INTRODUCTION We continue the tradition of Harvard University Graduate School of Design publications with the fifth in the series of Platform. With the directive to be a working curation of the environment of the School, the resulting volume is more than a compendium. It is designed as a multilayered document presenting various lenses to see the School in the past academic year, its present trajectories, and its future directions.
Mariana Ibañez
is Associate Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In 2007 she co-founded I/K Studio with Simon Kim.
The table of contents unfolds the book into a single artifact, making explicit the prevailing themes that informed the production and debates in the School, and the overlaps that emerge among them. These overlaps, and perhaps unexpected adjacencies, reveal the complexities with which the design disciplines increasingly contend. The volume’s diverse material—drawn from studios, seminars, thesis research, events, and other activities—is organized in seven sections: Metrics, Matter, Activism, Discipline, Synthesis, Conjecture, and Format. These categories and the material within represent the broad spectrum of agendas, courses, initiatives, and collaborations that are established to explore design thinking and design production. This organization is introduced as a framework that intentionally differs from the departmental and course structure of the School, with the ambition to present a transversal reading of our programs that highlights both disciplinary concerns and shared explorations. The first six sections are organized in a linear sequence, but can also be cross-referenced through the thematic markers that describe each project or event. The section on Format, however, is deconstructed and distributed throughout the book; it can be read in relation to the projects in each section or as a separate collection of documents. This “ non-section” collects distinguished artifacts where the subject matter of the work is as important as its articulation. The GSD is an exceptional environment of continuous debate and production. The agendas and pedagogical frameworks are complex and constantly evolving. Far from being a complete collection, Platform 5 compiles the outcome of prominent work and exchanges that occurred during a year full of events, projects, symposia, and colloquia—both formal and improvised—that continually reinforced the dual importance of expertise and inquiry. The many people who came to the GSD as students, alumni, fellows, faculty, lecturers, conference participants—to discuss, to instruct—all arrived with their local knowledge and, within the School, created new relationships and ideas. This book is our attempt to share these concerns and discoveries with a larger audience.
MARIANA IBAÑEZ
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