Month: February 2019

Seok Min Yeo

Seok Min Yeo is a Korean landscape urbanist and research associate at the Office for Urbanization. Yeo completed his MLA at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and his B.Arch at Syracuse University School of Architecture. Yeo’s work explores techniques of understanding and translating ecological phenomena into design methods, with a special interest in the relationship of the sun and the built form of the city. Before coming to Harvard, he held design positions at Payette and Safdie Architects.

Jeffrey S. Nesbit

Jeffrey S. Nesbit is an American architect, urbanist, and postdoctoral research fellow in the Office for Urbanization. His research focuses on processes of urbanization, infrastructure, and the defense landscape. Currently, Nesbit is studying the 20th century spaceport launch complex at the intersection of architecture, aerospace history, and the rise of “technical lands.” He has written several journal articles and book chapters on infrastructure, urbanization, and the history of technology, and is co-editor of Chasing the City: Models for Extra-Urban Investigations (Routledge, 2018), Rio de Janeiro: Urban Expansion and Environment (Routledge, 2019), and New Geographies 11 Extraterrestrial (Actar, 2019).

Boya Zhang

Boya Zhang is a Chinese architect and research associate in the Office for Urbanization. Zhang completed his MArch II at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and holds his MArch degree and BArch degree with Distinction from Tsinghua University. Zhang’s research interests focus on the interactions between urban form and its environs shaped by cultural and political forces. Prior to joining the Office, he worked for architectural offices in Beijing, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Boston.

Research Assistants

Celina Abba, MLA ’23

Christopher Ball, MAUD ’23

Fabiana Casale, MLA, MDes ’22

Olani Ewunnet, MDes ’22

Slide Kelly, MLA, MDes ’24

Angela Moreno-Long, MLA ’22

Arty Vartanyan, MLA, MAUD ’23

GSD Faculty

Preston Scott Cohen, Gerald M. McCue Professor in Architecture

Timothy Dekker, Lecturer in Landscape Architecture

Jill Desimini, Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture

Gareth Doherty, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Senior Research Associate

Ann Forsyth, Professor of Urban Planning, Director of the Master in Urban Planning Program

Jerold Kayden, Frank Backus Williams Professor of Urban Planning and Design

Ali Malkawi, Professor of Architectural Technology and Founding Director of the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities

David Moreno-Mateos, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture

Richard Peiser, Michael D. Spear Professor of Real Estate Development

Chris Reed, Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture

Holly W. Samuelson, Assistant Professor of Architecture

Andres Sevtsuk, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning

Bing Wang, Assistant Professor in Practice of Real Estate and the Built Environment

Amy Whitesides, Design Critic in Landscape Architecture

Andrew Witt, Assistant Professor in Practice of Architecture

External Faculty

Rosetta Elkin, Academic Director of Landscape Architecture, Pratt Institute

Andrew Fox, Professor, North Carolina State University and Co-Director of Coastal Dynamics Design Lab

Teresa Gali-Izard, Chair of Landscape Architecture, ETH Zurich

Jesse M. Keenan, Associate Professor of Real Estate, Tulane University

Maggie Tsang, Wortham Fellow, Rice University

Kongjian Yu, Professor of Landscape Architecture, Peking University

Partners

Michael Rock / 2 × 4, New York

Eric Rodenbeck / Stamen, San Francisco

Eric de Broche des Combes / Luxigon, Paris

Alumni

Pedro Aparicio, Research Associate

Aziz Barbar, Research Associate

Christina Burkot, Administrator

Bert deJonghe, Research Assistant

Sara Favargiotti, Visiting Scholar

Francesca Romana Forlini, Research Assistant

Mariano Gomez-Luque, Research Fellow

Mark Heller, Research Assistant

Camila Huber Horta Barbosa, Research Assistant

Daniel Ibañez, Research Fellow

Gia Jung, Research Assistant

Amir Karimpour, Research Assistant

Mingyu Kim, Research Associate

Sue Kim, Research Associate

Helen Kongsgaard, Research Associate

Christian Lavista, Research Assistant

Jaewon Lee, Research Assistant

Ting Liang, Research Assistant

Xiuzheng Li, Research Associate

Xun Liu, Research Associate

Jiangpu Meng, Research Assistant

Chris Merritt, Research Assistant

Matthew Moffitt, Research Assistant

Sam Naylor, Research Assistant

Javier Ors-Austin, Research Assistant

Mercedes Peralta, Research Associate

Fletcher Phillips, Research Assistant

Daniel Quesada Lombó, Research Associate

Lane Raffaldini Rubin, Research Assistant

Christopher Reznich, Research Assistant

Luciana Saboia, Visiting Scholar

Ruben Segovia, Research Associate

Sudeshna Sen, Research Assistant

Dana Shaikh Solaiman, Research Assistant

Soo Ran Shin, Research Assistant

Joshua Stevens, Research Assistant

Isabel Strauss, Research Assistant

Irene Toselli, Visiting Scholar

Maggie Tsang, Research Assistant

Ximena de Villafranca, Research Assistant

Abbey Wallace, Research Assistant

Zhaodi Wang, Research Assistant

Zishen Wen, Research Assistant

Lindsay Woodson, Research Assistant

Weijia Wu, Research Assistant

Sofia Xanthakou, Research Assistant

Jessy Yang, Research Associate

Erin Yook, Research Assistant

Haoyu Zhao, Research Assistant

Xin Zhong, Research Assistant

Common Frameworks

“We believe passionately that those cities that are positioned to excel in this time of global change are pursuing broad, integrated strategies to tap hidden value, celebrate ecology and culture, attract people and investment and overcome financial and operational inefficiencies to define success.” – AECOM

common-frameworks
The Harvard GSD AECOM Project on China is a three-year research and design project premised on two fundamental ambitions: recuperating an idea of the city and pursuing alternative forms of urbanization in response to the challenges posed by the developmental city in China. The former treats the project of the city as a cultural, political, and aesthetic act; the latter views the city as a site for urbanization, articulated through architecture, landscape, and infrastructure. This endeavor is analytical and propositional in equal measure.

Each year, the Project on China focuses on a theoretical problem and practical challenge posed by the model of the developmental city in China, using a particular city as an exemplar. The first year focuses on the problem of the megaplot, the basic planning unit for rapid and speculative urbanization, using Xiamen as a case study. The second year investigates the challenges faced by cities in city-regions and the effects of cross-border urbanization, with Macau as the paradigm. The third year examines the status of the countryside in the context of state-driven initiatives to urbanize rural areas, with a focus on existing villages and in-progress new agricultural towns.

Project Team: Christopher C.M. Lee (PI), Mohsen Mostafavi, Simon Whittle, Peter G. Rowe, Rahul Mehrotra, Piper Gaubatz, and Jianfei Zhu.