Urban Studies & Planning

4.001J · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

Do you want to think about ways to help solve New Orleans’ problems? CityScope is a project-based introduction to the contemporary city. “Problem solving in complex (urban) environments” is different than “solving complex problems.” As a member of a team, you will learn to assess scenarios for the purpose of formulating social, economic and design strategies to provide humane and sustainable solutions. A visit to New Orleans is planned for spring break 2007.

4.42J · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

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…

4.101 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

<p>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 fo…

4.104 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This is the second undergraduate design studio. It introduces a full range of architectural ideas and issues through drawing exercises, analyses of precedents, and explored design methods. Students will develop design skills by conceptualizing and representing architectural ideas and making aesthetic judgments about building design. Discussions regarding architecture’s role in mediating culture, nature and technology will help develop the students’ architectural vocabulary.

4.104 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This is the second undergraduate design studio. It introduces a full range of architectural ideas and issues through drawing exercises, analyses of precedents, and explored design methods. Students will develop design skills by conceptualizing and representing architectural ideas and making aesthetic judgments about building design. Discussions regarding architecture’s role in mediating culture, nature and technology will help develop the students’ architectural vocabulary.

4.105 · Graduate · Fall 2012

This course is an intensive introduction to architectural design tools and process, and is taught through a series of short exercises. The conceptual basis of each exercise is in the interrogation of the geometric principles that lie at the core of each skill. Skills covered in this course range from techniques of hand drafting, to generation of 3D computer models, physical model-building, sketching, and diagramming. Weekly lectures and pin-ups address the conventions associated with modes of a…

4.107 · Graduate · Fall 2003

<p>The aim of the Portfolio Seminar is to assist in developing a critical position in relationship to their design work. By engaging multiple forms of representation, written and visual, students will explore methods that facilitate describing and representing their design work. Through a critical assessment of their existing portfolios, students will first be challenged to articulate design theses and interests in their past projects. Different mediums of representation will then be studied in…

4.110J · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

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 interdiscipl…

4.111 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This course provides a foundation to the design of the environment from the scale of the object, to the building to the larger territory. The design disciplines of architecture as well as urbanism and landscape are examined in context of the larger influence of the arts and sciences. Students are expected to develop skills in thinking and analysis, spatial representation, and design methodologies. Through lectures and design exercises, students are provided an opportunity to establish a referen…

4.112 · Undergraduate · Fall 2012

This is the second undergraduate architecture design studio, which introduces design logic and skills that enable design thinking, representation, and development. Through the lens of nano-scale machines, technologies, and phenomena, students are asked to explore techniques for describing form, space, and architecture. Exercises encourage various connotations of the “machine” and challenge students to translate conceptual strategies into more integrated design propositions through both digital …

4.123 · Graduate · Fall 2003

This studio explores the notion of in-between by engaging several relationships; the relationship between intervention and perception, between representation and notation and between the fixed and the temporal. In the <em>Exactitude in Science</em>, Jorge Luis Borges tells the perverse tale of the one to one scale map, where the desire for precision and power leads to the escalating production of larger and more accurate maps of the territory. For Jean Baudrillard, “The territory no longer prec…

4.125 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

4.125 is the third undergraduate design studio. This subject introduces skills needed to build within a landscape establishing continuities between the built and natural world. Students learn to build appropriately through analysis of landscape and climate for a chosen site, and to conceptualize design decisions through drawings and models.

4.125A · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

<p>This subject introduces skills needed to build within a landscape establishing continuities between the built and natural world. Students learn to build appropriately through analysis of landscape and climate for a chosen site, and to conceptualize design decisions through drawings and models.</p> <p>This class was taught concurrently with 4.125B. Some of the assignments are the same, some are different, and the sites for the final project are different. But since they were taught in tandem,…

4.125B · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

<p>This subject introduces skills needed to build within a landscape establishing continuities between the built and natural world. Students learn to build appropriately through analysis of landscape and climate for a chosen site, and to conceptualize design decisions through drawings and models.</p> <p>This class was taught concurrently with course 4.125A. Some of the assignments are the same, some are different, and the sites for the final project are different. But since they were taught in …

4.131 · Graduate · Fall 2003

The theme that unites the Level II studios in the fall semester is a focus upon the ‘making of architecture and built form’ as a tectonic, technical and materially driven endeavor. It is a design investigation that is rooted in a larger culture of materiality and the associated phenomena, but a study of the language and production of built form as an integrated response to the conceptual proposition of the project. The studio will look to works of architecture where the material tectonic and it…

4.131B · Graduate · Fall 2003

This semester students are asked to transform the Hereshoff Museum in Bristol, Rhode Island, through processes of erasure and addition.&nbsp;Hereshoff Manufacturing was recognized as one of the premier builders of America’s Cup racing boats between 1890’s and 1930’s. The studio, however, is about more than the program.&nbsp;It is about land, water, and wind and the search for expressing materially and tectonically the relationships between these principle conditions. That is, where the land is …

4.143 · Graduate · Fall 2002

<p>This studio proposes to engage tectonics as a material process. By exploring transformation, indeterminacy and mutability inherent in material and landscape processes, students will be challenged to engage notions of duration as a design strategy for architecture and urbanism. While the second law of thermodynamics states that the material universe tends toward a state of increasing disorder, architects build and construct in opposition to these forces. Attempting to delay the processes of d…

4.144 · Graduate · Spring 2006

<p>The project for this studio is to design a demonstration project for a site near the French Quarter in New Orleans. The objectives of the project are the following:</p> <ol> <li>To design more intense housing, community, educational and commercial facilities in&nbsp;four to&nbsp;six story buildings.</li> <li>To explore the “space between” buildings as a way of designing and shaping objects.</li> <li>To design at three scales - dwelling, cluster and overall.</li> <li>To design dwellings where…

4.155B · Graduate · Fall 2004

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 re…

4.163J · Graduate · Spring 2005

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.&nbsp;Th…

4.170 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2006

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.

4.171 · Graduate · Fall 2004

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.

4.175 · Graduate · Fall 2005

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 ex…

4.183 · Graduate · Spring 2004

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.

4.184 · Graduate · Spring 2002

An intensive nine day remote collaborative workshop involving MIT and Miyagi University in Japan. The objective is to develop a small housing project using shape computation as a design methodology. Students will use and test new interactive software for designing, sharing applications with overseas partners, presenting projects on an Internet workspace, and critiquing design proposals through the web and other advanced digital technologies. Students will be expected to do most of their work in…

4.184 · Graduate · Spring 2004

This class investigates the theory, method, and form of collage. It studies not only the historical precedents for collage and their physical attributes, but the psychology and process that plays a part in the making of them. The class was broken into three parts, changing scales and methods each time, to introduce and study the rigor by which decisions were made in relation to the collage. The class was less about the making of art than the study of the processes by which art is made.

