architecture Emeritus at the Graduate School of Design, passed away last spring at the age of 96, the GSD community responded with an outpouring of letters in remembrance of the beloved educator, architect, scholar, and friend. “Professor Sekler was my intellectual ‘godfather’ during the year I spent as a Loeb Fellow,” wrote Carter Wiseman LF ’85. “A brilliant man, wonderful teacher, an inspiration to me, while being one of the kindest, gentlest souls I ever met,” wrote Ames Fender MArch ’86.
The many former students and colleagues whose lives and careers Professor Sekler influenced will always remember him as a gifted teacher and dedicated scholar. For those who did not know him personally, the GSD is honored to continue his legacy by welcoming the first Eduard Sekler Fellow to campus this fall through a new financial aid fund established in his name by former students.
The Eduard Sekler Fellowship Fund was started in 2005 with gifts from generous alumni seeking to honor their former teacher. This effort, led by Michael F. “Mick” Doyle MArch ’77, who knew Professor Sekler as a student at the GSD and a teaching fellow at the Carpenter Center and worked with him at the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust, has since received donations from more than 50 GSD alumni and friends. “The generosity of my fellow alumni is a powerful and moving tribute to Professor Eduard Sekler. I am thrilled that the Sekler Fellowship is now and will always be part of the GSD community, and I encourage alumni to continue to honor Professor Sekler’s unique talents with contributions to this financial aid award named in his memory,” said Doyle.
A significant contribution from one member of the Harvard community, Dr. Ellen Phoebe “Epi” Wiese PhD ’53, PhD ’59, ensured that the Eduard Sekler Fellowship Fund reached the level required to begin awarding funds to students and secured the Fellowship in perpetuity. An art history scholar, Dr. Wiese spent many years in Cambridge working as a lecturer in fine arts and maintaining an affiliation with the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, where Professor Sekler served as director from 1966 to 1976.
With Professor Sekler in mind, Dr. Wiese established a planned gift with the Graduate School of Design in 2005. The terms of the trust allowed Dr. Wiese to receive a portion of its value as annual income, with the balance going to support the Eduard Sekler Fellowship Fund upon her passing. She died in 2016.
Professor Sekler with his wife, Pat, at the Grounded Visionaries campaign Launch, September 2014
Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design, informed Professor Sekler and his wife, Dr. Mary Patricia “Pat” Sekler PhD ’73, that the Eduard Sekler Fellowship had become an active financial aid award last spring. The Seklers were pleased to learn that grateful students created the Fellowship in honor of Professor Sekler to aid future designers.
As the Fund endures and the community of Sekler Fellows grows, the Fellowship will be a lasting tribute to Professor Sekler’s decades of service and remarkable legacy at the GSD. The School looks forward to honoring him with a memorial lecture during the Fall 2017 Public Lecture Series. Interested alumni may still contribute to the Fund to honor the memory of Professor Sekler and to support future Eduard Sekler Fellows.
The Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), along with Perkins+Will, and Phil Freelon LF ’90, design director of the firm’s North Carolina practice, announced the awarding of the first Philip Freelon Fellow to Aria Griffin MArch ’21. The Phil Freelon Fellowship Fund was established in 2016 to expand academic opportunities for African American and other under-represented students of design.
“The support from Mr. Freelon and Perkins+Will is absolutely incredible, and I am so humbled and honored by this fellowship,” Griffin said. “It enables me to pursue something that I love so much, and propels me in a direction to do the best work I can.”
Ms. Griffin, a native of Los Angeles, began her graduate studies in architecture at the GSD in September. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Architecture in May from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where she also minored in African and African American studies. The recipient of multiple scholarships and academic awards, and was an active, contributing member of Washington University in St. Louis and local communities. Ms. Griffin embodies many of the qualities that the Freelon Fellowship aims to nurture and support.
“We are delighted to award this fellowship for the first time to such a talented, driven, and promising designer as Aria,” said Phil Freelon, whose portfolio includes the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, Historic Emancipation Park in Houston, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. “Aria exemplifies the academic excellence and opportunity we were hoping to advance at the GSD when we established the fellowship. We look forward to seeing her grow academically and professionally in the years to come.”
(from left) Perkins+Will CEO and Grounded Visionaries campaign Co-Chair Phil Harrison AB ’86, MArch ’93, Aria Griffin MArch ’21 and Phil Freelon LF ’90. Photo credit: Jason Thornton.
Freelon and Perkins+Will CEO Phil Harrison AB ’86, MArch ’93, met Aria for the first time in October 2017 during a panel discussion about diversity in the design field. The Sert Council event with Perkins+Will explored topics around diversity in design in conjunction with the 2017 Black in Design Conference. The panel was moderated by Harrison and featured Freelon as a panelist.
