School of Architecture
Faculty Research, 2021-2022
School of Architecture Research Approach
School of Architecture faculty advance disciplinary expertise in pursuit of effective global engagement with complex challenges of our designed environment. Faculty study how to design equitable communities and fair access to resources, how to achieve sustainable management of materials and energy, and how the design of buildings, landscapes, and cities change social and political dynamics. For this work, our faculty use diverse modes of investigation. Many faculty lead award-winning design research practices that advance knowledge of the built environment by bringing diverse knowledge centers, stakeholders, and environmental contexts together through design projects. These faculty have produced internationally recognized buildings, installations, infrastructure, and city and regional plans and policies. Our faculty have innovated research practices by combining archival research, interview techniques, material studies, and spatial analysis to investigate how complex socio-economic, political, and climatic forces shape what we build, and how what we build shapes these forces. Such research is consistently published around the world in books, journals, conference proceedings, and lectures, through the curation of international exhibitions and conferences, or by editing journals of architecture and design. We also build cross-disciplinary bridges by fostering intellectual partnerships in public policy, marine sciences, civil engineering, environmental and health sciences, security, business, economics, real estate, and beyond.
Alpha Yacob Arsano Assistant Professor, Building Technology
• Bioclimatic design; Climate Responsive Design; Sustainable Building Design; The development, validation and application of earlystage design analysis methods as toolsets to evaluate the potential for low-carbon building strategies in any location around the globe for which climate data is available. • High Impact Learning; Accessible Early Design Tools; By presenting reliable bioclimatic information in a clear and intuitive manner, the approaches we explore enable educators, designers, and consultants worldwide make actionable sustainable design decisions from the beginning of a project forward. The goal is to make easily accessible and actionable design guidelines available for users who want to develop energy-efficient and low-carbon building concepts anywhere. •Climate-Carbon-Comfort; Technology Adoption; In a larger scale, an application of the research is to inform policy making and technology adoption strategies with the goal of reducing carbon emissions in neighborhoods and cities in the majority world. Early findings show the need for a hybrid bioclimatic and technological solutions that can be adopted based on local climatic and economic conditions if we are to be set on a path to a significant carbon reduction, limiting global warming to well below 2oC.
Scott Bishop
Professor of the Practice, Urban Landscape Design + Theory
• Ecological Cities This research looks at large scale resource use and human ecology to best understand how we can redesign or design new cites that work to create productive ecologies. This work encompasses, nature based solutions, new architectural technologies to reduce carbon outputs, and re-think water/waste and food systems nested within larger global ecologies. • Phyto-technology + Phyto-sensing Research looks at current practices of phytoremediation and how it might best be integrated urban revitalizations on a district scale. This includes, mapping contamination, and creating health benefits for adjacent residences. this work is taking place taking place in my practice at Bishop Land Design in combination with American Forests, Delta Institute the U.S. Forest Service and The City of Detroit. • Resiliency + Climate Action This research looks at short to long range modeling of climate impacts and looks to nature based solutions to mitigate and adapt cities to changing conditions. My work extend to professional service on this topic as chair of the climate action committee for the American Society of Landscape Architects. Pilot : Impacted Clusters • A dense phytoforest grid using hybrid poplar species can treat up to 300,000 gallons of wastewater per day in the summertime, that is 240lbs/acre of nitrogen treated from wastewater every year i.e., Pilot can treat up to 3600lbs/year of nitrogen. • By redirecting the discharge from the WWTP to phytoforests, the quantities of excess nutrients typically discharged into the Detroit River and River Rouge can be offset. • Results from the GHIB survey conducted between 2016 to 2018 found that one in five (19.0%) children aged 518 living within 500’ of I-75 or trucking routes were reported to have asthma. Other health effects observed are Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), low life expectancy, compromised lung function, neurological diseases, and lowered cognitive functioning. • Pilot buffer and Phytoforest will help improve quality of air around 174 residences. • Pilot also includes 2 pockets of stormwater parcels which will help improve the groundwater contamination levels.
