Design Anthropology:

Objects, Landscapes, Cities

Anthro 2695 / GSD 03336
Harvard University, Spring 2011
Wednesdays 3pm6pm
20 Sumner Road, Seminar Room C
Instructors: Gareth Doherty, Steven C. Caton
Teaching Assistant: Luis Felipe Vera Benitez
Course Description:
The course is about both the anthropology of design, and the design of anthropology. In
recent years, there has been a movement in anthropology toward a focus on objects,
while design and planning have been moving toward the understanding of objects as part
of a greater milieu. This seminar explores this common ethnographic ground.
For designers, the goals will be to learn thick ethnographic observation and description;
applying theoretical concepts in making connections between ethnographic data; and
moving from ethnography to an understanding of how context informs design, as well as
asking why we design in the ways that we do. Anthropologists will be challenged to think
about different forms of ethnographic fieldwork by collaborating with nonanthropologists and working toward a collective ethnography; using visual information
to represent ethnographic information and insights; and applying anthropological skills
to the study of objects, materiality, and design processes.
We will read classic texts as well as contemporary readings in anthropology, architecture,
landscape architecture, urban planning and design. The seminars will be filled with
different components and tasks, typically including lectures and synopses of the weekly
topic; presenting and discussing ethnographic data; sharing thinking on individual
projects; and discussing assigned readings.
Where possible, the synergy between anthropologists and designers will be cultivated to
maximise exchange between disciplines. Ideally, the class will be evenly split between
FAS and GSD. Students will be expected to engage in two projects over the course of the
semester. The first is a weekly assignment, which forms part of a larger collective
ethnographic work. The second will be an individual project, which should result in a
design proposal that emerges from the common ethnography. While the first project is
primarily observational, the second is design oriented.
Students will be expected to do the weekly readings, and to lead the discussion on the
readings at least twice during the semester. Participation is expected in class and
amounts to 30% of the final grade; the weekly assignments add up to 40%; while the
final assignment is 30% of the overall grade. No late assignments will be accepted except
for emergency or medical reasons.
Readings will be posted on the course iSite, where possible, and key books will placed on
reserve in Loeb Design Library and Tozzer Library.

January 25, 2012

Assignment 1:
The first assignment, which is ongoing throughout the semester, investigates ways of
gathering ethnographic data. If we are to make anthropology more relevant for design,
then we need to develop ethnographic tools that are quicker and capable of being shared
among multiple authors. This strategy is not without its problems however, and part of
the sessions will be devoted to analysis of the pitfalls of a common ethnographic
encounter.
The subject of the ethnography is the Graduate School of Design, and we invite
the seminar participants to observe an aspect of life in the GSD through field notes. It is
important that these field notes are maintained on a regular, preferably daily, basis.
These field notes will be personal (however each participant should be prepared to share
the notes with the instructors). The second aspect is the presentation of these field notes
to the group.
As we expect a diverse range of approaches and topics, we ask for a rigid format
for the presentation of the notes. They should be presented on white cards, 5x7
(portrait format). These cards, seven per week, should be shared with the group on a
regular basis. Although each participant, will have their own topic they are investigating
on an ongoing basis, new patterns will emerge in the collective work, and the cards will
add up to a new form of ethnography. This project is ongoing.
Assignment 2:
The second assignment will be developed by each student in consultation with the
instructors, and each other. The project should build upon the common ethnography to
propose a design intervention. The nature and scope of the intervention cannot be
predicted, but as a guide, we expect 4 typed pages, or one 30 x 36 board describing the
project and the process that led to its design. This project is due on the last day of class.
Readings:
The weekly readings are an important component of the course. We expect that each
student will lead the discussion on the readings at least once during the semester. Ideally,
the discussion will be led every week by one anthropologist, and one designer.

