Online courses directory (2511)

This studio will investigate the social, programmatic, tectonic and phenomenological performance and character of a student gathering place on the MIT campus. Whether it is simply for socializing or for more specific events, the student gathering place will serve as a refuge from the vigorous educational environment of the Institute, and it will reinforce a critical sense of "place" through the almost logical organization of its program. The place will foster a casual discovery of "being": a reflection upon the student's own existence based upon participation in group events and an intellectual attitude toward acting. To create a space that inspires, rather than imposes: such a discovery is the foremost challenge of this studio.

This studio discusses in great detail the design of urban environments, specifically in Providence, RI. It will propose strategies for change in large areas of cities, to be developed over time, involving different actors. Fitting forms into natural, man-made, historical, and cultural contexts; enabling desirable activity patterns; conceptualizing built form; providing infrastructure and service systems; guiding the sensory character of development: all are topics covered in the studio. The course integrates architecture and planning students in joint work and requires individual designs and planning guidelines as a final product.

In 2008, the Beijing Urban Design Studio will focus on the issue of Beijing's urban transformation under the theme of de-industrialization, by preparing an urban design and development plan for the Shougang (Capital Steel Factory) site. This studio will address whether portions of the old massive factory infrastructure can be preserved as a national industrial heritage site embedded into future new development; how to balance the cultural and recreational value of the site with environmental challenges; as well as how to use the site for urban development. A special focus of the studio will be to consider development approaches that minimize energy utilization.

To research these questions, students will be asked to interact with clients from the factory, local residents, city officials and experts on transportation, environment, energy and real estate. They will assess strategic options for the steel factory and propose comprehensive plans for the design and development of the brownfield site.

This workshop explores how designers might become as sensitive to space as they are to objects. Through a number of projects and precedent studies, architectural design is studied in relation to the Space Between. The design process is studied in reverse, considering space first and objects second. This is not to imply that objects are not important, but rather that space is equally important.

This course serves as an introduction to urban form and design, focusing on the physical, historical, and social form of cities. Selected cities are analyzed, drawn, and compared, to develop a working understanding of urban and architectural form. The development of map making and urban representation is discussed, and use of the computer is required. A special focus is placed on the historical development of the selected cities, especially mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth century periods of expansion. Readings focus on urban design theory in the twentieth century and will be discussed during a weekly seminar on them. This is a methods class for S.M.Arch.S. students in Architecture and Urbanism.

This workshop investigates the current state of sustainability in regards to architecture, from the level of the tectonic detail to the urban environment. Current research and case studies will be investigated, and students will propose their own solutions as part of the final project.

The Beijing Urban Design Studio is a joint program between the MIT and Tsinghua University Schools of Architecture and Planning. The goal of the studio is to foster international cooperation through the undertaking of a joint urban design and planning initiative in the city of Beijing involving important, often controversial, sites and projects. Since 1995, almost 250 MIT and Tsinghua University students and faculty have participated in this annual studio, making it one of the most successful and enduring international academic programs between China and the US. It has received the Irwin Sizer Award from MIT for outstanding innovation in education. The studio takes place over five weeks in June and July including several weeks in residence at Tsinghua University and two brief study tours to locations and projects that inform the work. It will include 18-20 MIT and 10-15 Tsinghua Architecture and Planning students. The Beijing City Planning Institute, responsible for strategic planning in the city, participates in the studio as the client.

This class focuses on representation tools used by architects during the design process and attempts to discuss the relationship they develop with the object of design. Representation plays a key role in architectural design, not only as a medium of conveying and narrating a determined meaning or a preconceived idea, but also as a code of creating new meaning, while the medium seeks to establish a relationship with itself. In this sense, mediums of representation, as external parameters to the design process, are not neutral tools of translating an idea into its concrete form. They are neither authentic means of creativity, nor vapid carriers of an idea. Therefore, an important aspect in issues of meaning is how the architect manipulates the play of translating a concept to its concrete version, through the use of a medium of representation. The course is a continuation of the equivalent course taught in the fall semester and specifically focuses on digital media. The course is intended to establish a reciprocal relationship with the design studio, feeding from and contributing to its content.

This architectural studio will have one main project for the semester: to explore the issues surrounding the redesign of an area in Havana, Cuba. It is a typical area about the size of a Law of Indies block that presently has a mix of housing, work, and shopping, in buildings that need to be replaced and others that need to be rehabilitated. There is also vacant land, and buildings that are unused. Part of the blocks front on the Malecon, the street next to the water. The other edge fronts onto a typical neighborhood. The intention is to study the culture through an understanding of one area of Havana and then design an "echo" in architectural form. The design will include public space as well as a mix of buildings: some new, some rehabilitated.

