FACULTY & STUDENT RESOURCES
Environmental Courses
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Harvard Graduate School of Design Course Catalog
[Fall 2008 course listings only]
GSD 1111: First Semester Core: Landscape Architecture Design
M. Blier, P. Meijerink, J. Choi, M. Van Valkenburgh Fall M, F 1:00 - 6:00; W 2:00-6:00
The first of a four-term sequence of landscape design and planning studios, this course introduces the vocabulary for describing, analyzing, and designing landscapes. A series of short design exercises explores the principles and conceptual strategies for organizing and articulating landscape spaces, surfaces, elements, and materials. Design proposals will be developed and presented with drawings and models.
GSD 1121: Core Urban Planning Studio I
J. Grant Long, K. Madden Fall T, Th 12:30-6:00
The first-term core studio explores ideas, conventions, and technical skills essential to a critical understanding of how urban planning operates within the various scales of the built environment. The studio emphasizes the formulation, analysis, implementation, and representation of plans and projects for the built environment. The studio introduces students to spatial
analysis through GIS; visual representation techniques; projections and
forecasts in plan-making; how alternative land use scenarios are constructed;
and evaluation of land use impacts through fiscal, economic, social,
environmental, and transportation frameworks.
GSD 1211: Third Semester Core: Planning and Design of Landscapes
S. Fultineer, L. Gornowski, K. Martin, P. Cote Fall M, W, F 2:00-6:00
This course reinforces and builds upon the range of conventions of landscape architectural production introduced in previous core studios and academic courses. Emphasis is placed on precision and craft in conceptual, schematic, and design development abilities. Issues of the physical, socioeconomic, technological, architectural, and ideological forces underlying the organization and form of human communities are incorporated into a series of projects. At each stage, students are expected to reconcile the sometimes conflicting characteristics among land resources, development pressures, privacy, and commonality. Throughout, a strong reciprocity between depth of thinking and the act of making is sought. Each studio critic works directly with a small group of students for the duration of the semester. A combination of faculty, practicing landscape architects and visiting critics are selected each semester.
GSD 1221: Elements of Urban Design
F. Correa, M. Zogran, R. Sommer Fall M, W, F 2:00-6:00
Prerequisite: Enrollment in urban design programs or completion of studio series GSD 1201-1202 or 1211-1212
Advanced core studio exploring ideas, conventions, and technical skills essential to a critical understanding of how design operates at the various scales of urbanity and metropolitan development. Exercises emphasize the documentation, interpretation and projection of urbanized territories, concentrating on both formal and programmatic speculation.
GSD 1401: MUMBAI MARGINS: Mitigating Geographies of the Island City, Mumbai, India
N. Kirkwood, N. Cooper Fall T, Th 2:00-6:00
The studio will reconsider the Island City of Mumbai and the surrounding
metropolitan region as an urban center in flux and a merging landscape
of shifting ecologies and economies. The class will investigate the design
potential of the megacity currently engulfed in social, environmental, and
political expansion through the topics of the metro, mangroves, movies,
monsoons, municipal development, and land mitigation. A field trip to
Mumbai will take place in early October.
1402: Mat Ecologies
C. Reed Fall T, Th 2:00-6:00
This studio will take on Sarkis’ definition of the mat, and Stan Allen’s
extension of its implication from building to urbanism, in developing
and testing applications of mat-designs/mat-strategies in the dispersed
metropolitan landscape. Our work in studio will focus on the creation of mat
landscape strategies-hybridized techno-landscapes-that deliberately frame
regenerative ecological, social, and economic processes.
1403: Redesigning Infrastructure – Baldwin Hills Park/Oil Field
M. Lehrer Fall T, Th 2:00-6:00
This studio will address the urban oil interface and the way historic oil
drilling and processing operations will coexist with parklands, habitat, and
surrounding neighborhoods. Command of the two major constructive
tropes of landscape, section (the pierced geologic layer-cake) and field are
required to apprehend and direct a spatial/material tectonic strategy for
multiple occupations and phases of transformation. Social and environmental
justice issues will be addressed as a necessary part of building consensus and
directing the open-space opportunities as well as the ecological ethos that
must emerge to heal both the land and long-standing social divisions. This
studio will inform the long term economic and environmental planning of
the Los Angeles basin and support the goal of making Los Angeles a more
livable metropolis. There will be a site visit to Los Angeles to meet local
experts.
