Classes

This course continues the Imprint publication workshops begun in 2020, which led to the student-designed and produced Imprint 01 & 02 last year. This class will help conceive the Imprint 03 publication, and a student team will be hired from its members to produce the publication in Summer 2022. This spring's class will function in a workshop format with three primary goals: 1.) To help students engage and acquire skills needed to conceive and produce a complex graphic design project like Imprint; 2.) To help students ask, and answer fundamental questions guiding this year's publication’s strategy: What can a book be? Who decides? And how does one curate a selection of essays in an edited volume or journal?; 3.) To catalyze exploration, and engagement with the intricate connections between text and image authorship in publications across design history. The class will be an opportunity (for all students in each graduate degree area in the Department of Architecture) to reflect on previous Imprint issues, revise the project’s structure and future goals, and as a way for new students to get involved in bringing the Imprint 03 project forward in summer 2022.

This workshop will work on the research and production of an audio interview series that will be situated within a 16-channel sound system in the form of a super-communal super-scale piece of furniture: the dinner table.  We will study historical and contemporary examples of both domestic and public furniture, considering the effects of scale, color, organization, and technology. The workshop will center around a series of guest interviews with a set of designers actively working on inter-disciplinary, radical, and contemporary modes of practice. The table will serve as a platform for a series of soundscapes.

A workshop that explores the identity of Western/Modern Architecture through four lenses (Objects, Modes, Positioning, and Agency) from a cultural studies perspective. In each section, we will analyze the ways that the field of architecture mediates and constructs spatial forms and spatial knowledge.

In Objects and Modes, a range of material tropes may be explored from machine aesthetics, structural rationalism, vaporization (transparency, whiteness), object v. space, model v. analogue, abstraction v. ornamentation, etc.  In Positioning and Agency, polemics by which the discipline is identified may be explored including autonomy, agency, socio-spatial subjectivities, public v. private hierarchies, duration v. temporality, etc. 

The course will be structured by group discussions of assigned readings and precedents that will inform several experiments in form that explore threshold conditions defined by each student. All experiments will be modeled and represented orthographically. Each student will select one experiment to be fabricated (at a scale to be determined). The goal is to parallel the analysis of texts with an analysis through making.

How can we expand the capacity for architecture as a discipline to address heterogeneous visions and desires? The spaces we inhabit are social constructions that begin in the mind before they are materialized as objects and spaces. This course explores connections between thought and forms in a non-linear manner along two adjacent and conversant paths. Each theme introduced is considered through the lens of the standard cannon of Western/Modern Architecture: Architecture + “X”. The primacy of Western/Modern thought and forms has been predicated on an (often) absent “other.” In a turn toward a heterogeneous understanding of the discipline, the themes are also considered through the lens of power relations and hierarchies ( i.e. what the cannon leaves out: Architecture + “X” + subordination).

Readings and discussions are intended to guide discussions and production that asks “What is below the surface of forms (objects, buildings, spaces)? Readings encourage looking beneath the formal language of objects, buildings, and spaces, to ask “By what social relations and confluence of ideas did this come to be?” Assignments encourage looking at the formal language of objects, buildings, and spaces, to encourage individual formal explorations of the themes and issues uncovered in the texts. The workshop is intended to encourage productive discussions between the two modalities on the creation of ideas and forms historically and in the moment.

Biodiversity is declining worldwide, driven foremost by the intensification in land management and the transformation of natural areas for agriculture, production forestry, and settlements. Urban areas have doubled since 1992 and, in comparison with 2020, are projected to expand between 30% and 180% until 2100, depending on the scenario applied. Notably, most of the urban growth is often located in regions of high biodiversity and affects ecosystems far beyond urban areas, through resource demands, pollution, and climate impacts. Therefore, biodiversity conservation in urban areas needs to be shaped in a way that supports global conservation efforts. This course introduces the relationships between urban environments and biodiversity, how urban biodiversity influences ecosystem functions and underlying services that affect human well-being and whether urban habitats are hotspots or ecological traps (or neither) for biodiversity. The course will focus on six key topics: Socioeconomic and social ecological drivers of urban biodiversity, urban biodiversity response to technological change, relationships with ecosystem services, urban areas as refugia, spatiotemporal scale in urban biodiversity assessment, and ecological networks. The course will answer several questions such as: which synergies and trade-offs among biodiversity and ecosystem services exist in urban areas, which factors drive the relationships between socioeconomic, and environmental drivers with biodiversity at different spatial scale, and how do urbanization-induced changes in ecological network complexity and diversity affect ecosystem functions.

