Harvard Graduate School of Design

10/23/2026

“Living Seams” by Htet Hlaing (MArch I ’26), winner of the 2026 Peter Rice Prize, reimagines architectural construction through living mycelium, proposing a compostable building system capable of growth, adaptation, and material transformation. The project was developed as an individual thesis project at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, advised by Martin Bechthold and Daniel Tish.

Hlaing introduces mycelium as a material strategy for addressing the end-of-life limitations of conventional SIP construction while expanding its new architectural possibilities. The thesis rethinks SIP construction as a time-based material system composed of pregrown mycelium-wood bilayers that are biowelded on site into a compostable assembly.

Buildings are not permanent, yet we continue to construct them as though they are. Contemporary wall assemblies such as light wood framing, CLT, and conventional SIPs rely on tightly bonded layers of membranes, insulation, and petrochemical adhesives to achieve high technical performance. Yet these same assemblies are difficult to repair, nearly impossible to disassemble, and ultimately destined for landfill, embedding disposal into the logic of contemporary construction.

Today’s construction paradigm defines strength as resistance to change, the capacity of a system to remain fixed, stable, and unchanged under load. In biology, strength operates differently. Biological strength is not the refusal of change, but the ability to absorb variation and without failure, to deform, adapt, heal, and remain resilient through transformation. This thesis begins from that distinction, proposing architecture as a constructed ecology rather than a static assembly of fixed layers destined for landfill.

By treating mycelium as both binder and insulation, the thesis proposes a circular building system that reduces waste, labor, and embodied carbon, while rendering growth legible as architectural form over time.

10/22/2026

Corner Shed reinterprets the corner condition of Boston’s North End as a device for public access, circulation, and civic life.

In this project, Udom Ly (MArch I ’29) proposes a mass-timber building organized around two primary halls and a network of new pedestrian connections across the site. Developed in STU 1102: Core 2 with instructor Cara Liberatore, the project uses the neighborhood’s dead-end streets as generators for a staggered architectural geometry of overlapping corners, framed views, and public passage.

Situated within Boston’s North End, the project reinterprets the neighborhood’s corner condition as an urban and architectural device. The design transforms the three dead-end junctions surrounding the site into points of public access that reconnect the block, creating new pedestrian permeability across the site and toward the park. The building form is generated by projecting these dead-end streets into the site, creating a juxtaposition of two square footprints, one rationalized through a grid and the other shifted against it. This staggered, non-platonic condition produces a series of corners ranging from large to small throughout the building, creating moments of porosity, visual overlap, and framed views into the interior space.

The project is organized around two primary halls, a Film Training Center designed for a 15-year lease and a second hall for intermittent and flexible use. Supporting programs are positioned beneath each hall, while public circulation wraps around the elevated volumes and connects the three entrances to Commercial Avenue. Glulam mass timber provides the long-span framework, allowing the halls to remain open and adaptable while reducing embodied carbon. Extruded exterior columns draw inspiration from the site’s existing retaining walls, while a tilted roof responds to Boston’s seasonal solar conditions, diffusing natural light and moderating heat gain.

The resulting porosity positions Corner Shed as civic infrastructure, connecting spaces of production with encounter, access, and public life.

10/14/2026

Cheminée Commune reimagines the apothecary as the center of a civic network for medicinal cultivation, research, and production in Ervy-le-Châtel, France.

In this project, Gillian Hause (MArch II ’26) proposes a passage of architectural interventions connecting medicinal cultivation, research, production, and exchange across the village landscape. Developed in STU 1302 (Fall 2025), taught by Liu Yichun, the project draws from medieval systems of herbal knowledge and communal craft.

Cheminée Commune proposes a medieval passage of alchemical pilgrimage through the meandering rural landscape of Ervy-le-Châtel. The project looks to the apothecary as a precursor to the industrialized pharmaceutical industry, revitalizing a dormant program. Small-scale architectural prototypes engage the existing gardens to support a renewed system of medicinal cultivation, research, and production. This architectural pilgrimage journeys from the medieval garden in the town center toward its final destination at the commercial apothecary. The programs encountered along this passage are tied to medieval ways of life and include an herb bath, alchemical workshop, exhibition hall, researcher housing, roadside hearths, and commercial apothecary. Scientific trial and new methods of medicinal cultivation animate these spaces.

The Merchant Hall is the largest structure within the village. Conceived as a reflection of the medieval guild hall, the civic space allows researchers and herbologists to showcase their craft and production. The twiggy, merchant-stall column recalls the casual and makeshift nature of medieval stalls traditionally used to sell goods, serving as both structure and furniture. These individual columns notch into a larger system of roof beams, producing a field of habitation in which every column becomes a small exhibition station.

Each structure houses its medieval essence of life, forming a larger circuit of medicinal craft and production. Cheminée Commune is a contemporary guild for herbal knowledge: from the medieval potager to the modern apothecary. The incubator binds the garden, the laboratory, and the storefront into a civic metabolism of wellness.

10/07/2026

"Retention Pond/Civic Space?" transforms Boston City Hall Plaza into a civic landscape that responds to the city’s growing vulnerability to extreme stormwater events. In this project, Maria Chen Liang (MLA I ’28) developed the work in STU 1111 (Fall 2025), taught by Pablo Perez-Ramos.