“Through the Philip Freelon Fellowship at the GSD, we’re looking to make the biggest impact possible,” said Harrison, who is also co-chair of the Grounded Visionaries campaign. “We want it to draw attention to the need for diversity in the architecture profession, and we want to inspire others to do the same thing at institutions all over the world.”
“Phil Freelon is a passionate advocate for equity and diversity in the design sphere. These values are deeply supported by and ingrained in the GSD,” says Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design. “The GSD is thankful for the generosity of Perkins+Will and Phil Freelon in establishing this Fellowship and enabling talented, creative top design students like Aria Griffin to attend the GSD.”
Freelon has long-standing ties with the GSD, having been a recipient of the Loeb Fellowship from 1989-1990. He is still actively involved at the School and serves as a role model for aspiring young minority architects.
A powerful moment with Toni L. Griffin LF ’98
Empowering; uplifting; sobering; timely; necessary. An event that evades simple distillation, the 2017 Black in Design Conference at the Harvard Graduate School of Design evoked a range of immediate reactions, as well as a charge for sustained dialogue over the many issues it positioned within its programming.
Organized by the GSD’s African American Student Union (AASU), the 2017 Black in Design Conference was inspired by its inaugural predecessor, held in 2015, but was charged with urgency given the shifts in the nation’s cultural and political climate over the past two years. With a theme of “Designing Resistance, Building Coalitions,” Black in Design 2017 sought to recognize the contributions of the African diaspora to the design fields, as well as to “explore design as resistance and show how designers are advocates and activists”—a mandate relevant to the country’s current political tenor. (View the entire 2017 Black in Design Conference via the GSD’s YouTube channel, where the full conference is available and organized by session, and see a photo gallery of select moments below.)
GSD student leaders from AASU began conceptualizing Black in Design 2017 in fall 2016, spending much of the following months in dialogue over which speakers to invite, which themes to prioritize, and how to scaffold the wealth of ideas and thematic touch points within the context of a three-day conference. Organizers began their planning work in earnest in March 2017.
Around that point, conference organizers coalesced as a planning committee, including Natasha Hicks MUP/MDes ’19, Marcus Mello MArch/MUP ’18, Amanda Miller MDes ’17, Armando Sullivan MUP ’18, and Chanel Williams MUP ’18. The committee was advised by collaborators including urban planner Justin Garrett Moore, who spoke at the 2015 Black in Design Conference, and 2015 conference co-chair Courtney Sharpe MUP ’16.
While the 2015 conference proposed scalar themes—starting with a discussion of buildings, then moving upward in scale to neighborhoods, cities, and regions—this year’s organizers chose value-driven topics to structuring the conference’s various sessions: Exploring and Visualizing Identities; Communicating Values; Mobilizing and Organizing; and Design Futuring.
Black in Design Conference participants and audience members mingle between sessions.
These themes were structured to form conversations around topics and skills integral to so-called “design activism,” according to conference organizers. (Design activism refers to the activation of designers’ creative agency toward catalyzing and generating alternatives to normalized ways of living, working, and thinking—or, applying design creativity and strategy toward proposing new ways of living and thinking.)
Powerful keynotes framed the entire conference; LAXArt executive director Hamza Walker opened the conference on Friday evening, October 6, and activist DeRay Mckesson provided closing thoughts at the end of Saturday, October 7. As in 2015, sessions were interwoven with interludes that enriched discourse as much as they entertained audiences; some of this year’s diversions included yoga, dance, and spoken-word performances.
Throughout the conference, the core thematic sessions enabled conversations that delved into given subject matter. Panelists included designers and leaders from across the country—as did the audience. (A number of schools and organizations, including the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis and Bowie State University, arranged group travel for their respective attendees.)
In addition to two noteworthy keynote addresses, a Saturday morning presentation from speaker Courtney D. Cogburn, during the “Exploring and Visualizing Identities” session, struck many conference attendees and organizers as a highlight. Cogburn, whose research focuses broadly on the role of racism in producing racial inequities in health, offered a virtual-reality presentation illustrating day-to-day experiences of an African-American male, and discussed connections among social inequity, the built environment, and health and the body.
Another moment that resonated post-conference was the Sunday morning Just City Lab workshop with GSD professor Toni L. Griffin LF ’98. Among other activities, Griffin runs the GSD’s Just City Lab, one of the School’s nine such “Design Labs” that synthesize theoretical and applied research and knowledge. The Lab addresses some of the themes and questions that Griffin has worked with over the course of her career: how design and planning contribute to the conditions of justice and injustice in cities, neighborhoods, and the public realm. Griffin and the Lab ask: would we design differently if equality, inclusion, and equity were the primary drivers behind design?
During her Sunday presentation, Griffin asked categories of individuals to stand up in the audience.
