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Student Group Directory
Student groups are an essential part of life at the GSD. Each year, newly formed groups join long-standing groups in contributing to the academic and social discourse of the school. To obtain or maintain official status, groups must register each fall by submitting a new registration form to the Student Services office, designating leadership officers including an events liaison. A mandatory meeting is held at the beginning of each semester detailing the application and budgeting process and covering all relevant school policies.
During the application process, groups in existence for more than two years with substantial annual activity are eligible to be considered for Organization status. These groups are provided additional resources in exchange for additional responsibilities and oversight. Clubs are typically characterized as somewhat more informal groups, specific to a particular project or activity, or new groups seeking to establish themselves at the school. Both student organizations and clubs are supported financially through the Student Activities Fee and subject to review by both the GSD Student Forum and the Student Services office.
GSD Student Organizations
AASU (GSD African-American Student Union)
HUPO (Harvard Urban Planning Organization)
The Real Estate Development (RED) Club
GSD Student Clubs
AM: Apostolos Mission International
Community Development Project (CDP)
The Harvard Real Estate Review
Harvard South Asian Students in Design (SASID)
Harvard Student Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)
Urban Metabolism Student Group
AASU (GSD African American Student Union)
We are dedicated to supporting the advancements of African Americans in the areas of architecture, design, real estate, urban design, urban planning, and landscape architecture. The group is meant to be a source of unity and strength for Harvard University's Graduate School of Design with the specific goal of fostering a network and community that actively promotes the interest of the African American students, alumni, future students and the professional fields.
Primary Contact: James Kendall
Secondary Contact: Marcus Mello
Event Liaison: Chanel Williams
Recent Activities:
- Black Lives Matter Tray Installation – In order to simultaneously processes the senseless deaths of black and brown bodies across the country at the hands of police violence and force other students to pay attention to the world outside of Gund, the AASU resurrected a tray installation from years past. One hundred of the over eight hundred victims of police brutality were displayed with their names, hometowns, and quotes from family, friends, and community.
- Washington, DC Trip – The influence of black culture, from around the globe, cannot be felt more than in the nation's capitol. The AASU ventures to Washington to engage with this culture, reconnect with alumni and former Loeb Fellows, meet prospective students, and to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). The museum was designed by Phil Freelon, former Loeb Fellow and an active and progressive leader in the architecture field.
- 2016-17 AASU Lecture Series – This year's focus within the AASU has been to look outward from the design professions and understand how we can serve and demonstrate our value to communities of color. This year we have invited a number of speakers to engage with us at the GSD. While their fields, talents, and foci differ in ways the common thread is that there is a strong emphasis on community engagement. Speakers include:
- Jim Stockard – a Master in Urban Planning graduate and an expert in affordable housing and community development. Retired in 2014 from the role of curator of the Loeb Fellowship, which he held for 16 years.
- Cedric Douglas – a Boston-based public artist, designer, street artist who has created work in the community for over 20 years. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in graphic design
- Justin Garrett Moore – an Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture in Columbia GSAPP's urban design and urban planning programs. He is an urban designer and the Executive Director of the New York City Public Design Commission. He also co-founded Urban Patch, a social enterprise based in Indianapolis that focuses on community revitalization and design in American inner cities
- Arts First Competition Installation – The AASU has entered and won a spot in the Arts First Festival in Harvard Yard. The project, entitled "What's Hanging Over Your Head", is a suspended canopy structure that represents the everyday oppressions and aggressions that we all face. It will be installed in Harvard Yard during the month of April.
AfricaGSD seeks to provide an informative platform for the discussion of African urbanism and architecture. The group seeks to explore relationships among the larger social, economic, and environmental challenges of the continent as a means to identify the relevance of architectural practices within both African and global contexts. A home for Africans and African enthusiasts, this group is both culturally diverse and multidisciplinary in nature.
Primary Contact: Nerali Patel
Faculty Advisor: Michael Hooper
Event Liaison: Nerali Patel
Recent Activities:
- Development Conference : The Harvard African Development Conference brings together distinguished players working towards Africa's development. At each conference, among other roles, AfricaGSD organizes a city-focused panel at the conference, drawing eminent architects, property developers, academics and urban planners to discuss Africa's urban past, present and future. The theme for the 2016 conference was The African Renaissance: Re-imagining engagement and opportunities and was organized in collaboration with student groups from various Harvard University schools: Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Law School, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard College.
- African Movie Night : The African movie night uses the medium of film to share stories from Africa and the Diaspora. This year's movies included Sarafina, the Broadway musical turned movie (released in 1992, just prior to the end of Apartheid) that centers on the Soweto Uprising near Johannesburg in 1976; and Bound, a documentary by Kenyan filmmaker Peres Owino exploring the relationship dynamics between Africans and African Americans in the United States. The documentary screening was held in partnership with the AASU and was followed by an honest conversation about the subject matter of the film.
AM: Apostolos Mission International
Apostolos Missions is an ecumenical Christian fellowship with chapters around the world. We are committed to being fishers of men and spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth, testifying to the eternal love of the Lord and His Kingdom. We aim to train true disciples in knowing their calling and commission in Christ. There are three strands woven into everything we do. These three strands, known by their Greek terms, are: Kerygma, Koinonia, and Diakonia. In English, they are the Word, fellowship, and service. We seek to implement diverse programs and build a spiritual home for many people.
Primary Contact: Ahran Won
Secondary Contact: Choong Hyo Lee
Event Liaison: Ahran Won
AR/VR Club
The AR/VR Club connects Harvard students, staff, and faculty exploring the frontiers augmented and virtual reality, provides opportunities and support for students interested in becoming involved in projects and research, and brings cutting-edge technology, content, and demos from industry experts to the Harvard community. The GSD AR/VR Club is a member of the cross-university Harvard AR/VR Student Alliance, the first student group sponsored by the Harvard Innovation Labs.
Primary Contact: Joanne Cheung
Secondary Contact: Qi Xiong
Event Liaison: Joanne Cheung
Founded in 1994, Asia GSD is a student organization at the Harvard Graduate School of Design that bridges divergent groups of students, faculty, and professionals committed to design issues relevant to Asia. For over twenty years, it has been our mission to continue promoting an awareness of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and design, as well as related disciplines in the visual and design arts within an Asian context. By fostering dialogues focused on professional and scholarly concerns between students, academics, and professionals from around the world, Asia GSD creates an open community with a broad regional framework for Asians and non-Asians alike.
Primary Contact: Naureen Mazumdar
Secondary Contact: Ya Gao
Faculty Advisor: Mark Mulligan
Event Liaison: Naureen Mazumdar
Recent Activities:
- MAD Lecture : AsiaGSD hosted a lecture by Dixon Junliang Lu partner for MAD Architects' Los Angeles office. Founded by Chinese architect Ma Yansong in 2004, MAD Architects is a global architecture firm committed to developing futuristic, organic, technologically advanced designs that embody a contemporary interpretation of the Eastern affinity for nature. With its core design philosophy of Shanshui City – a vision for the city of the future based in the spiritual and emotional needs of residents – MAD endeavors to create a balance between humanity, the city, and the environment.
Asia Real Estate Association
Asia Real Estate Association (AREA), is a student organization registered at Harvard University that provides all members with resources to further their knowledge and careers in the Asia Real Estate Industry. The organization fosters a strong community of students, who are interested in real estate business in Asia, not only from Harvard University, but also from various graduate level programs at MIT, Columbia, Cornell, and other Ivy League institutions. The organization also endeavors in bringing a career development platform in collaboration with other partnering student clubs and professional organizations. AREA accomplishes its mission of connecting students and the industry by bringing variety of social events to campus, namely lecture series, symposiums, mentoring roundtable, site visits, headhunters interviews, and the annual Asia Business Conference at Harvard University.Since 2009, AREA hosts annual ASIA REAL ESTATE CAREER TREK. We seeks to provide students, who are interested in real estate business in Asian markets, with an opportunity to visit prominent companies, to meet with industry leaders and to help pursue careers in the real estate industry at a global level. In addition, AREA seeks to establish and foster a strong real estate community among the real estate interest groups among Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Cornell and other academic institutions as well as the global real estate network.
Primary Contact: Tintin Wei
Secondary Contact: Yi Li
Event Liaison: Vivek Muralidhar
Recent Activities:
- RE:DESIGNING REAL ESTATE : The Harvard Asia Real Estate Association in collaboration with the GSD, the MDes Real Estate and the Built Environment program presents RE:DESIGNING REAL ESTATE, an event that critically investigates the innovative strategies to navigate the new challenges faced by real estate industry in the contemporary age of urban evolution fueled by re-urbanization, disruptive practices, and economic trends in Asia. Learn from industry experts who will present their perspectives on how design drives the progression of the contemporary built environment in Asia and hear their insights on business models for international and local real estate developments and investment, as well as cross border transactions.
Introduced by Professor Bing Wang, the event will focus on:
– Impacts of dynamic trends of capital flow on the physical environment
– New niche markets, particularly Transit-Oriented Developments, across urbanizing Chinese cities
– Innovative joint venture strategies between international capital and local development practice
- ASIA REAL ESTATE CAREER TREK : The Asia Real Estate Association (AREA) is proud to announce the 6th annual Asia Real Estate Career Trek. AREA is a student organization at Harvard University Graduate School of Design that provides all students across Harvard with resources to further their knowledge and careers in the Asia Real Estate Industry. For the past several years, AREA has sought to provide the student body with opportunities to travel to different countries of interests in Asia to further their knowledge and help pursue careers in the real estate industry on a global level. The organization fosters a strong community of students comprised by not only members of the GSD but also of various graduate level programs at Harvard and MIT, as well as university alumni and our established global real estate network.
