Role: Harvard GSD Design Thesis (co-authored with Pablo Roquero)
Location: Harvard GSD
Status: Fall 2012/Spring 2013
Award: Recognized as a pivotal project that led to further research and work with the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Technology.
The laboratory has long been an important part of advancing research in the field of science. The term laboratory has come to connote a culture of research focused on observation, speculation, experimentation and production. Today, many domains belonging outside of the realm of science use the laboratory as a place with the greatest potential for theory and practice to coalesce.
The book is divided into three main parts. The first part offers glimpses of the laboratory from its early conception in Dewey’s laboratory schools, to its development and function in the field of science and further to its use in fields other than those of science, placing a focus on its adaptation to architectural thinking.
The second part offers several case studies to shed light on design research labs in architecture schools.
The final part analyzes the case of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) Research Units which form the Design Labs (D-Labs) with the aim of uncovering whether their current venues successfully serve to advance innovative and speculative research and enable design as an agent of change in society.