4.191 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

During this course, we will be exploring basic questions of architecture through several short design exercises. Working with many different media, students will discover the interrelationship of architecture and its related disciplines, such as structures, sustainability, architectural history and the visual arts. Each problem will focus on one of these disciplines and one exploration and presentation technique.

4.195 · Graduate · Spring 2005

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 …

4.196 · Graduate · Spring 2004

This architectural studio will have one main project for the semester:&nbsp;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…

4.205 · Undergraduate · Fall 2009

The goal of this course is to investigate with students backgrounds on some of the pivotal events that have shaped our understanding and approach to architecture. Emphasis of discussion will be primarily on buildings and works of individual architects. Canonical architects, buildings and movements that have exerted significant influences on the development of architecture will be studied in detail. We will visit some of these buildings for a first-hand look and to evaluate for ourselves their s…

4.210 · Graduate · Fall 2012

This course provides students with the opportunity to develop a map of contemporary architectural practice and discourse. The seminar examines six themes in terms of their recent history: city and global economy, urban plan and map of operations, program and performance, drawing and scripting, image and surface, and utopia and projection. Students will study buildings and read relevant texts in order to place recent architectural projects in disciplinary and cultural context.

4.220 · Graduate · Fall 2004

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.

4.241J · Graduate · Spring 2013

This course covers theories about the form that settlements should take and attempts a distinction between descriptive and normative theory by examining examples of various theories of city form over time. Case studies will highlight the origins of the modern city and theories about its emerging form, including the transformation of the nineteenth-century city and its organization. Through examples and historical context, current issues of city form in relation to city-making, social structure,…

4.241J · Graduate · Spring 2025

<p>This iteration of 4.241 is structured around&nbsp;<strong>four key topics</strong>: 1) the city and the urban, 2) spatial forms of the political, 3) world systems and urban economies, and 4) environmentalism. We will analyze these topics both cross-historically and cross-geographically, consistently moving between historical and contemporary urban formations.</p> <p>The class explores these four topics by examining the various artifacts and mechanisms that make up the urban environment (infr…

4.273 · Graduate · Fall 2001

<p>Introduction to Design Inquiry explores the nature and exercise of design intelligence. It aims to open avenues for further research and, along them, to open vistas on the teaching of design and on more mindful professional design practices.</p> <p>We see design as processes located in individuals and groups, shaped by the formation and experience of each individual and by the characteristics of the groups that play a role in the design process. People construct the worlds they inhabit out o…

4.273 · Graduate · Fall 2004

This subject explores the varied nature and practice of computation in design. We will view computation and design broadly. Computation will include both work done on the computer (digital computing) and by-hand. Design will include both the process of making designs and artifacts, as well as the designs and artifacts themselves. The aim of the course is to develop a view of computation and design beyond the specifics of techniques and tools, and a critical, self-awareness of our own approaches…

4.285 · Graduate · Fall 2002

<p>In this seminar, students will design and perfect a digital environment to house the activities of large-scale organizations of people making bottom-up decisions, such as with citizen-government affairs, voting corporate shareholders or voting members of global non-profits and labor unions. A working Open Source prototype created last semester will be used as the starting point, featuring collaborative filtering and electronic agent technology pioneered at the Media Lab. This course focuses …

4.296 · Graduate · Spring 2005

<p>Furniture making is in many ways like bridge building, connections holding posts apart with spans to support a deck. Many architects have tried their hand at furniture design, Wright, Mies Van Der Rohe, Aalto, Saarinen, Le Corbusier, and Gerhy.</p> <p>We will review the history of furniture making in America with a visit to the Decorative Arts Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and have Cambridge artist/craftsman Mitch Ryerson show us his work and talk about design process. Stud…

4.297 · Graduate · Fall 2000

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 …

4.301 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This class will introduce students to a variety of contemporary art practices and ideas. The class will begin with a brief overview of ‘visual language’ by looking at a variety of artworks and discussing basic concepts revolving around artistic practice. The rest of the class will focus on notions of the real/unreal as explored with various mediums and practices. The class will work in video, sculpture and in public space.

4.302 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This class offers a foundation in the visual art practice and its critical analysis for beginning architecture students. Emphasis is on long-range artistic development and its analogies to architectural thinking and practice. Students will learn to communicate ideas and experiences through various two-dimensional, and three-dimensional, and time-based media, including installations, performance and video. Lectures, visiting artist presentations, field trips, and readings supplement studio pract…

4.303 · Graduate · Fall 2006

This seminar engages in the notion of space from various points of departure. The goal is first of all to engage in the term and secondly to examine possibilities of art, architecture within urban settings in order to produce what is your interpretation of space.

4.303 · Graduate · Fall 2003

In this class we will examine how the idea of the city has been “translated” by artists, architects, and other diverse disciplines. We will consider how collaborations between artists and architects might provide opportunities for rethinking / redesigning urban spaces. The class will look specifically at planned cities like Brasilia, Las Vegas, Canberra, and Celebration and compare such tabula rasa designs with the redesign of recyclable urban spaces demonstrated in projects such as Ground Zero…

4.313 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2016

<p>This class is developed around the concept of disobedient interference within the existing models of production of space and knowledge.</p> <p>Modeling is the main <em>modus operandi</em> of the class as students will be required to make critical diagrammatic cuts through processes of production in different thematic registers – from chemistry, law and economy to art, architecture and urbanism – in order to investigate the sense of social responsibility and control over the complex agendas e…

4.322 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This class introduces fundamental issues in sculpture such as site, context, process, psychology and aesthetics of the object, and the object’s relation to the body. During the semester Introduction to Sculpture will explore issues of interpretation and audience interaction. As a significant component to this class introductions to a variety of materials and techniques both traditional (wood, metal, plaster) as well as non-traditional (fabric, latex, found objects, rubber, etc.) will be emphasi…

4.341 · Undergraduate · Fall 2007

<p>This course provides practical instruction in the fundamentals of analog and digital SLR and medium/large format camera operation, film exposure and development, black and white darkroom techniques, digital imaging, and studio lighting.</p> <p>This semester we will explore the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences for our theme- and site-specific term project, which provides opportunities to develop technical skills and experimental photographic techniques, and for personal artistic…

4.341 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

This course combines practical instruction, field trips, group discussions, and individual reviews intended to foster a critical awareness of how images in our culture are produced and constructed. Student-initiated term projects are at the core of this exploration of the relationship of image to language and issues of interpretation and personal history. Besides, this course also offers practical instruction in basic black and white techniques, digital imaging, fundamentals of camera operation…

4.343 · Graduate · Fall 2002

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…

4.351 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This class serves as an introduction to video recording and editing, presenting video as a tool of personal apprehension and expression, with an emphasis on self-exploration, performance, social critique, and the organization of raw experience into aesthetic form (narrative, abstract, documentary, essay).&nbsp;Students are required to complete a variety of assignments to learn the basics of video capture and editing, culminating in a final assignment that has to do with personal storytelling.