- ASIA BUSINESS CONFERENCE 2016 (In collaboration with HBS) : Since 1994, the Asia Business Conference at Harvard Business School has hosted dynamic discussions on Asia by thought leaders in a range of disciplines and fields. Today, it is the largest student-run conference on Asia in North America, drawing hundreds of attendees not only from the Harvard and greater Boston community, but also from all over the world.
Beer and Dogs
Beer and Dogs is a student group committed to connecting GSD students to one another through a weekly Friday social. It provides a break for students from the demanding and monotonous weekly schedule at the GSD as well as a way to meet students from other disciplines within the school.
Primary Contact: Shanasia Sylman
Secondary Contact: Ann Salerno
Event Liaison: Shanasia Sylman
Recent Activities:
- Annual Beer and Dogs + Fall Student Group Fair
- New York State of Mind BnD (RED Club)
- Beer and Dogs + Halloween Poster Competition
Canada GSD
CanadaGSD is focused on promoting North American design issues and fostering connections between Canadians, past and present, studying and teaching at the GSD. In addition to highlighting Canadian topics in Architecture, Landscape and Urban Design within the North American context, we sponsor social events in conjunction with the wider Harvard community through the Harvard Graduate Students Canada Club.
Primary Contact: Daniela Leon
Secondary Contact: Nicholas Lynch
Faculty Advisor: Fionn Byrne
Event Liaison: Daniela Leon
Chinese Students and Scholars Association (ChinaGSD) is the official Chinese student group in GSD. It is established and organized by Chinese students for China urban development issues. It provides a platform not only for communication among Chinese students of GSD, but also for all GSD students who are interested in design and urbanism issues in China. Currently we already have had more than 200 members, including current students, scholars, and alumni. We aim to enhance interaction between different disciplines in GSD through social and academic events. ChinaGSD brings a fresh outlook on contemporary China, promotes cultural and social understanding, and expands international diversity of the GSD student body. ChinaGSD will be the executive organizer of the ChinaTrip.
Primary Contact: Long Chuan Zhang
Secondary Contact: Hanguang Wu
Event Liaison: Tairan An
Recent Activities:
- Spatial Concept in Costume Design – Costume Designer Lu Yue
- China's Urban Spatial Design: A Practice
- Symposium on Contemporary Chinese Cities' Transformation
Climate Governance Initiative
The Climate Governance Initiative works to create a space for students across campus to engage with climate governance from spatial, legal, political, economic, and behavioral perspectives. We create events and projects that engage with challenges like climate refugees, coastal retreat, post-disaster recovery, regional and national policy, global governance, and the role of cities and regions in climate action.
Primary Contact: Sanjay Seth
Secondary Contact:
Event Liaison: Sanjay Seth
Code Without Frontiers
The aim of this student-run group of volunteers is to help mentor other fellow students at the GSD with technical questions, code problems, software troubleshooting, hardware, etc., and in general, one-on-one assistance with the usual digital tools designers use in their workflows.
Primary Contact: Olga Geletina
Secondary Contact: Nono Martinez Alonso
Faculty Advisor: Andrew Holder
Event Liaison: Olga Geletina
Recent Activities:
- We offer walk-in sessions twice a week; just bring your laptop and software questions. Our skilled volunteers offer specialized assistance for Grasshopper, Rhino, Arduino, C#, JavaScript, HTML, and Unity3D, just to name a few. We promise you'll leave with a more thorough understanding of the tools and how they'll help you arrive at a solution. In 2015-2016 we received more than 100 visits!
Community Development Project (CDP)
CDP is a joint student group comprised of students from the Graduate School of Design and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Participating students are Masters or Doctoral candidates in any range of degree programs at the GSD and HKS. Throughout the course of the year, students work collaboratively on 1 – 2 projects in the Greater Boston and New England region. CDP members have skills and interests, including: creative strategies for community and civic engagement, innovative urban policy and planning interventions, architecture and urban design, or research and writing. CDP works directly with local governments, organizations, and community members to develop a dynamic work-plan and a clear deliverable for the course of a semester or school year.
Primary Contact: Cory Berg
Secondary Contact: Rebecca Nolan
Event Liaison: Matt Genova
Recent activities:
- Fitchburg Universal Services – Referral Report
- Fitchburg Main Streets – Recommendations
- Central Falls, Rhode Island – Engagement with Property Owners
Design Dialogues
Design Dialogues provides platforms for GSD community to stimulate knowledge exchange and debates on the design discourse. Through curated dialogues/forums and publications, Design Dialogues aspires to establish an integrated linkage between students and GSD faculty/guests, and to promote an optimistic debate culture of design discourse.
Primary Contact: Chang Su
Secondary Contact: Boya Guo
Event Liaison: Chang Su
Design Research Forum (DRF)
The Design Research Forum is a space for students across the GSD to come together to discuss the intersection of research and design and to identify opportunities to collaborate within and across disciplines. In a rapidly changing and evolving world, design and research offer different perspectives and approaches to creating safe, just, and resilient societies. Research into evolving issues and trends can inform new tendencies in design, while design can challenge the findings and assumptions in contemporary research. This forum will support activities including discussion around relevant issues and trends, engagement with leading academics and practitioners, and review and reflection on proposed, ongoing, and recently completed research and projects. DRF is spearheaded by students in the Masters in Design Studies program and will seek to foster dialogue within and across concentrations and departments, thus enhancing the potential and value of the program for its 30th anniversary.
Primary Contact: Kate Cahill
Secondary Contact: Jane Zhang
Event Liaison: Mandy Miller
Recent Activities:
- Spring Discussion Theme: Media and Fieldwork discussion : What methods of documentation do you employ in your work? How does the choice of media influence the agency of our research? Do various forms of media mask or reveal certain aspects of the issues or places we research? How do we characterize the interrelationships between media, process and audience? How does our research take shape (through documentation or methodology)? How does audience influence our choice of medium? How do we communicate to different audiences? As design researchers, who are our audiences?
- Spring Discussion Theme: Session Theme: Agency : What agency do we have as design researchers to influence the contexts and issues we research? Is there an expectation that our work will be operationalized as education, empowerment, or evidence? Who has agency in your research process? Who is the ultimate audience or recipient of our work (and do they have agency)? Do you have an expectation that your work will affect change? How can our role as designers be seen as disruptive (positive/negative sense) to local dynamics? Do contemporary design processes presume a certain amount of agency in the context they are working? Is agency always an operative concept in design?
- Process : This journal serves as a space for discourse around the methods, tools and frameworks of design research. We use Process to explore the central question—What is design research? How does it operate; what is its cause? In Process, students share short writings reflecting on their experience with design research, ultimately aiming to further expand and explicate what this field is, its core methodologies, and the kinds of questions and situations where design research has the most to offer. In this issue, respondents are reflecting on agency and its role in the research process.
Engaging the Public Realm
We promote interaction between the GSD and the greater Boston community, partnering with local nonprofit organizations to create dialogue among students and community leaders about design in the public realm.
Primary Contact: David Pilz
Secondary Contact: Farhad Mirza
Event Liaison: David Pilz
Ecological Thinking Group
Given the current sense of urgency under the prospect of planetary environmental degradation, ecology has risen to the forefront not only as an academic field but as a way of thinking. As such, it has permeated areas beyond the natural sciences. As a result, the last 20 years have seen an unfolding of ecology into novel fields as diverse as industrial ecology, urban political ecology, or ecological economics. Design has not been the exception. Under the banners of sustainable, green, or environmentally friendly, ecology has become central in the agenda of design; yet ecology is not a smooth body of knowledge. Its various different strands do not always overlap and sometimes even stand in contradiction. The frictions and tensions inherent to ecological thinking are rarely questioned. This group provides a much needed space to critically question the implications of the incorporation of ecological knowledge in design, and how design in turn can shape ecology.
Primary Contact: Daniel Daou
Secondary Contact: Pablo Perez
Faculty Advisor: Charles Waldheim
Event Liaison: Pablo Perez
Recent Activities:
- COASTAL RESILIENCE – Lecture by Miriam García García Sustainable Development of the Spanish Atlantic Coast. The Coastal Management Plan of Galicia explores a new methodological approach from the perspective of the landscape, proposes an adaptive and anticipatory planning, and elaborates strategies for the protection and planning of sustainable growth of the coastal region. Thus, it challenges the traditional urban planning approach and proposes an alternative reading of the landscape as a system of superimposed dynamics requiring a comprehensive and holistic approach.
- HISTORIES OF ECOLOGICAL THINKING – The Ecological Thinking group is pleased to extend an invitation to all interested students to participate in a discussion sessions about the connections between ecological theory and the design disciplines. The work session has the objective of bringing together GSD students interested in the field of ecology in both its scientific and philosophical dimensions. A brief lecture on the History of Ecological Thinking will precede a group discussion with attendants.
- NEW GEOGRAPHIES 8: ISLAND – This discussion session has the objective of bringing the general student community closer to the work of the New Geographies Lab and to discuss the content for New Geographies 8: Island. In New Geographies 8, editors Daniel Daou and Pablo Pérez Ramos explore the concept of the Island as a master metaphor used in human and natural ecologies. From Moore's Utopia to Darwin's Galapagos, islands have historically been recurrent cognitive devices for their capacity to frame the unbounded. But what new ideas emerge in an age where ecology questions the very notion of limit by claiming "everything is connected to everything else," and what does this mean for design?
EuropeGSD is the European Student's Club at Harvard Design School. Its leitmotiv is to embrace the conversation around design concerns in Europe. The club addresses European Students at the GSD, existing national European GSD Groups and other members of the GSD community interested in the region.
Primary Contact: Carla Ferrer Llorca
Secondary Contact: Radu-Remus Macovei
Event Liaison: Maxime Faure
filmGSD is a student group dedicated to showing movies to the GSD community. With regular screenings and conversation, filmGSD intends to explore the relationship between film and architecture and the significance of visual media to architectural discourse. These group showings will make university resources more available to students, including the collections of the Harvard Film Archive.