26% residences Positively Impacted
© 2021 Bishop Land Design LLC
Cammy Brothers
Associate Professor, Architectural History
• Architectural representation: my work considers conventions of architectural representation, how they developed, and their logic • Techniques, materials, and functions of drawing: my work examines the history of architectural drawing, both as a tool for the invention of new ideas and the creative recording of perceptions of the world • Islamic and Renaissance Spain and the Mediterranean world: my work considers the consequences for architecture, urbanism and landscape of the transition between the period of Islamic rule in Andalucia and the Reconquest, looking specifically at palaces, cities and gardens.
Sara Jensen Carr
Assistant Professor, Urban Landscape Design + Theory
• Built Environment and Health I study historical and contemporary design responses to health crises and epidemics, from cholera and yellow fever to COVID-19. I also look at the relationship of planning, landscape and architecture to both risks and opportunities for health. This work has been sponsored by the Graham Foundation and Mellon Foundation among others, and I have partnered with both private design firms such as Mahlum and public agencies such as the Emerald Necklace Conservancy provide expertise and strategize how health can be integrated into their projects and practices. • Climate Resilient Landscape Infrastructure I examine how the design of streets, parks, and public spaces can mitigate effects of climate change, from extreme heat to flooding. • Equity in the Public Realm Related to these first two focus areas, I also study how the quality of the public realm and its subsequent effects on climate and health differs across race and socioeconomic status, and how it can be improved through public engagement and design.
Xavier Costa
Professor, Architectural History
Architecture Conservation • Design and theory principles as they apply to critical conservation, intervention and reuse in architecture, urban & landscape design. • Partnership: Mies van der Rohe Foundation, Aga Khan Award, Docomomo International. Architecture Theory • Theory and criticism in architecture, art and urbanism, with a focus on postwar years (1945-1968) in Europe. • Partnership: Academy of Europe, Art & Architecture Section. Architecture History • Focus on postwar years (1945-1968) in Europe, particularly in Spain, France and UK. • Partnership: Academy of Europe, Art & Architecture Section.
Matthew Gin
Visiting Assistant Teaching Professor, Architectural History
• The impact of politics on design production My research as a historian focuses on European architecture and urbanism in a global context from the 18th to the 19thcenturies with particular emphasis on how social, political, and economic ideas have shaped the built environment. My current book project, Paper Monuments: The Politics of Ephemeral Festival Architecture in Enlightenment France, examines the temporary decorations built for royal pageants in 18th-century France. Through an analysis of historical records like contracts and drawings, the book uses these elaborate structures, which often took the form of mountains and classical temples, to examine how the French state harnessed various technologies, infrastructures, and forms of labor to serve political power. • Architecture’s relationship to other art forms and professions As part of my book on ephemeral festival architecture, I investigate how the architects who designed temporary pageant decorations worked with elite actors like government officials and artists as well as marginalized figures like artisans and laborers. In this way, my research focuses on architecture as a collaborative process and invites designers in the present-day to imagine inclusive modes of practice that embrace diverse voices and forms of expertise. • Architecture beyond buildings The architects who were involved in the production of temporary festival decorations also often designed other kinds of objects such as books, vehicles, theatrical sets, and fireworks displays. A more recent line of inquiry, which cuts across disciplinary boundaries, focuses on the many things made by architects that are not buildings– like street furniture or performances. This research has led to more practice-based interventions: last year I co-directed at the Harvard Episcopal Chaplaincy a grant-funded initiative, The Sacred Tent Project, that brought together designers, clergy, and community members to create an ephemeral chapel along with different kinds of site-specific rituals.