4.366 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This advanced video class serves goes into greater depth on the topics covered in 4.351 Introduction to Video.&nbsp;It also will explore the nature and function of narrative in cinema and video through exercises and screenings culminating in a final project. Starting with a brief introduction to the basic principles of classical narrative cinema, we will proceed to explore strategies designed to test the elements of narrative: story trajectory, character development, verisimilitude, time-space …

4.367 · Graduate · Spring 2006

How do we define Public Art? This course focuses on the production of projects for public places. Public Art is a concept that is in constant discussion and revision, as much as the evolution and transformation of public spaces and cities are. Monuments are repositories of memory and historical presences with the expectation of being permanent. Public interventions are created not to impose and be temporary, but as forms intended to activate discourse and discussion. Considering the concept of …

4.370 · Graduate · Fall 2005

“Parrhesia” was an Athenian right to frank and open speaking, the right that, like the First Amendment, demands a “fearless speaker” who must challenge political powers with criticism and unsolicited advice. Can designer and artist respond today to such a democratic call and demand? Is it possible to do so despite the (increasing) restrictions imposed on our liberties today? Can the designer or public artist operate as a proactive “parrhesiatic” agent and contribute to the protection, developme…

4.401 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

The course aims at providing a fundamental understanding of the physics related to buildings and to propose an overview of the various issues that have to be adequately combined to offer the occupants a physical, functional and psychological well-being. Students will be guided through the different components, constraints and systems of a work of architecture. These will be examined both independently and in the manner in which they interact and affect one another.

4.401 · Undergraduate · Fall 2018

This course focuses on the thermal, luminous, and acoustic behavior of buildings, examining the basic scientific principles underlying these phenomena and introducing students to technologies and analysis techniques for designing comfortable indoor environments. Students are challenged to apply these techniques and explore the role light, energy, and sound can play in shaping architecture.

4.406 · Graduate · Spring 2007

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.

4.411 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

In this class, concepts of building technology and experimental methods are studied, in class and in lab assignments. Projects vary yearly and have included design and testing of strategies for daylighting, passive heating and cooling, and improved indoor air quality via natural ventilation. Experimental methods focus on measurement and analysis of thermally driven and wind-driven airflows, lighting intensity and glare, and heat flow and thermal storage. Experiments are conducted at model and f…

4.430 · Graduate · Spring 2012

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.

4.440 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

This course provides students with a basic knowledge of structural analysis and design for buildings, bridges and other structures. The course emphasizes the historical development of structural form and the evolution of structural design knowledge, from Gothic cathedrals to long span suspension bridges. Students will investigate the behavior of structural systems and elements through design exercises, case studies, and load testing of models. Students will design structures using timber, mason…

4.448 · Graduate · Fall 2004

An analysis of historical structures is presented themed sections based around construction materials. Structures from all periods of history are analyzed. The goal of the class is to provide an understanding of the preservation of historic structures for all students.

4.461 · Graduate · Fall 2004

This course offers an introduction to the history, theory, and construction of basic structural systems as well as an introduction to energy issues in buildings. It emphasizes basic systematic and elemental behavior, principles of structural behavior, and analysis of individual structural elements and strategies for load carrying. The course also introduces fundamental energy topics including thermodynamics, psychrometrics, and comfort. It is a required class for M. Arch. students.

4.463 · Graduate · Fall 2002

This course addresses advanced topics in structures, exterior envelopes and contemporary production technologies. It continues the exploration of structural elements and systems; expanding to include more complex determinant, indeterminate, long-span and high-rise systems. Some of the topics covered include reinforced concrete, steel and engineered wood design, and an introduction to tensile systems. The contemporary exterior envelope is discussed with an emphasis on the classification of syste…

4.463 · Graduate · Fall 2004

This course addresses advanced structures, exterior envelopes and contemporary production technologies. It continues the exploration of structural elements and systems, and expands to include more complex determinate, indeterminate, long-span and high-rise systems. It covers topics such as reinforced concrete, steel and engineered wood design, and provides an introduction to tensile systems. Lectures also address the contemporary exterior envelope with an emphasis on their performance attribute…

4.491 · Graduate · Fall 2004

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 th…

4.493 · Graduate · Spring 2005

This course will focus on providing students with the tools needed to practice responsible architecture in a contemporary context. It will familiarize students with the materials currently used in responsible practice, as well as the material properties most relevant to assembly. The course will also introduce students to materials that are untested but hold promise for future usage. Finally, the course will challenge students to refine their understanding of responsible or sustainable design p…

4.493 · Graduate · January IAP 2006

<p>Today, computer-based simulations are becoming increasingly popular, especially when daylighting and energy conservation are amongst the key goals for a project. This two-week workshop will expose participants to the current daylighting simulation models and beyond, by introducing realistic and dynamic assessment methods through hands-on exercises and application to a design project. Open to students and practitioners.</p> <p>This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (I…

4.500 · Undergraduate · Fall 2008

<p>This course will introduce students to architectural design and computation through the use of computer modeling, rendering and digital fabrication. The course focuses on teaching architectural design with CAD drawing, 3-D modeling, rendering and rapid prototyping. Students will be required to build computer models that will lead to a full package of architectural explorations with computers. Each semester we will explore the design process of a particular building type and building material…

4.501 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This class investigates the use of computers in architectural design and construction. It begins with a pre-prepared design computer model, which is used for testing and process investigation in construction. It then explores the process of construction from all sides of the practice: detail design, structural design, and both legal and computational issues.

4.510 · Graduate · Fall 2008

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.

4.511 · Graduate · Spring 2006

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…

4.520 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This class introduces design as a computational enterprise in which rules are developed to compose and describe architectural and other designs. The class covers topics such as shapes, shape arithmetic, symmetry, spatial relations, shape computations, and shape grammars. It focuses on the application of shape grammars in creative design, and teaches shape grammar fundamentals through in-class, hands-on exercises with abstract shape grammars. The class discusses issues related to practical appli…

4.540 · Graduate · Fall 2018

Shape grammars are systems of visual rules by which one shape may be transformed into another. By applying these rules recursively, a simple shape can be elaborated into a complex pattern. This course offers an in-depth introduction to shape grammars and their applications in architecture and related areas of design. More specifically, it involves manipulation of shapes in the algebras Uij, in the algebras Vij and Wij incorporating labels and weights, and in algebras formed as composites of the…

4.580 · Graduate · Fall 2006

This subject explores the varied nature and practice of computation in design. We will view computation and design broadly. Computation will include both work done on the computer (digital computing) and by-hand. Design will include both the process of making designs and artifacts, as well as the designs and artifacts themselves. The aim of the course is to develop a view of computation and design beyond the specifics of techniques and tools, and a critical, self-awareness of our own approaches…

4.601 · Undergraduate · Fall 2018

This course investigates the power of art in historical perspective, focusing on Euro-American traditions of art from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century. It examines changing conceptions of the artist, the work of art, and the discipline of art history, exploring the roles images and objects have played over time, how they functioned in various social, economic, and cultural contexts, and whose interests they served or sought to disrupt.

