The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is pleased to announce the inaugural Experimental Postdoctoral Fellowship for sustainable architecture: Experimental Fellowship–Harvard GSD . Supporting practice-oriented researchers working with the GSD’s Laboratory for Design Technologies (LDT), the year-long fellowship has a thematic focus on health, wellness, and sustainable material systems for buildings, landscapes, and cities.

Juan Pablo Ugarte. Photo: Maggie Janik.

The two participating fellows, Juan Pablo Ugarte (MArch ’14, DDes ’23) and Noam Attias, are conducting their research in the context of the LDT. Ugarte has begun work with Martin Bechthold, Kumagai Professor of Architectural Technology, and Allen Sayegh, design critic and senior interaction technologies fellow, on a project assessing how workspaces that include wood and other natural materials can alleviate stress and promote wellness. Attias’s research with Karen Lee-Bar Sinai, assistant professor of landscape architecture, focuses on studying new approaches to bio-fabrication with fungi. She recently shared some of her research in a talk at the Arnold Arboretum, “Mycelium Modified Wood: Design for Sustainable Habitats .”

“At the GSD, we are particularly interested in knowledge that is consequential for practice,” says Bechthold of the fellowship’s goal. “We acknowledge that faculty and students must engage in research, discourse, and learning that advance innovations on topics including, but not limited to, material solutions.”

Noam Attias. Photo: Maggie Janik.

The LDT is a collaborative platform for the GSD’s design technology research units. Areas of specialization include responsive technologies and sensing, sustainable material systems, robotics and additive manufacturing, computational design and modeling, urban data analytics, and transport systems design. In addition to Bar-Sinai, Bechthold, and Sayegh, GSD faculty affiliated with the LDT include Elizabeth Christoforetti, Carole Voulgaris, and Andrew Witt.

The fellowship is supported by the Experimental Foundation , a Berlin-based nonprofit organization founded in 2022 by the architect Prof. Regine Leibinger (MArch ’91). Leibinger co-founded the architectural practice Barkow Leibinger with Frank Barkow. From 2022 to 2025, she was a design critic in architecture at the GSD and currently serves as a member of the Dean’s Council. Experimental provides financial and organizational support to early career practice-oriented researchers who are committed to fostering sustainability while going beyond technical solutions to focus on the spatial quality and aesthetics of the built environment.

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