Primary Contact: Kathryn Sonnabend
Secondary Contact: Carly Gertler
Event Liaison: Carly Conlan
fortyK (formerly Kirkland Gallery)
A Student Run Alternative Space for student's work that is influenced by the conversations, dilemmas, and critical thinking inherent to contemporary design practice. Two adjoining rooms on the first floor of 40 Kirkland are dedicated to the exhibition of your work. All GSD students are invited to submit proposals for installations of any media or scale. Where else can you install a full scale wall section, project an independent film, and put on a performance art piece?
Primary Contact: Marielsa Castro
Secondary Contact: Jolene Lee
Staff Advisor: Margaret Moore de Chicojay
Event Liaison: Andrea Carrillo
Recent Activities:
- Five Exhibitions each Semester – In the beginning of the fall semester, the gallery will send out open calls for submission. The adjoining rooms on the first floor of 40 Kirkland are dedicated to the exhibition of student work. All GSD students are invited to submit proposals for installations of any media or scale. Previous exhibitions have included full scale wall sections, projected films, performances, and installations. Each new exhibition will be scheduled for an opening every Friday and closing on the following Sunday. This will give the participants a full week to install work in the space.
GalaxyGSD (formerly SpaceGSD)
Galaxy GSD, formerly known as Space GSD, hosts programming inspired by the possibilities of becoming a galaxy-faring people. Understanding space travel and exploration as enabled by and taking place in an ether of robotic interfaces, teleoperated explorers, digital transmissions, and the mythic worlds of physics, Galaxy GSD probes these themes from the scale of the experiments of the amateur technowizard to the exploitation of asteroids by industrial conglomerates.
Primary Contact: Sophie Geller
Secondnary Contact: Maria Gloria Robalino
Event Liaison: Maria Gloria Robalino
Recent Activities:
- NASA International Space App Challenge – April 23-24, 2016, we collaborated with Boston non-profit Binnovative to co-host the Boston branch of the NASA International Space Apps Challenge. The ISAC is an international mass collaborative hackathon focused on space exploration that takes place over 48-hours in cities around the world. The event embraces collaborative problem solving with a goal of producing relevant open-source solutions to address global needs applicable to both life on Earth and life in space. NASA is leading this global collaboration along with a number of additional government collaborators and 100+ local partner organizations.
- Show and Tell – Convened in the recesses of Harvard's Gund Hall, Show and Tell brought together the design school community to share and uncover wonders of the universe as revealed through objects.
- Conference of Galactic Delights – An installation at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, A Conference of Galactic Delights took place from February 19 – March 20th 2016, a convening of object friends brought together to discuss mystery, information, and an ecology of others. Their conversation was drawn out through careful attunement on our part to the logic of interaction that develop between objects drawn out of their typical environments of origin and inhabitation.
GARLIC's mission is to find the design voice for young design leaders in China. Influenced by GARLIC, young leaders will become the think-tank for Chinese new normal urbanization in the next 50 years. GARLIC as a new platform for interactions between students, scholars, professors, professionals, entrepreneurs, and decision makers will push the boundaries of design knowledge and practice in contemporary China. We believe deeply in the power of creative ideas to create a better urban environment.
Primary Contact: Siyang Jing
Secondary Contact: Zhangkan Zhou
Event Liaison: Zhangkan Zhou
GreeceGSD aims to inform the GSD and the broader community of Harvard about contemporary academic, social and professional initiatives that concern Greece and the broader region of Eastern Mediterranean. Through a series of thematic lectures, social events, panel discussions and exhibitions, this group will attempt to address current issues that are relevant within the above mentioned framework, thus facilitating the exchange of ideas and initiatives. During the past years, this group has successfully organized a variety of events: an exhibition promoting Greek architectural work that often remains unknown, a panel discussion in order to explore the role of design, innovation and entrepreneurship in times of social and economic crisis, and last year's successful series of lectures by Greek academics and practitioners. This year GreeceGSD is re-visiting these issues while diversifying the events in order to engage in a dialogue regarding academic as well as social issues.
Primary Contact: Vasileios Ioannidis
Secondary Contact: Michail Papavarnavas
Event Liaison: Antonois Thodis
Recent Activities:
- Film Series – Dogtooth – a film by Yorgos Lanthimos + The suspended Step of the Stork a film by Theo Angelopoulos
- GIANY [Greek Institute for Architects in New York] was established with the purpose of bringing together the Greek Architects that live and practice in New York. Through lectures, panel discussions, exhibitions and social events, GIANY has a leading role within the Greek architectural community in New York as a platform for sharing ideas, strengthening its members' professional voices and acting as a social initiative. The event included a round table discussion regarding GIANY as a collective initiative, and the role and importance of such initiatives for young architects and professionals.
- Buerger Katsota architects – This lecture by Stephan Buerger and Demetra Katsota presented recent work of buerger katsota architects. Established in 2005 with offices in Athens and Vienna, buerger katsota architects combine practice, academic research and teaching as well as community pursuits. The practice has designed and build houses, public buildings and spaces in Greece, Austria and the Near East. Their 'PXAthens' urban research study lead to the realization of an innovative network of prototypical communal spaces for play. Their work is interpretive and pragmatic, paying particular attention to reference, spatiality, material expression and construction.
- Eastern Mediterranean Echoes of Modernity – This talk, by Professor Panayiota Pyla, offered glimpses into the history of selected urban/rural projects in the Eastern Mediterranean to demonstrate how the intertwined politics of infrastructure development, coastal tourist development, and ethnic conflict in mid-20th Century resonate with current realities of the physical environment in different parts of the region. Such historical glimpses also provide an important insight into current environmental, economic, and heritage crises. The event was organized in collaboration with GSD Medina.
gsBees (formerly GSDBees)
We manage the health and productivity of the resident honeybees on the roof of Gund. We aim to increase the beekeeping capacity of the university, advance knowledge of bees and beekeeping within the design disciplines, and act as a conduit to other beekeeping efforts and studies across Harvard. Through practice, we are exploring the potential of an urban apiary and reinforcing the GSD's commitment to ecological stewardship.
Primary Contact: Diana Jih
Secondary Contact: Madeleine Aronson
Staff Advisor: Meg Sandberg
Event Liaison: Diana Jih
- We manage the health and productivity of the resident honeybees on the roof of Hoffman Labs at Harvard University.
- We aim to increase the beekeeping capacity of the university, advance knowledge of bees and beekeeping within the design disciplines, and act as a conduit to other beekeeping efforts and studies across Harvard.
- Through practice, we are exploring the potential of an urban apiary and reinforcing the GSD's commitment to ecological stewardship.
GSD Arts Committee
GSD Arts Committee aims to increase the presence of art within the GSD by inviting artists engaged with design to share their work on campus. Through various events including talks, performances, and video screenings, the group will provide a forum to address overlapping interests between art and design while fostering a sense of community and creative multiplicity.
Primary Contact: Kiyoto Koseki
Secondary Contact: Keith Hartwig
Event Liaison: Ana Luiza Addor
GSD Christian Fellowship
The GSD Christian fellowship seeks to support Christians in the practice of their faith at Harvard, to be a forum for Christians to ask questions about the relationship between design and faith, to act as a resource for those interested in the Christian faith, and to provide opportunities for people of all faiths or no faith to dialogue. The fellowship will meet regularly to talk, pray, and take part in joint meetings and activities with the other graduate schools.
Primary Contact: Christian Gonzalez
Secondary Contact: Chantine Akiyama
Staff Advisor: Jeffrey Barneson
Event Liaison: Chantine Akiyama
Recent Activities:
- Bible study – A weekly investigation into the Bible with an emphasis on topics salient to life at the GSD. Consisting of prayer, worship, discussion, and critical reading of Scripture, these meetings are public, last between 1 and 1.5 hrs, and have participants of all faiths and fields attend.
- Friday night worship – Usually held after Beer & Dogs, this is an open and public event with a focus on worship through song and prayer.
- Tea Party – Still in its early stages, this event sets a space and time apart for stressed students to enjoy healthy snacks, a calm atmosphere, and acoustic music for as long as they wish. Occurs a few days before finals reviews.
GSD MEdiNA
GSD MEdiNA is a student organization at the Harvard Graduate School of Design for students interested in design issues in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Its aim is to engage in a better understanding, current and historical, of the architectural and urban dynamics of the region. The organization also aspires to become a platform for the promotion of dialogue and the establishment of links between the academic and professional milieus. With members representing multiple countries from MENA, without particular emphasis on a specific linguistic, cultural, or national affiliation, MEdiNA critically investigates design issues in the light of political and economic developments across the region. The organization was founded in 2001, and has since organized a diverse series of academic and social activities.
Primary Contact: Sama El Saket
Secondary Contact: Rose Sijeeni
Primary Contact: Sama El Saket
Recent Activities:
- Scales of Syria Symposium – Spring 2016 – a Symposium on the Syrian crisis at the Harvard Graduate School of Design organized by Medina and supported by the Aga Khan Program, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
- Kuwait Transformed- a Lecture on the History of Oil and Urban Life – Spring 2016 – In Kuwait Transformed, Farah Al-Nakib connects the city's past and present, from its settlement in 1716 to the twenty-first century, through the bridge of oil discovery. She traces the relationships between the urban landscape, patterns and practices of everyday life, and social behaviors and relations in Kuwait. The history that emerges reveals how decades of urban planning, suburbanization, and privatization have eroded an open, tolerant society and given rise to the insularity, xenophobia, and divisiveness that characterize Kuwaiti social relations today.