January 25, 2012

Outline
Week/Theme/Readings
1: Overview
January 25
2. Why Design? Why Anthropology?
February 1
Doherty, Monaghan and Just, Yaneva
3. Thickness
February 8

Bourdieu, Geertz, Miller, Sudjic

4. Ethnography
February 15

Appadurai, Caton, Malinowski, Sanjek

5. Practice
February 22

Bunschoten, Cuff, Evans, Schn, Stalker

6. Whiteness
February 29

Batchelor, Hara, Melville, Turner, Wigley

7. Sketching
March 7

Ingold, Keller, Taussig, Moore, Smithson, Till

8: NO CLASS / SPRING BREAK

March 14
9. Anticipating
March 21

Allen, Latour, Mead, Textor, Simone

10. How to Talk to a Designer

March 28
Allen et al., Koolhaas, Rowe, Sarkis

11. Walking
April 4

de Certeau, Sorkin, Stilgoe, Thoreau, Voght

12. Surfaces
April 11

Blanger, Lvi-Strauss, Zardini

13. Intervening 1
April 18

Ghannam, Spirn

14. Intervening 2
April 25

Kanna

January 25, 2012

WEEKLY READINGS
1. Course Introduction
January 25
No assigned readings.
2. What is Anthropology? What is Design?
February 1
Gareth Doherty, The Pink and Red Diamond New Geographies 3: Urbanisms of Color,
Gareth Doherty ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 9295.
John Monaghan and Peter Just, Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short
Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1333.
Albena Yaneva, Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: An Ethnography of
Design (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers).
3. Thickness
February 8
Pierre Bourdieu, The Berber House, The Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating
Culture, Setha M. Low and Denise Lawrence-Zuniga, eds., (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing,
2003), 131141.
Clifford Geertz, Thick Description: Toward an Interpretative Theory of Culture, The
Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1971), 332.
Daniel Miller, Why Clothing is not Superficial and Media: Immaterial Culture and
Applied Anthropology, Stuff (Cambridge: Polity, 2010), 1241, and 110134.
Deyan Sudjic, Introduction: A World Drowning in Objects and Language, The
Language of Things (London: Penguin, 2008), 451.
4. Ethnography
February 15
Arjun Appadurai, Introduction: commodities and the politics of value, The Social Life
of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press), 363.
Steven C. Caton, Anger Be Now Thy Song, Yemen Chronicle: An Anthropology of War
and Mediation (New York: Hill and Wang), 61101.
Bronislaw Malinowski, Method and Scope of Anthropological Fieldwork, Ethnographic
Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader, Antonius C. G. M. Robben and Jeffrey A. Sluka,
eds. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 4658.

January 25, 2012

Roger Sanjek, A Vocabulary for Fieldnotes, Fieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology

(Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1990), 92121.
5. Practice
February 22
Raoul Bunschoten/CHORA, Stirring the City and Urban Gallery, ANC Architecture &
Culture No. 268 (Seoul, 2003), 8799.
Dana Cuff, Why Study the Culture of Practice and Design Problems in Practice,
Architecture: the Story of Practice (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), 116 and 57108.
Robin Evans, Translations from Drawing to Building, Translations from Drawing to
Building and Other Essays (London: AA Publications, 1997), 153194.
Donald A. Schn, Design as a Reflective Conversation with the Situation, The
Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic Books,
1983) 76104.
Stalker, Stalker and the Big Game of Campo Boraio, Architecture & Participation,
Peter Blundell Jones, Doina Petrescu, and Jeremy Till, eds. (Abingdon, Oxon: Spon
Press, 2005), 227234.
Have a look at:
http://www.spatialagency.net/
http://paceth.com/
http://experientia.com/
http://www.contextresearch.com/context/index.cfm
6. Whiteness
February 29
David Batchelor, Whitescapes Chromophobia (London: Reaktion, 2000), 932, and A
Bit of Nothing New Geographies 3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011),
2027.
Kenya Hara, White (Zurich: Lars Mller Publishers, 2007).
Victor Turner, Symbols in Ndembu Ritual, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu
Ritual (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967), 1947.
Herman Melville, The Whiteness of the Whale, (Chapter 42) Moby Dick (New York
and London: Norton & Company Inc., 2002 edition) 159165.
Mark Wigley, The Emperors New Clothes, and Sexual Charges, White Walls,
Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1995), 134, and 267300.

