Courses tagged with "Information technology" (121)

This course explores natural and electric lighting that integrates occupant comfort, energy efficiency and daylight availability in an architectural context. Students are asked to evaluate daylighting in real space and simulations, and also high dynamic range photography and physical model building.

This course explores the reciprocal relationships among design, science, and technology by covering a wide range of topics including industrial design, architecture, visualization and perception, design computation, material ecology, and environmental design and sustainability. Students will examine how transformations in science and technology have influenced design thinking and vice versa, as well as develop methodologies for design research and collaborate on design solutions to interdisciplinary problems.

This course explores the reciprocal relationships among design, science, and technology by covering a wide range of topics including industrial design, architecture, visualization and perception, design computation, material ecology, and environmental design and sustainability. Students will examine how transformations in science and technology have influenced design thinking and vice versa, as well as develop methodologies for design research and collaborate on design solutions to interdisciplinary problems.

This course explores the reciprocal relationships among design, science, and technology by covering a wide range of topics including industrial design, architecture, visualization and perception, design computation, material ecology, and environmental design and sustainability. Students will examine how transformations in science and technology have influenced design thinking and vice versa, as well as develop methodologies for design research and collaborate on design solutions to interdisciplinary problems.

How can architecture help people in times of urgent need caused by natural disasters? In this course, we will design resilient schools that could serve as community centers and shelters for the victims of the devastating typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

This course will guide graduate students through the process of using rapid prototyping and CAD/CAM devices in a studio environment. The class has a theoretical focus on machine use within the process of design. Each student is expected to have completed one graduate level of design computing with a full understanding of solid modeling in CAD. Students are also expected to have completed at least one graduate design studio.

Introduction to rules-based drawing with software (Rhino3D and Adobe Illustrator) focusing on graphic compositions of points, lines, and curves. Exercises will introduce and utilize basic ordering systems, two-dimensional geometric operations, graphic compositional principles, and visual hierarchy and legibility with line weights, tone, and poché. Tangible outcomes from the assignments will include line and tone drawings, modulated field drawings, and graphic collage compositions.

This is an advanced subject in computer modeling and CAD CAM fabrication, with a focus on building large-scale prototypes and digital mock-ups within a classroom setting. Prototypes and mock-ups are developed with the aid of outside designers, consultants, and fabricators. Field trips and in-depth relationships with building fabricators demonstrate new methods for building design. The class analyzes complex shapes, shape relationships, and curved surfaces fabrication at a macro scale leading to new architectural languages, based on methods of construction.

This course introduces three-dimensional composition of modules, basic form and volume principles, and form-based (three-dimensional) operational and ordering strategies. We will focus on the relationships between form and space with basic ingredients such as planes, surfaces, masses, and volumes. Students will produce physical and digital working models of their module studies as well as generating plan and section drawing types.

This course focuses on the design of modules or components that can be assembled/clustered/aggregated to form a larger spatial component system to enhance an existing space. Rather than aggregating identical components (such as bricks which are identical in size and shape), we will be designing our own components that can vary in size and shape to form differentiated component systems. The exercises in this course will introduce and develop parametric thinking skills (without the use of advanced parametric design software) and will require the student to fabricate working prototypes of her/his component system out of simple materials or commonly found items.

The aim of this course is to highlight some technical aspects of the classical tradition in architecture that have so far received only sporadic attention. It is well known that quantification has always been an essential component of classical design: proportional systems in particular have been keenly investigated. But the actual technical tools whereby quantitative precision was conceived, represented, transmitted, and implemented in pre-modern architecture remain mostly unexplored. By showing that a dialectical relationship between architectural theory and data-processing technologies was as crucial in the past as it is today, this course hopes to promote a more historically aware understanding of the current computer-induced transformations in architectural design.

Too often modern cities and suburbs are disorganized places where most new development makes daily life less pleasant, creates more traffic congestion, and contributes to climate change. This trend has to change; and our course is going to show you how.

Ecodesign means integrating planning, urban design and the conservation of natural systems to produce a sustainable built and natural environment. Ecodesign can be implemented through normal business practices and the kinds of capital programs and regulations already in use in most communities. We will show you how ecodesign has already been used for exceptional projects in many cities and suburbs—from Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm to False Creek North in Vancouver to Battery Park City in Manhattan, as well as many smaller-scale examples that can be adopted in any community. Cities and suburbs built according to ecodesign principles can and should become normal, instead of just a few special examples, transforming urban development into desirable, lower-carbon, compact and walkable communities and business centers.

As this course describes specific solutions to the vexing urban challenges we all face, course participants can see how these ideas might be applied in their own area. Participants will learn the conceptual framework of ecodesign, see many real, successful examples, and come to understand the tools, processes, and techniques for policy development and implementation.