4.602 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This class provides an introduction to modern art and theories of modernism and postmodernism. It focuses on the way artists use the tension between fine art and mass culture to mobilize a critique of both. We will examine objects of visual art, including painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, prints, performance and video. These objects will be viewed in their interaction with advertising, caricature, comics, graffiti, television, fashion, folk art, and “primitive” art.

4.605 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This course is a global-oriented survey of the history of architecture, from the prehistoric to the sixteenth century. It treats buildings and environments, including cities, in the context of the cultural and civilizational history. It offers an introduction to design principles and analysis. Being global, it aims to give the student perspective on the larger pushes and pulls that influence architecture and its meanings, whether these be economic, political, religious or climatic.

4.607 · Graduate · Fall 2009

<p>This class will be constructed as a lecture-discussion, the purpose being to engage important theoretical issues while simultaneously studying their continuing historical significance. To enhance discussion, three debates will be held in class. Each student will be required to participate in one of these debates. Each student will also be required to write three short papers. Class participation is essential and will be factored into the final grade.</p> <p>The course will portray the histor…

4.609 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

<p>Art museums are powerful and contested institutions. They are also innovative sites of architectural and artistic practice. From the exhibitionary complex of the nineteenth century to the experiential complex of today, this course investigates the art museum from historical and contemporary perspectives, striking a balance between theoretical investigation and case studies of recent exhibitions and museum buildings. Where and why did the concept of the public art museum emerge, and how have …

4.614 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

This course introduces the history of Islamic cultures through their most vibrant material signs: the religious architecture that spans fourteen centuries and three continents — Asia, Africa, and Europe. The course presents Islamic architecture both as a historical tradition and as a cultural catalyst that influenced and was influenced by the civilizations with which it came in contact.

4.615 · Undergraduate · Spring 2002

<p>Cairo is the quintessential Islamic city. Founded in 634 at the strategic head of the Nile Delta, the city evolved from an Islamic military outpost to the seat of the ambitious Fatimid caliphate which flourished between the 10th and 12th century. Its most spectacular age, however, was the Mamluk period (1250-1517), when it became the uncontested center of a resurgent Islam and acquired an architectural character that symbolized the image of the Islamic city for centuries to come.</p> <p>Cair…

4.619 · Graduate · Fall 2014

This seminar offers a critical review of scholarship on Islamic architecture through close reading of scholarly texts, museum exhibitions, and architectural projects. It also tackles methodological and historiographical questions about the field’s formation, genealogy, recent expansion, and its evolving historical and theoretical contours.

4.638 · Graduate · Fall 2002

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 showi…

4.645 · Graduate · Fall 2004

This class is a general study of modern architecture as a response to important technological, cultural, environmental, aesthetic, and theoretical challenges after the European Enlightenment. It focuses on the theoretical, historiographic, and design approaches to architectural problems encountered in the age of industrial and post-industrial expansion across the globe, with specific attention to the dominance of European modernism in setting the agenda for the discourse of a global modernity a…

4.647 · Graduate · Fall 2014

Twentieth and twenty-first century architecture is defined by its rhetorical subservience to something called “technology.” Architecture relates to technology in multiple forms, as the organizational basis of society, as production system, as formal inspiration, as mode of temporization, as communicational vehicle, and so on. Managerial or “systems-based” paradigms for societal, industrial and governmental organization have routinely percolated into architecture’s considerations, at its various…

4.651 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

This subject focuses on the objects, history, context, and critical discussion surrounding art since World War II. Because of the burgeoning increase in art production, the course is necessarily selective. We will trace major developments and movements in art up to the present, primarily from the US; but we will also be looking at art from Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, as well as art “on the margins” — art that has been overlooked by the mainstream critical press, bu…

4.661 · Graduate · Fall 2015

This seminar is open to graduate students, and is intended to offer a synoptic view of selected methodologies and thinkers in art and architectural history (with many theorists from other fields). The syllabus outlines the structure of the course and the readings and assignments for each week; the goal is to become aware of the apparatuses of discourse, and find your own voice within them.

4.663 · Graduate · Spring 2014

What was the early modern economy like, and how did monetization impact artistic production, consumption, and the afterlife of objects? This seminar-format class explores major topics and themes concerning interconnections between early modern artistic and architectural creation and the economy. We will approach capitalism not as an inevitable system, but rather as a particular historical formation. Core course themes: commodification, production, and consumption, using case studies of the impa…

4.665 · Graduate · Spring 2002

This class, required of all Master of Architecture students, presents a critical review of works, theories, and polemics in architecture in the aftermath of World War II. The aim is to present a historical understanding of the period, and to develop a meaningful framework to assess contemporary issues in architecture. Special attention will be paid to historiographic questions of how architects construe the terms of their “present.”

4.671 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Spring 2016

This course studies how international modernism interacted with the concept of “nation” and how contemporary discourses concerning globalism changes that dynamic. This course also looks at how art uses and critiques globalization on various levels.

4.696 · Graduate · Spring 2008

This course will study the question of Global Architecture from the point of view of producing a set of lectures on that subject. The course will be run in the form of a writing seminar, except that students will be asked to prepare for the final class an hour-long lecture for an undergraduate survey course. During the semester, students will study the debates about where to locate “the global” and do some comparative analysis of various textbooks. The topic of the final lecture will be worked …

4.A21 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

The transition from high school and home to college and a new living environment can be a fascinating and interesting time, made all the more challenging and interesting by being at MIT. More than recording the first semester through a series of snapshots, this freshman seminar will attempt to teach photography as a method of seeing and a tool for better understanding new surroundings. Over the course of the semester, students will develop a body of work through a series of assignments, and the…

4.S26 · Graduate · Spring 2016

This course proposes that investigating the ways in which territory is produced, maintained and strategized, generates conflicts, establishes divisions, and builds identities can lead to a more critical understanding of architecture’s role in society. This course is designed to expand the student’s literacy in the concept of territory and its relation to the realm of architecture.

4.S33 · Graduate · Spring 2015

Over the last 40 years, new managerial technologies in Western democratic societies have emerged to dominate our perceived and lived reality. Demands for autonomy and a creative life, which have been the touchstones for artistic endeavors, have been readily absorbed into management philosophies, becoming normative values for self-management and entrepreneurial innovation. Is this art’s triumph or demise? Can we imagine other worlds beyond our managed reality and propose forms of living not yet …

4.S67 · Graduate · Fall 2016

This seminar explores “land” as a genre, theme, and medium of art and architecture of the last five decades. Focusing largely on work within the boundaries of the United States, the course seeks to understand how the use of land in art and architecture is bound into complicated entanglements of property and power, the inheritances of non-U.S. traditions, and the violence of colonial ambitions. The term “landscape” is variously deployed in the service of a range of political and philosophical po…

11.001J · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This course examines the evolving structure of cities and the way that cities, suburbs, and metropolitan areas can be designed and developed. Boston and other American cities are studied to see how physical, social, political and economic forces interact to shape and reshape cities over time.