“I need the black brothers to stand up,” she began.
“I need the women in this room to stand up,” she continued.
“If you are a proud member of the LGBTQ community, I need you to stand up.”
“If you are a person who practices a religion that is not Christianity, please stand up.”
“If you are a person in this room who lives in this country but was not born in this country, please stand up.”
With nearly the entirety of Piper Auditorium’s audience on their feet, Griffin asked the room to raise their fists, and declared: “You are the people who live in fear in this country every day. You are who the ‘just city’ is for.”
“It is hard to define the emotion in the room while this happened,” Hicks reflects. “I think it was a moment for us all to collectively embrace our fear and also reclaim our agency to do something about it. Toni could not have closed out the program in a more beautiful way.”
In navigating the conference’s ripple effects and forecasting its future, organizers are currently focused on working with the 2017 conference’s immediate momentum and building broad coalitions. As an ongoing feature, the exhibition “Real Talk” was unveiled on Gund Hall’s Experiments Wall, inviting participants to capture and share reflections from the conference and beyond. (An evening event on October 26 with current Loeb Fellow Eric Williams expanded upon the exhibition with a session of “connected storytelling,” inviting participants to each offer a five-minute personal story.)
One hope for organizers is that the conference serves as a jumping-off point for creating coalitions, especially in the communities where conference participants live and work. BlackSpace NYC, which presented during Sunday’s sessions, offers one such example of cross-organizational coalition building; following the conference, a sister organization in Chicago took root.
To look ahead, though, involves a measure of looking back.
“One thing that is so special about Black in Design 2017 is that it did not really begin when we started planning, or even with the 2015 conference,” says Mello. “It started from the generations of black designers who have broken barriers to inspire us to enter these design professions.”
Learn more about the 2017 Black in Design Conference via its website, and learn more about the African American Student Union via the group’s website.
View the entire 2017 Black in Design Conference via the GSD’s YouTube channel, where the full conference is available and organized by session.
From left: Lorraine Smith; Phil Harrison, AB ’86, MArch ’93, Perkins+Will Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chair of the GSD’s Grounded Visionaries campaign; Nnenna Freelon; Phil Freelon, Managing and Design Director at Perkins+Will; John K. F. Irving AB ’83, MBA ’89, Co-Chair of the GSD’s Grounded Visionaries campaign; and Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design.
Four new student fellowships will change the lives of GSD students, thanks to the generosity of donors who share a passion for helping students realize their dream of a design education. Two fellowships were created by GSD alumni—The Phil Freelon Fellowship Fund and the Thomas Payette Financial Aid Fund— and the other two by friends of the GSD—the Robert P. Hubbard AB ’51 Fellowship Fund and the Zaha Hadid/Omniyat Fellowship Fund. Together, the impact of these fellowship funds reaches well beyond the School. They help to spread the GSD’s renowned pedagogy to a larger audience, promote a robust global discourse on design, and sustain a broader legacy of design leadership. The Phil Freelon Fellowship Fund, supported by global architecture and design firm Perkins+Will and the Fund’s namesake, Phil Freelon LF ’90, design director of the firm’s North Carolina practice, expands academic opportunities for African American and other underrepresented architecture and design students. Freelon and Grounded Visionaries Campaign Co-Chair Phil Harrison AB ’86, March ’93 announced the Fellowship to the School community in November 2016. “As the design profession continues to attract a more diverse talent base, this gift will provide students of color with financial assistance that could make pursuing an advanced degree at the GSD possible,” said Freelon, whose portfolio includes the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, Historic Emancipation Park in Houston, and the recently opened National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.
During its second annual fellowship reception in April 2017, the GSD celebrated the power of financial aid and announced the Thomas Payette Financial Aid Fund. The event brought donors together with students who have benefitted from their financial aid gifts, along with faculty and staff¬, to share a deep appreciation for the support of the next generation of leaders. The Fund, which honors the legacy of Payette Associates, Inc. founder Thomas Payette MArch ’60, was established by three GSD alumni at Payette Associates: President and CEO Kevin Sullivan MArch ’94 and two partners, David Feth MArch ’85 and Leon Drachman MAUD ’93. Thomas Payette’s passion for the GSD moved the trio to start this Fund. According to Sullivan, “The Fund will help assure that many talented students…will have the ability to study at the GSD if they need financial assistance; and hopefully, they will not have to work full time as Tom [Payette] did if they choose to go, or, far worse, decide not to attend.” Robert P. Hubbard COL ’51, a long-time resident of Walpole, New Hampshire, nobly dedicated his life to teaching and philanthropy after attending Harvard College. His passion for art, culture, and the environment will live in perpetuity, thanks to his support of design thinking through the creation of the Robert P. Hubbard COL ’51 Fellowship to support talented, ambitious students.
