Archinect - News

Architect and researcher Sekou Cooke joins the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute as a 2021-2022 fellow

2021-06-15T20:15:00-04:00

Jamaican-born architect, researcher, educator, and curator Sekou Cooke is named a W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellow. The fellowship is part of the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University.

"The W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellowship program invites scholars, artists, public intellectuals, and activists across the humanities and social sciences to pursue independent projects encompassing Africa and its diasporas. Fellows arrive from the U.S., Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe to be in residence at the Hutchins Center for either a full academic year or one semester."

The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research shares Cooke will be "in residence as a Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year," where he will work on his project 3D Turntables Remix: The Architectural Technology of Hip-Hop.

Cooke joins a cohort of fifteen other research fellows.

"As architec...

GSD-led team is fabricating PPE for Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital

2020-04-10T14:25:00-04:00

As design communities around the country come together to help fabricate new stockpiles of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), a team at Harvard University is undertaking its own PPE manufacturing operation.

Representatives from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health have pooled resources, production capabilities, and labor to produce over 1,000 face shields and 750 visors so far.

View of GSD's custom face mask visors. Image courtesy of Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

A team led by Stephen Ervin, GSD Assistant Dean for Information Technology, and Chris Hansen, the GSD's 3-D Fabrication Specialist, is guiding efforts at the GSD, where the school's 3-D printers and laser-cutting equipment is being put to work fabricating PPE.

According to information provided ...

GSD Dean Sarah Whiting to temporarily “step back” from duties for cancer treatment

2020-04-06T14:11:00-04:00

Sarah M. Whiting, the new dean at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, has announced that she will be stepping back from her administrative duties temporarily in order to undergo cancer treatment.

Previously on Archinect: “Deans List: Sarah Whiting on Taking The Helm of Harvard's Graduate School of Design.” Sarah M. Whiting. Image courtesy of Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer.

In a letter from Whiting published by Harvard Magazine, the dean writes that she was recently diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and that she “will be taking a partial step back from my daily dean-related responsibilities so that I can begin treatment,” adding, “Fortunately, Harvard and the Boston area are home to some of the finest health care providers in the world, and so I am in good hands.”

While Whiting is undergoing treatment, GSD Professor of Urban Design and Planning Rahul Mehrotra will act as “Dean Designate” while Professor of Landscape Architecture and Technology Niall K...

Rahul Mehrotra selected to lead GSD's Department of Urban Planning and Design

2020-02-20T12:42:00-05:00

The Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) has named architect and academic Rahul Mehrotra as the new Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the school.

Mehrotra is also being named to the position of John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization. Mehrotra joined GSD as a faculty member back in 2010 and served until 2015 in the same position he is being elevated to once again. At that point, Mehrotra shifted to become the Director of the Master of Architecture in Urban Design Degree Program and Co-Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture program. NBBJ principal architect and academic Alex Krieger is currently serving as the Interim Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design; He took over the position from Diane Davis in 2017.

Mehrotra is the founder and principal of RMA Architects, a Boston and Mumbai-based firm that works cross a variety of project types, including speculative work. The practice helped craft a conservation plan...

The Harvard GSD unveils restored Richard Rogers’ Wimbledon House in London

2017-06-28T13:25:00-04:00

Wimbledon house in London, UK, designed by Lord Rogers in 1968, was gifted to Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2015 to provide both a residence for the Richard Rogers Fellowship, and GSD's new venue for lectures, symposia, and other events. Restored by British architect Philip Gumuchdjian and landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan since 2015, the house premiered yesterday, on June 27.

Philip Gumuchdjian, commented “Parkside is not just an iconic, flexible machine for living, nor simply a historic experimental building that foretold the architect’s future work; it was also a home with a unique memory, patina, and aura. Conserving these qualities within a wholly refurbished twenty-first-century building tailored to Harvard’s new use was our aim and hopefully the achievement of the team’s work.”

Richard Rogers’s Wimbledon House. Photograph by Iwan Baan. Courtesy of Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, whom re-designed the garden context from the street front...

Michael Hays to teach free online course through Harvard

2017-01-20T17:42:00-05:00

The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) has announced that K. Michael Hays will offer a free online course starting on February 28. The course will be part of the Harvard EdX platform, which facilitates MOOC’s, or Massive Open Online Courses.

Entitled “The Architectural Imagination”, the course will look at “some of history’s most important examples that show how architecture engages, mediates, and expresses a culture’s complex aspirations.”