Projected increases in annual flood exceedance highlight the need for public spaces that function both socially and hydrologically. This proposal transforms City Hall Plaza into both a civic gathering space and an active system for water collection, retention, and infiltration. Through contour studies and physical modeling, the design develops a language of slopes and sunken forms that choreograph water flow into three shallow but vast retention pods. These depressions act as retention ponds during major storms, choreographing water flow across the sloping ground. In dry conditions, they support public festivals and demonstrations, allowing the landscape to shift between ecological function and civic use. Permeable brick and stone paving, paired with native plantings such as red maple, little bluestem, switchgrass, and buttonbush, enhance infiltration across the site. Combined, these systems enable the plaza to infiltrate roughly 33% of incoming stormwater. The project transforms flood risk into a visible, educational, and engaging public experience, making climate resilience a central feature of Boston's urban civic landscape.

10/05/2026

🚨 GSD applications are open now for the 2027-2028 school year!

📆 Applications for all programs (MArch, MLA, MUP, MAUD, MLAUD, MRE, MDes, MDE, DDes) are due January 5, 2027.

🔗 For more information, go to our link in bio and choose "Admissions".

You can also join us at one of our Virtual Open Houses, which offer an excellent opportunity for prospective students and applicants to learn more about your program of interest and life at the GSD directly from faculty. We invite you to register for one or more of the open houses to explore any programs that may be of interest.

Oct. 28, 2026 10-11:30 a.m.
Master in Design Engineering

Oct. 29, 2026 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
Master in Design Studies

Oct. 30, 2026 9 a.m.-12 p.m.
Master in Urban Planning

Oct. 30, 2026 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
Master of Architecture/Landscape Architecture in Urban Design

Oct. 30, 2026 11 a.m. -2 p.m.
Master in Real Estate

Nov. 5, 2026 9 a.m.- 1 p.m.
Master in Landscape Architecture

Nov. 5, 2026 12 p.m.-2 p.m.
Doctor of Design

Nov. 6, 2026 9 a.m.- 12 p.m.
Master of Architecture

➡️ Follow for more admissions updates!

09/24/2026

What does it mean to think of home not as a unit, but as a shared system?

In Home Re-assembled: The Distributed House Framework, Saagarika Dias (MAUD ’26) reimagines domestic space as an infrastructure of collective life. Developed in STU-1501, taught by Toni L. Griffin, the project is grounded in conversations with artists, food innovators, and community organizers in Chicago’s Bronzeville, where creative life unfolds across studios, courtyards, kitchens, and streets as much as within domestic interiors.

In response, the proposal “unboxes” the home, distributing its functions across a network of spaces that support living, making, sharing, and gathering. The Distributed House Framework operates through three strategies: disaggregating domestic programs, activating vacant lots, and organizing functions sectionally to accommodate diverse creative practices.

Vacant parcels become opportunities to assemble new typologies, from production spaces along infrastructural edges to food anchors that energize commercial corridors, courtyard-based community hubs, and flexible live-work infill for everyday creators.

Rather than prescribing fixed dwelling types, the project establishes a field condition of adaptable spaces that evolve with community needs. Home is reassembled as a shared landscape of creative production and social exchange, where belonging is constructed collectively through everyday practices.

09/23/2026

Remy (and all of us) are excited to welcome GSD alumni and friends for the GSD comeback this weekend, September 25–26, 2026. More info at the link below!

09/22/2026

The Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies are pleased to announce that Vincent Reina has been named the inaugural Nicolas P. and Joan B. Retsinas Faculty Director of the JCHS and Professor in Practice of Urban Planning at the GSD. In these roles, Reina will join the senior faculty of the GSD, and his appointment will take effect on January 1, 2027. The Retsinas Directorship was established to honor Nicolas (MCP ’71) and Joan (GSD ’69) Retsinas and Nic’s vision of inclusive and equitable housing programs and policy. Founded in 1959, the Joint Center for Housing Studies is jointly affiliated with the GSD and the Harvard Kennedy School.

Reina, a leading national housing scholar, comes to Harvard from the University of Pennsylvania, where he is currently a Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design and the Founder and Faculty Director of the Housing Initiative at Penn. His work at Penn focused on advancing effective housing policy through rigorous research and close partnerships with cities, states, and national organizations. From 2022 to 2024, he served on the White House Domestic Policy Council as Senior Advisor for Housing and Urban Policy.

09/15/2026

Brian D. Goldstein (PhD ’13) is the author of Max Bond: The Life and Work of the People’s Architect, published today! Bond (MArch ’58) designed buildings from northern Ghana to rural Mississippi to Harlem to the National Mall.

A new book explores the Harvard-trained architect’s vision and impact, from Ground Zero to the Smithsonian.

09/14/2026

What if water became a visible, shared medium for climatic comfort?

In “Distilling Dermis,” Lewis Wightman (MArch II ’27) reimagines the facade of the Athens Polykatoikia as an active system for water-based climate adaptation. Developed in STU 1306, taught by Jenny French with TA Nicky Rhodes, the project responds to Athens’ intensifying heat, where climatic comfort has long depended on air conditioning and increasingly privatized public space.

The proposal reframes greywater not as a hidden utility, but as a material for cooling, heating, and social exchange. Inflatable shading cushions and solar stills are added to the facade, theatrically indexing interior plumbing while distilling greywater through evaporation. Potable water is stored below grade, cooled, and recirculated through a hydrophilic mesh screen to provide evaporative cooling at balconies and mist cooling at the street.

In winter, the system shifts from cooling to warmth. Water fills the facade cushions, absorbs direct solar radiation, and recirculates through deployable furnishings including mattresses, rugs, and couches. These radiant, waterbed-like elements create localized thermal comfort through conduction rather than heating the entire interior volume.

By using greywater for summer cooling and solar-warmed water for winter heating, “Distilling Dermis” transforms the facade into a shared climatic buffer against rising temperatures.