Abu Dhabi and Dubai are twin cities. Like twins, casual observers are shocked when they display divergent personalities. Dubai is ‘bling’, Abu Dhabi ‘underrated’. Both cities are notable for being casually obliterated by David Harvey....(Read More)
Sustainable development is a global concern and a major challenge for many nations, especially for developing countries. At the same time, urbanization has become a crucial factor to consider when... ( Read More)
Proliferation of public parks is one of the key defining features of the changing urban fabric of 19th century Istanbul. Most scholarship has interpreted this proliferation merely as a symptom of the Western influenced modernization... (Read More)
The famed Manhattan Grid and its ability to absorb manic heterogeneity emancipates each block into an island of its own identity and ideology, inspiring architectural ecstasy. Conceptual alternatives by the likes of Ferris, Hood, Superstudio,...(Read More)
The public realm is the space where citizens meet with strangers. It is theoretically, the space where anyone can express their opinion, a space where everyone is free. While this may have been the case several decades ago... (Read More)
I lived in Ahmedabad, India for 4 years, working at now Pritzker Laureate Balkrishna Doshi’s office, Vastu Shilpa Consultants. While I was there, the office was designing a plaza in the center of the old city... ( Read More)
Rust belts and innovation centers are in many ways indicative of America’s position within the broader global economy. The development and prosperity brought about by America’s industrial capabilities...(Read More)
This summer we had the opportunity to travel to South Africa on a whirlwind two-week research trip with the Just City Lab and the lab’s founder, Toni L. Griffin. Our mission was twofold: to take the work of the lab global... (Read More)
When architects and urban planners talk about creating democratic spaces, they fall into the trap of immediately talking about the spatial attributes of publicness. But the search for democracy in urban....(Read More)
“Speed replaces distance”. Currently in China, High-Speed Rail is not only a new mode of transport that links cities and regions together but it is also catalyzing a new scope of urbanization.... (Read More)
The evolution of infrastructural networks often catalyzed the progress of modernization. The construction of the modern ideal... (Read More)
What is the dependency of the discipline of urban design on architecture? Is there a necessity to distinguish urban design from architecture?... (Read More)
On a clear spring morning in Taichung, Taiwan I rode with a team of researchers and scientists in a 20-seat bus... (Read More)
Given the complex economic and political situation Venezuela is currently facing, it is critical to start questioning the scenarios produced... (Read More)
Cities are differentiated from their hinterlands by their density and access to work, services, products, entertainment, and... (Read More)
This time last year, I was reading a book called “Design like you give a damn: architectural responses to humanitarian crises” by Architecture for Humanity (AFH). It was interesting to find out that although...(Read More)
What is the agency of designers in addressing complex and far-reaching social issues? With over 65 million displaced people, global forced migration is at the highest levels since World War II. In the face of this crisis...(Read More)
As a Master in Urban Planning student at the GSD I frequently wonder why our discipline pays so little attention to digital space... (Read More)
Last Wednesday, April 4th, 2018 the Harvard Graduate School of Design hosted the presentation of the very first translation into English of Ildefons Cerdà’s fundamental theoretical writing... (Read More)
Just 10 days ago, we released an Open Letter to the Harvard Graduate School of Design community with a simple message... (Read More)
The idea of limits is crucial to contemporary life. Limits bring order and understanding to space, they provide a frame for... (Read More)
In the concluding remarks of Michael Murphy & Alan Ricks paper Beyond Shelter: Architecture and Human Dignity the authors make a definitive plea that the profession of architecture...(Read More)
How can design generate alternate anticipatory strategies that integrate ‘debris reuse’ and ‘community-led recovery’ tactics in disaster-prone rural areas?(Read More)
Let me take a moment to contextualise the terms of preservation and temporality, and position them as an apparatus that contains both the best and the worst of humanity... (Read More)
Bigness does not have history, Bigness does not have theory, Bigness operates without context, Bigness competes with context, Bigness aims to eliminate context... ( Read More)
About ten days ago, for our studio, we were driving toward MassMoca. With research focused on...(Read More)
"The increasing privatization of public space has become one of the leading topics of debate in contemporary cities..." (Read More)
"In preparation for a class presentation about New Urbanism, it was suggested to me to watch a conversation, moderated and organized by Alex Krieger..." (Read More)
"Within the capitalist milieu that has come to define the 21st century, what agency do young designers have, if any, to affect change towards greater urban social justice?..." (Read More)
"At the beginning of our curriculum here in urban design at the GSD, we were asked as a collective group to voice our personal understandings of what constitutes its framework as a pedagogical discipline...." (Read More)
"As the 2018 Winter Olympics come to a close, the watching world will quickly retreat to more routine affairs both at home and abroad, and Pyeongchang will likely fade in our collective memory..." (Read More)
