2019

Jonathan Grinham, D Des is a lecturer of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a researcher with the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities. Jonathan came to academia after 6 years in practice with SOM Chicago, Studio 27 Architecture in Washington, DC, and Mass Design Group in Boston. Jonathan has taught technology seminars at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as design studios at the Catholic University of America and Virginia Tech. While at Catholic University, Jonathan was the Assistant Project Manager for Team Capitol DC’s Solar Decathlon house, Harvest Home. 

His inquiry of where we extract materials, the energy and carbon embodied in the process of making building products, and the end use of these products has led to his development of novel technologies and publications around vascular-thin-film heat exchange, nano-scale thermal tuning, and the coupling of breathable materials to buoyancy-driven ventilation. These topics are complemented by Jonathan's other research interests that track themes in robotics, kinematic structures, embedded computation, and automated fabrication workflows.  

He received his Doctorate of Design degree (DDes) at the Harvard Graduate School of Design where he was a Graduate Researcher for the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and Project Manager for the GSD's Alive Project (MaP+S group). He holds a BArch and MS from Virginia Tech.