2103: Studies in Landscape Representation 1
M. Blier, E. Randall Fall F 9:00-12:00
This introductory course surveys the history, conventions, and techniques of
drawing landscapes and their elements. Topics include: mechanical drawing,
drawing as a tool in the design process, and freehand landscape drawing and
drawing from nature.
Note: This course will begin as an intensive pre-semester course starting on
September 2nd at 8:30 am and will also meet during the semester.
GSD 3307: Theories and Methods of Landscape Planning
C. Steinitz, J. Vargas Moreno Fall M, T, W, Th 10:00-11:30
This course has three aspects. The first is a series of lectures by Carl Steinitz in which different elements of theories and methods applicable to landscape planning are critically surveyed. Each lecture and its readings include one or more case studies in which that particular aspect of theory or method was central to its success or failure. Second, and seen as a whole, these methods share fundamental operations in the inventory, organization, and analysis of spatial data. These are introduced through lectures and via exercises in a workshop format. Third, each student will replicate and present a landscape analysis from a documented case study using computer-based techniques. A comparison of these case studies provides insights into theories and methods and their shared techniques and also illustrates how they can be adapted to particular landscape planning situations.
GSD 3329: Methods of Urban Planning
J. Grant Long Fall T, Th 2:00-6:00
This companion course to the first-term Core Urban Planning Studio introduces students to selected methods used by urban planners in understanding, analyzing, and influencing the built environment. Students learn about the following: spatial analysis through GIS; visual representation techniques; projections and forecasts in plan-making, including how demographic, economic, and market forecasts inform land use and infrastructure needs assessments; how alternative land use scenarios are constructed, including approaches to allocating land use, estimating carrying capacity, and build-out analyses; and evaluation of land use impacts through fiscal, economic, social, environmental, and transportation frameworks. Enrollment limited to students simultaneously enrolled in Core Urban Planning Studio I.
3330: Toronto, Landscape Urbanism, and the 21st Century Park: Downsview Postscript, the Waterfront Rises
M. Gordy Fall M 11:30-2:30
*Limited enrollment. This seminar will evaluate and critically assess many
of the vital aspects of the WaterfronToronto vision in the context of issues
such as the historical lakefront development of Toronto as a metropolis;
analogous large-scale urban landscape-based (re)developments in cities like
Barcelona, London, Chicago, New York (others?); the legacy and influence
of the Downsview Park Competition on contemporary urban and landscape
design discourse in Toronto and internationally; the economic and capital
ramifications of a landscape-based development logic; the continued
broadening influence of adaptive ecologies on cultural and social theory
as well as its more traditional role in ecological design operations; and the
international design relevance of the overall WaterfronToronto vision. There
will be an optional field trip to Toronto.
*3503: Proseminar – Defining Urban Design
J. Busquets Fall T, Th 3:00-6:00
The course establishes the foundations of contemporary urban design
practice and theories. The class is structured around discussions that feature
prominent themes/categories of urban design practice. These include:
constructing a case for urban design as an autonomous discipline, urban
design as the architecture of the city, urban design as restorative urbanism,
urban design as visionary urbanism, urban design as ‘smart growth’ and
growth management, urban design as public policy, landscape urbanism, and
urban design as citizen/neighborhood advocacy. A seminar required for first
year students in the MAUD and MLAUD programs, and open to others
only by special permission of the instructor.
GSD 4105: Studies of the Built North American Environment: 1580 to the Present
J. Stilgoe Fall T, Th 10:00 - 11:30
North America as an evolving visual environment is analyzed as a systems concatenation involving such constituent elements as farms, small towns, shopping malls, highways, suburbs, and as depicted in fiction, poetry, cartography, television, cinema, and advertising and cybernetic simulation. Note: Offered jointly with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as VES 107.
GSD 4109: History of Landscape Architecture I
M. Lee Fall M, W 10:00 - 11:30
This course surveys the history of landscape from antiquity to 1800 by focusing on particular gardens, cities, and landscapes, primarily in the Western world, which represent issues of importance to the trajectory of landscape architecture. For each location considered, the course seeks to understand the relations between the site and designed forms, and those political and economic structures that helped determine them. Students read from a range of commentary, to which they respond critically in writing and in class discussion.