Chana Haouzi
Visiting Assistant Teaching Professor, Design Studio
• Innovative Housing Solutions for Urban Affordability Investigating the design opportunities and challenges of Additional Dwelling Units and how they can be deployed successfully in communities. Research aims to bring active use to underutilized structures such as cariage houses and garages to promote incremental density at the neighborhood scale. • Community-Engaged Approaches to Design Developing a design process geared for the needs and goals of nonprofit organizations and community partners. • Communicating the Value of Design to the Public Democratizing the public discourse on design through an accessible, community driven-platform that empowers individuals to examine architecture and engage with the built environment.
Kate Kennen
Visiting Assistant Teaching Professor, Urban Landscape Design + Theory
• Urban Green Infrastructure Researching innovative plant-based systems for water and soil quality improvement including groundwater phyto-buffers, subsurface constructed wetlands and green stormwater infrastructure retrofits for small urban spaces • Phytoremediation Collecting case studies of applied field reseaarch/ landscape design interventions utilizing plants for soil and groundwater pollution mitigation. The work expands the fundamental research documented in PHYTO: Principles and Resources for Site Remediation and Landscape Design published in 2015, through illustrating applied case study examples. • Mycoremdiation/ Mycofiltration Investigating the use of mushrooms/ mycelium for stormwater quality improvement along urban roadways (in collaboration with Massachusetts Department of Transportation.) This project includes a research phase to gather peer-reviewed literature on the subject and a design/ documentation phase to suggest methods for integrating mycelium in green stormwater practices at MassDOT.
Michelle Laboy
Assistant Professor, Building Technology + Design Studio
• Ecological theory in design Tracing the influence of landscape theory and ecological systems thinking on architectural discourse and practice for building-landscape integration. • Socio-ecological resilience Mapping and coding of social and physical vulnerabilities to climate change; coupled with citizen science, participatory research and community engagement tools to build community resilience. Partners include cities and non-profits, and collaborators: Professors Kane, Eckelman and Fannon in Civil and Environmental Engineering, with funding from AIA Upjohn Research Initiative and Northeastern Tier 1 seed grants. • Architectural Persistence Developed grounded theory for future-use design in cultural and environmental change; in collaboration with Professors Fannon and Wiederspahn, and funded by the AIA Latrobe Prize and the BSA Foundation, culminating in a book and exhibitions. Individual contributions include: grounding strategies for placespecificity and functional adaptability; life cycle modeling and spatial analysis of different structural systems. • Design Research for Urban Security and Resilience Developing principles and protocols for passive hazard deterrence, decentralization of green infrastructure, and smart technology integration. Review of ethical, technical and cultural considerations sensing, detection, and crowd modeling in the public realm. Recently submitted major federal funding proposals with faculty in Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Civil and Environmental Engineering, as well as the SENTRY center. • Architectural Imaginaries for the Anthropocene Bridging Environmental Humanities and Science, including: installations for visualization of environmental phenomena in public space; development and evaluation of visual translations of life cycle data to a human scale (with Professor Eckelman of Civil and Environmental Engineering); literature review and meta-synthesis of case studies addressing climate-driven water flux. Funding includes AutoDesk, Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, and CAMD. Currently preparing proposal for book manuscript.
Amanda Reeser Lawrence Associate Professor, Architectural History + Theory
Architecture and Influence • Book manuscript, Unoriginal: Studies in the Architecture of Influence, under review at the University of Virginia Press. • Investigation of how twentieth-century American architects borrow from and reimagine historical precedents and ideas to generate novel works. Architecture and The Law • Study of how Intellectual Property Law (especially copyright) law has shaped architectural practice the framing of creativity and originality. • Session proposal under review, College Art Association 2022 “Architecture and Intellectual Property” (with Peter Christensen, Associate Professor, University of Rochester) Architecture and Media • Investigation of how various forms of architectural media—particularly print publications—disseminate and define architectural discourse. • Article under development on Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1910 Wasmuth Portfolio Racial and Health Equity in the Built Environment • PI for Tier 1, “Advancing Racial and Health Equity Through the Arts: A Community Engaged Research Study in the City of Boston” which focuses on neighborhoods around Northeastern campus (Roxbury, Mission Hill, the South End, Jamaica Plain.) • Community-engaged exploratory project to investigate inclusive arts participation as an effective strategy to advance racial and health equity by building community identity, solidarity, and empowerment. Architectural Preservation • Humanities Center Collaborative Research Cluster Grant with Lucy Maulsby (Architecture) and Victoria Cain (History) to reflect on contemporary developments in historical preservation and cultural landscapes in twentieth-century cities • Exhibition in development on the demolition of the Harriet Tubman House, designed by Stull and Lee, and African-American led architectural firm, whose archives are housed at Northeastern.