11.005 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

This course introduces undergraduates to the basic theory, institutional architecture, and practice of international development. We take an applied, interdisciplinary approach to some of the “big questions” in our field. This course will unpack these questions by providing an overview of existing knowledge and best practices in the field. The goal of this class is to go beyond traditional dichotomies and narrow definitions of progress, well-being, and culture. Instead, we will invite students …

11.006 · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

This course explores the evolution of poverty and economic security in the United States, within a global context. It examines the impact of recent economic restructuring and globalization, and reviews the current debate about the fate of the middle class, sources of increasing inequality, and approaches to advancing economic opportunity and security. In this class, students will study the topic of poverty and economic security through the lens of the lived experience of Americans: individuals,…

11.007 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course is an introduction to real-world dynamics of public policy controversies. Topics to be considered include national, state, and local policy disputes, such as smoking, hazardous waste, abortion, gun control, and education. Using a case study approach, students study whether and how those disputes get resolved. Students conduct debates and simulations in addition to writing a series of short essays.

11.011 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This course provides an introduction to bargaining and negotiation in public, business, and legal settings. It combines a “hands-on” skill-building orientation with a look at pertinent social theory. Strategy, communications, ethics, and institutional influences are examined as they influence the ability of actors to analyze problems, negotiate agreements, and resolve disputes in social, organizational, and political circumstances characterized by interdependent interests.

11.016J · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

<p>Class website: The Once &amp; Future City</p> <p>What is a city? What shapes it? How does its history influence future development? How do physical form and institutions vary from city to city and how are these differences significant? How are cities changing and what is their future? This course will explore these and other questions, with emphasis upon twentieth-century American cities. A major focus will be on the physical form of cities—from downtown and inner-city to suburb and edge cit…

11.020 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This course covers topics and questions such as: What is poverty? How is it defined and measured in the United States and other countries? What are the different program designs that countries use to relieve poverty? To answer these questions, the course examines the main public policy frames that guide theory, research, policy, and practice. How do the definition and policies to deal with poverty change over time? What are the economic, political, and social forces that contribute to the persi…

11.027 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

This class is designed to expose you to the cycles of disasters, the roots of emergency planning in the U.S., how to understand and map vulnerabilities, and expose you to the disaster planning in different contexts, including in developing countries.

11.027 · Undergraduate · Spring 2011

City to City, as a class, will jump into the complexity of planning in New Orleans, a post-disaster city. City-to-City will ask how a post-disaster city grapple with its ideas of identity, what it is, who it represents, and how it projects its sense of self to residences, businesses, tourists, and to the outside world. In considering its people, how do city planners think about who lives where and why? At the same time, how can city planners celebrate a city’s history and its culture and how ca…

11.027 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

<p>This course introduces undergraduate planning students to the role of the planner in researching issues in cities both in the United States and abroad. This course is a practical, hands-on workshop that challenges students to research, write and present their ideas on two different cities: A U.S. City (preferably somewhere close) and Copenhagen. Students will be equipped to:</p> <ol> <li>select and research a thesis topic,</li> <li>work professionally with faculty and other experts on the to…

11.122 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

<p>Modern industrial activities - which MIT engineers and scientists play a major role in - have significant environmental and social impacts. Trends towards further industrialization and globalization portend major challenges for society to manage the adverse impacts of our urban and industrial activities. How serious are current environmental and social problems? Why should we care about them? How are governments, corporations, activists, and ordinary citizens responding to these problems.</p…

11.123 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This course explores the physical, ecological, technological, political, economic, and cultural implications of big plans and mega-urban landscapes in a global context. It uses local and international case studies to understand the process of making major changes to urban landscape and city fabric, and to regional landscape systems. It includes lectures by leading practitioners. The assignments consider planning and design strategies across multiple scales and time frames.

11.124 · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

An introductory course on teaching and learning science and mathematics in a variety of K-12 settings. Topics include education and media, education reform, the history of education, simulations, games, and the digital divide.

11.125 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

This class uses K-12 classroom experiences, along with student-centered classroom activities and student-led classes, to explore issues in schools and education. Students in this course spend time each week observing pre-college math and science classes. Topics of study include design and implementation of curriculum, addressing the needs of a diversity of students, standards in math and science, student misconceptions, methods of instruction, the digital divide, teaching through different medi…

11.129 · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This course is designed to prepare you for a successful student teaching experience. Some of the major themes and activities are: analysis of yourself as a teacher and as a learner, subject knowledge, adolescent development, student learning styles, lesson planning, assessment strategies, classroom management techniques and differentiated instruction. The course requires significant personal involvement and time. You will observe high school classes, begin to pursue a more active role in the cl…

11.131 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This is the final course in the three-course sequence (11.129, 11.130 and 11.131) that deals with the practicalities of teaching students. Areas of study will include: educational psychology, identification of useful resources that support instruction, learning to use technology in meaningful ways in the classroom, finding more methods of motivating students, implementing differentiated instruction and obtaining a teaching job.

11.139 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

Using film as a lens to explore and interpret various aspects of the urban experience in both the U.S. and abroad, this course presents a survey of important developments in urbanism from 1900 to the present day, including changes in technology, bureaucracy, and industrialization; immigration and national identity; race, class, gender, and economic inequality; politics, conformity, and urban anomie; and planning, development, private property, displacement, sprawl, environmental degradation, an…

11.165 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2011

This seminar examines efforts in developing and advanced nations and regions to create, finance, and regulate infrastructure and energy technologies from a variety of methodological and disciplinary perspectives. It is conducted with intensive in-class discussions and debates.

11.166 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Spring 2012

This course studies the interaction between law, courts, and social movements in shaping domestic and global public policy. Examines how groups mobilize to use law to affect change and why they succeed and fail. The class uses case studies to explore the interplay between law, social movements, and public policy in current areas such as gender, race, labor, trade, environment, and human rights. Finally, it introduces the theories of public policy, social movements, law and society, and transnat…

11.167 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

The economic growth of developing countries requires the acquisition of technological capabilities. In countries at the world technological frontier, such capabilities refer to cutting edge skills to innovate entirely new products. In developing countries, the requisite technological capabilities are broader, and include production engineering, project execution and incremental innovation to make borrowed technology work. Theories of technology acquisition are examined. The empirical evidence i…

11.201 · Graduate · Fall 2007

<p>This course introduces incoming students in the Master in City Planning (MCP) program to the theory and history of planning in the public interest. It relies primarily on challenging real-world cases to highlight persistent dilemmas: the power and limits of planning, the multiple roles in which planners find themselves in communities around the globe, and the political, ethical, and practical dilemmas that planners face as they try to be effective. As such, the course provides an introductio…

11.201 · Graduate · Fall 2002

<p>This class introduces first semester MCP students to the persistent themes and challenges facing planners. The goals of this class are:</p> <ul> <li>to excite students about their chosen profession;</li> <li>to offer a theoretical framework for thinking about the kinds of interventions that planners are expected to take;</li> <li>to introduce students to some of the most interesting and challenging theoretical debates in the planning field; and</li> <li>to press students to think about the b…

11.201 · Graduate · Fall 2005

This course introduces persistent themes and challenges facing planners. It emphasizes the historical roots of contemporary urban planning problems and comparative study of practice in the U.S. and other countries. It is a nine week module intended for first semester Master in City Planning students.