GSD 4304: North American Seacoasts and Landscapes: Discovery Period to the Present
J. Stilgoe Fall T 1:00 – 3:00
Prerequisite: GSD 4105 and GSD 4303, or permission of the instructor.
Selected topics in the history of the North American coastal zone, including the seashore as wilderness, as industrial site, as area of recreation, and as artistic subject; the shape of coastal landscape for conflicting uses over time; and the perception of the seashore as marginal zone in literature, photography, painting, film, television, and advertising. Note: Offered jointly with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as VES 166.
GSD 5201A: Urban Politics, Planning and Development
A. Altshuler Fall T, Th 11:30-1:00
Examines the politics of urban planning, land use, environmental regulation,
and economic development. Principal aim is to help students think
strategically about the role of governance--and the group conflicts that
swirl around it--in shaping the physical, social, and economic character of
urban places. Focuses mainly on U.S. experience, but with some attention
to international comparisons. Policy topics include land use planning,
zoning, infrastructure investment, downtown revitalization; public-private
partnerships for economic development; and efforts to move from urban
sprawl to “smart growth.”
GSD 5206: Planning and Environmental Law
B. Blaesser Fall M, W 8:30-10:00
This course examines the key substantive legal issues that affect the use,
preservation, and development of land in the United States, and the
principles and thinking process by which the legal system reaches decisions
intended to resolve these issues. The course will explore how land use and
environmental laws reflect the fundamental tension in our society between
government regulation and constitutionally protected rights of individuals,
and discuss the role that planning can play in helping to define the balance
between the means used to achieve public goals and the protection of private
property rights. The course will also address certain federal laws that impact
land use and local land use regulation. The course concludes by examining
programs that seek to integrate land use and environmental concerns,
notably, growth management or ‘smart growth’ / ‘sustainable development’
programs intended to influence the rate, amount, type, location and quality
of development, and New Urbanist/form-based code initiatives. Offered
jointly through the Harvard Kennedy School as HUT-263.
5304: Transportation Planning and Development
R. Dimino Fall F 9:00-12:00
Access and mobility are essential elements of an urban plan. Through
lectures, discussions, case studies, and exercises, this course examines the
issues and analytical framework tools and skills involved in transportation
planning. There will be an emphasis on a number of key areas of study:
transportation master planning, parking demand and analysis, transportation
modeling, highway capacity and level of service, streetscape, and geometrics.
Cases and exercises will correlate these areas of transportation research and
analysis with their interrelationships with land use and economic activity.
5321: Climate Change, Planning, and Cities
A. Carbonell Fall F 2:00-5:00
*Limited enrollment.
The seminar will lay the groundwork for an anticipated Spring 2009 options
studio that is part of a collaborative effort between the GSD and the Dutch
Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management entitled
“Climate Change, Water, Land Development, and Adaptation: Water Is
Our Enemy, Water Is Our Friend.” We will canvass U.S. and international
experience and emerging best practices related to climate change and
adaptation, including a review of climate action plans at the state, regional,
and municipal level; plans for new towns and major development projects
aspiring to “carbon neutrality;” and tools for the evaluation of greenhouse gas
emissions associated with different planning scenarios at multiple scales.
GSD 6103: Site Ecology and Environment
K. Parsons Fall TBA
This course is required for all incoming MLA1 AP students (Fall 2005 and
beyond), and MLA1 students returning for their second year (Fall 2006 and
beyond). The course will present the principles of ecology as applied to a
range of landscape environments. Instruction centers on the identification
and analysis of vegetation, wildlife, soils, water, and microclimate in small
areas such as woods, fields, lakes, wetlands, and urban sites in Greater
Boston. This pre-semester course will start on September 2nd at 8:30 a.m.
