Location, Location, Location: CGA Moves to New-ish Digs

Geographers are sensitive to the importance of place, location, and context. It’s one of our defining characteristics, our focus on the influence of space and place on interaction, access, networks, and outcomes. So, naturally, when I joined CGA and Harvard in March, I was super curious about where we were situated and how this might affect my and CGA’s capacity for engagement across the university. As I discovered, we possess a superb campus location in the Knafel Building, next door to the iconic Graduate School of Design and only steps from Memorial Hall, Harvard Yard, and the main library. It’s an enviable spot. Our location is great for all the professional reasons (Easy to find us! Easy to get to us!) but is also excellent for professional quality of life: great views, nice walk into work, easy access to an afternoon coffee. I’ve had a few visitors already over the past couple of months and it’s been fun to show off our local campus surroundings.

Of course, location is multi-scalar and placement within a building also matters. If you’ve visited us at CGA in recent years, you may remember how fantastic our facilities are in Knafel, but also that CGA is located on the euphemistically named “Concourse Level,” which in plain English means basement but with skylights. On the plus side, we’re lucky to have great lab and visitor space—no fear that we won’t have sufficient desks for visitors, post-docs, or interns. On the downside, especially post-pandemic, there isn’t always a great deal of footfall—and almost no accidental interaction with the Harvard community or external visitors. You have to know where to find us, down in our fancy basement.

As of this month, you’ll still sort of have to know where to find us, because we’ve moved! Or, more accurately, we’ve extended our footprint within CGIS North. We’re holding on to our legendary “fishbowl” lab down on the Concourse Level. This is always a great first stop, if you’re curious what we’ve been up to: our screens display a continuous montage of recent projects and there’s often someone in the lab who can point you in the right direction. Our other offices have moved, however, and are no longer downstairs. Instead, most of the CGA team, including me, are now solidly embedded within the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) up on the third floor of CGIS North. For those familiar with CGA deep history, we’re largely back where we started! 

Our move makes sense for lots of reasons. Administratively, we sit within IQSS, but we also collaborate extensively, especially with their data science team, and our new offices facilitate that close interaction. CGA also welcomes a constant stream of visitors and guests, so it’s nice to have pretty spaces to show them. We’re also much closer to the legendary IQSS coffee machine, which is great for serendipitous encounters and footfall, but also caffeine. We’re pleased at the notable increase in interaction with our IQSS colleagues and—won’t lie—pretty psyched about all the natural light that now streams through our office windows. 

tl; dr: Stop by and see us and remember that we’re mostly now to be found on the 3rd floor of Knafel and (as always) via email!

Rachel Franklin