The Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) announces its fall 2025 public programs and exhibitions, a series that highlights the ethical concerns of designers who grapple with historical legacies when creating contemporary spaces. 

The exhibition Urban Natures: A Technological and Political History, 1600–2030, on view in the Druker Design Gallery (through October 13), measures how far we have come since the first public gardens were created and asks us to envision the future of our cities in innovative ways. The exhibition opens on September 2, with a panel of GSD faculty who will address climate change adaptation, the agency of designers, and the role of urban natures in promoting new collective values.

“Reuse and Repair” is the theme of Harvard Design Magazine 53 (October 16), edited by Lizabeth Cohen, Howard Mumford Jones Research Professor of American Studies at Harvard University, and Jeanne Gang,Kajima Professor in Practice of Architecture. Adaptive reuse is also an ethos that emerges in lectures by several designers this fall. Lauren Stimson and Stephen Stimson (September 23) restore wildness to the landscapes they design. Yichun Liu (September 25) reckons with the legacy of industrial sites across China. Practicing Growth in a Finite World (November 13), organized by the GSD Practice Forum, speculateson how to repair models of professional practice. A transdisciplinary panel of practitioners reflects upon the values of the industrial revolution that shaped the design professions and proposes how practice must change to ethically address the challenges of our own time.

Several speakers dig into contested ground. Meriem Chabani (October 22), Aga Khan Design Critic in Architecture, explores architecture’s engagement with “the South” as a fictional construct, shaped by subjection and uneven power relations. Mabel O. Wilson (October 29)examines “freedom and unfreedom” in the 1791 founding of Washington, DC, as the nation’s capital. Joshua Ramus (October 30) describes the arc of his career, including the recent Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center.

Later in the fall, the Druker Design Gallery will showcase Urban Design as a Development Strategy: The Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture Campus by MASS (October 27–December 21), an exhibition of this year’s Green Prize–winning project in Bugesera, Rwanda. An afternoon of workshops with the designers on November 6 will dive deeper into the interdisciplinary process behind the project. The 2025 Black in Design conference, Black Roots: Grounded and Growing Toward Collective Futures (November 7–8), investigates how to make space, take space, and create “tools for living” through the three interconnected themes of Black theologies, Black ecologies, and Black geographies.

The complete public program schedule appears below and can be viewed on the Harvard GSD’s  public programs calendar. All events will be livestreamed on the GSD website unless otherwise noted. Please visit the Harvard GSD’s  home page  to sign up for periodic emails about the school’s public programs, exhibitions, and other news. 

Urban Natures: A Technological and Political History, 1600–2030
Exhibition, Druker Design Gallery
August 25–October 13

Antoine Picon with guests: “Urban Natures: Climate Change Adaptation, Design Agency, and Politics”
Exhibition opening and welcome back reception
Rachel Dorothy Tanur Memorial Lecture
September 2, 5:00pm

Experience Design Futures
Panel discussion
September 11, 6:30pm

Lauren Stimson and Stephen Stimson: “restraint + wildness”
Sylvester Baxter Lecture
September 23, 6:30pm

Yichun Liu: “Re-Cultivating Industrial Sites: The Constructed Shapes of Time”
Kenzō Tange Lecture
September 25, 6:30pm

HOMECAST: Shaping the Built Environment Through Data-Driven Innovation
DDes Conference
September 26, 9:00 a.m.

GSD Biennial Participants and Florencia Rodriguez
SHIFT: The GSD at the 6th Chicago Architecture Biennial
Panel discussion
Margaret McCurry Lectureship in the Design Arts
October 14, 6:30pm

Public Art and Social Change
Panel discussion in conjunction with the Boston Public Art Triennial
October 15, 6:30pm

Jeanne Gang and Lizabeth Cohen with Lap Chi Kwong and Alison Von Glinow
Harvard Design Magazine 53: “Reuse and Repair” issue release
Rachel Dorothy Tanur Memorial Lecture
October 16, 6:30pm

Meriem Chabani: “South South Cosmogonies”
Aga Khan Program Lecture
October 22, 6:30pm

Urban Design as a Development Strategy: The Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture Campus by MASS
Exhibition for the 15th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design
Druker Design Gallery
October 27–December 21

Mabel O. Wilson: “The Measure of Freedom and Unfreedom”
Jaqueline Tyrwhitt Urban Design Lecture
October 29, 6:30pm

Joshua Ramus: “10,887”
John Portman Lecture
October 30, 6:30pm

Urban Design as a Development Strategy: The Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture Campus by MASS
Celebration of the 15th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design
November 5, 6:30pm

Green Prize Workshops
November 6, 12:00pm

Black in Design 2025: “Black Roots: Grounded and Growing Toward Collective Futures”
Conference
November 7–8

Practicing Growth in a Finite World
GSD Practice Forum Panel Discussion
Carl M. Sapers Ethics in Practice Lecture
November 13, 6:30pm

The top image in the article: Kwong Von Glinow, House for an Art Collector, construction progress, Highland Park, Illinois, 2023. Photo: Kwong Von Glinow.

> via Harvard GSD 

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