Harriet Harriss
Research Projects
Architecture’s Afterlife
2019-2023
An Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership research project which aims to identify the multi-sector impact of an architecture degree and the extent to which skills taught to architecture students are needed in other sectors.
Mistresses of Architecture
2020-2022
A multimedia research project exploring the research of Pratt SoA’s women faculty members through a series of conversations, events and a workshop series open to faculty and students, and celebrating the contribution by underrepresente female-identifying faculty and alumnae at Pratt Institute and beyond, as a way of restoring leading women to their respective disciplinary canons andachieving gender parity in the profession.
Women writing about architecture reading list
2017-ongoing
An educator resource reading list of over 300 notable architectural texts written by women and compiled in a bid to discourage universities from giving students male-dominated reading lists. The aim of the project is not only to inspire young women entering the profession, but to also promote established female talents which have been systematically overlooked, thus making the curriculums of architecture schools more inclusive.
Rome Fellowship
20XX, British Academy in Rome
The BSR Landscape fellowship focused on examining the relationship between the slaughter of cows and the the sequential and spatial narratives of Baroque theatre and poetry.
Civic Pedagogy TV
20XX, Santander Scholars Award
Two Santander Awards funded research into defining ‘civic pedagogy’ – where communities (and not academics or students) are invited to shape higher education curriculum by setting assignments that address real societal challenges. The project involved international collaborations with Lynnette Widder & Clarisa Diaz (Columbia University) and students from New York Institute of Technology.
Pedagogies
The Refugee Wearable Shelter
Design brief
2015 – institution?
This design brief tasked Interior Design an Textiles MA students to respond to the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. The ‘hackathon’ required students to innovate imaginative propositions for a wearable design that would provide adaptable shelter, whilst taking affordability into consideration and using sustainable materials where possible.
Bloomberg Buidling Screen Designs
Industry partnership (Contract value: £51,000 + £7,000 for winning teams)
2017 – Royal College of Art, London
This Hackathon and Design competition offered interdisciplinary teams of RCA students an exciting opportunity to compete to design multi-purpose room divider screens for their new headquarters in central London, designed by Fosters + Partners. Bloomberg were so impressed with the students’ work that they selected three winning designs, had them manufactured and installed them in time for the building’s launch in October 2017.
IKEA and BYREDO Invisible design: the democratisation of scent
Industry partnership (Contract Value: £40,000)
Extending their collaboration with fragrance innvovators BYREDO, IKEA set the RCA students a design brief that invited them to explore products and furniture that could disseminate fragrance in the home. Together we prototyped objects that used light, sound and smell to transform a space, and which have had a big influence on the 13 fragrances that make up IKEA’s much celebrated OSYNLING collection.
Framestone atrium intervention
Industry partnership (Contract Value: £10,000)
2018 – Royal College of Art, LondonFounded in 1986, Framestore is home to a collective of artists and designers working across film, advertising and content. Their work is wide-ranging, and is primarily known globally for visual effects, creating extraordinary award winning imagery and scenes for numerous films including Superman (Returns), Batman (Dark Knight), Harry Potter (The Deathly Hallows). The brief evolved as a consequence of Framestore’s desire to move location, and the need to create an installation in the new building’s atrium that would transform the space into a dynamic environment celebrating the achievements of the organistion.
British Museum: The (re) distributed museum
Museums are increasingly shifting their emphasis from viewing to experiencing artefacts. Working in interdisciplinary groups, MA Interior Design (ID) and Information Experience Design (IED) students addressed a futuristic challenge: how might the British Museum re-distribute its artefacts across the urban realm, to invite a dialogue about their value, significance, meaning and interpretation. To kick-start this challenge, each group was assigned a British Museum artefact for re-situating/re-distributing elsewhere in London.
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Fine Art & Architecture interactive intervention installation. This project asked students to contribute towards the Cultural Olympiad: an initiative concerned with using culture to make Olympic Sport more inclusive and engaging.
Oxford Probation Service Live Project
Architecture students collaborate with public sector clients to product designs that make the probation service reception area and street frontage more attractive, accessible and less intimidating for users and passers by.
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International design Collaborations - designing for disasters
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MFA Transdisciplinary Design Program
Industry partnership (pro-bono)
20XX – Royal College of Art, LondonMuseums are increasingly shifting their emphasis from viewing to experiencing artefacts. Working in interdisciplinary groups, MA Interior Design (ID) and Information Experience Design (IED) students addressed a futuristic challenge: how might the British Museum re-distribute its artefacts across the urban realm, to invite a dialogue about their value, significance, meaning and interpretation. To kick-start this challenge, each group was assigned a British Museum artefact for re-situating/re-distributing elsewhere in London.
2015 – Royal College of Art, London
Setting up the Practice Mentor Programme in Interior Design was one of Harriet Harriss’ first initiatives at the RCA. The scheme proved so successful it was expanded to first year MA Architecture students and now MPhil/PhD year 1-2 student has a professional mentor. Students are exposed to the working methods, approach and environment of each practice, supporting their reflections on their own emerging design methods. Some of London’s most impressive and significant practices have joined the scheme, each willing to support students professional advancement, pro-bono, and in so doing demonstrate their commitment to sustaining and developing the sector.