Mahdi K M J Amjad announces the establishment of the Zaha Hadid / Omniyat Fellowship Fund at the “Zaha Hadid: A Celebration” event.
In 2016, the global design community mourned the passing of Dame Zaha Hadid (1950–2016), the first female recipient of both the Pritzker Architecture Prize and the RIBA Gold Medal. Her untimely passing saddened friends, clients, and admirers, but her legacy inspired the creation of the Zaha Hadid/Omniyat Fellowship Fund. Mahdi K M J Amjad, a friend of the GSD and the executive chairman and founder of Omniyat, one of the Middle East’s leading real estate development firms, established the fund for qualified students who are enrolled in the Master in Architecture program at the GSD and are citizens or residents of the Middle East and North Africa region. The announcement was made following the October 2016 public lecture “Zaha Hadid: A Celebration,” which focused on Hadid’s extraordinary architectural contributions. The GSD is thankful for the generosity of these philanthropic alumni and friends in supporting a key priority of the GSD’s $110-million-plus Grounded Visionaries campaign. Together, they are helping to spur creativity and increase the diversity of the student body. By empowering the next generation of design leaders, these fellowship funds will allow the GSD to increase its impact around the world and help talented designers reach their potential in shaping the built environment.
Hometown: London, England
Current City: Dhaka, Bangladesh
Current Position: International Project Manager, National Urban Poverty Reduction Programme (NUPRP), UNDP Bangladesh
Other Degrees: B.A. in Architecture, UC BerkeleyJohn Taylor MUP ’06
1. What was your work experience/background before coming to the GSD?
I graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with an architecture degree in 2000, though I studied planning too and was interested in pursuing it. I served in the Peace Corps in Honduras and then worked for UN-HABITAT in Ecuador and Brazil on slum upgrading projects.
2. Why did you decide to pursue planning as a career?
I was interested in international development work but with an urban focus. I wanted to translate the participatory aspects of my work in urban poor settlements in Brazil and Ecuador into social policies through inclusive community engagement and finding ways to democratize urban planning for all.
3. What made you decide to come to the GSD?
I already had some firsthand experience in international development through the Peace Corps and UN-HABITAT, but it was outside of a planning context. I wanted to learn more technical skills that I could use as an international development professional, and the GSD’s ability to bring policy and design together and provide skills training, while being grounded in the built environment, was really appealing to me. I also liked that the GSD is part of Harvard University, which of course has a lot to offer.
4. What areas in planning interest you the most?
The main thread that has run through my career is participatory planning. This has taken several forms, such as launching participatory mapping initiatives, designing tools to make information available to the public, developing processes to engage communities, and coming up with outreach strategies. All these efforts have sought to increase the interaction of people with the planning and design of their cities.
5. What are some of your favorite memories of the GSD?
In terms of interacting with my like-minded peers, I was part of Social Change and Activism (SOCA) in which we advocated for more diversity at the GSD and a more socially-oriented curriculum. It was an incredible group of students who continue to do impressive work to this day, and I believe we made some headway at the GSD too.
I also had a very inspirational experience doing post-Hurricane Katrina rebuilding work for a class with Professor Frederic Schwartz.
In addition, I was a TA for an urban participatory planning studio in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. I’m still in touch with many of my classmates from the studio who are still working on participatory planning and social issues in their own professional careers; we recently made a video for our professor about what that shared experience meant for us.
6. Can you summarize the path you have taken since graduation that has led to your current position and how the GSD prepared you for it?
After the GSD, I worked in Angola on participatory planning with a local NGO for two years. But I always wanted to work in my native Indonesia, so I moved to Surakarta, Central Java. There, I started a pilot community mapping project with a group of volunteers, and from this, we ended up turning it into a local NGO called Kota Kita. After running this organization for eight years, I moved to Bangladesh to work for UNDP.
One of my professors at the GSD stressed the importance of adopting an entrepreneurial mindset and the importance of being able to convince others that your work and skills are invaluable. For a planner, this is especially true.
7. What are some networking strategies you’ve found most useful?
I started from scratch in Indonesia, but it’s easier to network in places where you know professionals. In my first two months there, I probably had 50 informational interviews. Many of these kinds of discussions are dead ends, but some lead to great things. It doesn’t matter how you make the connections – most people will be happy to speak with you. If you believe in the process, informational interviews can help people know your skills and interests, from which something good will happen.
The GSD is a special place with great networks, but make sure to go beyond it as well. For example, don’t only try to connect with planners. The people who have opened doors for me have come from all sorts of disciplines, institutions, and universities.
8. What advice do you have for new planners?
There is almost nothing better you can take away from the GSD than a close partnership with a professor, as well as with your peers. I’ve had a lot of satisfaction seeking advice and connecting with my professors throughout my career, and their guidance has been invaluable.