- Spaces from Syria fourtyK Exhibition – Spring 2016 – Often mistaken for a stand-alone problem, the Syrian refugee crisis is actually a symptom, a direct reaction to a much more lethal condition: the conflict itself. This exhibition recreates a narrative of three spaces within the gallery that bring back the aura of their realities through a still life installation. The heritage space, the conflict space, and the refuge space offer a comprehensive cross section of the situation in Syria, from living conditions before displacement to resettlement across the globe. The exhibition itself merges installation, representation, spatial experience, and storytelling to bring light to a dramatically underaddressed urban humanitarian conflict.
- Diane Singerman Lecture + Reception [29 January 2015] Aga Khan Program Lecture: Diane Singerman, "Architecture and the Territory: Models of Scholarship and Practice" Diane Singerman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government, School of Public Affairs at American University and currently co-director of a project called "Tadamun: The Cairo Urban Solidarity Initiative" (www.tadamun.info). Professor Singerman will talk about Tadamun with a brief response by Shahira Fahmy, 2015 Loeb Fellow, and a discussion with the audience.
- Icons of Knowledge – Eckhard Gerber [05 February 2015] Co-sponsored between GSD Medina and China GSD on February 5 for a lecture series featuring Eckhard Gerber, designer of the Riyadh National Library, and Jurgen Engel, designer of the National Library of China. Both architects will be speaking about the libraries that their offices designed. The lecture series forms part of the "Icons of Knowledge Exhibition" curated by Noam Dvir and Daniel Rauchwerger.
- Live Portal to Iraq (Co-Sponsored by HUPO/ Mdes APD) [20 April 2015] GSD's Tamara Jafar MUP '16 and Alexander Jacobson MArch '15 are creating a live portal from the school to the American University of Iraq – Suleimani. The interactive digital installation will intermittently interlace the cafeteria at the American University of Iraq- Sulaimani with the Chauhaus Café at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design for four days, April 20th-24th. The project, entitled "Interlaced Space," is the serendipitous culmination of several years of work, and the first iteration of an ongoing experiment in empowering civilians to directly connect despite pre-conceived, spatial, national, or cultural barriers.
GSD Music Band
The GSD Music Band student group provides a space for GSD students to share their passion for playing music. All instruments, levels and musical genres are welcome!
Primary Contact: Juan Pablo Ugarte
Secondary Contact: Marysol Rivas Brito
Event Liaison: Juan Pablo Ugarte
Recent Activities:
- Harvard ARTS First Presentation
- GSD Thanksgiving Dinner Presentation
- Jamming sessions every Sunday throughout the semester
GSD Poetry
GSD Poetry exists to promote poetry within the GSD and encourage fellow students to share and workshop their work. Lastly, we strive to explore the poetics of design in a creative manner.
Primary Contact: Caesar Castro
Secondary Contact: Arfaei Nastaran
Event Liaison: Arfaei Nastaran
GSD Soccer
GSD Soccer aims to provide a space for all members of the GSD community to engage in organized physical fitness and interact socially outside the context of studio. GSD Soccer Club's aim is to provide the financial resources and equipment necessary for GSD members to both play recreationally and compete in graduate school intramural leagues. Through a check-out system, any member of the GSD community will be entitled to borrow equipment for their own recreation.
Primary Contact: Niki Murata
Secondary Contact: Michael Haggerty
Tertiary Contact: Jacob Bruce
Event Liaison: James Murray
Recent Activities:
- Harvard Intramural League Competitions
- Pick up games in the backyard
GSD Theory?
'GSD Theory?' is a student group aimed to elaborate, expand and increase theoretical ideas in the practice of design within the GSD. Our aim is not only to talk, read or write, but rather to create a platform which exposes students to a broad array of theoretical, philosophical and conceptual ideas, and their relation to the design disciplines. As part of our activity, we will facilitate lectures and conversations with speakers outside of the GSD that are not directly linked to the design disciplines, whether from other schools across Harvard or from various institutions and organizations outside the university. We will also facilitate group meetings for discussions of projects, readings, texts and ideas.
Co-President: Anthony Morey
Co-President: Clemens Finkelstein
Faculty Advisor: Sonja Duempelmann
Event Liaison: Anthony Morey
Recent Activities:
- Naive Design Installation
- Cloudtime Fantasy
- Masks the Journal – MASKS is a questing spirit for everything exploring the aggregate of present, past and future disciplinary structures in and between the fields of art, architecture and design. MASKS challenges the basic assumption of the dialectic reality/fiction. Fictional narratives become reality through ritualistic events. MASKS is the shaman that performs these rituals. MASKS believes in the performance of appearance, not the predetermined disciplinary limitations set by distinguishing art, architecture and design. Collective creativity and knowledge production that defies or expands preconceptions are MASKS stimulants. MASKS explores notions of disguise, camouflage, unveiling, performativity, simulation etc. in the creative disciplines. MASKS will build on institutional exchange across the globe, diversifying academic exploration with an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary focus, bringing practitioners' voices from all walks of life together. MASKS is open for submissions.
- Panel Discussion – Irene Chin MDes HPD '15 organized a panel discussion related to her thesis research on museum expansions, with Cara McCarty (curatorial director of the Cooper Hewitt) Stephen Rustow, architecture professor and practitioner, and Mimi Zeiger (architecture critic). This was an event as part of Storefront for Art and Architecture's series of nomadic curatorial venues with MDes ADPD '14 Ashley Mendehlson and her team's project – "Circus for Construction."
- MDes. Pecha Kucha – Sponsored by MDes. HPD, a small Pecha Kucha event was organized towards the end of the spring semester to allow MDes. students practice their thesis presentations and share them with other MDes. and GSD students. The presentations were given in a short format, 5 minutes each. The event was meant to expose other students to the work being done by MDes. student in a collaborative and informal manner.
GSD West
GSD West promotes an awareness of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, real estate and design within the context of the North American West. United by big skies and the biggest ocean on the planet, GSD West promotes traffic between two sides of a continent. Together we represent Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, and British Columbia. Through a series of thematic discussions and roundtable talks, GSD West addresses current issues in the West and facilitates the exchange of ideas and initiatives among various stakeholders out west. By fostering dialogues focused on professional and scholarly concerns between students, academics and professionals from around the world, GSD West creates an open community with a broad regional framework for all GSD students. GSD West will establish direct connections with Architecture and Art Practices based on the in cities from the West, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, etc…
Primary Contact: Francisco Alarcon
Secondary Contact: Liana Nourafshan
Faculty Advisor: Sonja Duempelmann
Event Liaison: Daniel Berdichevsky
Recent Activities:
- Sebastian Mariscal: 'The DNA of Architecture' – Lunchtime lecture and following lunch with Sebastian to discuss his bi-coastal practice engaged in architecture and development. Food and drinks were provided.
- J-Term Trip Info Session – Evening information session to present and answer questions regarding the road trip from Tijuana, MX to San Francisco, CA that took place in January 2015. Food and drinks were provided.
- J-Term California Roadtrip – Visits to key pieces of architecture and design as well as over 25 design related offices highlighted this trip. The trip's objective was to introduce and familiarize fellow students to design issues shaping California at this moment of major transformation. Intimate talks with firm principals and site visits served as the primary medium for doing so.
GSD Veterans
GSD Veterans is an organization open to all GSD students who have served or are currently serving in the US Armed Forces, and to any GSD students who would like to support veterans on campus and off campus. The primary purpose of the club is to make GSD veterans aware of contacts for veteran benefits, Harvard wide veteran events, and fund raising activities in support the Warrior Scholarship program, in addition to raising awareness of veterans in the design profession.
Primary Contact: Ashley Thompson
GSDANCE connects the GSD community through the medium of dance. It is open to all members of the GSD and provides a space of inclusion free of competition or judgment— the only requirement for membership is the desire to move one's body. Group activities include, but are not limited to: a weekly open level, multi-style dance class, specialized dance workshops throughout the year, and opportunities for performances/recitals for those interested. GS (just) DANCE!
Primary Contact: Sofia Balters
Secondary Contact: Allison Cottle
Event Liaison: Sofia Balters
Recent Activities:
- GSDance + KPOP Beer'n'Dogs – At the last Beer n' Dogs of the spring semester, KGSD and GSDance have traditionally teamed up with a kpop dance performance. All levels welcome, rehearsals for the performance are student led a few weeks prior.
- Weekly Choreography Classes – Join us weekly for a one hour all levels welcome, intro level (usually hip hop) class. Classes are led by choreographers from dance companies from Cambridge and Boston, and occasionally in house GSD students. Classes do not build on weeks prior, and no experience necessary.
GSDesignBuild is a student group dedicated to exploring the design-build process. By hosting workshops and projects, we will create opportunities to translate drawings into built form. While the aim of the club is primarily academic, we also promote design build as a professional endeavor by hosting lectures and interviews with practicing architects who are involved in the process of design build.
Primary Contact: Jung Chan Lee
Secondary Contact: Caleb Marhoover
Event Liaison: Caleb Marhoover
GSDJ aims to create a collective for the musically inclined portion of the student body with a focus on contemporary trends in electronic music. The group also aims to explore the relationship between music production software and hardware and architecture. In tandem with producing auditory environments GSDJ will be experimenting with real time visualization and its relationship to space making and entertainment.
Primary Contact: Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo
Secondary Contact: Cody Glen
Faculty Advisor: Cameron Wu
Event Liaison: Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo
Recent Activities:
- Dance Parties – Members from GSDJ spun dance inducing tunes at both bi-annual dance parties hosted by the school. The beats were not only rarities uncovered by each DJ, but a number of selections provided from a variety of students throughout the school, ensuring a blend of musical genres and styles, while keeping the dance floor moving.
