Master in Design Studies: Risk & Resilience

Harvard University

Date Posted: Feb. 25, 2016
Submitted by: Monika Urbanski
Sustainability Topics: Curriculum, Buildings
Content Type: Academic Programs
Disciplines: Architecture, Design
Program Type: Master's Degree
Completion: 3 semesters (1.5 years)
Distance: Local Only
Commitment: Full-Time

Description

Risk and Resilience considers communities and locations susceptible to crisis and develops strategies to tackle those challenges preemptively. Cities around the world face unpredictable challenges (natural disasters, long-term environmental change, public health crises, extreme social inequity, and violence) in increasing intensity. Despite these risks, cities and their residents are often forced to rely on short-term planning and post-hoc fixes. Risk and Resilience, a concentration area within the Master in Design Studies, sets out to develop an anticipatory approach to spatial planning, providing communities with tools to effectively prepare for, cope with, and manage rapid change and the spatial, social and economic vulnerabilities it produces. The program equips students with the critical and intellectual skills to define new, preemptive forms of practice. Grounded in the physical, students work with populations and sites that are prone to socio-political conflict and environmental change. This post-professional program is widely trans-disciplinary, working across Urban Planning and Design, Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Public Policy and Public Health. Students construct their own program of study from course offerings at the GSD as well as from the Harvard Kennedy School, the School of Public Health, Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Harvard Humanitarian Institute, or other departments at the University. AREA COORDINATORS:Diane Davis, Professor of Urbanism and DevelopmentJoyce Klein Rosenthal, Assistant Professor of Urban PlanningAPPLICATION DEADLINE:January 11, 2013designstudies@gsd. harvard. eduwww. gsd. harvard. edu/designstudiesADDITIONAL CONCENTRATIONS WITHIN THE MASTER IN DESIGN STUDIES:Art and the Public DomainCritical ConservationEnergy and EnvironmentsHistory and Philosophy of DesignReal Estate and the Built EnvironmentTechnologyUrbanism, Landscape, Ecology


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