Facilities

STOA provides a range of hardware and software expertise, and manages the day-to-day operations of the Department of Architecture's technology infrastructure.  STOA is available to advise members of the Architecture community on equipment and application purchasing, platform and application support, and access to computing and technology resources. 

Please request reservations for the rooms and pin-up areas here (requires certificates). Please click on the room you want to reserve and include the following information: # of people, date, start and end time. You will receive a reply within 1 business day of your submission. 

ARCH: Long Lounge (7-429) — Capacity: 100 with doors open, 49 with doors closed; 100 chairs total

Long Lounge is reserved for all Department lecture series and studios as pin-up, review, and presentation space and other events requiring slide and computer projection, pin up, etc. While it may not be booked on a weekly basis for a specific class, a class that has a special event or speaker for which they need more public space, may reserve it for that event. 
First priority is lecture series during specified lecture times. Second priority is studio faculty during studio hours (MW 2-5; TR 1-6; F 2-6); these hours will vary depending on the term), and to be reserved on as-needed. Studios may not be block booked more than 3 weeks in advance. Third priority is classes that need pin-up space or to spread out on large tables on an occasional basis. All other times the room is scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis.

Pinup Spaces

Students who wish to present their projects in pinup spaces need to reserve space. Reserve early. There are nine pinup spaces on the fourth floor of Building 7 and one in Building 3. Here is a map showing those spaces.
 
SOAP: Stella Room 7-338 — Capacity: 20 at table plus 10 chairs (30 max)

Before requesting a reservation please carefully review the Stella Room Policies & Procedures document which contains important information on room access, food, cleaning and security.
 

The Architecture Shops provide equipment and software to assist students and faculty in fabricating physical models. The fabrication lab and a small workshop is located in Building 3 at 77 Massachusetts Avenue in rooms 3-402, 3-410, and 3-412. The Woodshop is located in Building N51 at 265 Massachusetts Avenue in room N51-160. For more information for workshop machines, resources, access, and hours visit archshops.mit.edu.

Studio Workspaces

Each student registered for an architectural design studio is assigned a studio workspace with their instructor’s group. This workstation includes a desk with a locker and chair. All Department students have use of the computers and peripherals located in the Building 3, 5 and 7 studio areas during the academic year. Students access the studio spaces using their MIT ID card.
Each person assigned a studio workstation is responsible for leaving the assigned space clean and undamaged by the cleanout date announced by the facilities manager at the end of each semester. A $75 penalty will be assessed directly to the student’s MIT account if these standards are not met. The charge is used to cover costs of trash removal or repair in the event a student leaves anything behind or damages his/her workstation.

Use of Studio Space in Summer

Architecture studios and computer classrooms are closed over the summer for computer and facilities maintenance. Summer studio use is usually restricted to those students who are working with faculty members on research projects that require access to equipment and software not available elsewhere. 

The Rotch Library of Architecture and Planning, housed in an award-winning building by Schwartz/Silver Architects, is one of the nation's premier resources in architecture and planning. The collection offers extensive depth in architecture, building technology, art history, photography, environmental studies, land use, urban design and development, housing and community development, regional planning and development, urban transportation and real estate. Rotch also holds an extensive Geographic Information Collection, including national and international datasets representing census/demographic, elevation, environmental, energy, geology, imagery, land use and land cover, transportation, urban environment, and water data. The GIS Lab is located in Rotch Library and is available for use by the MIT Community.

Also located in Rotch Library is the Aga Khan Documentation Center (AKDC@MIT). The Center supports teaching and research of architecture, urbanism, and visual culture in Muslim societies. Through the acquisition of select personal archives, AKDC is a repository of primary research materials. 

The library also holds extensive visual collections, including the Perceptual Form of the City project, the Kidder Smith Collection of American Architecture, and the Aga Khan Visual Archive. Digital visual collections are searchable through MIT’s Dome repository.

The Rotch Limited Access collection contains thousands of rare books and special materials in Art, Architecture, Design, and Urban Planning.

Rotch Library is part of the MIT Libraries system, with over five million items in print and digital formats; including electronic journals and books, images, maps, musical scores, sound and video recordings.

Students are also eligible for borrowing privileges at the Harvard College Libraries and at the Loeb Library at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Access to other libraries is also available through the Boston Library Consortium (BLC). The MIT Community may also access other research collections through MIT‘s Worldcat, including libraries participating in BLC and Borrow Direct cooperative associations of academic and research libraries.

Department Email

Important information from Architecture headquarters will be posted via e-mail. Therefore, student e-mail addresses will be automatically added to their degree program mailing list.
New students obtain an e-mail address through the Athena User Account Office. Please note that all addresses end with @mit.edu.

The Department has established the following guidelines for use of its e-mail lists. These include degree lists, faculty and staff lists, and other group lists created for academic purposes:
-    E-mail within the Department is limited to topics directly related to the academic, administrative, and research work of students, faculty, and staff.
-    The “subject” line should be specific enough that recipients may read or delete messages according to their relevance.
-    Postings should be of a one-time nature. Ongoing discussions should be moved to a small list of interested individuals that is created for this purpose.
-    Personal ads (apartment sublets, personal sales, parties, etc.) are not appropriate for academic lists.