- MIX FIX – a weekly segment brought to you by GSD's in house Disc Jockeys, GSDJ. Each week we will present a mix by one of your classmates, with the hopes that everyone discovers music they otherwise would not have. Also, it can keep you company through that next all-nighter. For an aggregation of the mixes visit the group's soundcloud page: https://soundcloud.com/gsddj
- Beer & Dogs' Beats – GSDJs provides their services to each and every group hosting a Beer & Dog event. The previous year the group spun everything from Bollywood beats (IndiaGSD) to New York Classics (HUPO) to K-pop tunes (KoreaGSD). The group is sure to provide some good vibes during each Beer & Dogs.
Harvard East Asia Urban Forum
Primary Contact: Yingying Lu
Secondary Contact: Xiaokai Huang
Faculty Advisor: Peter Rowe
Event Liaison: Yingying Lu
Recent Activities:
- Lecture by Yu Liang- CEO of China Vanke – As the CEO of China Vanke, the biggest residential developer in the world, Mr. Yu Liang is known as one of the most influential entrepreneurs in China. Mr. Yu Liang started his lecture with the documentary film "The Roockies' Dream", sharing his idea that managing a firm starts from healthy self-management. Then Mr. Yu Liang talked about Vanke's strategies of staff management, financial investment and overseas expansion. He also shared his view of real estate development in new towns in China. Yu Liang's humorous speech won enthusiastic warm welcome from the 170 audience in the lecture hall of Harvard Science Center.
- Techniques for Environmental Friendly Urban Design – The seminar was about how to assess air flow in indoor and outdoor spaces. Air flow analysis is a useful technique for environmental friendly design, as air flow is often a critical condition in terms of human comfort and energy saving. The seminar was given by Dr. Minamitani and Dr. Ikejima, both of whom are professionals in Computational Fluid Dynamics. By the end of the two-hour seminar, the participants had learnt how to do air flow assessment independently.
- Internship Recruitment – HEUF creates a close collaboration between academic and practice. We help GSD students to find intern opportunities in industries, especially in the urban planning & design and real estate fields. In the summer of 2015, multiple intern positions were offered by China Vanke at Chengdu office.
The Harvard Real Estate Review
The Harvard Real Estate Review publishes work, through the collaboration of students, faculty, design, and editorial professionals, which probes emerging trends in real estate that have significant implications for the future of the built environment.
Primary Contact: John Lee
Secondary Contact: Naman Srivastava
Event Liaison: John Lee
Harvard South Asian Students in Design (SASID)
Our organization aims to bring the GSD community closer to South Asia and its diaspora through academic, political, social, outreach and cultural initiatives in the areas of architecture, design, real estate, urban design, urban planning, and landscape architecture. SASID aims to include members spanning a myriad of ethnicities, religions, and interests, and organize events each year to celebrate and foster awareness of design and related issues in South Asia. As part of our continued effort to promote an understanding of South Asian design, we will host numerous discussions with faculty members, public figures, architects, and artists on campus, while also working to expand the focus of South Asia in the graduate curriculum.
Primary Contact: Naureen Mazumdar
Secondary Contact: Farhad Mirza
Faculty Advisor: Rahul Mehrotra
Event Liaison: Rayana Hossain
Recent Activities:
- Rethinking Local Dialogue – Rethinking Local: A Cross-regional Dialogue about Strategies for Local Practice in Cities. Our members helped organize and participated in a workshop and series lecture that invited architects from Bangladesh and Vietnam. Feb 22-23, 2016.
- Bengali New Year Party – Bengali New Year celebration with Bangladeshi graduate students of Harvard. April 15, 2016.
- Ridwan Kamil Lecture – Reflections of Architect and Mayor, Ridwan Kamil: Setting Bandung as a 21st Century Laboratory of Urban Innovation. Helped organize and publicize event that hosted the Mayor of Bandung, Indonesia as a guest lecturer. May 5, 2016.
Harvard Student Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)
The purpose of the Society is the advancement of knowledge, education, and skill in the art and science of landscape architecture as an instrument of service in the public welfare. To this end the Society promotes the profession of landscape architecture and advances the practice through advocacy, education, communication, and fellowship. The purpose of the Chapter shall be to bring students together through organized activities that: 1) are consistent with the purpose and policies of the Society; 2) enhance understanding of the Society, the profession, and related disciplines; 3) improve skills and knowledge and complement the educational curriculum; and 4) encourage participation in the programs and activities of the Society, its professional chapters, and other student and student affiliate chapters.
Primary Contact: Charlotte Leib
Secondary Contact: Jenny Liu
Tertiary Contact: Rayana Hossain
Quaternary Contact: Tiffany Dang
Event Liaison: Angela Choi
Recent Activities:
- Student Liaison positions that serve as a conduit between the ASLA organization and the student body at the GSD.
- Student Awards – Each year, the ASLA Professional Awards honor the best in landscape architecture from around the globe, while the ASLA Student Awards give us a glimpse into the future of the profession. Award recipients receive featured coverage in Landscape Architecture Magazine, the magazine of ASLA, and in many other design and construction industry and general interest media. Award recipients, their clients, and advisors will be honored at the awards presentation ceremony during the ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO. This year, to be held in New Orleans, October 21-24, 2016.
HUPO (Harvard Urban Planning Organization)
The Harvard Urban Planning Organization (HUPO) is a student-run planning organization for students studying in the Master in Urban Planning program. Although we come from a multitude of professional disciplines and from various parts of the world, we share a passion for improving the various aspects of the built environment, locally and globally. HUPO serves as a vehicle for students at the GSD to engage professionals, academics, community organizations, city governments, and other students in working to improve cities. HUPO puts together a calendar of planning-related lectures, forums, social gatherings, and activities between September and May.
Primary Contact: Illika Sahu
Secondary Contact: Cory Berg
Faculty Advisor: Ann Forsyth
Event Liaison: Arjun Gupta Sarma
Event Liaison: Omar Farroukh
Facebook (UPD Dept.)
Recent Activities:
- Transit Oriented Beer'n'Dogs – Chauhaus was transformed into the greatest train terminal on this side of the Charles as MUPs brought the house down with Transit Oriented Beer'n'Dogs.
- PARK(ing) Day – HUPO partnered with the Cambridge Community Development Department (CDD) of the City of Cambridge to transform a metered parking space into a 'park' for a day in September 2015. PARK(ing) Day is celebrated internationally as an event where parking spots are transformed into temporary public spaces. MUPs converted a parking spot in the close vicinity of Gund into a hang out space using discarded and recyclable materials. The 'Park' offered coffee and donuts all day long.
- Networking Mixer with MIT-DUSP & TUFTS – A first of its kind networking event in which students in the graduate program in Urban Planning from Harvard, MIT and Tufts got together on an October evening to share their academic and professional experiences over some beers.
- Practitioner Lunch Series – HUPO organized a practitioner lunch series to enable students to interact with seasoned planning professionals. The series has been organized around the different concentrations in the program, ranging from real estate and housing to international planning, ensuring that students have a chance to speak with mid-career professionals representing each student's varied interests.
India GSD
India is a microcosm of diversity and a land of limitless opportunity. As India transitions into a rapidly developing and urbanizing socio-economy, IndiaGSD will celebrate its strengths and confront its challenges with a critical eye. The student group will bring the flavour of the world's largest democracy to the GSD through academic, social, and cultural initiatives. With a focus on its powerful traditional foundations, it will attempt to make sense of its current situation and formulate context-specific ideas for its future. The group will not only help GSD understand the Indian context more comprehensively, but will promote collaborations between those interested in working for and with initiatives working towards its preservation and development.
Primary Contact: Antara Tandon
Secondary Contact: Apoorv Kaushik
Faculty Advisor: Rahul Mehrotra
Event Liaison: Ambieca Saha
Recent Activities:
- Navigating the profession: A discussion with Rahul Mehrotra
- Building Storeys: Lecture with SAI and lunch
- Holi at Harvard: Harvard-wide celebration with Indian student groups across the university
- The Architecture of Practice: Lecture + lunch with Prem Chandaverkar
- Diwali + Open House BnD
- Interpreting Cultures: Lecture by Siddhartha Das
- India's Urban Future: Lunch with Suketu Mehta
Japan GSD
JapanGSD is a cultural and social group open to all students interested in deepening their appreciation of Japanese design culture. As we continue to grow, we strive to strengthen the communication between Japanese culture with the GSD design community in reciprocal ways. In addition to introducing and enjoying events catered around cuisine, we can bring opportunities to talk with Japanese architects to the GSD, and to visit projects by Japanese architects.
Primary Contact: Tom Ishida
Secondary Contact: Masamichi Ueta
Faculty Advisor: Mark Mulligan
Event Liaison: Tom Ishida
Recent Activities:
- Bow-wow meets GSD – a presentation & discussion with Momoyo Kaijima (Atelier Bow-wow) / Michael Murphy (MASS) / Daniel D'Oca (Interboro) / MDes Risk & Resiliency students, March. 2016
- Kiyonori Kikutake Book Launch – event lecture + discussion with Ken Tadashi Oshima (Washington U) / Mark Mulligan / Antoine Picon, March. 2016
- Jun Sato meets GSD – review + discussion on student works at GSD by structural engineer Jun Sato (Jun Sato Structural Engineering / Univ. of Tokyo), Oct. 2015
Jewish Students of Design (JewSD) is a non-denominational social group that connects Jewish GSD students to each other and to Jewish events happening elsewhere on Harvard's campus. The group will plan events that celebrate Jewish history and culture with a special emphasis on the contributions of Jewish designers in contemporary cultural discourse and the relationship of our tradition to the designed environment.
