After six years of service and mentorship, Faculty Directors Guhan Subramanian (HBS) and Helen Clement will be transitioning out of their Graduate Commons Program (GCP) roles. The couple, who reside in Harvard University Housing’s (HUH) 10 Akron St. property, bid farewell to GCP at the conclusion of the 2021-22 academic year.
Subramanian’s numerous Case Study events have brought together an interdisciplinary group of HUH residents from across different graduate schools and affiliations to discuss current cases on wide-ranging topics trending in the media, including the Tiffany & Co. and Louis Vuitton (LVMH) merger and the Scarlett Johansson/Disney case surrounding the release of Black Widow. The couple created new traditions for HUH residents including their well-attended annual Valentine’s Day Ball that adds a much-needed lightheartedness to the darkness of winter months in New England.
With their departure comes the appointment of a new faculty director couple. The GCP is pleased to welcome Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) Professor of Architecture Grace La and her husband James Dallman. They will become the intellectual leaders of 10 Akron St. beginning fall of 2022, joining current GCP Faculty Directors Nancy Hill and Rendall Howell, Chris and Nancy Winship, and Vinothan Manoharan (SEAS) and Michelle Carter. “We are thrilled to have our first GSD Faculty Director joining us next year. In conversations with former HUH residents and interns, we learned that Grace and James share a commitment to mentoring and supporting graduate students,” said GCP Director Lisa Valela.
With deep Harvard roots, both La and Dallman received their professional degrees in architecture from GSD and are excited to mentor and support residents in the Graduate Commons community. “James and I are delighted to join the distinctive GCP program, which enables us to contribute to the intellectual life at Harvard in new and expansive ways. We look forward to collaboration across the university,” said La.
La and Dallman are also principals and co-founders of La Dallman Architects, an internationally-recognized firm integrating architecture, engineering, and landscape. The firm’s work has been exhibited widely, including at the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Danish Architecture Center, and the Roca London Gallery. They have been awarded numerous professional honors, including the prestigious Progressive Architecture Award, for which their work is featured on the March 2021 cover of Architect, the journal of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
In addition to their Harvard teaching and collaborative design practice, the couple have a variety of interests they hope to share with HUH residents. La enjoys travel, furniture and textile design, gardening and hosts Talking Practice, a niche podcast with a devoted following of nearly 75,000 downloads. Dallman enjoys drawing and is an avid outdoorsman who hikes, camps, and has portaged throughout the upper Great Lakes and the Canadian Boundary Waters. They will be joined in residence by their two sons and look forward to creating deeper connections with the Harvard community.
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