2019 Oct 30
The Peril and Promise of Solar Geoengineering
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
Solar geoengineering research aims to reduce the impacts of global climate change. One possibility is to put aerosols into the stratosphere to alter Earth’s energy budget. This emerging technology entails risks and uncertainties, along with serious challenges to global governance. The greatest threat, perhaps, is that it will be used as a technical fix and encourage people to avoid the emissions cuts that are fundamental to curbing long-term climate risks.
Lecturer David Keith will describe the simple physics underlying the climate’s response to stratospheric aerosols, the...
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2019 Oct 18
Aging in [a] Place: Planning, Design & Spatial Justice in Aging Societies
1:00pm to 5:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Stubbins, Room 112, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge
Today, public discussion and policy focuses on “aging in place” as a way to improve quality of life and reduce costs. However, in part because of socioeconomic differences and structural inequalities, not all older adults can live in or move to age-supportive communities, neighborhoods, or homes that match their values and needs. Differences in access to places to age well can take the form of spatial inequalities, such as inadequate market rate housing for older adults on fixed incomes.
'Co-sponsored by the Harvard Joint Center for...
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2019 Sep 18
The Ancient Maya Response to Climate Change: A Cautionary Tale
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
Ancient Maya civilization—known for its cities, monumental architecture, ceramics, hieroglyphic writing, and advanced understanding of mathematics and astronomy—suffered a major demise between the tenth and eleventh centuries. The causes continue to be investigated and debated. Paleoenvironmental research over the past twenty years has revealed that the demise coincided with a prolonged intensive drought that extended across the region, providing compelling evidence that climate change played a key role in the collapse of the Maya.
In this lecture, Billie Turner will examine...
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2019 Apr 18
Lecture: Romy Hecht, "The Green Ideal: Botanical Practices and the Creation of Santiago’s Civic Landscape"
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Stubbins Room 112, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
Join the Harvard Graduate School of Design for a lecture delivered by Romy Hecht.
Romy Hecht is a Professor at the School of Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC), where she gives courses and research seminars on historical narratives and design theories of nineteenth- and twentieth-century landscapes. As an author and recipient of National Grants and research fellowships, Hecht has developed a fundamental task in the studies of landscape architecture in Latin America. She has focused on constructing a comprehensive history of Chile’s landscape...
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2019 Mar 11
Lecture: Kenneth Helphand, “Lawrence Halprin”
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Stubbins Room 112, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
Join us for a lecture from Kenneth I. Helphand FASLA, a Philip H. Knight Professor of Landscape Architecture Emeritus at the University of Oregon where he has taught courses in landscape history, theory and design since 1974. He is a graduate of Brandeis University (1968) and Harvard's Graduate School of Design (MLA 1972). Helphand is the recipient of distinguished teaching awards from the University of Oregon and the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture. He is also the author...
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2019 Mar 04
Aga Khan Program Lecture: Rania Ghosn
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Stubbins Room 112, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
Rania Ghosn DDes '10 is Associate Professor of architecture and urbanism at MIT and founding partner of DESIGN EARTH with El Hadi Jazairy. Her research engages the geographies of technological systems to address the aesthetics and politics of the environment.
The work of DESIGN EARTH has been exhibited internationally, including Venice Biennale (2018, 2016), Oslo Triennale (2017), Seoul Biennale (2017), Sharjah Biennale (2016), and MAAT (Lisbon, 2018), Sursock Museum (Beirut, 2016), Times Museum (Guangzhou, 2018) and collected by MoMA. Her honors include Architectural League...
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2019 Feb 19
Daniel Urban Kiley Lecture: Dilip Da Cunha, “The Invention of Rivers”
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
Separating land and water is not just an act of division; it is also an act of creation. It creates land and water from ubiquitous wetness, defining them on either side of a line. It is one of the first acts of design, setting out a ground of habitation with a line that has largely been naturalized in features such as the coastline, the riverbank, and the water’s edge. These features are subjected to artistic representations, scientific inquiry, infrastructural engineering, and landscape design with little awareness of the act that brought them...
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2018 Nov 14
Origins of the Green Revolution: Hybrid Seeds, Hunger, and Mexico-India Cooperation
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA
Gabriela Soto Laveaga, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University
As a devastating famine gripped India and Pakistan in 1966, a cargo of hybrid wheat seeds from Mexico arrived one fateful day on India’s coast. The seeds were first planted across the Punjab region using new...
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2018 Nov 13
Anna Heringer, “Architecture is a Tool to Improve Lives”
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Location: 
HGSD, Gund Hall, Stubbins Room 112, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
“The vision behind, and motivation for my work is to explore and use architecture as a medium to strengthen cultural and individual confidence, to support local economies and to foster the ecological balance. Joyful living is a creative and active process and I am deeply interested in the sustainable development of our society and our built environment. For me, sustainability is a synonym for beauty: a building that is harmonious in its design, structure, technique and use of materials, as well as with the location, the environment, the user, the socio-...
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2018 Nov 08
Thomas Woltz, “Threatened Landscapes: Designed Countermeasures of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects”
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium 105, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Public parks are a source of civic identity for the communities they serve – inclusivity and authenticity are crucial. Similarly, memorials are bastions of democratic exchange and act as repositories of our cultural past and evolution. Thomas Woltz will present projects from the portfolio of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (NBW) that demonstrate the power of the firm’s research-based design to reframe our relationship with civic, ecological, and cultural systems within the public realm. Lastly, Thomas will present NBW projects that...
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2018 Oct 15
Can Baby Corals Improve the Reefs of Tomorrow?
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA
Aaron Hartmann, 2017–2018 Sarah and Daniel Hrdy Visiting Fellow in Conservation Biology, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
Coral reefs are one of Earth’s most biodiverse and imperiled ecosystems. Corals form the foundation of this ecosystem. Substantial effort is being invested to help adult corals survive environmental degradation, but less attention is paid to their offspring and how they establish themselves on the seafloor. Unlike adult corals, baby corals move about in the water column, perhaps allowing them to...
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2018 Oct 04
Conserving Biodiversity: A Global Priority
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA
Biodiversity is the sum total of life on Earth and a living legacy to future generations. Sadly, it is declining almost everywhere on the planet. Russell A. Mittermeier, recipient of the 2018 Indianapolis Prize, is a biologist and lifelong conservationist who has traveled across 169 countries and discovered more than 20 species in his quest to save biodiversity hotspots. Focusing on nonhuman primates—our closest living relatives—...
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2018 Sep 20
Breakpoint: Reckoning with America’s Environmental Crises
6:00pm
Location: 
TBD
Jeremy Jackson, Emeritus Professor of Oceanography, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Senior Scientist Emeritus, Smithsonian Institution
...
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2018 Sep 17
Saving Coral Reefs in the Florida Keys
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA
James W. Porter, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia
Coral reefs support more than a quarter of all marine life, yet many are critically endangered. In the Florida Keys, the once common elk horn coral (Acropora palmata) has experienced steep declines since the 1970s. Preliminary blame was attributed to global warming and coral bleaching, but in fact, a human bacterial pathogen associated with a wide range of serious infections was the culprit. James Porter will discuss how Key West residents are saving these reefs...
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2018 Apr 19