As there are gaps in our understanding critical to improving biodiversity conservation policies and management in urban areas that need to be filled to improve global biodiversity outcomes. Students will work on developing strategies for improving and managing biodiversity in three cities in Colombia.

Working on three cities in Colombia, students will various data types to first assess the performance of existing biodiversity policies, design methodology for biodiversity management in urban areas using novel approaches such as aerial technology and artificial intelligence, and develop a research framework to accommodate biodiversity conservation with urban areas and highlight ways forward at the science-policy interface. Throughout the class, students will gain skills to understand how to improve urban habitat mapping; (2) integrate multiple urban gradients in the biodiversity assessment framework; (3) using satellite data and AI based methods to improve our mechanistic understanding of the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services; and (4) approaches to extend the involvement of citizens in biodiversity management in urban areas.  The course is meant to provide a solid framework, broad overview, and a rich set of references for future pursuits involving urban biodiversity.

This course is assumed that enrolled students are interested in learning about and discussing the topic of urban biodiversity. Although the course will generally cover the topic of urban biodiversity and urban ecology, it will be flexible enough to allow for individual student outreach into topics of specific interest with regard to urban, big data, AI applications in urbanizing areas.

This workshop provides architecture graduate students in the S.M. and M.Arch programs with tools, techniques, and practice for academic English language assessments, both oral and written. Students will learn effective ways to convey ideas and research through various exercises, including translating ideas from thought to thesis, practicing oral communication skills in academic environments, and peer-to-peer reviews (written and conversational).

Meetings will invite students to draw on their current research at any and all stages of the degree (coursework or thesis semester), allowing participants to use this space to further develop and improve upon previous and/or ongoing scholarly work. Ultimately, this course aims to provide students with formal lessons on effective communication while simultaneously providing an informal and supportive workshop space to improve upon one’s academic skills with peers at various learning levels and degree matriculation. This course is meant to complement and enhance each individual student’s work in other classes and as they prepare for the final thesis by building a solid foundation for scholarly success in and beyond the rigors of graduate school in MIT Architecture. 

In an AI-enhanced future, humans will become better at everything. The machine targets real-world artificial intelligence challenges designed to help address issues related to climate change, and urbanization in cities.

X Machine is an accelerator workshop designed to bring computer science and architecture together to create the most innovative and impactful technology solutions. The program's aim is to provide mentorship and technical support, with a focus on the problem statement and early-stage technology design ideation.

Drones are providing us with new ways to map, monitor, and measure our changing landscape. Advances in digital image processing enable one to go from flying a drone to working with accurate maps and 3D models in a matter of hours. In this course, students will learn how to use drones and other geospatial technologies to help them better understand our changing environment. Upon completion of this course, students will have theoretical and applied knowledge that will aid them to use UAVs in various applications.

This course examines the applications of drones in which the aerial perspective can be integrated into architecture, engineering and construction practice. In this course, students will gain hands-on experience with drone vehicles, sensors, image processing software and applications. With the proliferation of drones there are increasing opportunities to use drones for scientific remote sensing data acquisition and applications. This course focuses on understanding the fundamentals behind acquiring imagery data with drone-based cameras (e.g. multi-spectral and thermal) and processing the data for various applications. Students will also get to know the fundamentals of open source and proprietary software packages as they relate to UAV technology, as well as how to integrate resulting data into BIM and other office software tools.
 

Seminar connecting the arts and sciences by exploring methodological similarities and differences across disciplines: arts/architecture, humanities/social sciences, engineering, natural and material sciences et al. Aimed at fostering student collaborations across research interests: students develop their ideas for projects through targeted analysis of their disciplinary and interdisciplinary  interests. Each student will either enter with a project in mind, or develop their project ideas within the class. Students can choose to work individually or in groups.

