Image: Mount Taranki, Egment National Park, New Zeland, 2007. Courtesy of Google Earth (Image Taranaki Regional / Stratfod / South Taranaki Councils).

Join the editors of the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s New Geographies to launch its most recent issue, New Geographies 08: Island, in conjunction with the journal’s tenth anniversary of discourse and discovery. An “atlas” of islands, New Geographies 08 explores the new limits of islandness and gathers examples to reassert its relevance for design disciplines.

The panel will present the three most recent editions, conceived as a trilogy concerned with revealing the geographic imprints of metabolic, technological, and systemic processes: New Geographies 06: Grounding Metabolism; New Geographies 07: Geographies of Information; and New Geographies 08: Island. The editors will also unpack the journal’s broader intellectual agenda and discuss its future.

New Geographies examines the emergence of the geographic—a new, but for the most part latent, paradigm in design today. Through critical essays and design projects, the journal explores the expanded agency of the designer, as well as agency as a form of capacity in relation to new techniques and strategies, and a faculty of acting, power, and disciplinary repositioning. The journal is produced by doctoral candidates at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and is made possible through the support of the Office of the Dean at GSD and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. It is distributed by Harvard University Press. The current editorial board consists of Daniel Daou, Ali Fard, Daniel Ibañez, Nikos Katsikis, Taraneh Meshkani, and Pablo Pérez-Ramos; the upcoming issue will be edited by Mariano Gomez Luque and Ghazal Jafari.

NEW GEOGRAPHIES 08: ISLAND

Editors: Daniel Daou & Pablo Pérez-Ramos

Daniel Daou is a doctor of design candidate at the Harvard University’s GSD. He holds a BArch from the Universidad Iberoamericana, where he graduated at the top of his class in 2006. He was a visiting scholar at SCI-Arc, a fellow for the National Council for Science and Technology, and was recognized as a “Young Talent” by the National Fund for Culture and Arts. In 2011, with the support from the Fulbright Program and the Brockman Foundation, he obtained an MS in architecture studies and a master’s degree in city planning with an urban design certificate from MIT.

Pablo Pérez Ramos is a licensed architect and a landscape architect from Madrid. He received a professional degree in architecture from the ETSAMadrid in 2006, and a master’s degree in landscape architecture from Harvard University’s GSD in 2012. Recently, he has received Harvard University’s GSD Dean's Merit Scholarship, the Fundación Caja Madrid Scholarship, and the Fundación La Caixa Scholarship. He has taught at ETSAMadrid, and the Boston Architectural College. At the GSD, he is currently a teaching fllow in the Urban Design Department and the Landscape Architecture Department, and research associate at the New Geographies Lab.

NEW GEOGRAPHIES 07: GEOGRAPHIES OF INFORMATION

Editors: Ali Fard & Taraneh Meshkani

Ali Fard is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, where he is coeditor of the New Geographies journal and a research associate at the Urban Theory Lab. Fard's current work deals with the operational networks of connectivity, the urban and spatial disposition of information and communication technologies, and the extended agency of design in contemporary processes of urbanization. His work and writing have been featured in MONU, Bracket, Azure, MAS Context, and Conditions.

Taraneh Meshkani is an architect and a doctor of design candidate at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. She is also a doctoral fellow in the Harvard Graduate Consortium on Energy and Environment. Meshkani received her MArch from the University of Toronto and her BArch from Azad University of Tehran. She has worked as a teaching fellow and research associate at the GSD. Meshkani has received many awards, such as the Professional Experience Program Award from Morphosis Architects; the 2009–10 Toronto Society of Architects Scholarship; and the 2010 Canadian Architect Student Award of Excellence (for her thesis project).

NEW GEOGRAPHIES 06: GROUNDING METABOLISM

Editors: Daniel Ibanez & Nikos Katsikis

Daniel Ibáñez is a licensed architect by the Escuela Politécnica de Madrid with distinction (ETSAM, 2007), and holds a master’s degree in advanced architecture from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalunya (IAAC, 2008). In 2012, he completed a master’s degree in design studies in urbanism, landscape, and ecology at the GSD as a fellow and Fulbright Scholar from the Fundación La Caixa, where he awarded the Dimitris Pikionis Award for best academic performance in his program. Ibáñez is currently affiliated with the GSD as a doctor of design student, where he is currently developing his thesis on metabolic urbanism.

Nikos Katsikis is an architect, urbanist, and doctor of design candidate (DDeS) at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, where he is research associate at New Geographies Lab and Urban Theory Lab. He has worked as a teaching fellow at the GSD and the National Technical University Athens (NTUA), and has instructed studios at Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. He is a registered architect in Greece (2006), where he was an associate architect with Sakelaridou and Papanikolaou Architects. He holds a professional degree in architecture with highest distinction (2006) and an MS in architecture and spatial design (2009) from NTUA.

Related Graham Foundation supported projects:

2009 Publication Grant to Harvard University–Graduate School of Design for New Geographies 02: Landscapes of Energy and New Geographies 03: Urbanisms of Color

2011 Publication Grant to Harvard University–Graduate School of Design for New Geographies 05: The Mediterranean and New Geographies 06: Grounding Metabolism

2014 Publication Grant to Harvard University–Graduate School of Design for New Geographies 07: Information Geographies and New Geographies 08: Islands