After the GSD, if you can’t find a job offer that provides an opportunity to do something specific that you want, then sometimes starting something on your own can offer you a path. If you can adopt an entrepreneurial mindset and make things happen on your own, working on the issues that interest you most, you’ll gain a lot of experience. So, I encourage young planners to not give up on their ideals and interests – by following them through to the end you’ll develop a rewarding career for yourself.
Hometown: New Jersey 
Current City: New York, New York
Current Position: Senior Associate, McKinsey & Company, Capital Projects & Infrastructure Practice
Other Degrees: B.A. in Finance & Real Estate, University of Pennsylvania; MBA, Harvard Business School
1. What was your work experience/background before coming to the GSD?
For undergrad, I attended University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and majored in Finance and Real Estate. I did my first stint at McKinsey from ‘06-’09, and then worked as a policy advisor at the New York City Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability. I received dual degrees at Harvard: MUP and MBA.
2. Why did you choose the GSD?
I knew after working in the Mayor’s office that I wanted to learn more about cities, but that I didn’t need a policy focus as much as a design focus. I had no background in design but would see in meetings with the public how many people are visual thinkers and respond to visual arguments.
3. What made you decide to pursue planning as a career?
As I began working with more governments, I started to fall in love with cities and was impressed by how the built environment determines how we navigate cities. For example, when I went to Dubai, I booked a hotel that looked to be right down the street from an office. But when I got there, the street was more or less a highway—no one was walking along it. And then when I got to the building, I was searching all over for the door – it was very hard to find, and was in the back by the loading docks and the parking garage. It was all designed to make it impossible to walk. On the other hand, when I was in Hong Kong I saw how everyone takes public transportation, and it showed how the design of cities can demonstrate what’s successful.
4. What areas in planning interest you the most and how are you addressing them in your career?
I’m interested in transit-oriented development, and how do we change the built environment to promote more sustainable living: moving people away from their cars, towards walking, transit, etc. I try to gravitate towards projects where we are helping cities and countries do just that.
5. Can you summarize the path you have taken since graduation that has led to your current position and how the GSD prepared you for it?
I interned at NY Transit Authority, as well as AvalonBay, a reality development firm to get a good understanding of the sector. Post-GSD, I joined Bloomberg Associates, which works to bring some of these innovative urban ideas to cities around the world. In January 2016, I went to McKinsey.
6. What does your current work focus on?
I work primarily with governments—local, state, and national—to make their transportation systems work better, from the financing side to implementation, design and construction. We focus on how to make things operate better, cheaper, and faster.
7.What’s your favorite memory of the GSD?
Well, when Kanye West visited Gund, it was pretty cool. Also, a classmate had us all make drawings of each other with our eyes closed, and took the drawings and made mugs for everyone – it was a fun time and a nice gift.
Hometown: Kansas City, MO
Current City: Minneapolis, MN
Current Position: Engagement Manager, McKinsey & Company
Other Degrees: B.A. in Government and History, Georgetown University; MPA, Harvard Kennedy School
1. What was your work experience/background before coming to the GSD?
I worked in politics in Washington D.C., I worked for the federal government, then on presidential campaigns, and finally, started a political consulting company. I always had an interest in local government. When I saw that nothing was truly happening at the congressional level, I thought I could make more of an impact at the city-level, which led me to the GSD and the Kennedy School.
2. Why did you choose the GSD?
I was very interested in the design component of planning. I also like the possibility of the joint degree program at the Kennedy School. At the GSD open house, I noticed that there was a range of perspectives and there was an emphasis on the “big picture,” which was important to me. The GSD also offered me the most financial aid, which made the decision easy.
3. What areas in planning interest you the most and how are you addressing them in your career?
I’m especially interested in negotiated spaces. Place matters, what we build has permanence and shapes how people see themselves. Through urban planning, we see that there are multiple perspectives and experiences of the built environment and all of these perspectives should be valued. Yet, because of this, people disagree, and resolutions are complicated. I find this to be fascinating.
The private sector plays a big role in building cities, so I have a hand in experiencing and mediating these processes. In my current role, we work at the intersection of different sectors. Recently, I’ve worked on projects that require public and private sectors to talk to one another. For example, I worked with a government in Africa to establish ways for the private sector to provide power and waste management. I’ve also worked with a non-profit to develop city resiliency strategies and with the federal government on increasing their private sector investments.
4. What’s your favorite memory of the GSD?
I really loved studio – the creativity and the chaos of it all bonded our class together. In my second year, I took a Jerusalem-based options studio with Alex Krieger, Professor in Practice of Urban Design. We looked at options for developing a parcel next to a light rail line. That was a really special experience.
