Open faculty positions at Harvard Graduate School of Design

Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) is pleased to announce three open rank faculty positions within the Department of Landscape Architecture—Assistant or Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture (Environmental History); Professor, Associate Professor, or Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture (Materials and Design); and Professor, Associate Professor, or Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture (Territorial Scale).

The oldest and most prestigious academic program in landscape architecture in the world is housed in the Department of Landscape Architecture. It has made a significant contribution to the growth of landscape architecture as a profession, academic field, and design medium that engages urbanism, environmentalism, and culture since its foundation in 1900. Its goal is to improve research and cutting-edge design methodologies in the built and natural environments as they interact with urbanization processes and the current state of climate change.

One of the 12 degree-granting institutions that make up Harvard University is Harvard GSD. To “train leaders in design, research, and scholarship to construct a resilient, just, and beautiful world,” according to the School’s mission statement. There are three academic departments that make up Harvard GSD (Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning & Design). The GSD provides other degree programs in related subjects in addition to the degree programs provided by those departments.

Assistant/Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture (Environmental History)

Highly qualified candidates may apply for a junior faculty position to teach graduate-level environmental history. This is a full-time tenure-track position that will be housed in the department of landscape architecture. Candidates should be knowledgeable academics and skilled educators who have shown a creative approach to themes, ideas, and protagonists (both human and non-human) that are relevant to environmental history and the history of the “natural” and built landscape. The field is wide open to the ancient triad of airs, seas, and places because neither a location nor a time frame have been stated (and their respective inhabitants).

Candidates must describe the interpretive importance of environmental history in their work in relation to the past and present potential of landscape architecture, particularly but not exclusively its role as a design profession.

Teaching responsibilities include a thorough course on the development of the environment as a lived experience and a concept in connection to constructed structures and landscape monuments. The chosen applicant will also teach research-based seminars to students pursuing professional, PhD, and other degrees in their area of expertise.

Teaching responsibilities also include participation in the core curriculum of the Department of Landscape Architecture, such as “Climate by Design,” which examines solutions to the climate issue, such as adaptation and mitigation. The candidate is also expected to participate completely and imaginatively in the design curriculum at the school, serving as a guest critic for evaluations of the students’ studio work, among other things.

Professor, Associate Professor, or Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture (Materials and Design)

The function of materials and materiality in landscape design is currently being critically reexamined by the field of landscape architecture. With a focus on materials and material ecologies and design, including cutting-edge methods for working at the intersection of living systems and non-living materials, the Department of Landscape Architecture seeks to appoint a distinguished scholar/practitioner in design at the assistant/associate professor (tenure track) or full professor (tenured) level. We want individuals who are interested in investigating how material research influences efforts to create designs that are resilient and sustainable, while also creating practices that improve current discussions of material culture in landscape architecture at all scales. The winning candidates will have established a research path in the areas of material expression, material flows and their related labor pathways, fabrication and assembly technologies, and design execution—or they will show how a history of professional practice, taking into account conceptual design, construction, and post-occupancy, will result in a promising teaching and research agenda in this focus area of landscape architecture. Our chosen candidate will lead and advance the Material Order collection, which was established as the premier North American resource for design materials collections at academic and cultural institutions by the GSD’s Frances Loeb Library and the Rhode Island School of Design Fleet Library, with the participation of other illustrious design schools.

Within the framework of an interdisciplinary design school with departments of architecture, urban planning and design, and advanced studies programs, this position, housed in the Department of Landscape Architecture, will necessitate teaching in graduate-level design studios, lectures, workshops, and seminar courses.

Professor, Associate Professor, or Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture (Territorial Scale)

There has never been a more pressing need for landscape architecture to study and take into account increasingly expansive geographic scales, both domestically and internationally. The Department of Landscape Architecture is looking for a renowned researcher and/or practitioner in landscape architecture design and planning at the assistant/associate professor (tenure track) or full professor (tenured) level. Candidates who study territorial systems and their organization, rural landscapes and their technologies (large-scale forestry, urban forestry, agronomy, engineering, energy), infrastructure, conservation, and stewardship are all welcome to apply. It is important to emphasize the most recent knowledge in climate adaptation, risk, and resilience. We are looking for people who can engage in cross-disciplinary research and practice and who will help reshape current discussions on the environment, society, land development, and land conservation. Candidates must have a clear research trajectory or a history of successful professional practice that results in encouraging design research objectives.

In the context of an interdisciplinary design school with departments of architecture, urban planning and design, and advanced studies programs, this position, housed in the Department of Landscape Architecture, will necessitate teaching in graduate-level design studios, lectures, and seminar courses. Candidates should be landscape architects with an established track record of excellence in their primary academic and professional pursuits in relation to infrastructure and design or design and planning at the regional scale, as well as the ability to collaborate with related planning and design disciplines at Harvard.