Ecodesign thinking is relevant to anyone who has a part in shaping or influencing the future of cities and suburbs – citizens, students, designers, public officials, and politicians. At the conclusion of the course participants will have the tools and strategies necessary to advocate policies and projects for a neighbourhood or urban district using the ecodesign framework.

Ecologies of Construction examines the resource requirements for the making and maintenance of the contemporary built environment. This course introduces the field of industrial ecology as a primary source of concepts and methods in the mapping of material and energy expenditures dedicated to construction activities.

This is a project to assist in the design, drawing, modeling and hopefully constructing of a small Community Children's Center near Guayaquil, Ecuador. For the last year, Nicki Lehrer, from MIT's Aero/Astro Department, has been organizing efforts to build the project. The goal of the workshop is to provide her with a full fleshed out design for the community center so it can be built in the summer of 2007.

This course examines and presents processes of designing and implementing land readjustment in the context of developing countries.

Land readjustment is an alternative land-assembly approach to government compulsory purchase (often referred to as eminent domain) and voluntary market transaction. In the land readjustment process, a public or private agency invites property owners to become stakeholders in a redevelopment project and to contribute their lands to the project as investment capital. In return, each property owner receives a land site of at least equal value in the vicinity of the original site upon project completion. After all properties in the district are assembled, the combined land sites are subdivided to make space for wider roads and other local infrastructure.

The conventional approaches to land assembly are often conflict-ridden. Through this course, practitioners can add another viable option to their toolbox by learning about land readjustment as an alternative approach to urbanization in developing countries.

Land readjustment has been shown to reduce the initial capital requirement for land assembly, discourage holdouts, and minimize massive relocation of existing residents. When applying land readjustment at the right time and in the right place, this approach could mediate a major hindrance of land redevelopment in countries that are facing rapid urbanization.      

This course uses scale models to design environments that orchestrate contrasting material properties and conventional constructional systems to create places that foster specific ways of inhabiting space. It also demonstrates how architecture differs from other forms of design. Intended for students to test aptitude for architectural design and to experience an unfamiliar mode of thought, it's conducted in a studio format, with lectures on architectural theory and history, and structured for students with no previous experience in design.

Required of Architecture majors.

Inspired by the work of the architect Antoni Gaudi, this research workshop will explore three-dimensional problems in the static equilibrium of structural systems. Through an interdisciplinary collaboration between computer science and architecture, we will develop design tools for determining the form of three-dimensional structural systems under a variety of loads. The goal of the workshop is to develop real-time design and analysis tools which will be useful to architects and engineers in the form-finding of efficient three-dimensional structural systems.

This is the second course of “Four Facets of Contemporary Japanese Architecture” series, with the focus on the second facet: technology.

The technology portion will focus on works by architects who explored the use of technology—from techniques used for traditional crafts to computational processes—as a vehicle for their investigations into the conceptualization and production of architecture. Tadao Ando, Shigeru Ban, Manabu Chiba, Kengo Kuma, Kazuhiko Namba, and Yusuke Obuchi will visit their buildings to discuss the ideas behind their respective works.

Production Team

Music by Jun Miyake

Organized by (T_ADS) Kengo Kuma, Yusuke Obuchi, Toshihiko Kiuchi

Filmed by Hiromoto Oka

This series will explore four facets of contemporary Japanese architecture; theory, technology, city, and humans. It will also span five generations of architects since Kenzo Tange. Through lectures by instructors and discussions with the most influential Japanese architects, the course will trace the development of contemporary Japanese architecture and will consider its future direction.

In this first course, we will focus on one of the four facets of Japanese architecture: theory.

The theory portion will feature discussions with architects who played a significant role in influencing the development of theoretical frameworks that contributed to guiding contemporary Japanese architecture. Terunobu Fujimori, Arata Isozaki, Hisao Kohyama, Kengo Kuma, Hidetoshi Ohno, and Kazuyo Sejima will visit their buildings and discuss the ideas behind their respective works.

In the coming courses on technology, city, and humans, the following leading Japanese architects will discuss their work — Tadao Ando, Shigeru Ban, Manabu Chiba, Sou Fujimoto, Hiroshi Hara, Itsuko Hasegawa, Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, Fumihiko Maki, Kazuhiko Namba, Yusuke Obuchi, Satoko Shinohara, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, and Riken Yamamoto. Don’t miss the rest of this great series!

Production Team

Music by Jun Miyake

Organized by (T_ADS) Kengo Kuma, Yusuke Obuchi, Toshihiko Kiuchi

Filmed by Hiromoto Oka

This design-based subject provides a first course in energy and thermo-sciences with applications to sustainable energy-efficient architecture and building technology. No previous experience with subject matter is assumed. After taking this subject, students will understand introductory thermodynamics and heat transfer, know the leading order factors in building energy use, and have creatively employed their understanding of energy fundamentals and knowledge of building energy use in innovative building design projects. This year, the focus will be on design projects that will complement the new NSTAR/MIT campus efficiency program.