Ang Li
Assistant Professor, Design Studio + Theory
• Architectural Maintenance Practices Research into emerging maintenance and reuse practices within art and architecture. This work relies in part on existing bodies of work on the cultural and historical context of architectural reuse, and in part on original research conducted through fieldwork and collaborations with salvage yards and recycling centers in the Northeast. • Building Material Waste Streams Analysis into building material waste streams within the construction and demolition industry, focusing in particular on novel reuse applications for typical building materials found in North American residential construction (wood, masonry, concrete, metal, plastics, etc.). Recent collaborators: RAIR Philly (Recycled Artist in Residence); Boston Building Resources. • Plastic Futures: material/tectonic experiments that explore the reuse of single-use plastic waste found in the building industry (EPS foam, Mylar film, etc.). • Reversible Construction: material/tectonic experiments that explore the use of ad-hoc, low-tech, and reversible forms of construction in temporary projects. • Experimental Preservation Built installations and commissioned public art projects that explore experimental and participatory approaches to historic preservation and collective storytelling—often working with inherited sites, materials, and cultural contexts. Recent collaborators: Exhibit Columbus, Now+There, The Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC)
Tim Love
Associate Professor, Design Studio + Theory
• The Conventions of Market-driven Building Types The goal of the research is to demonstrate that only a few number of building types are built in large mixeduse development projects across the globe. This is the result of the standardization of the real estate industry in response to global investors and capital markets. This project starts in August 2021 and is going to be funded by Sidewalk Labs as part of a larger consulting contract. Andrew Nahmias, Jessy Yang, and Andrew Baenza (Utile) will collaborate with Love on the project. • The Impact of Building Codes on Building Form and Development Patterns The goal of the research is to understand how building codes, as much as municipal zoning codes, influence the height, density, and character of urban built form. This project is planned for the Fall of 2021 and will be funded by Professor Love’s faculty development fund. Andrew Nahmias (Utile) and an undergraduate architecture student (TBD) will collaborate with Love on the project. •The Remediation and Repurposing of Fossil Fuel Tank Farms The large ExxonMobil facility in Everett, Massachusetts will be used as a case study in order to explore potential redevelopment approaches for obsolete tank farms in the United States that are vulnerable to sea level rise because of climate change. This project is going to be launched in August 2021 as part of a larger consulting contract with the City of Everett. Lisa Hollywood (Utile) will collaborate with Love on the project.