5. What are some networking strategies that you’ve found most useful?
Persistence is a virtue. When reaching out to someone for an informational interview, always follow up if you don’t hear back right away. Most people want to respond but may not have the time right away. Approach the conversation with an open mind and don’t pursue a specific agenda. Instead, focus on what you can learn – there may be possibilities or ideas that you haven’t considered yet. Last, don’t treat the conversation as being purely transactional. Spend time getting to know the person and developing a rapport. Building a relationship is more important in the long run.
GSD faculty are thought leaders who provide the intellectual underpinnings of the School’s cutting-edge pedagogy and research; they also ensure excellence in core disciplinary knowledge and innovation through research. Seven alumni are among the promotions and appointments recently announced by Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, which were effective July 1, 2017. They join the ranks of a growing body of exceptional alumni who choose to come back to the GSD to teach and help keep the GSD on the forefront of design pedagogy.
Jennifer Bonner MArch ’09 and Jon Lott MArch ’05, assistant professors of architecture, have been appointed directors of the GSD’s Master in Architecture program. Lott will work primarily with students in the MArch I and MArch I-AP program, and Bonner will focus on students in the MArch II program.
Bonner is director of MALL and has served as assistant professor of architecture since 2015. She is a recipient of a series of awards, including Architectural Review‘s Award for Emerging Architecture and two Faculty Design Awards from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. As a GSD graduate, she was awarded the James Templeton Kelley Prize for her project Assemblage of Twins. Bonner edited the GSD’s Platform 9: Still Life and curated the related exhibition (Spring 2017, Gund Hall Gallery).
Lott is principal of PARA-Project, PC. and co-founder of Collective-LOK. He is recipient of the Design Vanguard award (by Architectural Record), the New Practices New York award (by the American Institute of Architects), and the Architectural League Prize (by the Architectural League of New York), and was a MoMA/PS1 Young Architects finalist. He is co-editor of the GSD’s forthcoming tenth edition of Platform.
Jeffry Burchard MArch ’08 has been appointed Assistant Professor in Practice of Architecture. Burchard has served as a design critic at the GSD since 2012 and offers instruction in core architecture studios, professional practice, thesis, and independent studies. He regularly lectures and publishes in academic and professional settings on topics including material dexterity, existing building transformation, and architecture’s imprecision, and has served as an invited studio critic throughout North America.
Desk crit with Megan Panzano MArch ’10
Megan Panzano MArch ’10 has also been appointed Assistant Professor of Architecture. She has served as a multi-year design critic at the GSD and has taught GSD design studios concurrent with her practice since 2014. An award-winning designer and educator, she is the founder and principal of studioPM, a design practice invested in research and production at multiple scales. She has been recognized for her teaching in the Harvard Undergraduate Architecture Studies track, receiving the Harvard Excellence in Teaching Award for the past two years.
Silvia Benedito MAUD ’04 has been promoted to Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture. Benedito has served as Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at the GSD since 2012. She is also co-principal of OFICINAA, an architecture, landscape and urban design practice based in Cambridge (MA) and Ingolstadt, Germany. Benedito’s practice examines the role of atmosphere as sensory envelope and political milieu in the built environment.
Danielle Choi MLA ’08 has been appointed Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture. At the GSD, Choi has served as design critic in landscape architecture and as the 2016-2017 Daniel Urban Kiley Fellow. Choi was formerly a senior associate at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA), where she facilitated the dialogue between research, analysis, and design. Beginning in 2011, Choi managed the Waller Creek project in Austin, Texas—the restoration of an urban creek and design of a new public realm.
Gareth Doherty DDes ’10, assistant professor of landscape architecture and senior research associate, has been appointed the Director of the Master in Landscape Architecture program. Dr. Doherty’s research and teaching focus on the intersections between landscape architecture, urbanism, and anthropology. His recent studios and courses include the First Semester Core Landscape Architecture Studio, Design Anthropology: Objects, Landscapes, Cities; and the Ecological Urbanism Field Research Seminar.
This week marked the return of students to campus at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD). With the highest enrollment in the School’s history of 958 students, there is much energy and excitement for the start of classes. The incoming class consisting of 398 students is fifty-two percent female and forty-eight percent male with half of the students hailing from 32 countries outside of the United States. The week began with presentations for the eighteen option studios to eligible students; seven of which have international travel components. Half of the studios are instructed by alumni including Civic Spaces in an Age of Hyper-Complexity: From Protest to Reverie with Mikyoung Kim MLA ‘92 and Bryan Chou; Refugees in the Rust Belt with Daniel D’Oca MUP ’02; and A Bank for Burbank and Other L.A. Stories with Anna Neimark MArch ’07 and Andrew Atwood. A full list of Fall 2017 option studios is available here.