GSD 6106: Ecology, Plants and Technology I
L. Solano, M. Urbanski Fall T 2:00-6:00, W 8:30-10:00, Th 3:00-6:00
This is the first in the core sequence of Ecology, Plants and Technology courses. The first module emphasizes the identification of prominent plants in the natural communities of New England and highlights major characteristics of the vegetation, and introduces the principles of climate in the spaces around plants. The second module introduces the concept of landforms and grading in design. The course will focus on the use of landforms in history, art and landscape design. By examining the origins and inspiration for shaping the land, students will acquire a deeper understanding of how grading can inform their designs. Technical topics include surveying techniques, characteristics of contours, grading terminology and formulas, accessibility issues, drainage patterns and the manipulation of landform to express the prosaic and poetic aspects of a design.
GSD 6112M2: Energy, Technology and Building
C. Reinhart Fall W, F 10:00-11:30
This lecture course introduces students to energy and environmental issues, particularly those that must be faced by the discipline of architecture. An overview of the basic principles of energy generation and energy use will be provided, and the fundamental climatic precursors and patterns will be discussed. Building design issues in relation to basic energy needs and interior environmental requirements will be briefly outlined, and students will be exposed to the underlying complexity of developing solutions that address a wide range of local and global concerns. In addition, the technological response to interior environmental control will be contextualized within the larger framework of the scientific and socio-cultural influences that shaped the building systems we currently use.
6204: Building Technology
M. Mulligan Fall M, W 8:30-10:00
As the final component in the required sequence of technology courses,
this professionally oriented course develops an integral understanding of
the design and construction of buildings and their related technologies:
structural, constructional, and environmental. Building on fundamentals
covered in GSD 6203, Building Construction, the course looks in detail
at examples of innovative construction techniques in wood, steel, and
concrete structures. It also demonstrates the context in which technological
innovation takes place by exploring the relationship of the design and
construction participants.
GSD 6218M1: Plants and Technology I
P. Del Tredici Fall T 11:30-1:00; Th 2:30-5:30
This course is devoted to understanding basic biological principals and horticultural practices that affect the growth of plants in the human landscape and determine the success or failure of landscape designs. We will cover the identification of the basic palate of woody plants commonly available in the Northeast, and their appropriate landscape use.
GSD 6301: Landscape Ecology
R.T.T. Forman Fall T, Th 8:30 - 10:00
Prerequisite: None, but a principles of ecology course is recommended.
This course examines the structure, functioning, and change of a mosaic of ecological systems, such as forests, wetlands, fields, corridors, and villages. Focus is on spatial patterns; flows of animals, plants, mineral nutrients, and energy among ecosystems; and ecological changes in the landscape over time.
6332: Day-Lighting Buildings
C. Reinhart Fall T, Th 11:30-1:00
The primary focus of this course will be the study of lighting in an
architectural context. The course will stress the integration of electric and
natural light sources during the design process and place an emphasis upon
the role light can play in shaping architecture. Students will acquire a range
of hands-on design techniques ranging from rules of thumb to state-of-theart
computer simulations.
6336: The Object of Green
G. Doherty Fall W 9:00-12:00
*Limited enrollment. Green is more than a color; it is vegetation, open
space, a type of building or urbanism, an environmental cause, a political
movement, the new black. Green is an object in itself, operating on multiple
scales and ecologies across architecture, landscape and urbanism. This
seminar will focus on the concepts of green - cultural, social, philosophical,
spiritual, environmental, economic, political and technical - challenging
participants to articulate green (including its shades, materiality and
spatiality) as an object in its own right.
6417: Building Performance Simulation – Energy
C. Reinhart Fall M 8:30-11:30
This specialized seminar will introduce students to a variety of whole
building energy performance tools and methods, allowing them to carry out
advanced simulation studies of passive and active climatization technologies
including solar shading, natural and hybrid ventilation, and the effective use
of thermal mass.
GSD 6442: Ecological Strategies for Disturbed Sites
P. Del Tredici Fall W 8:30-11:30
This applied lecture and workshop course focuses on the reuse and reconstruction of derelict and minimally managed urban landscapes. Emphasis will be placed on strategies for establishing sustainable plant communities on such public sites and encouraging their productive reuse by humans. The course will examine the challenges and opportunities of post-industrial land as well as the regulatory, public health, and technological aspects involved in the remediation of polluted sites. Seminar presentations and class discussions with the instructor and invited guest lecturers will focus on the interdependence between science, technology and design in addressing the issue of degraded landscapes.
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