Lucy Maulsby
Associate Professor, Architectural History
• Architecture, Urbanism and Politics Considers the relationship between the political, economic, and cultural aims of Italian Fascism and architecture and urbanism. This research has larger implications for understanding the degree to which, even under totalitarian regimes, multiple actors participate in shaping the built environment. "Fascism, Architecture, and the Claiming of Modern Milan, 1922–43, UTP, 2014. •Imperialism, Racism, and Architecture Explores the ways in which economic and political policies tied to imperialism and racism shaped architectural and urban practice and discourse in Italy in the final decade of Fascism. Helps to clarify the ways in which specific economic, domestic and foreign policy intersected with architectural and urban discourse and the consequences this had for architectural and urban projects sponsored by the regime. “Architecture and Empire: Palazzo del Littorio in Rome,” in A Difficult Heritage, Bibliotheca Hertziana, in process. • Architecture, War, and the Legacy of a Difficult History Analyses and discusses the architectural and urban remains of Fascism (buildings, public spaces, monuments, and so forth) as an opportunity to consider some of the ways in which the legacy of a difficult history as well as the violence and trauma of war have shaped Italy. “The Legacy of Fascism in Postwar Italian Architecture,” book manuscript in process. “Material Legacies: Italian modernism and the postwar history of case del fascio,” Modern Italy, 2019. •Architectural Modernism/Alternative Histories Focuses on architectural and urban responses to the process of modernization in Italy. Complicates and expands canonical narratives that privilege Northern European actors and agents and is part of a larger project to understand the ways in which Cold War imperatives have shaped histories of postwar Italian, as well as western cultural narratives more broadly. “The Legacy of Fascism in Postwar Italian Architecture,” book manuscript in process. •Infrastructures of Water Considers the canals and waterways in Northern Italy at the end of WWII as part of a larger cultural strategy, for Allied forces who were eager to establish control in the region and recognized this work as part of a larger diplomatic effort in Cold War Europe, and for local elites who eager to champion a cultural heritage untarnished by either the technological modernism or rhetorical monumentality of Fascism. “Infrastructures of Water: the restoration waterways in post-war Milan,” conference paper.
Ivan Rupnik
Associate Professor, Architectural History + Design Studio
• Cochairing research team that is a developing a research road map for sustainable, resilient, affordable, and equitable “factory-built” (offsite manufactured) housing for the National Institute of Building Science and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Project will be completed in December 2021. • Researching innovative product and business platforms in offsite manufacturing (OSM) for the Joint Housing Center, Harvard University. Article will be delivered at Harvard University in May 2022, edited volume planned for 2023. • Researching circular product and business platforms and appropriate automation in Japanese offsite manufacturing for a large US home builder. The contract is currently under a NDA but the results will be published after the consulting contract is completed. • Researching obstacles to sustainable, resilient, affordable, and equitable “factory-built” housing for a leading global building products company. The contract is currently under a NDA but the results will be published after the consulting contract is completed. • Researching obstacles to sustainable, resilient, affordable and equitable offsite manufactured housing in California in preparation for a workshop and summit with key stakeholders in October 2021. • Editing dissertation manuscript on architectural and urban design methodologies in offsite manufactured housing for a book project. Currently negotiating with a number of publishers.
Paxton Sheldahl
Assistant Teaching Professor, Design Studio + Building Technology
• Community Engagement through our work with local non-profit organizations. We are interested in helping non-profit organizations bring their mission to the community where needed. Image shown is work in progress for PRX Podcast PopUp concept, where they bring podcasting equipment and training into neighborhoods in an effort to provide a megaphone and a voice to those that need it most. Key Partners include (PRX) Public Radio Exchange, Boston and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, Boston • Relationship between space and object in the development of early childhood education. We are working with Solbe Learning Center to set up post occupancy evaluation criteria the first iteration of this project in an effort to gain knowledge and feedback for the upcoming expansion of the learning center as well as assist Solbe in developing a scalable concept that can branch out and provide child care services in smaller storefront spaces in local communities. Key Partners include Solbe Learning Center, Boston • Working with relationship between institutions and the City through large scale artistic and architectural intervention. Our practice is also engaged with other contemporary architects and artists in an ongoing collaborations. Over the last 10 years we have collaborated with the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) to develop artist districts such as Faena in Miami Beach and now the Albright Knox Museum expansion in Buffalo. This project has brought together collaborations with Olafur Eliasson (SOS) and Miriam Backstrom Studio in an effort to strengthen the relationship between Art and the public. In this case, each collaborator is working to address and respond to the relationship between the Museum and Olmsted’s Delaware Park. Key Partners include OMA New York, Studio Other Spaces, and Miriam Backstrom Studio
