MM-fall-appeal“Your support of the School is vital to the education and inspiration of future designers, to attracting premier faculty and staff, and to creating the foundation for this far-reaching impact.”

—Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design

 

The Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) educates leaders in design, research, and scholarship to make a resilient, just, and beautiful world. The School takes a unique approach to design education: expanding the boundaries of imagination while focusing on how our projects give to the world around us.

To solve pressing issues at home and across the globe—social justice, climate change, urbanism, and more—the GSD needs to attract and educate talented and dedicated students. To empower those students in their pursuits to change the world, the GSD needs your support.

Your donation to the GSD works immediately to help students study the design solutions for global challenges facing society. Thanks to your essential contributions, the School can invest in the world’s next generation of designers as they explore, analyze, and confront these urgent issues.

 

Climate Change

05012018_STU1315_Gang_w-Cahan_FInal_Review_098-23bAfter the Storm: Restructuring an Island Ecosystem: This spring 2018 option studio researched and addressed crucial design topics in the Caribbean Islands in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, cataclysmic events caused by climate change. The course included a site visit to the island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands to join the rebuilding effort and gain hands-on experience.09072018_Boston_Harbor_Islands_Conference_167-web

Resilience for the Boston Harbor Islands: Given the increasing risk of coastal storms and the rising demand for coastal habitats and recreation in Metro Boston, the Boston Harbor Islands are more important to the region than ever before. The Department of Landscape Architecture is exploring the topic of resilience through core studio investigations and a collaborative design charrette and conference.

 

Equity in the American City

gesischilling-6891-1_webMultiple Miamis Option Studio: Infrastructure, Affordability, Identity + the Public: Miami’s Overtown neighborhood has experienced public and private disinvestment, police surveillance, and mass incarceration as the rest of the city has transitioned into a hub for capital, innovation, and tourism. This fall 2018 studio uses Overtown as an urban innovation lab to explore Miami’s future as an American city, reckoning with its past and building a vision for its future.

Urban Disobedience: 99 Provocations to Disrupt Injustice in St. Louis: St. Louis faces several challenges: a legacy of 05022018_STU1507_UrbanDisobedience_FinalReview035-webdiscriminatory laws, urban disinvestment, the decline of the industrial economy, and tension between residents and law enforcement. This spring 2018 studio examined events that created the conditions of injustice and named 99 problems that impede redevelopment and social justice. Students then designed a catalog of 99 interventions to eradicate divides, correct inequalities, and advance innovation and justice.

 

Global Focus

KOREA REMADE: Alternate Nature, DMZ, and Hinterlands: This spring 2018 studio advanced alternative futures for a reunified Korean Peninsula through the concerns of ecology, technology, and design. Students studied the Demilitarized Zone between the two countries—currently the most dangerous and heavily fortified territory in the world—and advanced landscape site designs proposed.

05012018_STU1603_Manila_FinalReview068-webManila: Future Habitations: Manila’s extraordinary history has created extremes and tensions, and this city of 25 million experiences poverty and affluence, congestion and release, pollution and ecological diversity. This spring 2018 studio focused on three strategic areas within or adjacent to Manila’s historic core. Students used these sites to explore the effects of sea level rise, the connective tissue and common ground of cities, and more.

 

Your gift to the GSD Fund provides designers of the future with the opportunity to freely imagine and create in an environment that encourages excellence. 

gsd.harvard.edu/drivechange