"This volume documents a selection of acvtivities and events at the Harvard Graduate School of Design during the past academic year [i.e. 2013-2014]"--Page 4 of cover.
Offering questions of the past to ground questions of the present, How About Now? summons the enduring concerns and preoccupations that designers constantly revisit, reconsider, and redefine in response to a changing world. This installment of the GSD Platform series celebrates--and places itself within--the rich tradition of student publications at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Produced annually, this compendium highlights a selection of work from the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and design, and design engineering, and exposes a rich and varied pedagogical culture committed to shaping the future of design. Documenting projects, research, events, exhibitions, and more, Platform offers a curated view into the emerging topics, techniques, and dispositions within and beyond the Harvard GSD.
Platform 11 is the 2017-2018 installment of 'Platform', the annual compendium documenting select student work, events, lectures, and exhibitions at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. The Harvard Graduate School of Design has always recognized the indispensable importance and values of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and urban design, yet has transcended their individual aspirations through intellectual cross-fertilization and collaboration. The material presented in this publication forms a small part of the incredible range and diversity of proposals and visions and is indicative of the school's commitment, as a global leader in the field, to exploring and articulating transformative ideas through the power of design. It is as important for us to share and communicate the outcome of our research and design investigations as it is to show the fertile circumstances and conditions for the making of these projects.
The work of Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas enjoys well-earned reputation for its artistic talent and its capacity to surprise with the most risky and spectacular projects. With offices in Rome, Paris and Shenzhen, the Fuksases have completed projects of contrasting scales and typologies: airports, theatrical scenographies, urban planning, large infrastructure, housing projects... Their most recent include the Shenzhen Airport in China, Palace of Congress in Rome, and Peres Peace House in Israel. The book also features their most emblematic creations like the Milan Trade Fair, Ferrari Research Centre in Maranello, and Armani boutique in New York. Interviews and several texts enhance the publication and help to round off the overview of this ultimate reference monograph of Fuksas' work.
Platform 5 considers the expanded boundaries of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. It features not only the selections of the work produced at the GSD during the 2011-2012 academic year, but also the potential of that work to address broader questions and inform global initiatives.
Tiny Taxonomy offers a visually engaging collection of images and texts drawn from a series of contemporary garden installations, which highlight the role of individual plants in landscape architecture. Tiny Taxonomy showcases species that are in cultivation or in profusion, but rarely purposefully planted. A grouping of plants is categorized by common traits derived from an evolution towards feature miniaturization, generating another form of classification. Due to the diminutive size of their features, these plants are often over-looked and therefore tend to be under specified. It seems that as the world around us gains complexity and intricacy, our biological world is tending towards monotony. Tiny Taxonomy considers smallness a design opportunity, offering innumerable microcosmic considerations of the leaf form, flower structure, and physical habitat of individual plants.