January 25, 2012

7. Sketching
March 7
Tim Ingold, How the Line Became Straight, Lines: A Brief History (London: Routledge,
2008), 152170.
Jenny Keller, Why Sketch? Field Notes on Science and Nature, ed., Michael R. Canfield
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 161185.
Michael Taussig, I Swear I Saw This: Drawings in Fieldwork Notebooks, Namely My
Own (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 178.
Kathryn Moore, The sensory interface and other myths and legends, Overlooking the
Visual: Demystifying the Art of Design (Abbington, Oxon., New York: Routledge, 2010),
1733.
Alison Smithson, The New Sensibility Resulting from the Moving View of Landscape,
AS in DS: An Eye on the Road (Baden: Lars Mller Publishers, 2001 edition), 4789.
Jeremy Till, In Time, Architecture Depends (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009),
93116.
8. SPRING BREAK
March 14
9. Anticipating
March 21
Stan Allen, Taichung Gateway Project: A New Synthesis of Park and City, New
Geographies 0, Neyran Turan, ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Graduate
School of Design, 2008), 16109.
Bruno Latour, Forty-years LaterBack to a Sub-lunar Earth, Ecological Urbanism
Mohsen Mostafavi with Gareth Doherty eds., (Zurich: Lars Mller Publishers, 2010),
124127.
Margaret Mead and Rhoda Mtraux, Man on the Moon, The World Ahead: An
Anthropologist Anticipates the Future, Robert B. Textor ed., (New York: Berghahn
Books, 2005), 247252.
Robert B. Textor, Introduction, The World Ahead: An Anthropologist Anticipates the
Future (New York: Berghahn Books, 2005), 134.
AbduMaliq Simone, Cities and Change, For the City Yet to Come (Durham and
London: Duke University Press, 2004), 213243.

January 25, 2012

10. How to Speak to a Designer

March 29
Stan Allen, Kenneth Frampton, and Hashim Sarkis, Discussion, Landform Building:
Architecture's New Terrain, Stan Allen and Marc McQuade, eds. (Baden: Lars Mller
Publishers, 2011), 250264.
Rem Koolhaas, The Generic City, S,M,L,XL (New York: Monacelli, 1998), 958971.
Peter Rowe, Designers in Action, Design Thinking (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992),
137.
Hashim Sarkis, The World According to Architecture: Beyond Cosmopolis New
Geographies 4: Scales of the Earth, El Hadi Jazairy, ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Graduate School of Design, 2011), 104108, and New Geographics: Notes on an
Emerging Aesthetic, New Geographies 0, Neyran Turan, ed., 98109.
11. Walking
April 4
Michel de Certeau, Walking in the City, and Spatial Stories, The Practice of Everyday
Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 91110, and 115130.
Henry David Thoreau, Walking (Rockville, MD: Arc Manor, 2007, reprint).
Michael Sorkin, Twenty Minutes in Manhattan (London: Reaktion, 2009), 139155.
John R. Stilgoe, Beginnings, Outside Lies Magic: Regaining history and awareness in
everyday places (New York: Walker and Co., 1998), 119.
Gnther Voght, Between Search and Research, Distance & Engagement: Walking,
Thinking and Making Landscape, ed. Alice Foxley (Baden: Lars Mller Publishers, 2011),
724.
12. Surfaces
April 11
Pierre Blanger, Synthetic Surfaces, The Landscape Urbanism Reader (New York:
Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 239265.
Claude Lvi-Strauss, A Native Community and its Life-Style, Tristes Tropiques (New
York: Penguin, 1992 reprint), 178-198.
Mirko Zardini, Surface of the City, Sense of the City: An Alternate Approach to
Urbanism (Baden: Lars Mller Publishers, 2007), 208267.

January 25, 2012

13. Intervening 1
April 18
Farha Ghannam, Remaking the Modern: Space, Relocation and the Politics of Identity
in a Global Cairo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
Anne Whiston Spirn, One With Nature: Landscape, Language, Empathy and
Imagination, Landscape Theory, Rachael Ziady De Lue ed. (London: Routledge, 2007),
4368.
14. Intervening 2
April 25
Ahmed Kanna, Dubai, The City as Corporation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2011).

January 25, 2012