The Urban Design Case Study Archive is a project of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design developed collaboratively between faculty, students, developers, and professional library staff. Specifically, it is an ongoing collaboration between the GSD’s Department of Urban Planning and Design and the Frances Loeb Library. This project received funding from the Veronica Rudge Green Prize for its development and was originally envisioned by professors Peter Rowe and Rahul Mehrotra.

As a collection of case studies, the project aims to support the study of the built environment in urban areas through a rich data model for urban design projects and their related descriptions, interpretations, drawings, and images. It makes use of excellent data entry tools that support the sophisticated search and visualization needed to support its pedagogical aims and scholarly research. Each case study includes digital photographs of the urban context, the projects themselves, and other graphic representation such as site plans, sections, and elevations, as well as texts, commentary, articles, analyses, bibliographies, people involved and interviews to facilitate and encourage discoverability and a flexible navigation within and across case studies depending on research interests.

The project launched in 2023 with urban design projects awarded the Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design and will continue to cover urban design projects of excellence across the globe. We thank the funders, faculty, staff, students, and the developers Performant Solutions, LLC for bringing this project to fruition.

Funders

Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design

Faculty

Rahul Mehrotra, John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization

Peter Rowe, Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor

Staff

Ann Whiteside, Librarian/Assistant Dean for Information Services

Bruce Boucek, GIS, Data, and Research Librarian

Alix Reiskind, Research and Teaching Support Team Lead Librarian

Ines Zalduendo, Special Collections Curator

Research Staff

Boya Guo, DDes ‘22

Liene Asahi Baptista, MAUD ‘23

Yona Chung, DDes ‘25

Priyanka Kar, MAUD ‘24

Sarahdjane Mortimer, MAUD ‘23

Enrique Mutis, MAUD ‘24

Developer/Development Team

Performant Software

Jamie Folsom

Chelsea Giordan

Derek Leadbetter

Ben Silverman

With special thanks to all the image contributors who have generously granted us copyright permission to include their images in the Urban Design Case Study Archive.