Dr. Yvonne Cagle

6:30pm to 8:00pm

Location: 

Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, Room 105, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge

Dr. Yvonne Cagle is a NASA Astronaut and Family Physician. In 2008, Dr. Cagle retired as a Colonel in the USAF where she served as a Senior... Read more about Dr. Yvonne Cagle

2018 Apr 13

Housing Symposium, “Reframing Housing Development: How Changes in Design, Construction, and Regulation Could Reduce the Cost of Housing”

1:00pm to 6:30pm

Location: 

Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, Room 105, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge

What can be done to reduce the cost of housing, particularly in the United States? To help answer this question, we will bring together a diverse mix of people... Read more about Housing Symposium, “Reframing Housing Development: How Changes in Design, Construction, and Regulation Could Reduce the Cost of Housing”

2018 Apr 03
Harvard HouseZero Typology Symposium
4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, Room 105, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge
The Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities (CGBC) retrofitted its headquarters, a pre-1940s house in Cambridge, MA, into a first-of-its-kind test case to demonstrate unprecedented levels of building efficiency and promote substantial shifts in the design and operation of existing buildings. Dubbed “HouseZero,” the project aims to prove that ultra-efficient retrofits can, indeed, be achieved...
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2018 Mar 02

Mark Joseph and Amy Khare, "Succeeding Where Mixed-Income Transformation Falls Short: A Path to Equity and Inclusion in Our Cities

12:00pm to 2:00pm

Location: 

Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Stubbins Room 112, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge

Drawing on their work examining the costs and consequences of racial segregation and the concentration of poverty and affluence as well as the... Read more about Mark Joseph and Amy Khare, "Succeeding Where Mixed-Income Transformation Falls Short: A Path to Equity and Inclusion in Our Cities

2018 Feb 09

Kiley Fellow Lecture: Danielle Choi

12:00pm to 2:00pm

Location: 

Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Stubbins Room 112, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge

Danielle Choi is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She teaches in the Masters of Landscape Architecture core... Read more about Kiley Fellow Lecture: Danielle Choi

2017 Oct 16

The Environment Forum at the Mahindra Center presents Prasenjit Duara (Duke University), “Spiritual Ecologies: Sustainability and Transcendence in Contemporary Asia”

5:00pm

Location: 

Tsai Auditorium, CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge

... Read more about The Environment Forum at the Mahindra Center presents Prasenjit Duara (Duke University), “Spiritual Ecologies: Sustainability and Transcendence in Contemporary Asia”

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