In 2021, the Harvard Graduate School of Design invested in a set of short introductory education programs that are directed at sharing the value of design with the global public. Early Design Education (EDE)—which invites different audiences to “think and make” through design—includes Design Discovery Virtual, Design Discovery in-person, and Design Discovery Youth summer…
Harvard Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) announces Gary R. Hilderbrand MLA ’85 as new chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture, effective July 1, 2022. Hilderbrand is the Peter Louis Hornbeck Professor-in-Practice at the GSD, where he has taught since 1990, and Founding Principal and Partner of Reed Hilderbrand. Hilderbrand succeeds Anita Berrizbeitia MLA…
Dear Alumni of the GSD, When I began my position as dean of the GSD this July, I shared with you how thrilled I was to be joining the School in this role. That sense of adventure, coupled with responsibility, has only grown with time. Thank you for your support and engagement in my first months…
The GSD is pleased to announce the establishment of the Plimpton Professorship of Planning and Urban Economics, made possible by a gift from Samuel Plimpton MBA ’77, MArch ’80 and his wife, Wendy Shattuck
Sarah Whiting, dean of architecture at Rice University, will return to Harvard, where she taught early in her career, as the next dean of the Graduate School of Design.
With the passing of each academic year, our community has the opportunity to reflect on our many accomplishments and to anticipate and imagine future achievements.
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.
As the spring semester culminates in an exciting range of studios and thesis reviews, and as the next class of graduates prepares to embark on new careers, launch new ventures, and drive new lines of research, the Dean writes to share highlights of the important work produced at the GSD over the past year.
The GSD recently honored I. M. Pei’s milestone birthday with a celebration in Gund Hall featuring a cast of Pei’s collaborators and friends.
Neil Brenner, Professor of Urban Theory, has recently published three books that focus on the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological dimensions of urban questions. These include Critique of Urbanization: Selected Essays (Basel: Bauwelt Fundamente Series, Birkhäuser Verlag, 2016), Teoría urbana crítica y políticas de escala (edited and translated by Alvaro Sevilla-Buitrago; Barcelona: Icaria, colección Espacios Críticos,…
Architecture engages a culture’s deepest social values and expresses them in material, aesthetic form. In this Graduate School of Design (GSD) HarvardX free massive open online course (MOOC) offered via the edX platform, you will have exclusive access to a GSD alumni cohort to continue your design studies. The ten module course will start February…
This Fall, the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) received three significant gifts supporting key priorities for the GSD’s $110-million-plus Grounded Visionaries campaign—student fellowships and endowed professorships. This support will enable the GSD to continue to attract, enroll, and support the brightest and most talented scholars who will be the leaders in transforming the social…
The GSD has received a consequential, multi-tier, multi-million dollar gift from the Robert P. Hubbard AB ’51 Trust of 1980 to endow the intellectual underpinnings of the School’s world-class faculty and to boost student access to a design education through an endowed fellowship.
Interdisciplinary, experimental design is integral to the work of Sheila Kennedy, FAIA, MArch ’84 and J. Frano Violich, FAIA, MArch ’84. Their firm, Kennedy & Violich Architecture (KVA MATx), located in Boston’s emerging Newmarket District, has established a new model for practice that integrates material research with the practice of architecture.
The year has been off to a vibrant start for our community bringing together alumni, friends, and distinguished speakers for stimulating conversation and thought-provoking discourse. Over 400 GSD alumni and friends from around the world connected with colleagues and the GSD during ten events in Berkeley, Jakarta, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Taipei, and Cambridge….
Dean Mohsen Mostafavi recently announced faculty appointments and promotions—all of whom are GSD alumni. The appointments will strengthen the intellectual underpinnings of cutting-edge pedagogy and research at the GSD. In the Architecture Department, Jeannette Kuo MArch ’04 was appointed Assistant Professor in Practice of Architecture. In the Urban Planning Department, the appointments include Daniel D’Oca…
In November, the GSD launched the Office for Urbanization, a trans-disciplinary initiative designed to focus the intellectual and practical capabilities of the School on a range of applied design research projects attendant to the contemporary city. The Office’s founding director, Charles Waldheim, John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture, is enthusiastic about the Office’s capacity for impact through topical projects
The annual Design Miami fair traditionally features an entry pavilion designed by early-career architects, a public installation that serves as a beacon for the fair and that provokes consideration and curiosity among the thousands of visitors who visit the fair’s programs and galleries. For the 2015 pavilion design, Design Miami announced a first-of-its-kind collaboration with…
Reacting to a St. Louis nonprofit group dedicated to improving the quality of life on the nearly 900 streets across the nation named for King, D’Oca began teaching a new studio course this semester that asks students to use urban planning and design, architecture and landscape architecture to help local residents begin to remake their neighborhoods.
This past summer, the GSD announced the appointment of Diane Davis as Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design. This new role builds on her experience as the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism, and on her many accolades, which include research fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the…
Stairways inhabit the spaces where we live and work. Whether they’re tucked into cavities in the wall or suspended in grand ceremonial style for all to see, we travel along their treads. Preston Scott Cohen, Gerald M. McCue Professor in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, delights in stairwells: “They bind spaces together….
These are crucial tenets behind Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) teachings on housing, and now the results of those lessons are on display for the community to see. Initiated by GSD Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design Mohsen Mostafavi and produced by a curatorial research team of the School’s faculty, staff, and students, “Living Anatomy: An Exhibition About Housing,” a multimedia show in the lobby of Gund Hall, just opened and will be on display until December 20.
Last month, Anita Berrizbeitia MLA ’87 and Diane Davis assumed their new role as Chair of the Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning and Design department, respectively. Read more as Berrizbeitia shares her vision and goals in the GSD’s series profiling leadership within the School and beyond. Stay tuned for an interview with Diane Davis in October.
Berrizbeitia will assume the position on July 1, 2015.
As part of public art project, students help to animate Harvard’s iconic campus statue.
Aided by Harvard experts, officials are tackling housing, pollution, and traffic problems — and solving them.
New look for Harvard Design Magazine deepens focus on ‘Wet Matter.’
Movements in research and learning captured in trio of exhibits.
Building an undergraduate design program.
The Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities held its inaugural Challenge Conference on November 7, 2014, bringing together leaders from industry and academia to discuss pressing questions for the fields of sustainability and design.
Professor Malkawi shares his reflections on joining the GSD faculty, founding and directing the new Harvard Center for Green Building and Cities, and his professional inspirations and aspirations.
Professor Martin Bechthold talks about the School’s research and collaborative efforts with the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.
GSD’s associate professor of landscape architecture receives honor.