This seminar’s goal to provide blueprints for developing interdisciplinary projects: final is a paper/ plan with goals/outcomes forming the basis for collaborative interdisciplinary projects.  Examples of such projects: artwork that makes use of cross-species communication, (Tomás Saraceno); project engaging the natural sciences, composed of material that endlessly transform, simultaneously functioning as an artwork, (Neri Oxman).

First half semester is targeted reading (articles) across disciplines – based in student interests – alongside discussion of case studies of successful collaborations in these disciplines. Analyzing case studies plus reading will enable an understanding of methodological specificities in different disciplines in relation to aesthetics and fabrication issues, and directly in context of the particular disciplines under consideration. Together this fosters reciprocal knowledge of the strengths and differences across disciplines. Case studies drawn from MIT’s history: CAST and CAVS, and from across the global ‘artworld’. Second half semester will be geared toward aiding students in better connecting across disciplines at MIT (and possibly beyond). This is trial and error, of course. However, final project, as a working plan for interdisciplinary collaboration, will provide the knowledge base and research skills applicable to future projects.
 

Seminar connecting the arts and sciences by exploring methodological similarities and differences across disciplines: arts/architecture, humanities/social sciences, engineering, natural and material sciences et al. Aimed at fostering student collaborations across research interests: students develop their ideas for projects through targeted analysis of their disciplinary and interdisciplinary  interests. Each student will either enter with a project in mind, or develop their project ideas within the class. Students can choose to work individually or in groups.

This seminar’s goal to provide blueprints for developing interdisciplinary projects: final is a paper/ plan with goals/outcomes forming the basis for collaborative interdisciplinary projects.  Examples of such projects: artwork that makes use of cross-species communication, (Tomás Saraceno); project engaging the natural sciences, composed of material that endlessly transform, simultaneously functioning as an artwork, (Neri Oxman).

First half semester is targeted reading (articles) across disciplines – based in student interests – alongside discussion of case studies of successful collaborations in these disciplines. Analyzing case studies plus reading will enable an understanding of methodological specificities in different disciplines in relation to aesthetics and fabrication issues, and directly in context of the particular disciplines under consideration. Together this fosters reciprocal knowledge of the strengths and differences across disciplines. Case studies drawn from MIT’s history: CAST and CAVS, and from across the global ‘artworld’. Second half semester will be geared toward aiding students in better connecting across disciplines at MIT (and possibly beyond). This is trial and error, of course. However, final project, as a working plan for interdisciplinary collaboration, will provide the knowledge base and research skills applicable to future projects.

Seminar or lecture on a topic in visual arts that is not covered in the regular curriculum. Requires original research and presentation of oral and written reports and/or design projects, varying at the discretion of the instructor.
 

Annexation, greenwashing, and destructive notions of progress have all but wiped out the memory of an indigenous mythology once deeply rooted in an embodied, balanced stewardship of nature. How can the merging of artistic methodologies with agricultural practices address this loss of cultural capital?

Common Ground is a transdisciplinary experiment in learning from the land, seeking to develop a new field of inquiry at the intersection of art, science and agriculture. The history of art is also a history of agriculture, marking humanity’s complex relationship with the environment. This course will examine historic typologies of indigenous architectural and agrarian technologies, bringing them into conversation with contemporary techno-scientific and artistic discourses. Through this synthesis, our class will explore artistic methods to decolonize the social, political, economic and narrative structures that govern our relationship to nature. Following the semester, project documentation and research developed over the semester will contribute to a publication.

Applicants from across artistic and scientific disciplines are highly encouraged. Interested students should attend the first class. Undergraduates are welcome to enroll.

Note: This course was held in June 2022

Rebuilding the Edge is a summer workshop offered by the MIT Department of Architecture for MIT students that will be taking place during the month of June 2022 in the Italian region of Abruzzo. Through an on-site experience, the workshop invites students to think about the future of Italian inner and southern areas, as well as the relationship between regional infrastructure projects and small communities affected by them.

Rebuilding the Edge is the result of a partnership between Liminal A.P.S., MIT’s Urban Risk Lab, MISTI Italy and Fondazione Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane–the foundation of the Italian state railway system. The workshop focuses on the issues faced by small municipalities along the Sulmona–Carpinone rail line, where a public-private partnership is beginning to revive rail activity after decades of disinvestment. For two-and-a-half weeks, students have the opportunity to experience the territory traversed by the rail line, working out of a popup research outpost within the recently renovated station at Roccaraso.