Alongside Hays, Erika Naginski and Antoine Picon will help teach the course.

Harvard GSD launches new fellowship in partnership with Perkins+Will to support students of color

2016-11-04T15:32:00-04:00

Architecture is often criticized for its lack of diversity, and many feel that education is a key way to address the issue for the future. In that vein, Harvard's GSD announced yesterday the establishment of the Philip Freelon Fellowship Fund, designed to "provide expanded academic opportunities to African American and other under-represented architecture and design students at the GSD."

At the announcement, Philip Freelon of Perkins+Will noted the significance of such fellowships in encouraging (and attracting) diversity at the GSD: “As the design profession continues to attract a more diverse talent base, this gift will provide students of color with financial assistance that could make pursuing an advanced degree at the GSD possible. It’s an important step in broadening the GSD’s reach.”

GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi thanked Perkins+Will and Phil Freelon, referring to how “the creativity, dynamism, and success of our GSD community are enriched by and even contingent on an increasingly ...

Koolhaas speaks at the GSD: architecture is "clearly dedicated to political correctness"

2016-10-07T13:05:00-04:00

"I see architecture as almost a political work" [...] “We are in a radically divided world” in which “architecture is not dealing with those political issues in a really sophisticated way,” [...] “I think that both the art world and the architecture world … [are] pretty intolerant in terms of engaging” with political worlds beyond Western democracies."

More recent news from Rem and OMA:

Harvard Design Magazine's newest issue, "Run for Cover", probes the relationship between architecture and fear

2016-10-06T12:54:00-04:00

“Can we think our way out of fear? Design our way through dread?” ask the editors of “Run for Cover”, Harvard Design Magazine’s Summer/Spring issue. The 42nd edition of the journal questions the relationship between architecture and fear, troubling the normative expectation for architecture to act as shelter.

After all, architecture already is weaponized, serves as a mechanism for control, a target for attacks, a tool of segregation. This is increasingly true in the “age of terror”, when “we blind ourselves to the regimes of control enacted in the name of safety which ultimately encroach on our civil liberties.”

Run for Cover features writing by Geoff Manaugh, Jennifer Sigler, Interboro Partners, Blair Kamin, and Oliver Wainwright—among many others. You can read select articles online now, or purchase the whole thing for € 18.00.

Archinect has previously included the Harvard Design Magazine in our Screen/Print series, which is an experiment in translating written work on to the screen....

Turn the lights off on the way out: Iñaki Ábalos's keynote at Day 2 of the GSD's Heliomorphism conference

2016-09-19T19:31:00-04:00

Day one of Heliomorphism, the inaugural conference convened by the new research arm of the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Office for Urbanization, ended with Thom Mayne of Morphosis Architects finally breaking through the jargon and superficiality of the topic at hand. The theme of the environment, solar performance along with sustainability were all absorbed and raised to the echelon of where they should exist; as already built in qualities of any project, not a topic or excuse for architectural exuberance. Thom Mayne’s ability to recognize and exploit this only provided further proof of the scale, method, and nature of his work as worthy of his recognition and role as a leader in the discipline.

Sadly, during the second and final day of the conference we found ourselves again forcibly located at the epicenter of Ivy League semantic blurring and Copernican alignments. Day one seemed to have fallen into the shadows of the tone and wording at hand. The day was kicked off with a s...

Editor's Picks #343

2013-11-26T12:22:00-05:00

Archinect inaugurated a new interview series The Deans List. For the first installment, Archinect talked with David Gissen, the Director of Architecture at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

Reflecting on current trends and his own interests for the future of architectural education he reflects "I think lots of architecture schools are interested in working with cities, and with centers of power like a municipal office – some powerful agent that has the ability to transform and legislate the shape of the city. It’s an exciting thing for architecture students to be involved in those forms of power".

While in the latest edition of Showcase; featured Taipei Sales Center by Oyler Wu Collaborative. A somewhat temporary project with limited programmatic needs resulted in "a five-story volume pierced (quite literally) and interconnected by an intricate ribbon of rope, steel, and fabric. The renovation creates an entirely new identity and is suggestive of the modern ...