11.201 · Graduate · Fall 2010

The purpose of the course is to cultivate the sensibilities necessary for effective planning practice. This objective rests on one key assumption: that a set of key sensibilities creates the right mindset for practice.

11.202 · Graduate · Fall 2010

Planning Economics will apply microeconomic theory to issues that markets don’t always handle well and so are not usually covered in a standard microeconomics course. Issues for this year include global warming, how you value a national park, the economics and politics of New York City development, how cities form and why people are willing to pay more to live in, say, the Boston Metro area, than they would pay to live in rural North Dakota, and how to evaluate costs and benefits that occur at …

11.203 · Graduate · Fall 2010

Microeconomics will ground you in - surprise - basic microeconomics-how markets function, how to think about allocating scarce resources among competing uses, what profit maximizing behavior means in industries with different numbers of competitors, how technology and trade reshapes the opportunities people face, and so on. We will apply economic ideas to understand current economic problems, including the housing bubble, the current unemployment situation (particularly for high school gradutes…

11.204 · Graduate · Fall 2004

<p>This course focuses on methods of digital visualization and communication and their application to planning issues. Lectures will introduce a variety of methods for describing or representing a place and its residents, for simulating changes, for presenting visions of the future, and for engaging multiple actors in the process of guiding action. Through a series of laboratory exercises, students will apply these methods in the construction of a web-based portfolio. The portfolio is not only …

11.205 · Graduate · Fall 2019

Geographic Information System (GIS) software manages data that represent the location of features (geographic coordinate data) and what they are like (attribute data); it also provides the ability to query, manipulate, and analyze those data. Because GIS allows one to represent social and environmental data on maps, it is a powerful tool for analysis and planning in various fields. This course is meant to introduce students to the basic capabilities of GIS.

11.208 · Graduate · January IAP 2002

Second of two modules facilitating a basic understanding of computing in planning and public management. Students develop problem-solving skills using computer-based tools for “what-if” analyses. Emphasis on spatial analysis using geographic information systems and database query tools.

11.220 · Graduate · Spring 2009

This course develops logical, empirically based arguments using statistical techniques and analytic methods. Elementary statistics, probability, and other types of quantitative reasoning useful for description, estimation, comparison, and explanation are covered. Emphasis is on the use and limitations of analytical techniques in planning practice.

11.225 · Graduate · Fall 2006

This Communication and Argumentation seminar is an intensive writing workshop that focuses on argumentation and communication. Students learn to write and present their ideas in cogent, persuasive arguments and other analytical frameworks. Reading and writing assignments and other exercises stress the connections between clear thinking, critical reading, and effective writing.

11.229 · Graduate · Spring 2004

The purpose of this seminar is to expose the student to a number of different types of writing that one may encounter in a professional career. The class is an opportunity to write, review, rewrite and present a point of view both orally and in written form.

11.233 · Graduate · Fall 2007

This course develops skills in research design for policy analysis and planning. The emphasis is on the logic of the research process and its constituent elements. The course relies on a seminar format so students are expected to read all of the assigned materials and come to class prepared to discuss key themes, ideas, and controversies. Since the materials draw broadly on the social sciences, and since students have diverse interests and methodological preferences, ongoing themes in our discu…

11.233 · Graduate · Fall 2005

This course covers approaches to research and evaluation in the planning field, for those preparing to write 1st-year doctoral and other research papers. Topics include narrowing down research interests, using quantitative and qualitative techniques complementarily, and interviewing and other fieldwork challenges. The course uses a seminar-type format in which readings, class discussions, and assignments are built around (1) generic themes that run across the research interests and paper topics…

11.235 · Graduate · Fall 2009

This course teaches students how to understand the rationality behind how organizations and their programs behave, and to be comfortable and analytical with a live organization. It thereby builds analytic skills for evaluating programs and projects, organizations, and environments. It draws on the literature of the sociology of organizations, political science, public administration, and historical experience-and is based on both developing-country and developed-country experience.

11.237 · Graduate · Spring 2016

<p>This course introduces students to the techniques of participatory action research (PAR) and the practice of case study research. PAR processes are place or case-specific, place a premium on local ways of knowing, and gauge the success of research in terms of what partner-communities do with the knowledge that is co-produced. The objective of PAR is to generate the ideas, information, and understandings that ought to inform efforts to promote social change. By focusing on ways of co-producin…

11.255 · Graduate · Spring 2021

<p>Conventional legislative, administrative, and judicial means of resolving resource allocation and policy&nbsp;disputes in the public sector often produce less than satisfactory results. This is true in democracies around&nbsp;the world. Planners, policy-makers, developers, and advocates of the poor who are concerned about the&nbsp;fairness, efficiency, stability, and wisdom of public sector decision-making are searching for better ways&nbsp;of resolving public policy disagreements. Recent ad…

11.301J · Graduate · Fall 2016

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 c…

11.302J · Graduate · Spring 2010

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 commiss…

11.304J · Graduate · Spring 2009

<p>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.</p> <p>Students will review land inventory, analysis, and planning of sites and the infrastructure systems that serve them.&nbsp;They will&nbsp;also examine spatial organization of uses, parcelization, design of roadways, grading, utility systems, stormwater runoff, parking, traffic and off-site impacts, as well as land…

11.307 · Graduate · Summer 2008

<p>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…

11.307 · Graduate · Summer 2006

This is the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Urban Design Studio, which 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,…

11.308J · Graduate · Fall 2012

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 oppo…

11.308J · Graduate · Spring 2024

Ecological urbanism weds the theory and practice of city design and planning, as a means of adaptation, with the insights of ecology (the study of the relationships among living organisms and their environment and the processes that shape both) and other environmental disciplines. Ecological urbanism is critical to the future of the city and its design: it provides a framework for addressing challenges that threaten humanity, such as climate change, rising sea level, declining oil reserves, ris…

11.309J · Graduate · Fall 2003

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.

