Laboratory for Design Technologies: Experimental Postdoctoral Fellows

Harvard University, United States

Updated: about 1 hour ago
Location: Cambridge, MASSACHUSETTS
Deadline: ;

Details


Title Laboratory for Design Technologies: Experimental Postdoctoral Fellows
School Harvard Graduate School of Design
Department/Area
Position Description
The Laboratory for Design Technologies (LDT) offers two one-year research positions for work in the area of health, wellness, and sustainable material systems for buildings, landscapes, and cities. Funded by the Experimental Foundation (EXP) gGmbH, the work by the fellows should be geared towards research that is relevant and impactful for practice within a timeframe of 2-4 years. Research proposals by applicants have to be feasibly executed within one year, and lead to outcomes such as publication, exhibition, prototypes, pilots or similar. The fellowship is intended for individuals who hold a Ph.D. or Doctorate Degree in a related area. Each fellow will be compensated for a 12-month period including benefits, with a modest budget for research costs.
LDT is a collaborative research platform that combines several investigators and research units. The Experimental Fellows will be working with guidance from at least two of the LDT faculty investigators. These include:
Karen Lee Bar-Sinai: Bar-Sinai’s group investigates the interaction between machines, landscapes, materials, and environments with the aim of reshaping how we design and construct with found matter in the face of imminent material scarcity, environmental challenges, and climate change. The research spans from small to territorial to planetary scales, all involving the modulation of matter in architectural or landscape construction. Current research projects include: (1) Material-led Mechanisms—exploring living and bio-materials as modifiers for bio-fabrication in construction; (2) Performative Landscapes—simulating design responses to environmental challenges such as noise and sea level rise; (3) Projective Ecologies—utilizing generative AI to explore restoration techniques for improving degraded or post-disaster environments; (4) Environmental Robotics—analyzing beaver habitats to develop “beaver-bots,” robotic tools inspired by beavers that work within and alongside natural systems; and (5) Planetary Design Computation—testing the potential of using targeted local landscape design to influence global climate-system dynamics.
Martin Bechthold, Material Processes and Systems (MaP+S) Group: The MaP+S Group advances knowledge about design materials through a combination of technical, scientific and design research that result in prototypes, pilots, papers, patents, and exhibitions. Designers, technologists and critical makers engage in a dynamic setting with material scientists, psychologists and neuroscientists in the effort to lower the embodied carbon footprints of material systems and to quantify the psychological and behavioral effects of materials in buildings. MaP+S is closely affiliated with the Harvard Center for Green Cities and Buildings. 
Elizabeth Christoforetti and Carole Voulgaris, ViBE Lab: The Laboratory for Values in the Built Environment (ViBE Lab) seeks to create knowledge that enables practitioners in the built environment professions to design and plan our urbanizing world by defining and building upon values that are consistent with the development of meaningful and sustainable 21st century communities. Our transdisciplinary work joins quantitative and qualitative approaches to better understand and imagine the future of our built world. We develop and employ scalable systems of design and analytic planning methods to make tangible and systemic impact, and to explore the risks and potentials of emerging technological capabilities such artificial intelligence to encounter our pressing environmental and social crises. We take a particular interest in research that has the potential to increase the supply of affordable housing and to increase the sustainability of urban transport systems.
Craig Douglas: His work explores landscape as a dynamic material process in a constant state of flux through analytical and conceptual approaches integrating modelling, simulation, and sensing to make visible and reconstitute the landscape as a complex temporal and material manifold of differential space. The ‘Digital Air’ research claims air as matter by reconceptualising it as a material that is both corporeal and technological. This material dialectic shifts the scope of landscape architecture by positing air as the matter and agent of entanglement and interconnection, registering the built environment through a complex transient and dynamic architecture of interactions.
Allen Sayegh, Responsive Environments and Artifacts Lab (REAL): The REAL lab investigates critical challenges in the built environment, exploring how emerging technologies shape spatial perception, cognition, and human behavior. Recognizing that the intelligence of a place arises from the dynamic interplay between individuals, their surroundings, and the technologies they engage with, the lab examines how digital tools and infrastructures augment spatial experience and collective interaction. Its research focuses on two key areas: designing hybrid and immersive experiences and understanding technology’s role in shaping human interaction with the built environment.
Andrew Witt, Computational Geometry Lab: The Computational Geometry Lab researches the design and science of shape, aided by computational tools and design intuition. The Lab combines computational, formal, architectural, and historical research into a single synthetic program of computational geometry. Specific interests include morphology, design topology, discrete differential geometry, packings, and machine learning methods for unstructured geometric and spatial data. The products of the lab include physical prototypes, software, video media, and scholarly texts treating the imbrication of geometry, data, and technology with design. Current and recent projects include: AI Image Segmentation for Building Material Identification; Reconfigurable Packable Robotic Furniture; 3D Motion Capture of Domestic Interactions for Kinetic Environments Design; and Histories of Transdisciplinary Design.
 
Basic Qualifications
The fellowship is intended for individuals who hold a Ph.D. or Doctorate Degree in a related area. 
Additional Qualifications
Special Instructions
Applicants should upload a letter of interest, CV, research proposal in relation to the thematic areas of health, wellness, and sustainable material systems, short portfolio (10 pages maximum) and a list of three recommenders with contact information. The letter of interest needs to state clearly which LDT faculty investigators the applicant proposes to collaborate with on the proposed research project. Candidates will be notified regarding requests for letters of recommendation during the short-list phase of the recruitment process.
Final hiring decisions will be contingent on the availability of expected funds.
Applications will be accepted until May 21, 2025.
The appointments will be for one calendar year starting on July 1, 2025.
Contact Information
Tim Hoffman
Contact Email thoffman@gsd.harvard.edu
Equal Opportunity Employer
We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration.
Minimum Number of References Required 3
Maximum Number of References Allowed 3
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