Primary Contact: Danielle Kasner
Secondary Contact: Jacqueline Palavicino
Event Liaison: Jacqueline Palavicino
Recent Activities:
- Passover Seder
- Meals with Chabad/Hillel
- Holiday dinners
Korea GSD (KGSD)
Korea GSD (KGSD) is an organization that connects the GSD's environment with the Korean community at home and abroad. The group focuses on two goals: First, it serves as a platform for the greater student body to engage cultural, professional, and academic practices of contemporary Korea. Second, KGSD is the representative group for the Design School and establishes relationships with the larger academic community, including the 500-member Harvard Korea Society, as well as alumni and industry leaders. Korea GSD organizes lectures, events, discussion forums, and interdisciplinary activities in order to accomplish these goals.
Korea GSD is an organization that connects the GSD's environment with the Korean community at home and abroad. The group focuses on two goals: First, it serves as a platform for the greater student body to engage cultural, professional, and academic practices of contemporary Korea. Second, KGSD is the representative group for the Design School and establishes relationships with the larger academic community, including the 500-member Harvard Korea Society, as well as alumni and industry leaders. Korea GSD organizes lectures, events, discussion forums, and interdisciplinary activities in order to accomplish these goals.
Primary Contact: Sim Keebaik
Secondary Contact: Hyunsuk Yoon
Event Liaison: Angela ChoiSu-Yeon
Recent Activities:
- New Students Welcoming Party – Annual gathering event of welcoming new admitted students to the KGSD community. Alumni as well and enrolled students gather to celebrate the incoming students. The event also serves the purpose as a networking platform amongst the students and alumni to share knowledges, insights, and experiences in the design field and also discuss potential business and internship opportunities. Refreshments, alcohol, and snacks were provided.
- Summer Tour – Summer 2016, we gave a tour to professors from Seoul National University. We had a productive conversation about collaboration between GSD students and their university. We are currently in discussion about future projects, and look forward to the new ways this partnership can benefit the whole GSD community.
- Grounded Visionaries Dance Event – Dance performance by KGSD by way of introducing Korean Pop Culture to the Harvard community during the Grounded Visionaries Weekend in the fall of 2014 at the Graduate School of Design.
- KGSD Membership Training – A two day event away from the campus hosted by KGSD to gather all members at the GSD and other schools across Harvard and MIT to plan and discuss on better bringing a platform for the greater student body to engage cultural, professional, and academic practices of contemporary Korea and establishing relationships with the larger academic community, including the 500-member Harvard Korea Society, as well as alumni and industry leaders. The event also laid opportunities to discuss organizing lectures, events, discussion forums, and interdisciplinary activities in the given term.
LandGSD seeks to promote a critical discourse surrounding ideas of land, landscape, and landscape architecture—specifically foregrounding the use of landscape as a theoretical framework for researching, directing, and proposing alternative processes of urbanization. Our activities include conversations, debates, publications, and lectures by visiting academics and practitioners in design and related fields. As a platform for the promotion of student work, LandGSD attempts to deliver the content of its members and collaborators not only to the Graduate School of Design, but to audiences beyond.
Primary Contact: Emmanuel Coloma
Secondary Contact: Ernest Haines
Event Liaison: Emmanuel Coloma
Latin GSD is a student organization that works towards two main goals: the discussion of topics that are currently relevant to design and planning disciplines in Latin American countries, and the integration of GSD Latin students other Latin student groups at Harvard. For this purpose, Latin GSD organizes lectures inviting relevant faculty, practitioners and policy makers from Latin America, discussions and brainstorming sessions as well as social activities that help to integrate and to enhance initiatives and students interested in the Latin American region.
Primary Contact: Juan Santa María
Secondary Contact: Marysol Rivas Brito
Event Liaison: Ruben Segovia
Recent Activities:
- Blurred Territories Symposium
- LatinGSD end of the year BBQ
- The Aesthetics of Memory: Ruins, Visibility and Witnessing lecture
- Archdaily – ArchDaily was founded in March 2008 as the online source of continuous information for a growing community of thousands of architects searching for the latest architectural news: projects, products, events, interviews and competitions among others. Our mission is to improve the quality of life of the next 3 billion people that will move into cities in the next 40 years, by providing inspiration, knowledge and tools to the architects who will have the challenge to design for them.
- Female Voices Latin American Architecture – In Latin America, a new generation of talented women designers is beginning to emerge. To celebrate this remarkable expansion in the field LatinGSD and Women in Design are proud to welcome four Latin-American women that lead their own architecture practices: Tatiana Bilbao, Frida Escobedo, Cazú Zegers, and Carla Juaçaba – in a discussion hosted by GSD Faculty members Anita Berritzbeitia and Mariana Ibañez.
New Geographies
New Geographies has aimed for the past years to position design's agency amidst concerns of scale, infrastructure, ecology, and globalization. Currently, the NG journal is particularly concerned with the apparent disjunction between processes, flows, and networks, and their geographical imprints, whether designed or simply inherited in the physical organization of territories. As the only internationally distributed GSD publication produced by GSD students, the New Geographies journal aims to incorporate more GSD students' voices and designs into its panel of contributions. The New Geographies Student Group will organize a series of discussions and roundtables at the GSD to increase communication between the editors and the GSD students and will also host the NG07 launch event in the Spring Term. For the first time, the New Geographies project offers a student group as a platform to open the possibility of engaging more actively the GSD community into the content of the journal.
Primary Contact: Daniel Daou
Secondary Contact: Pablo Pérez-Ramos
Faculty Advisor: Gareth Doherty
Event Liaison:Daniel Daou
Upcoming Publishing Activities:
New Geographies, 8 Island – Available 10/17/2016 – New Geographies, 8 proposes an epistemological pulse between, on the one hand, the ultimate loss of the exterior implied in planetary upscaling of territorial interpretations (toward an idea of the world as a whole) and, on the other hand, the need to rearrange new boundaries in an environment viewed through the process-oriented lens of ecology. An "atlas" of islands, New Geographies, 8 explores the new limits of islandness and gathers examples to reassert its relevance for design disciplines.
On the second floor behind Piper is Newswall. All GSD students and student groups are invited to submit proposals for exhibitions and displays, which run for one-and-one-half months. Contact us!
Primary Contact: Matthew Allen
Staff Advisor: Dan Borelli
Recent Activities:
- 'Tell me about a Rhino command.' Software and Architecture Culture
- A Conference of Galactic Delights
- Raw Materials
Open Letters
Open Letters is a bi-weekly experimental literary journal whose fundamental purpose is to stimulate earnest, personal and thoughtful conversation about architecture through the publication of first-person correspondence. Each print issue will present one open letter (i.e. addressed to a particular party, but intended for publication)—or a response to a previous issue—that focuses on a specific topic related to the built environment. OL editorial staff will accept submissions from GSD students, faculty and staff, but also from correspondents outside the Design School. We enthusiastically encourage liberal interpretations of the submission framework and welcome a variety of media—so long as it can be placed in a No. 10 envelope.
Primary Contact: LeeAnn Suen
Secondary Contact: Ellen Epley
Event Liaison: Davis Owen
Recent Activities:
- archiveACCESS – Open Letters is committed to rediscovering and re-defining the relevance of print publication to design discourse and production. To that end, Open Letters collaborates closely with the Harvard Art Museums and the Frances Loeb Library Special Collections archives to provide GSD students with opportunities to discover the prints, publications, letters, and other unique works held within the Harvard collections. Open Letters organizes viewings, classes, and publication of these works throughout the school year.
- SUBMIT – Open Letters is always accepting submissions at firstname.lastname@example.com. Submissions are reviewed on a rolling basis by the editorial team, and most letters will undergo a substantial collaborative editing process between writers and editors to maintain consistent standards and accessibility for our readers. That said, our philosophy is based on providing a forum for direct, personal communication between people thinking about architecture and design. Please see our submission guidelines on our website.
- paperPARTY – Along with backpocket projects and Very Vary Veri, Open Letters organizes joint celebrations of print periodically throughout the year.
Other Pedagogies
Why do we teach design like we do? Where does our pedagogy come from? How did they used to teach it? How do they teach it over there? What about our hands/hearts/bodies? How will we teach it in the future? Other Pedagogies focuses on teaching and learning in design. We seek answers to these questions, to uncover hidden curriculum, to bring in the Other to make a better whole. We'll begin our inaugural year with the curation of a lecture series, a reading group, and explorations of embodied pedagogies a la Franz Erhard Walther, Augusto Boal, and Anne Tyng.
Primary Contact: Bryan Ortega-Welch
Secondary Contact: Isabel Strauss
Event Liaison: Bryan Ortega-Welch
Project Link
PROJECT LINK is a student-run organization at the Harvard Graduate School of Design whose goals are to expand awareness and interest in design by offering introductory workshops and lessons in design to Boston Area youth. The program strives to foster the development of a broad range of design skills and to put students on track for exploring their creative ideas at the collegiate level. The goal of the program is to cultivate greater diversity in the next generation of designers in order to expand the scope and influence of the profession itself.
Primary Contact: Vaughn Horn
Secondary Contact: Emily Blair
Event Liaison: Vaughn Horn
Recent Activities:
- Design Carnival – We sponsor a free workshop in Piper Auditorium that serves as a creative exploration into the world of making. We invite students to join Project Link volunteers in a series of multi-disciplinary design stations, introducing concepts such as prototyping, 3D printing, animation and model building. Everything the students make is theirs to keep. All high school students are welcome to participate, and encouraged to apply to the summer program.
- Link Lite and Lego Workshop – In order to help recruit for the Project Link summer program, during the fall we invite high school students to develop a broad range of design skills that will put them on track to explore architecture and the allied design fields at the collegiate level and beyond. For the Lego Workshop, interested students and their parents will be able to participate in a valuable design thinking learning experience. GSD students serve as instructors to deliver lectures, computer training, workshops, and field trips.