11.309J · Graduate · Fall 2012

<p>This course explores photography as a disciplined way of seeing or investigating urban landscapes, and expressing ideas. Readings, observations, and photographs form the basis of discussions on light, detail, place, poetics, narrative, and how photography can inform design and planning.</p> <p>The current version of the class website for the course can be found here: Sensing Place: Photography as Inquiry.</p>

11.309J · Graduate · Spring 2024

This course explores photography as a disciplined way of seeing, as a research method, and as a medium of inquiry and of expressing ideas. Readings, observations, and photographs form the basis of discussions on landscape, light, significant detail, place, narrative, and how photography can inform research, design, and planning, among other issues. The class is highly recommended for students who want to employ visual methods in their thesis or dissertation.

11.310J · Graduate · Fall 2002

<p>This workshop explores the potential of media technology and the Internet to enhance communication and transform city design and community development in inner-city neighborhoods. The class introduces a variety of methods for describing or representing a place and its residents, for simulating actions and changes, for presenting visions of the future, and for engaging multiple actors in the process of envisioning change and guiding action. Students will engage one neighborhood, meet real peo…

11.310J · Undergraduate · Spring 2002

<p>This workshop explores the potential of media technology and the Internet to enhance communication and transform city design and community development in inner-city neighborhoods. The class introduces a variety of methods for describing or representing a place and its residents, for simulating actions and changes, for presenting visions of the future, and for engaging multiple actors in the process of envisioning change and guiding action. Students will engage two neighborhoods: the Mill Cre…

11.312 · Graduate · Spring 2020

This course proposes that most cities have neither the infrastructure nor the processes in place to support the demographically complex public in fulfilling its role in democracy. Through this course, participants will learn a set of design principles for creating public engagement practices necessary for building inclusive civic infrastructure in cities. Participants will also have the opportunity to review and practice strategies, techniques, and methods for engaging communities in demographi…

11.328J · Graduate · Fall 2004

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.

11.329 · Graduate · Fall 2005

This course explores how social theories of urban life can be related to the city’s architecture and spaces. It is grounded in classic or foundational writings about the city addressing such topics as the public realm and public space, impersonality, crowds and density, surveillance and civility, imprinting time on space, spatial justice, and the segregation of difference. The aim of the course is to generate new ideas about the city by connecting the social and the physical, using Boston as a …

11.332J · Graduate · Fall 2003

<p>For many years, Cambridge, MA, as host to two major research universities, has been the scene of debates as to how best to meet the competing expectations of different stakeholders. Where there has been success, it has frequently been the result, at least in part, of inventive urban design proposals and the design and implementation of new institutional arrangements to accomplish those proposals. Where there has been failure it has often been explained by the inability - or unwillingness - o…

11.333 · Graduate · Spring 2005

This course is a requirement for completion of the Urban Design Certificate Program. It investigates the complex nature of ‘successful’ urban design and attempts to identify and evaluate examples of urban design that are at the leading edge of practice, anticipating the future. The seminar will deal with two parallel questions: what are the key trends that will shape the future form and function of cities, and how will these changes affect the role of the urban designer? The first part of the s…

11.333 · Graduate · Spring 2016

This seminar focuses on understanding the role of high-quality design as a tool to address urban social problems. This course will also examine marginalized spaces and how urban design can intervene as a tool to creatively challenge traditional urban design practices.

11.337J · Graduate · Spring 2009

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.

11.337J · Graduate · Spring 2007

Governments at every level assume a measure of responsibility for seeking good design. Some of that responsibility is exercised directly—through the design and construction of government buildings, for example. But most changes to our environments are neither designed nor built by governments. Rather, they are the result of the actions and investments of private individuals, institutions, corporations, joint ventures, or private/public collaborations. Yet, the actions of all of these actors are…

11.350 · Graduate · Spring 2023

<p>The course provides a systematic framework to understand the most challenging issues in sustainability in the real estate industry. It examines economic mechanisms, technological advances, business models, building design, and investment and financing strategies available for the different market players to promote sustainability in the building sector.</p> <p>Prof. Siqi Zheng is the faculty director of the MIT Center for Real Estate and founder and director of the MIT Sustainable Urbanizati…

11.360 · Graduate · Fall 2006

This course combines a seminar format with fieldwork to examine strategies of planning and control for growth and land use, chiefly at the municipal level. Specific topics include growth and its local consequences; land use planning approaches; and implementation tools including innovative zoning and regulatory techniques, physical design, and natural systems integration. Projects are arranged with small teams serving municipal clients.

11.360 · Graduate · Fall 2010

This subject explores the techniques, processes, and personal and professional skills required to effectively manage growth and land use change. While primarily focused on the planning practice in the United States, the principles and techniques reviewed and presented may have international application. This course is not for bystanders; it is designed for those who wish to become actively involved or exposed to the planning discipline and profession as it is practiced today, and as it may need…

11.360 · Graduate · Fall 2005

This course combines a seminar format with fieldwork to examine strategies of planning and control for growth and land use, chiefly at the municipal level. Specific topics include growth and its local consequences; land use planning approaches; and implementation tools including innovative zoning and regulatory techniques, physical design, and natural systems integration. Projects are arranged with small teams serving municipal clients.

11.360 · Graduate · Fall 2003

This subject explores the techniques, processes, and personal and professional skills required to effectively manage growth and land use change. While primarily focused on the planning practice in the United States, the principles and techniques reviewed and presented may have international application. This course is not for bystanders; it is designed for those who wish to become actively involved or exposed to the planning discipline and profession as it is practiced today, and as it may need…

11.362 · Graduate · Fall 2006

<p>Through site-specific client-based work, this course will allow students to materially contribute to redevelopment decision-making regarding a former inner-city industrial site. The course will focus on generating and analyzing pragmatic redevelopment scenarios given the issues of brownfields and environmental contamination, community preferences, regulatory constraints and economic realities.</p> <p>The course is designed along two parallel and mutually reinforcing educational tracks: Field…

11.363 · Graduate · Spring 2005

This graduate seminar examines civic engagement in international, national and local environmental governance. We will consider theories pertaining to civil society development, social movement mobilization, and the relations that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have with governments and corporations. During the course of the semester, particular attention will be given to the legitimacy and accountability of NGOs. Case studies of NGO and community responses to specific environmental issue…

11.364 · Graduate · Fall 2010

This seminar will explore the difficulties of getting agreement on global definitions of sustainability; in particularly building international support for efforts to combat climate change created by greenhouse gas emissions as well as other international resource management efforts. We will focus on possible changes in the way global environmental agreements are formulated and implemented, especially on ways of shifting from the current “pollution control” approach to combating climate change …

11.368 · Graduate · Fall 2004

This class explores the foundations of the environmental justice movement, current and emerging issues, and the application of environmental justice analysis to environmental policy and planning. It examines claims made by diverse groups along with the policy and civil society responses that address perceived inequity and injustice. While focused mainly on the United States, international issues and perspectives are also considered.

11.368 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2019

This seminar introduces students to basic principles of environmental justice and presents frameworks for analyzing and addressing inequalities in the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens from the perspectives of social science, public policy, and law.