Rebuilding the Edge will allow students to engage the particular circumstances along one rail line in the Italian Apennines, and take away larger lessons about methodologies of design research, and the degrees to which design can play a role in addressing issues of social consequence.

Introduction

Faculty and Students within the Department of Architecture at MIT have finished design of four small shelters for the H22 festival in Sweden, scheduled for summer 2022.  Shelter fabrication and hosting of students for the project will be sponsored by Ikea in Sweden with the expectation that students will assembly the structures they design. The four shelters will be set within the forest of Fredriksdalsskogen to explore new ways we can live together in face-to-face in community. Student designs below the address Ikea’s five democratic principles of design: Forms, functioning, sustainability, affordability and quality.

Expectations

Although the shelters will be constructed in a distant location using digital fabrication the project presents a great opportunity for the students to learn about ways to apply materials to a lightweight structure. Water is the greatest enemy of any wooden structure. It penetrates through layers of material, weakening the structure by trapping moisture. Research novelty in this project will come from the many ways we will use precision fabrication to align layers of plastic and wood for varying levels of performance and appearance. Our layering technique will allow water to drain from the structures and sustain is overall strength. Finally, we planning to exhibit the process, models and drawings as part of a gallery exhibition in 2023. We will devote the second half of the semester toward building museum quality materials for display.

Seminar or lecture on a topic in the history, theory and criticism of architecture and art that is not covered in the regular curriculum. Requires original research and presentation of oral and written reports and/or design projects, varying at the discretion of the instructor.

There is no queer space; there are only spaces used by queers or put to queer use. Space has no natural character, no inherent meaning, no intrinsic status as public or private. As Michel de Certeau has argued, it is always invested with meaning by its users as well as its creators, and even when its creators have the power to define its official and dominant meaning, its users are usually able to develop tactics that allow them to use the space in alternative, even oppositional ways that confound the designs of its creators.

– George Chauncey, “‘Privacy Could Only Be Had in Public’: Gay Uses of the Streets” (1996)

Is there a “queer space?” The concepts of identity and its spatial experience as we know them today are rigidly compartmentalized. Binaries surround us, both physically and psychologically. All the world’s a stage, but the sphere always seems to split: exit stage left or stage right. Despite our best efforts to upend these conditioned distinctions, we still live and move through them every day. The pathological alienation of one thing (“normal”) from the other (“abnormal”) can differ from one locale to the next, even by mere steps. While internal identities may seem to be more fluid, external pressures carefully build partitions: one is gay or straight, queer or not, transgender or cisgender, just to name a few. How do these issues relate to space, both real and imagined?

Queer-identifying or not (yet another binary), how do you feel when you walk down the street? Do you change your bodily demeanor based on the neighborhood? Are you fearful or fearless? Do you ever wonder, “are my jeans too tight? Is my hair too long or too short? Will my makeup be ‘socially acceptable’ here? Do I ‘look queer?’ Am I in danger? How can I safely blend in as I walk from point A to point B?”

This experimental and compact course will explore the long histories and current states of queerness—a broad term that necessitates discussion without definitive conclusions—, inviting students to reflect on their own experiences, regardless of personal identities, sexuality, gender, or otherwise. That is to say, queer-identifying or not, how do you encounter the urban landscape? Who manufactures urban meaning? Who builds our spatial experiences? Who, how, and why might one want to confound the designs of its creators?

Using positionality as our primary method of inquiry, this course asks participants to question their own identities within space, including—and especially—the complications that arise from that very term, “identity.” By interrogating past and current laws (social, stately) that govern neighborhoods here and everywhere, students are encouraged to challenge and consider a wide range of phenomenological messages and experiences through personal reflections on select and invited sources (written, felt, built, painted). This course is open to all.

If you are interested, please email the instructor at aflynn@mit.edu.

Program of research and writing of thesis; to be arranged by the student with supervising committee. 

Program of thesis research leading to the writing of an SB thesis. Intended for seniors. Twelve units recommended.

Research and project activities, which cover the range represented by the various research interests and projects in the Department.

Research and project activities, which cover the range represented by the various research interests and projects in the department. Students who wish a letter grade option for their work must register for 4.URG.