Harvard Graduate School of Design: Ecological Urbanism App

2012-11-09T13:10:00-05:00

The Ecological Urbanism app adapts content from the GSD’s book of the same name for a tablet. Much more than an ebook, it’s an entirely new way of looking at the information interactively. With the majority of the world’s population expected to live in cities by the year 2050, Ecological Urbanism addresses the expanding practice of sustainable design. A timely evolution of the book, this iPad app visualizes the growing body of discourse surrounding the design and management of cities

2012 Curry Stone Design Prize Winners Announced

2012-10-24T20:46:00-04:00

The Curry Stone Foundation has announced the winners of the 2012 Curry Stone Design Prize. In a departure from previous years, and in honor of the fifth anniversary of the Prize, five winners will share the award equally, each recognized with $25,000 for their work as social design pioneers.

An awards ceremony will take place on November 15, 2012, at Harvard Graduate School of Design, followed the next day with a forum of presentations by the 2012 winners and panel discussions with a curated group of respondents. The awards ceremony and daylong forum are free and open to the public.

Marc Simmons, "Process Performance"

2012-04-06T18:34:00-04:00

With the firm Front, in which he is a Partner, Marc Simmons has collaborated on projects with OMA, Asymptote Architecture, ARO, Beyer Blinder Belle, Gehry Partners, Herzog & De Meuron, Kengo Kuma, KPF, Mack Scogin Merril Elam Architects, Renzo Piano, Sejima + Nishizawa Associates, Steven Holl Architects, Toshiko Mori, and many other architects. His lecture will explore themes in his recent work, including the speculative and experimental potential of the facade specialist.

Via Lian's GSD blog

From the School Blogs: Schmancy new website for the GSD

2011-08-29T14:36:00-04:00

Just a quick note to say that it looks like the GSD's new website, which has been in the works for the past few years, is live! I haven't even looked through it yet, but you can check it out here. The site is designed by Pentagram.

From the School Blogs: Arigatou gozaimasu, Mohsen-sama!

2011-08-27T19:25:22-04:00

Due to the overwhelmingly positive response to this semester’s Paris studio offering, we have made plans to continue the Study Abroad Program in Tokyo for the Spring 2012 term. Toyo Ito will instruct the studio, focusing on the tsunami-hit area of Japan.

From the School Blogs: Gund Hall is Naked

2011-08-22T11:26:00-04:00

Like everyone else who's heading back to school this fall, I'm not yet prepared to let go of summer. There are so many things I wanted to do but haven't yet done! I just need a bit more time. I'm not ready yet!

From the School Blogs: Slow summer...slummer

2011-08-18T12:43:08-04:00

Do you remember when you took driving lessons and the teacher said to be particularly careful about your speed when you're exiting a highway, because you've adjusted to its high speeds? Same thing here, the other way around. And the lazy pace of a summer of glorious unemployment surely also helps, but a walk to the gym, to the river, or to see friends a few blocks away is enough for me at the moment.

From the School Blogs: On Loyalties Divided (re: sacking of Michael Jemtrud at McGill)

2011-06-26T12:03:36-04:00

An institution isn't just a logo, a set of buildings and protocols, and the legal and economic capacity to grant degrees, hire employees, and command public attention. It's not a means to an end—a place where you cough up your time, money, and effort in exchange for other goods, such as credentials or a salary. An institution is built on traditions, community, and relationships built one at a time between the people who make themselves a part of it. It is a family, of sorts.

In the School Blogs: HKGBOS: a collaborative photo project with School Blogger Andreas Viglakis

2011-05-31T14:18:36-04:00

And, well, now I'm in the hospital after a bicycle accident yesterday, waiting for surgery on my foot, ankle, and leg. Luckily I didn't hurt anything else. But you can follow my progress, in all the gory details, over the next few weeks at HKGBOS.

Get well soon Lian!

Live Blog: Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron

2011-05-05T18:10:00-04:00

Jacques Herzog: I don't believe in books on architecture; they're bound to fail and disappear even sooner than architecture...which can last for hundreds of years [before disappearing]. Not that I don't respect people who write books.

New UG Architecture Concentration Planned at GSD

2011-04-23T14:24:09-04:00

Harvard’s Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Graduate School of Design are developing a new undergraduate concentration in architectural studies planned to be offered for the first time in the fall of 2012.

Korean Dance-Off and Cory Booker

2011-04-15T20:10:06-04:00

Korea GSD hosts one of the very best Beer and Dogs* events of the year because they prepare Korean food and a dance performance. This year, the Graduate School of Education (GSE) also sent a group to perform.