- On-site recruiting at local high schools – Preview activities led by volunteer GSD student instructors with students at Boston area high schools aimed to recruit students for summer Project Link class during the months of March-April-May 2014. Projected attendance is typically 2-3 GSD volunteers per campus visit. The high school student participation varies. Past recruitment activities include making collages, Lego-based design, and Adobe creative suite exercises.
Queers in Design (QiD)
Queers in Design aims to uplift the practices, voices, and stories of LGBTQ-identified designers, and to make visible the intersections of our academic/professional practices and the lived experiences of LGBTQ communities. The group aims to dismantle, interrogate, and provoke change in spaces that exclude certain voices, while also seeking to create supportive and vibrant social spaces for our communities. QiD is inclusive of all LGBTQ-identified folks and allies, and we are open to all forms of participation– from attending and planning happy hours, a lecture series, or Queers&Dogs, to other more academic or advocacy-focused projects. We especially welcome all new members to help shape the direction and goals of Queers in Design at the GSD.
Primary Contact: Sarah Leitson
Secondary Contact: Andrew Stokols
Event Liaison: Andrew Stokols
Recent Activities:
- 2016 LGBTQ Conference // Campus Wide – Collaborated with other student groups to create the Harvard-wide Conference across graduate schools and the college.
- Fall Fundraiser // Campus Wide – Having been in communication with various LGBTQ groups across campus, it was both in our interest to create an atmosphere for people to come together as well as fundraise in support of future panels and lectures. It was wonderful to share the space and socialize with other disciplines. Those in attendance spoke of the event as a welcoming, safe, and supportive environment that was camaraderic and altogether, the most fun they've had at a Harvard event. It generated a lot of great conversations and connections among Harvard groups. It's been the group's work to bring together the larger campus.
- Queer 'N' Dogs // GSDrag – We spend the latter semester organizing this event. We get to welcome the admitted students while expressing the importance of identity and expression.
Real Estate Development (RED) Club
The Real Estate Development (RED) Club at the GSD is a student organization that provides students with an interest in real estate with the resources to further their knowledge of and pursue careers in the real estate industry. In addition, the RED Club seeks to establish and foster a strong real estate community between the GSD, alumni, other academic institutions and the global real estate network. The Club accomplishes its mission through a variety of events such as its speaker series, organized networking events with other real estate clubs and national organizations, global real estate specific treks and local site visits, and skill-building training sessions.
Primary Contact: Andrew Kern
Secondary Contact: Georgios Avramides
Event Liaison: Carlotta Weller
Recent Activities:
- The Real Estate Weekend at Harvard, in conjunction with the HBS RE Club.
- Field Treks to New York, San Francisco, Miami (in conjunction with HBS RE Club), Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing (in conjunction with AREA)
- Panel discussions with industry experts, including "The Architect as Developer"and "Re-Designing Real Estate"
Spain GSD
Spain GSD is a student group based at the GSD, who aims to promote the work of Spanish scholars, architects, planners, and institutions, within the Harvard Community and beyond. The group organizes lectures by Spanish emergent and consolidated architects and scholars, site visits to Spanish-designed architecture in the area, and social gatherings in order to give visibility and bring to forth the challenges and successes of the country in the architecture and planning fields, but also in the social and economical arena addressing contemporary debates. The group also functions as a platform for new discourses and possibilities within the Spanish context to be heard by a diverse international community. The objective is to create an enriching dialogue and exchange, that could lead to innovation and a better understanding of the Spanish culture in North America.
Primary Contact: Javier Ors-Ausin
Secondary Contact: Francisco Alarco
Faculty Advisor: Iñaki Abalos
Event Liaison: Ana Mayorl
Recent Activities:
- Documentary Screening (March 29th, 2016) "Sert, legacy at Harvard" Screening of the documentary "Josep Lluis Sert, a Nomadic Dream" (by Pablo Bujosa, 2013) and Panel Discussion: Professor Rafael Moneo (Josep Lluis Sert Professor in Architecture and Former Chair of the Department of Architecture, 1985-1990); Alex Krieger (Professor in Practice of Urban Design and Former Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, 1998-2004, 2006-2007) and Professor Iñaki Ábalos (Chair of the Department of Architecture and Professor In Residence)
- Lecture by Eduardo Prieto (April 20, 2016) "An Aesthetic of Energy? Mulling over Sustainability". Professor Eduardo Prieto discusses the currents now being explored by 'energy aesthetics' and draws attention to the risks of succumbing to a new kind of functionalism, an environmental one. Prieto was a Visiting Scholar GSD Spring 2016.
- Lecture by Vicente Muñoz-Reja (April 13, 2016) "Space and Ground" By asserting that space grounds beings, is philosophy offering a sufficient account of what we actually do in space when we de¬sign, when we construct, and build? What sort of dialogue is to be established between philosophy and spatial practices and disciplines, from geometry to urban planning, from industrial design to architecture? How do the¬se practices relate to space and ground? Muñoz-Reja is a professor of Philosophy at Boston College.
- Tour + Screening: Sert's Legacy at Harvard – Josep Lluis Sert (Barcelona, 1902-1983), former Dean of the Graduate School of Design from 1953 to 1969, was one of the most important figures in the history of the school. The activity consisted in visiting three representative buildings – the 1973 Science Center (educational), the 1965 Holyoke Center (office and services) , and Peabody Terrace (residential) built between 1962 and 1964. The event finished with the screening of the documentary "A Nomadic Dream" –introduced by Pablo Bujosa, director of the documentary– at the Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard.
- Lecture: Coastal Resilience by Miriam Garcia – The Galician Coastal Management Plan explores a new methodological landscape approach and proposing adaptive and anticipatory planning, and elaborating strategies for the protection and planning of sustainable growth of the coastal region. It challenges traditional urban planning approaches and proposes an alternative reading of the landscape as a system of superimposed dynamics requiring a comprehensive and holistic approach based on planning for coastal resiliency by critically reflecting on the actual cultural and political meaning of landscape as an infrastructure. Miriam García García is an Urban planner and Landscape Architect.
- Lecture: Studio Banana – Key Kawamura (AA Dip) and Ali Ganjavian (RCA) founded Studio Banana in 2007 out of a garage, it now has offices in Great Britain, Switzerland and Spain. The ethos behind this multidisciplinary creative platform is lots of playfulness and radical collaboration at the fringe of disciplines. Most famously known for their creation Ostrich Pillow, they have lectured and their work has been exhibited and published widely (MoMA New York, Guggenheim Bilbao, Stanford University, Skolkovo School of Management Moscow, Tokyo Designers' Week).
TechGSD represents the contingent of the student body that is interested in or currently utilizing new technologies to discover uncharted realms of the design field. Our goal is to support the progression of digital design skills, tools, and theory by providing more exposure to current student projects and facilitating greater opportunities for knowledge sharing. Topics of interest include digital fabrication, programming, visualization, projection, video games, and many more of which we will seek industry professionals that are willing to share their insights through talks and lectures. We also plan to initiate a group wide collaborative project which will engage with several of these topics to produce a finished product that may be enjoyed by the entirety of the student body.
Primary Contact: Nono Martinez Alonso
Secondary Contact: Qi Xiong
Faculty Advisor: Allen Sayegh
Event Liaison: Qi Xiong
Recent Activities:
- Tech Poetics co-hosted with Code Without Frontiers
- Dynamic Worlds: Virtual and Robotic Design Futures – A Lecture
- Co-Hosted Beer and Dogs with Student Forum / Video Game GSD / Code Without Frontiers
Time Matters
Which is the role of architects as curators of a world continuously in flux? This student group is targeted to the GSD community increasingly interested in contemporary architectural conservation discussions and practices. Born as an antidote against the usually neglected theme of the pass of time in architecture, this group will gather students work ranging from theoretical writings to design projects and installations, that addresses the relationship of architecture and time. It will produce an annual publication that accounts for both designers' and theoretician's efforts to respond to the so called 4th dimension of architecture. The objective is to connect students with similar interest and to give visibility to all conservation-related work currently developed in a fragmented or disconnected fashion throughout the different academic programs offered at the GSD.
Primary Contact: Natalia Escobar Castrillon
Secondary Contact: Javier Ors
Event Liaison: Natalia Escobar Castrillon
Recent Activities:
- Publication: Critical Conservation Frameworks
Travel GSD
TravelGSD aims to foster a deeper understanding of architecture, landscape architecture and urban design by providing first hand experiential opportunities outside the gates of Harvard. In doing so, it aspires to enhance the quality of student life at the GSD and provide a healthy outlet to the high stress environment of Gund Hall.
Primary Contact: Chris Grenga
Secondary Contact: Matt Rosen
Event Liaison: Chris Grenga
Recent Activities:
- Apple Picking in Western Massachusetts – In the fall of 2015, we took a group to enjoy one of the most traditional autumnal delights of New England.
- TravelGSD Annual SkiTrip – TravelGSD's second annual Ski Trip was a very successful trip in the mountains of Vermont. We enjoyed the cabin, making food together, the beautiful scenery, and the ski slopes. The Ski Trip has been a very successful event for us to bring people from different programs and years in school to meet and share an amazing trip. This is the largest event for TravelGSD each year with the highest costs and most attendees.
- Gropius House – We took a private behind the scenes tour of the Gropius House. It was a good opportunity for people who had never been to go or for individuals who did not have access to a car to get there. This is a medium size event for us that takes a small amount of planning and a smaller group of students usually attend.
- Wine and Cheese at MFA – At the end of the year with a group of students we went to MFA as a way to say farewell. We enjoyed the exhibitions and topped it off with some wine and cheese in the courtyard.