The School’s Fall program of lectures, panels, and conferences kicks off on Thursday, August 31 with a Rouse Visiting Artist Lecture. The GSD will host Italian artist Luisa Lambri in conversation with Mark Lee MArch ‘95, co-artistic director of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial. Other events this fall include Tomas Koolhaas and the U.S. premiere of his documentary, Rem, on September 5; a talk by photographer Iwan Baan on September 12; and the second Black in Design Conference, organized by the African American Student Union, from October 6-8.
Mikyoung Kim MLA ’92, design critic in landscape architecture, presents “Civic Spaces in an Age of Hyper-Complexity: From Protest to Reverie,” which she will co-teach this semester with Bryan Chou, instructor in urban planning and design.
Highlights of Fall Public Programs and Exhibitions
Soft Thresholds: Projects of RMA Architects, Mumbai. Curated by Rahul Mehrotra MAUD ’87.
On September 6, Rahul Mehrotra MAUD ’87, professor of urban design and planning, will present a lecture celebrating the opening of the Gund Hall Gallery exhibition, Soft Thresholds: Projects of RMA Architects, Mumbai. Curated by Mehrotra, the show features the work of his firm and addresses some essential questions: “Can architecture and planning intentionally construct soft thresholds – lines that are easily traversed, even temporarily erased – thereby allowing for multiple perspectives across different modes of research and practice, and catalyzing disciplinary and social connections? What, then, is the physical expression of a soft threshold – a space that is visually and physically porous, plural in spirit, encompassing of its context, and yet rigorous in its expression?” It represents the compulsive drive of the practice to construct soft thresholds―through research, engagement with the city, and making of architecture.
A symposium on I. M. Pei MArch ’46, planned in collaboration with the M+ museum in Hong Kong and The University of Hong Kong (HKU), will take place on Thursday and Friday, October 12 and 13. This will be the first of two linked symposia on Pei in Fall 2017, with the second part taking place in Hong Kong in December 2017. The event builds on last spring’s special event and exhibition honoring Pei on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Day one will consist of an afternoon panel on technology followed by an evening roundtable Emergence of a Modern Practice moderated by K. Michael Hays, the Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory, associate dean for academic affairs, and chair of the department of architecture. The second day will consist of two panels: Spatial and Formal Practices and Power, Capital, and People.
With the passing of Eduard Sekler in May 2017, Jorge Silvetti, the Nelson Robinson Jr. Professor of Architecture, will give the Eduard Sekler Memorial Lecture on November 7. Following the lecture, Silvetti and Toshiko Mori, the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture will engage in a conversation. The lecture will reflect on the legacy of the late Eduard Sekler, who served as Harvard University’s Osgood Hooker Professor of Visual Art Emeritus and Professor of Architecture Emeritus at the Graduate School of Design, among other positions during his five decades at Harvard, before his passing at the age of 96 last spring. A beloved educator, scholar, mentor, and friend, Professor Sekler had a meaningful impact on the lives and careers of many of his former students and colleagues. In 2005, a group of former students set up a fellowship fund in his honor, and the first Eduard Sekler Fellow began at the GSD this fall. Interested alumni and friends may contribute to the Fund by visiting this page.
Other highlights of the Fall 2017 Program:
September 5 – U.S. premiere of “Rem,” a documentary on Rem Koolhaas produced by his son Tomas Koolhaas.
The documentary explores some of the buildings and building philosophy of celebrated Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas.
October 6-8 – Black in Design Conference
The School’s second Black in Design Conference, organized by the GSD’s African American Student Union, will feature a keynote by DeRay Mckesson.
October 31 – Lecture and exhibition from Toru Mitani MLA ’87
Toru Mitani is registered as a Landscape Architect in Japan, a Partner of ‘studio on site’, a Design Critic in Landscape Architecture at the GSD, and a Professor at the Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University.
November 9 – Erik L’Heureux will present results of Wheelwright research
Singapore-based American architect Erik L’Heureux was the 2015 winner of the Wheelwright Prize for his proposal Hot and Wet: The Equatorial City and the Architectures of Atmosphere, which focuses on the architecture of five dense cities in the equatorial zone. His research examines traditional and modern building strategies that mediate extreme climate conditions while addressing the mounting pressures of rapid urbanization and climate change.
November 2 – Patricia Urquiola will developer the Open House lecture
A Spanish architect and designer, Urquiloa studied architecture at Madrid Polytechnic and the Politecnico di Milano University. She worked at the architectural firm de Renzio and Ramerino and was head of the Lissoni Associati design group before opening her own studio in 2001. She has been named “Designer of the Year” by Wallpaper, Ad Spain, Elle Decor International, and Architektur und Wohnen.
For more information about these and other forthcoming events, consult the online calendar.