This course will explore the mutual influences of ideas of nature, theories of city design and planning, and practices of urban design, construction, and management. We will investigate how natural processes shape urban landscapes (from the scale of street corner to region) and how to intervene strategically in those processes in order to achieve certain goals. We will examine cases of cities that adapted successfully to natural processes and those that did not. Students will then have the opportunity to research a case of their choice and to present their findings for discussion. The subject may be historical or an an example of contemporary theory and practice. Additional information is also available at Professor Spirn's class website.

This course explores photography as a disciplined way of seeing, of investigating landscapes and expressing ideas. Readings, observations, and photographs form the basis of discussions on landscape, light, significant detail, place, poetics, narrative, and how photography can inform design and planning, among other issues.

The class website can be found here: Sites in Sight: Photography as Inquiry.

This class presents an analysis of the development of housing models and their urban implications in Paris, London, and New York City from the seventeenth century to the present. The focus will be on three models: the French hotel, the London row house, and the New York City tenement and apartment building. Other topics covered will include twentieth-century housing reform movements and work by the London County Council, CIAM, and American public housing agencies.

The course is designed to be an introduction to methods of analyzing, evaluating, and recording the urban environment first hand. Its aim is to supplement existing courses that cover theory and history of city design and planning and to better prepare students without prior design background for the studio sequence.

In this course we examine the relationship between public policy and urban design through readings, discussions, presentations, and papers. We also analyze the ways in which policies shape cities, and investigate how governments implement urban design. Students gain a critical understanding of both the complex system of governance within which urban design occurs and the effective tools available for creative intervention.

This course examines both the structure of cities and the ways they can be changed. It introduces graduate students to theories about how cities are formed, and the practice of urban design and development, using U.S. and international examples. The course is organized into two parts: Part 1 analyzes the forces which act to shape and to change cities; Part 2 surveys key models of physical form and social intervention that have been deployed to resolve competing forces acting on the city. This course includes models of urban analysis, contemporary theories of urban design, and implementation strategies. Lectures in this course are supplemented by discussion periods, student work, and field trips.

This is a seminar about the ways that urban design contributes to the distribution of political power and resources in cities. "Design," in this view, is not some value-neutral aesthetic applied to efforts at urban development but is, instead, an integral part of the motives driving that development. The class investigates the nature of the relations between built form and political purposes through close examination of a wide variety of situations where public and private sector design commissions and planning processes have been clearly motivated by political pressures, as well as situations where the political assumptions have remained more tacit. We will explore cases from both developed and developing countries.

This course is a client-based land analysis and site planning project. The primary focus of the course changes from year to year. This year the focus is on Japan's New Towns.

Students will review land inventory, analysis, and planning of sites and the infrastructure systems that serve them. They will also examine spatial organization of uses, parcelization, design of roadways, grading, utility systems, stormwater runoff, parking, traffic and off-site impacts, as well as landscaping. Lectures will cover analytical techniques and examples of good site-planning practice. Requirements include a series of assignments and a client-based project.

This course examines the theories and policy debates over who can own real property, how to communicate and enforce property rights, and the range of liberties that they confer. It explores alternative economic, political, and sociological perspectives of property rights and their policy and planning implications.

The course investigates e-Learning systems from a business, policy, technical and legal perspective. The issues presented will be tackled by discussion of the design and structure of the various example systems. The connection between information architectures and the physical workplace of the users will also be examined. The course will be comprised of readings, discussions, guest speakers and group design sessions. Laboratory sessions will be focused on implementation tools and opportunities to create one's own working prototypes. Students will learn to describe information architectures using the Unified Modeling Language (used to specify, design and structure web applications) and XML (to designate meaningful content).

Subject combines practical instruction, readings, lectures, field trips, visiting artists, group discussions, and individual reviews. Fosters a critical awareness of how images in our culture are produced and constructed. Student-initiated term project at the core of exploration. Special consideration given to the relationship of space and the photographic image. Practical instruction in basic black and white techniques, digital imaging, fundamentals of camera operation, lighting, film exposure, development, and printing. Open to beginning and advanced students. Lab fee. Enrollment limited with preference given to current Master of Architecture students.