But the fact remains that many Design School studio projects end up as real developments, or at least end up influencing them.

"The most useful way a studio works is at that very imaginative preliminary stage," says Boothe.

"It's hard to give a specific idea x, y or z that resulted from a studio," Boothe adds. "But you look at the project you can see the same potentials."

Of course, it may be several years before a Design School studio project makes it from a display case in Gund Hall--where final project reports are shown--to an actual construction site.

As Boothe says, "Often you have a idea in a studio and a good idea takes years to germinate."

East Cambridge Project

Such was the case with an ongoing project to redevelop 60 acres in East Cambridge, near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 1976, Cambridge city officials wanted to erect a structure on what Boothe described as "a beleaguered area" of "parking lots and vacant buildings."

As part of the planning process, Cambridge officials examined some Design School studio projects. Using ideas from those projects, the city in 1978 produced a report on development potential for the site.

Today, that project is 90 percent complete, and has employed many Design School ideas. Developers have turned the area into a boat canal connecting to the Charles River, surrounded by high-rise condominiums and office buildings.

Over the years, Cambridge has often used Design School student projects as a resource. Design work, in fact, has been one of the few areas in which Harvard and the city--whose relationship has been characterized more by tension than cooperation--have managed to work together.

MIT's University Park Development and proposed plans for the Alewife Brook Parkway were both Design School studio projects. And the walkway connecting Harvard Yard with the Science Center was a Design School studio solution to traffic safety problems on Broadway.

Harvard Square Study

However, many residents protested both the University Park project, saying it did not provide enough affordable housing, and the Alewife project, saying that it would damage the environment.

In fact, many prefer to cite a 1984 Design School study of Harvard Square, done on the iniative of Robert H. Scott--Harvard's vice president for finance--as a better example of how Cambridge and the Design School have worked together.