Setting up the Practice Mentor Programme in Interior Design was one of Harriet Harriss’ first initiatives at the RCA. The scheme proved so successful it was expanded to first year MA Architecture students and now MPhil/PhD year 1-2 student has a professional mentor. Students are exposed to the working methods, approach and environment of each practice, supporting their reflections on their own emerging design methods. Some of London’s most impressive and significant practices have joined the scheme, each willing to support students professional advancement, pro-bono, and in so doing demonstrate their commitment to sustaining and developing the sector.
Cultural Olympiad Live Project
20XX – Oxford Brookes School of Architecture, Oxford
Fine Art & Architecture interactive intervention installation. This project asked students to contribute towards the Cultural Olympiad: an initiative concerned with using culture to make Olympic Sport more inclusive and engaging.
Oxford Probation Service Live Project
20XX – Oxford Brookes School of Architecture, Oxford
Architecture students collaborate with public sector clients to product designs that make the probation service reception area and street frontage more attractive, accessible and less intimidating for users and passers by.
2012 – Oxford Brookes School of Architecture, Oxford
Launched as a Design Competition between Oxford Brookes School of Architecture & Montana State University, the latter joined students in Oxford to construct a pavilion designed to make sport more accessible for the public during the Olympics. The Pavilion also travelled to London to feature in the Olympic walk on the Industrius site, which later won a design award.
Launched as a Design Competition between Oxford Brookes School of Architecture & Montana State University, the latter joined students in Oxford to construct a pavilion designed to make sport more accessible for the public during the Olympics. The Pavilion also travelled to London to feature in the Olympic walk on the Industrius site, which later won a design award.
International design Collaborations - designing for disasters
2013 – New York Institute of Technology, Oxford. Brookes School of Architecture, Oxford
A two-year design collaboration between Oxford Brookes School of Architecture & New York Institute of Technology architecture students, seeking to invent and propose new forms of flood resilient buildings for New York, Oxford, London & Miami. Read more here.
A two-year design collaboration between Oxford Brookes School of Architecture & New York Institute of Technology architecture students, seeking to invent and propose new forms of flood resilient buildings for New York, Oxford, London & Miami. Read more here.
MFA Transdisciplinary Design Program
20XX –
Parsons New School, New York
A Higher Education Academy funded visiting professorship at Parsons New School involving teaching in the MFA Transdisciplinary Design program, a community situated Live Project in the Bronx’s own Southview Park, a co-authored presentation at MIT, and a paper in an international journal: Harriss, H., Penin, L. Staszowski, E., ‘Towards a ‘border pedagogy’ for civic engagement in Service Design Teaching.’ Geo-Located Media: Reflections on Hybrid, Physical and Digital Spaces / Le média localisé géographiquement:des réflexions sur les espaces digitaux, physiques, et hybrides.
A Higher Education Academy funded visiting professorship at Parsons New School involving teaching in the MFA Transdisciplinary Design program, a community situated Live Project in the Bronx’s own Southview Park, a co-authored presentation at MIT, and a paper in an international journal: Harriss, H., Penin, L. Staszowski, E., ‘Towards a ‘border pedagogy’ for civic engagement in Service Design Teaching.’ Geo-Located Media: Reflections on Hybrid, Physical and Digital Spaces / Le média localisé géographiquement:des réflexions sur les espaces digitaux, physiques, et hybrides.
Architecture Live Projects Pedagogy International symposium
2012 – Oxford. Brookes School of Architecture, Oxford
Critical reflections on Live Projects with a view to co-creating a pedagogic best practice framework Thursday 24th - Saturday 26th May 2012. A three-day international symposium by and for live project educators, live-project community participants, live project students, practice architects involved in community co-design, University management involved in community partnership projects, and live project practitioners and participants from associated fields and disciplines.
Themes included: Problem-based learning, community-engaged scholarship, co-design, peer-based learning, tacit knowledge, threshold concepts, practice-ready skills, professionalism and ethics, diversity, critical citizenship, education futures, deep and surface learning, live project methodologies and paradigms, architecture curriculum, assessment and validation.
Themes included: Problem-based learning, community-engaged scholarship, co-design, peer-based learning, tacit knowledge, threshold concepts, practice-ready skills, professionalism and ethics, diversity, critical citizenship, education futures, deep and surface learning, live project methodologies and paradigms, architecture curriculum, assessment and validation.
Public-private teaching partnerships Live Project
20XX – New York Institute of Technology, Oxford. Brookes School of Architecture, Oxford
A design collaboration between OBU and NYIT MA Architecture students whose brief involved generating a meanwhile use installation for an industrial site awaiting conversion. The students were required to apply the principals of set design within their transformations, resulting in performative and kinetic installations.