The modular home world-renowned British architect Richard Rogers designed for his parents in the 1960s now serves as an urban studies lab. Photo credit: Iwan Baan.
In June, the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) premiered Lord Richard Rogers’s Wimbledon House in London for the first time since restorations began in 2015 by British architect Philip Gumuchdjian and landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan MLA ’84. The House, designed by Rogers for his parents in the late 1960s, was gifted to Harvard GSD in 2015 by Rogers and his wife, Ruth, to ensure the continued use as a residence, and to provide a unique research opportunity for future generations of professionals and scholars—from across fields and disciplines—whose work is focused on the built environment.
The Wimbledon House serves as the residence for the Richard Rogers Fellowship, as well as a new GSD venue for lectures, symposia, and other events bringing together scholars and practitioners from London, Europe, and around the world. The first class of fellows has taken residence at the House and commenced research. Plans are underway to execute a series of public programs in the coming year.
Located near some of the world’s finest resources for research in urbanism, the Richard Rogers Fellowship program represents both an international extension of the GSD’s physical footprint and the School’s commitment to engaging issues faced by cities globally. ~Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at the GSD.
“Located near some of the world’s finest resources for research in urbanism, the Richard Rogers Fellowship program represents both an international extension of the GSD’s physical footprint and the School’s commitment to engaging issues faced by cities globally,” says Mohsen Mostafavi, dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at the GSD. “We are thrilled with the gift of the Wimbledon House and know that it will serve as the foundation for meaningful progress in addressing international urban issues.”
A pre-fabricated single-story dwelling, the Wimbledon House features a bright yellow painted steel frame, glazed façade, and movable partitions that allow the easy reconfiguration of the interior space. Considered one of the most important modern houses in the UK, it was granted a UK Grade II Heritage listing in 2013. Rogers has described the house as a “transparent tube with solid boundary walls,” and noted its influence on his subsequent designs of the Centre Pompidou and The Lloyd’s Building.
Architect Philip Gumuchdjian, who has worked with Richard Rogers since the 1980s, was commissioned to refurbish the House in preparation for the Fellows. Commenting on the renovations to the House, also known as 22 Parkside, Philip Gumuchdjian, founding director of Gumuchdjian Architects, says, “Parkside is not just an iconic, flexible machine for living, nor simply a historic experimental building that foretold the architect’s future work; it was also a home with a unique memory, patina, and aura. Conserving these qualities within a wholly refurbished 21st-century building tailored to Harvard’s new use was our aim and hopefully the achievement of the team’s work.”
From left: Todd Longstaffe-Gowan MLA ’84, Philip Gumuchdjian, and GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi at the Wimbledon House in June 2017. Photo credit: Lucie Goodayle.
In designing Wimbledon House, Rogers took “an Italian approach to landscape” by splitting the house into two buildings separated by courtyards, said Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, founding director of Todd Longstaffe-Gowan Landscape Design. He notes “Parkside is a total work of art, where the house, gardens, and interiors were conceived in concert to form a unified whole. The alternating rhythm of pavilions and garden courts contribute considerably to the striking theatricality and luminosity of the ensemble; the outdoor rooms are at once boundless and enveloping. Our aim has been to restore the original balance of the 1960s composition to better reflect the architect’s original intentions, and to recover the richness, rhythm, and textures of the landscape that give Parkside its particular charm.”
The Richard Rogers Fellowship, launched in October 2016, is inspired by Lord Rogers’s commitment to cross-disciplinary investigation and social engagement, evident across his prolific output as an architect, urbanist, author, and activist. Each year, six fellows will be awarded a three-month residency, travel expenses to London, and a $10,000 cash prize, affording them access to London’s extraordinary institutions, libraries, practices, professionals, and other resources. The goal of the residency program is to support research that addresses alternative and sustainable urban futures. Projects that the six inaugural fellows are bringing to the House this year include examinations of public and affordable housing; how food and cooking transform cities; and citizen-driven urban regeneration initiatives, particularly in London and Berlin.
The inaugural class of fellows—who hail from Austria, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States—were selected from more than 200 applicants from around the world. “The spirit of the Fellowship is intended to carry forward and expand on Richard’s deep commitment to cities not as ends in themselves, but as a fundamental means of bettering human life,” said Dean Mohsen Mostafavi. “At the GSD, our work is organized around the urgent issues cities are facing globally, a pedagogical approach requiring exploration and collaboration across disciplinary lines. We are very fortunate and excited about this opportunity to support, learn from, and promote such cross-disciplinary research internationally, in the context of London’s thriving architecture, design, and art communities and vast institutional resources.”
To view bios of the Fellows and the application for 2018 the Richard Rogers Fellowship, please visit http://www.richardrogersfellowship.org. Submissions will be accepted starting October 2017, with a deadline of late November.
