About
The Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative is a multi-year project funded by Harvard University and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to expand understanding about urban life, social and political structures, design, and history across diverse sites and scales. The Initiative aims in particular to link humanistic approaches to cities with spatial investigations of the built and natural environments.
The primary goals of the project include
The development of sustained research projects that incorporate new visual and digital methods in the study of urban environments
Contributing to the Harvard curriculum with urban studies courses co-taught by the faculty of the Graduate School of Design and Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Curating and co-organizing a comprehensive series of public programs
Producing publications and exhibitions
Nurturing intellectual community-building across disciplines
The initiative will play a significant role in shaping long-term goals for urban studies at Harvard’s undergraduate and graduate levels.
Programs sponsored include urban-related research by faculty and students, public events, exhibitions, course activities, community engagement, and workshops. Housed in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Design, the project engages scholars and students from throughout Harvard and the Boston area. The Initiative intends to pave the way to an interdisciplinary secondary field in urban studies for Harvard students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.