Lily Song
Assistant Professor, Race and Social Justice in the Built Environment
• Key research area Urban infrastructure contestations and remakings • Statement of interest/research questions •How are infrastructure-based struggles and mobilizations led by frontline communities contesting social supremacies baked into and reproduced through the built environment and prevailing spatial development? •How can planners and designers align our creative practices with frontline leaders and communities to combat spatialized supremacies and help repair, heal, and make whole urban environments and social relations? • Research methods Design action research method of combining historical-archival-spatial research, qualitative interviews, participant observation, deliberative discussions, and codesign workshops to advance infrastructure-related planning and design strategies among movement-based organizations. • Current partners Alliance for Community Transit- Los Angeles, Sweet Water Foundation Design strategies: Co-creating the Vision of Metro as Sanctuary
Source: ACT-LA
Peter Wiederspahn
Associate Professor, Building Technology + Design Studio
• Expeditionary Shelter Systems This is a 3-year,$754,612 design research grant for a rapid deployable, lightweight, and thermally proficient shelter through the Northeastern Kostas Research Institute (KRI) with the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM), budget number 598340. A majority of the funding is devoted to hiring undergraduate, graduate, and recentlygraduated architecture and engineering students. This started as a multi-university team of 25 different research groups, ranging from nano-technologists to architects. At the end of Year 1, the team was reduced to just 8 research groups, including mine, at which point I was awarded an additional $69,920.
• Future-Use Architecture This research on proactively adaptable architecture for long-term use is the result of winning the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2017-19 Latrobe Prize with professors David Fannon and Michelle Laboy. The resulting outcomes include a major exhibition called Persistent at the Los Angeles Museum of Architecture + Design in 2018-19, and has traveled to the Kansas State University in 2019, and will travel to UMass Amherst and the WMR Vision 2020(1) sponsored by the AIA Albuquerque and AIA New Mexico in fall 2021. We staged another major exhibition at the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) Space called Durable that opened in early in 2020, and has been extended into 2022 due to the pandemic. We have also produced a book on our findings called The Architecture of Persistence: Designing for Future Use, to be published by Routledge in August 2021.
Shuishan Yu
Associate Professor, Architectural History
• Buddhist Architecture in East Asia This is a special issue for the MDPI journal Religions, for which I am serving as the chief guest editor. This collection of recent scholarships on Buddhist architecture highlights the way architecture is built for and shaped by the religious practice of a given community, the way the built environment is integrated into the spiritual life, and the way different art forms share common themes and concepts to foster a comprehensive culture that sustains life and identity of a place. • The Translation of Buddhism in the Funeral Architecture of Medieval China This is an article I have been working on that explores the Buddhist ritual and architectural conventions incorporated into the Chinese funeral architecture in the 3rd to the 13th centuries. It offers a comparative study of the historical contexts from which certain architectural types and imageries were produced and argues that an intertwined mutual translation of formal and ritual conventions between Buddhist and funeral architecture had played a significant role in the formations of both architectural traditions in Medieval China. • Oxford Bibliographies in Architecture, Planning, and Preservation - Architecture of Beijing This is a review of literature on architecture in Beijing that is going to be published by the Oxford Bibliographies in UK. • Ritual Space and the Operation of Power – A Global Architectural History This is an on-going book manuscript in Chinese exploring architectural history through the perspective of human activities. It focuses on the way the built environment is shaped by ritual performance. • Imperial Streets and the Architectural Modernization of Historic Chinese Cities This is an on-going book manuscript exploring the ways historic streets in selected Chinese cities were transformed from the late imperial to the modern periods.
Illustration for the article on Buddhist architecture: Mingqi from Xiangyang, collection of the Xiangyang municipal Museum, Hubei province, Eastern Han to Three Kingdoms period, 2nd-3rd centuries CE (drawing by Shuishan Yu)