Orientation for Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University

(The Events in this Post Occurred in May 2011)

Sally Young and Jim Stockard

I was so excited about Orientation; it was going to be a glimpse into life at Harvard.  Sally and Jim organized the orientation and had prepared a full schedule ranging from introductions to briefings, to lunch with faculty, to visiting the library, to photographs, to about two pages of other items.  It would turn out to very enjoyable, enlightening, and exhausting.  By the end, it seemed that it would have been hard to fit any more in.  Frankly, I would not have been able to absorb much more information anyway.  The consensus among the Class of 2012 Fellows was that this was a great primer but the real learning curve would start when we would have to implement all the lessons upon moving in.  Prior to the Orientation, I put together several pages of questions in four categories.  The idea was that it would serve as kind of a check list.

The events started with an informal dinner at Jim’s house along with his charming wife, Sue.  I was the first guest to arrive, unfashionably a few minutes early.  Consequently, I had time to have a nice chat with just Jim and Sue.  I was also given a few small jobs like mixing the salad and opening some wine.  Jim and Sue seemed like very thoughtful and kind people with very positive outlooks on life.  They seemed capable of having an interesting and enjoyable conversation with just about anyone on any subject.  Over the next half hour, Sally, the other Fellows, their significant others, and a couple of past Fellows arrived.  By the way, in the Loeb Fellow diction, significant others are known as “affiliates”.

Jim and Sue’s place was perfect for our first get-together.  There was no big dining room table for all of us to sit around which would have allowed for one conversation.   Instead the group mingled in three connected spaces: the kitchen, an eating area, and the living room.   Everyone knew that they would be getting to know one another very well during the year ahead so there was no urgency to talk to everyone at length.  However, everyone was so insightful and passionate about their angle on the design world that I could have talked to any one of them for ages.



Jim showing the class
around Gund Hall



The tours were great.  Jim conducted them.  We knew we were seeing a fraction of the place but the tours instilled a sense of confidence that there were more than enough resources here for whatever we wanted to do.  The Graduate School of Design (GSD) would be the Loeb Fellows’ base of operation.  We’d have an office there, Jim and Sally’s offices were there.  Gund Hall is the name of the actual building.  It reminded me of a giant stair case that was built in a green house.



Examples of some of the students' work spaces



They call the giant steps “trays” and they are where the students have their workspaces.  It is a neat idea because the layout of the space allows everyone to know what is going on and see other people’s work.  Also, the light is good.





Piper Auditorium with its

enormous projection wall

There are a variety of meeting spaces and lecture halls at the GSD.  The largest one is called Piper Auditorium.  The presentation “screen” is really a blank wall that is about 24 feet tall.  The people in the back row will have no difficultly see the slides.  There are also several places for displays around the building.  During the Orientation, there was a show going on that had several exhibits with clever lighting effects.



One of the temporary exhibits at the GSD

  

Harvard Yard on a beautiful day in May



My first impression of the campus was that it was a bit of a mixed bag.  It had the Harvard Yard area which conformed to my mental picture of Harvard with the classic old buildings surrounding beautiful quad spaces, filled with canopy trees.  However, the campus isn’t just one area.  The campus spreads out from Harvard Yard in every direction for many blocks with buildings of every scale.  The campus also jumps across the Charles River to the rather sprawling athletic area and Harvard Business School.



Flowering trees everywhere



The main campus area is cut up by a random and confusing network of streets which apparently date back to the original cow paths.  Getting around was very confusing and, to make matters worse, the local traffic officials made most of the streets one-way.  Some of the streets were so narrow that, in order to get on-street parking, the streets had to be one way.  However, it looked like the wider ones were one-way to encourage car traffic to cut through campus which, at first glance, seemed like a really misguided idea to me.  I suspect that the old cow paths were two-way but, then again, how smart are cows?

  

There were flowering trees everywhere.  We really had lucked out because it was a particularly beautiful time of year to be visiting the area.  It even smelled nice except if you suffered from allergies.  Luckily, I had a few Claritin capsules in my bag.



The Classes of 2011 and 2012 meet



Even the view out of some of the conference rooms were filled with blossoms.  In one such room, we met with the Class of 2011.  I talked to one of the Class of 2011, Bryan Bell.  He used his year mainly to do a business plan.  He also gave me his bike which he apparently rode all year long, even throughout the winter.  He said it was a bit of a beater and that he would not be leaving his lock.  He said the lock was worth more than the bike.  I could hardly wait to see this bike.   The Class of 2012 was finishing up their year and they had all sorts of good advice to pass on to our class.  After a 2.5 hour group conversation which seemed to last only 30 minutes, we broke up into groups of three or four; in my case, two from the Class of 2011 and two from the Class of 2012. 



The lunch room at the GSD, called the

ChauHaus



We dispersed to various restaurants around town.  We did not eat at the ChauHaus at the GSD, even though it has great food, because our hosts were sure that we'd have plenty of meals there in the next year.  Peter Park, the former Planning Director for the City of Denver, and I were the incoming pair.  We had the pleasure of having a very nice lunch and some wine with Ana Gelabert-Sanchez, the former Planning Director for the City of Miami, and Tim Stonor, who heads up a group in England, called Space Syntax.  The lunch gave Peter and me a great chance to ask more questions and get into some depth as compared to the earlier meeting with 18 people.



The Doebele House

The Orientation wrapped up with a reception and dinner at the Doebele House, a big old house, only about four blocks east of the GSD.  The house was named after the former Curator of the Loeb Fellowship, Bill Doebele.  It seemed like every building around here gets a name.  I thought, when I get home, my family and I will have to come up with a name for our house.   The Doebele House was one of two locations used to house the Fellows during their year at Harvard.  The Doebele House was used for the people who came alone and the other house, known as the “other house” (it might be the only anonymous building in Harvard’s inventory), was much larger and was divided into various sized apartments to accommodate Fellows who brought families or affiliates.  It was located about 12 blocks west of the GSD and I would not have a chance to go look at it.  However, if the Doebele House was any indication, the other house would also be a nice place in which to reside for a year.



The Loeb Fellowship Classes of 2011 and 2012

 Though the house was large, the ground floor was packed with people; our class, the Class of 2011, Fellows from past years, and affiliates.  On the walls, there were framed posters from seminars and other events conducted by Loeb Fellows.  There were literally dozens of posters, all different sizes, shapes, and layouts; some of them dating from way back; all interesting and all covering important topics from their day. 




The Dining Room in the Doebele House



 The only exception was the dining room.  It was much more formal.  Three of the four walls had pictures of the classes, each class in its own identical frame, arranged in tidy rows, starting in 1975.  I guess the tradition took a few years to get started.  However, Bill Doebele’s picture had part of a wall all to itself.  Frances and John Loeb had the largest picture in the room and it was mounted on the wall behind the head of the table.  



There was plenty of wine at the reception and dinner that night.  I was starting to think that wine was standard at every meal with Loeb Fellows, except for perhaps breakfast.  The wine, the food, the stories, the Harvard survival tips, and people were wonderful.  However, what really surprised me was that without exception, every person I met knew someone whom I already knew.  It became more apparent that night that the world of city design was not all that big and it was highly connected.  The event also reinforced the importance of the new network that our class had just joined.  Jim had talked about an annual lunch for Loeb Fellows from around the world.  Wherever they are on that day, they get together, exchange the secret handshake, and have lunch with their fellow Fellows.  The people at the reception and dinner told me about how much they enjoyed their “extended family” and how helpful it has been for them over the years.  I was starting to appreciate this was way more than taking classes and writing a book.