Urban Metabolism Student Group
In recent years the concept of metabolism has increasingly been mobilized in a diverse range of debates as a means to analyse and theorize the city. Generally, these debates coincide with the need to provide several analytic frameworks and methodologies to understand urbanization as a process, with particular emphasis on the relations between biophysical and social processes. The re-emergence of this concept in debates of contemporary urbanism raises a set of questions and contradictions worth to debate, and provokes the necessary excavation of its design implications. Under this premise, the urban metabolism student group at the GSD plans to organize a series of conferences and associated social events with key scholars writing and discussing around this concept.
Primary Contact: Daniel Ibañez
Secondary Contact: Pablo Perez Ramos
Faculty Advisor: Neil Brenner
Event Liaison: Daniel Ibañez
Recent Activities:
- "Capitalism in the Web of Life" Lecture by Jason Moore.
- From Virtual to Real. Lecture by Daniel Fraile. This lecture explored the dynamics of contemporary practice in African contexts. Derived by the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis, Arquivio Arquitectura, along with many other Spanish architecture practices, turned its focus and geography of practice toward Africa. Today, seven years after, Daniel Fraile will report on the opportunities and challenges of architectural practice there though a series of projects covering its entire process, "from virtual to real". This metabolic shift on the geographies and territories of practice is of great value for designers today.
- Suspicious Biophilia. Lecture by Izaskun Chinchilla. The notion of 'biophilia' has been recently addressed by several authors in the field of architectural design. Biophilic spaces and objects, are supposed to connect with natural preferences of humans, determined by their physiology. These preferences include natural light, vegetation, a particular range of materials, specific color arrangements and spatial conditions reminding natural landscapes. A more sophisticated definition of biophilia is deeply informed by perception, psychology or social studies.
- Projective Views on Urban Metabolism- DDes 2014 Conference. In the last two decades, the concept of urban metabolism, aiming to grasp the continuous processes of energy, material and population exchange within and between cities and their extensive hinterlands, has been subject of both extensive empirical research and, increasingly, critical discussion within the social and natural sciences. However, these interdisciplinary challenges have not yet been met with a synthetic response from the design disciplines. The goals of this one-day conference are, through the lens of urban metabolism, to: generally reassess the planetary rescaling of contemporary urbanization processes; unpack the transformation of spatial forms and structures and subsequently, the emergence of new operative territories for design; explore the agency of design in confronting these challenges. This conference has been instrumental to set up the basis for the contemporary design approach to Urban Metabolism.
UX GSD is a group at the GSD for students interested in User Experience/Interaction Design. Its aim is two-fold: first is to increase the awareness and understanding of UX as an emerging and important aspect of the design field by hosting a series of workshops; second is to leverage expertise and foster a network by bringing professors, experts and previous graduates from academia and industries to lecture, discuss or debate on UX design.
Primary Contact: Yujie Hong
Secondary Contact: Yuan Mu
Event Liaison: Yujie Hong
Recent Activities:
Better Design through Better Data
- Conversation with Senior Interface Designer at Blizzard
- Envisioning the Future of Architectural Design with Virtual Reality
In an effort to keep students outside of Gund, we are taking over the streets of Cambridge in preparation for the first annual Cambridge Half Marathon. Our group is designed to encourage students to hit the pavements and interact with both the built environment and each other in manner that incites a new understanding of the community that we live in.
Primary Contact: Howaida Kamel
Secondary Contact: Jorge Silva
Event Liaison: Andrew Alesbury
VideoGame GSD
Video Game GSD is a student group dedicated to bring the secret and public gamers of GSD together. We host tournaments, invite local indie developers to beta test, and have a game jam where we design our own game. As a group we will continue to investigate and develop discourse on the impact of immersive technology on architecture design and the profession.
Primary Contact: Bradley Silling
Recent Activities:
- Sharing – PLAYlist is a weekly segment brought to you by VideoGameGSD. Each week we will present you with a set of games that are free to play in your browser! We hope to brighten your day just a little bit and give you a slice of joy when it's 3am and you need a break. The selection of games are both retro and experimental, trying to emphasize the breadth of the medium. For a selection of games, visit the tumblr.
Women in Design (WiD)
Women in Design is committed to advancing gender equity in and through design. Led by women, but open to all, Women in Design works to make the design field more equitable and open in light of the historic under-representation of women in recognized leadership roles as well as design's critical need for diversity, collaboration, care, and re-centering marginalized voices. Women in Design organizes around three core objectives: (1) nurturing a supportive community of care on campus, (2) creating opportunities for students' personal and professional development, and (3) public advocacy for systemic change towards gender equity.
Primary Contact: Adria Boynton
Secondary Contact: Ashley Thompson
Tertiary Contact: Alexandra Mei
Event Liaison: Maia Peck
Recent Activities:
- International Women's Day – In recognition of International Women's Day, Women in Design organized a day of events celebrating gender equity. The program included a reception in the Loeb Library, a WiD photobooth, and a panel conversation on "Radical Practice," included as part of the GSD's public lecture series. Boston's Chief Resilience Officer Atyia Martin, architect Julia King, public curator Susan Surface, and sculptor Diana Al-Hadid presented their work and discussed how they challenge, innovate, and develop radical alternatives to the dominant modes and methods of their fields.
- Lineage Project – The WiD Lineage Project is an ongoing effort to document the contributions that female GSD alumnae have made to design. The lineage work allows current GSD students to interview alumnae about their experiences both in school and in the workplace. These meetings help build a depository of lessons learned and best practices, while also fostering informal networking and mentorship opportunities.
- Workshops and Visits – WiD hosts a series of small get-togethers throughout the semester, ranging from tea with visionary practitioners like Denise Scott Brown to intimate brunches with GSD professors. The group also organizes visits to nearby projects like the Lawn on D in South Boston, local design offices, and active construction sites. Other WiD events include workshops covering everything from small business practices to self-care, including a recent "Design for Healing Spaces" session with herbalist Adamu Utah.
Working GSD
Working GSD seeks to provide a presence at the school as a resource and advocacy platform for students who have a diversity of experience based on their financial need. The organization works on problems at a variety of scales, including the institutional (the GSD), the professional (the world of practice), and the broader community (larger issues of student debt). Working GSD remains an inclusive group which works towards positive and practical solutions and generates awareness of issues without separating itself from the realities and limitations of the school and practice, or from those who may not identify as being in financial need. We seek to create an open and productive dialog in the school surrounding the problems identified within the three scales and work through design thinking to confront financial issues as they are embedded in cultural biases, labor organization, and the professional status quo.
This group is currently seeking new leadership, contact firstname.lastname@example.com to inquire.
Recent Activities:
- How? I: The Architecture Lobby lecture + discussion – Part 1 of our series "How? The Ethics of Making" brings the Architecture Lobby into the walls of Gund. Featuring Peggy Deamer, Assistant Dean of the Yale School of Architecture and principal at Deamer Studio; Quillian Riano, principal at DSGN AGNC; and Manuel Schvartzberg, founder of Hunter + Gatherer. Together they talked to a packed room about the value of labor in architectural education and practice, the prospect of an architect's 'union,' design activism, and more.
- Stacks + Stats II: Pancake Breakfast and Surveyathon – Our annual proposition to Gund: You tell us about yourself, your finances, your work-life balance, etc. (all anonymously of course!), and we'll give you pancakes. For free. Pancakes for all. Most calories for the least dough. Yum.
- How? II: Sanda Iliescu of UVA + discussion – Part 2 of "How? The Ethics of Making" brought Sanda Iliescu, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Studio Art at UVA, into conversation with the GSD's Grace La and Jay Wickersham. Professor Iliescu presented her works which celebrate labor and collaboration, and treat making and material as first and essential pieces of design thinking. The conversation following centered on questions of institutional and educational biases, as well as ethics in design education. Partnering with Women in Design, there was a more intimate follow-up breakfast, which got to the heart of many of these institutional bias issues. Further, it provided insight into Sanda's methods for combating such biases in the academy.
xDesign Club
xDesign is a collaborative organization between groups at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Harvard Business School and other graduate school and organizations from across the Harvard community. It aims to leverage expertise within the University by bringing together creative thinkers, design luminaries, professors, experts from various background, and students to engage, debate and reinterpret the design process for a selected subject.
Primary Contact: Enoch Wong
Secondary Contact: Rayana Hossain
Event Liaison: Caroline Chao
Recent Activities:
- HarvardxDesign Conference – The Harvard xDesign Conference is the university's annual exploration of all things design. Launched in 2012, the conference is a collaborative effort between groups at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Harvard Business School, and Harvard College. The event brings together creative thinkers, design luminaries, experts from a variety of backgrounds, professors, and students to engage in and reinterpret the design process for a selected subject. In 2014, the conference was attended by over 500 participants, including industry leaders, professionals, and students from a number of schools.
- xDesign Beer 'n' Dogs – Typically held in the fall, the xDesign Beer 'n' Dogs serves as a way to advertise the group to the student body as a whole. Additionally this past year we used the Beer 'n' Dogs to collect the names of 'dream' speakers people had outside the discipline. This helped to inspire future names we can reach out to as a club.
- Spring Speaker – We host a larger name speaker in the Spring for a xDesign sponsored lecture. This past year we had the Head of Design for Ford Motor Company, Moray Callum. He spoke about car design and its connection to the city. Additionally we followed this up with a panel discussion with professors from MIT and the GSD.
YogaGSD is a free wellness activity for all GSD students. Elizabeth Brown, a certified yoga instructor from Karma Yoga Studios in Cambridge, teaches 1 hour classes on Mondays and Wednesdays at the GSD. Elizabeth has been teaching yogaGSD since its inception, and knows the regulars very well. All levels, from beginners to experienced, are welcome. We have two spare mats for those that do not own one or left theirs at home.
Primary Contact: Anna Curtis-Heald
Recent Activities:
- Yoga GSD offers two yoga sessions each week with a professional yoga instructor. Classes are free for all GSD students.