11.370 · Graduate · Fall 2005

There are several hundred thousand Brownfield sites across the country. The large number of sites, combined with how a majority of these properties are located in urban and historically underserved communities, dictate that redevelopment of these sites stands to be a common theme in urban planning for the foreseeable future. Students form a grounded understanding of the Brownfield lifecycle: how and why they were created, their potential role in community revitalization, and the general process…

11.373 · Graduate · Fall 2004

This class examines the role of science in the US environmental policy-making process. It investigates the methods scientists use to learn about the natural world, the way scientific knowledge accumulates, the treatment of science by advocates and the media, and the role of science in legislative, administrative and judicial decision making. It also considers how other political systems use science in an effort to put the US approach in comparative perspective.

11.375 · Graduate · Spring 2006

This course examines joint fact-finding within the context of adaptive and ecosystem-based management. Challenges and obstacles to collaborative approaches for deciding environmental and natural resource policy and the institutional changes within federal agencies necessary to utilize joint fact-finding as a means to link science and societal decisions are discussed and reviewed with scientists and managers. Senior-level federal policymakers also participate in these discussions.

11.382 · Graduate · Spring 2021

This course, which&nbsp;examines ways of resolving conflicts over the allocation of water resources,&nbsp;is designed to raise student awareness of the state of freshwater resources globally and the need for more effective water governance. It builds on several case studies of transboundary water conflicts in different parts of the world while also helping students develop the negotiation and mediation skills they will need to resolve water disputes.

11.384 · Graduate · Spring 2018

<p>The Malaysia Sustainable Cities Practicum is an intensive field-based course that brings 15 graduate students to Malaysia to learn about and analyze sustainable city development in five cities in Malaysia. The students in the Practicum will help determine the extent to which these efforts have been successful. They will identify specific projects or policy-making efforts that the following year’s cohort of International Visiting Scholars can examine more closely.&nbsp;</p> Lead Faculty <p>Pr…

11.401 · Graduate · Fall 2003

<p>As an introduction to the field of Housing, Community, and Economic Development (HCED), the course is structured to:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Advance student’s understanding of how public policy and private markets affect housing, economic development, the local economy, and neighborhood institutions;</p> </li> <li> <p>Provide an overview of techniques for framing public and private interventions to meet housing and community development agendas, broadly defined, of inner city and low income neighbo…

11.401 · Graduate · Fall 2015

This course provides students with a critical introduction to: social and economic inequality in America; equitable development as a response framework for planners; social capital and community building as planning concepts; and the history, development, and current prospects of the fields of housing (with an emphasis on affordability and inclusion) and local economic development.

11.405 · Graduate · Spring 2021

<p>Do you know what your bank does with your money? What is the role of a bank in producing societal well-being?</p> <p>This course looks into banks that operate differently, namely, “just banks" that use capital and finance as a tool to address social and ecological challenges.</p> <p>This course is for anyone who wants to understand the unique role banks play as intermediaries in our economy and how they can leverage that position to produce positive social, environmental, and economic change…

11.409 · Graduate · Spring 2020

This course introduces students to a set of analytic tools and conceptual frameworks through which to assess the origins and evolution of the institutions that constitute modern capitalism. The course takes an inter-disciplinary political economy approach that draws insights from economics, sociology, political science, history, geography, science and technology studies, and law.

11.421 · Graduate · Spring 2005

This class focuses on how the housing and human service systems interact: how networks and social capital can build between elements of the two systems. It explores ways in which the differing world views, professional perspectives, and institutional needs of the two systems play out operationally. Part I establishes the nature of the action frames of these two systems. Part II applies these insights to particular vulnerable groups: “at risk” households in transitional housing, the chronically …

11.422 · Graduate · Fall 2006

This course focuses on the origins, functions, and implications of downtown management organizations (DMOs), such as business improvement districts, in a variety of national contexts including the United States, Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. It critically examines how a range of urban theories provide a rationale for the establishment and design of DMOs; the evolution and transnational transfer of DMO policy; and the spatial and political externalities associated with the local …

11.423 · Graduate · Spring 2004

This practicum subject integrates theory and practice through the design, implementation, and evaluation of a comprehensive community information infrastructure that promotes democratic involvement and informs community development projects. Students work with Lawrence Community Works, Inc. to involve constituents and generate solutions to an important planning problem in the City of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Final project presentations take place in a public forum, and serve to inform future de…

11.437 · Graduate · Fall 2016

This course focuses on the tools and programs available to economic development practitioners to address capital needs for businesses and economic development projects. It provides an overview of private capital markets and financing sources to understand capital market imperfections that constrain economic development, business accounting, financial statement analysis, federal economic development programs, and public finance tools. The course covers policies and program models, including revo…

11.438 · Graduate · Spring 2020

This course examines why we plan for economic development, how government is funded in the US, what strategies are commonly used to attract and retain development, and how effective they are at accomplishing goals. We look at the tools and techniques of development through a variety of lenses, including those of effectiveness, equity, sustainability, and impacts on other aspects of public finance.

11.439 · Graduate · Spring 2003

<p>Revitalizing Urban Main Streets focuses on the physical and economic renewal of urban neighborhood Main Streets by combining classroom work with an applied class project. The course content covers three broad areas:</p> <ol> <li>an overview of the causes for urban business district decline, the challenges faced in revitalization and the type of revitalization strategies employed;</li> <li>the physical and economic development planning tools used to understand and assess urban Main Streets fr…

11.439 · Graduate · Spring 2009

<p>This course focuses on the physical and economic renewal of urban neighborhood Main Streets by combining classroom work with an applied class project. The course content covers four broad areas:</p> <ol> <li>An overview of the causes for urban business district decline, the challenges faced in revitalization and the type of revitalization strategies employed;</li> <li>The physical and economic development planning tools used to understand and assess urban Main Streets from physical design an…

11.439 · Graduate · Spring 2005

<p>This course focuses on the physical and economic renewal of urban neighborhood Main Streets by combining classroom work with an applied class project. The course content covers four broad areas:</p> <ol> <li>an overview of the causes for urban business district decline, the challenges faced in revitalization and the type of revitalization strategies employed;</li> <li>the physical and economic development planning tools used to understand and assess urban Main Streets from physical design an…

11.467J · Graduate · Spring 2005

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.

11.469 · Graduate · Spring 2016

<p>This course explores the creative dialectic—and sometimes conflict—between sociology and urban policy and design. Topics include the changing conceptions of “community,” the effects of neighborhood characteristics on individual outcomes, the significance of social capital and networks, the drivers of categorical inequality, and the interaction of social structure and political power. Students will examine key theoretical paradigms that have constituted sociology since its founding, assess ho…

11.469 · Graduate · Spring 2009

This course is intended to introduce graduate students to a set of core writings in the field of urban sociology. Topics include the changing nature of community, social inequality, political power, socio-spatial change, technological change, and the relationship between the built environment and human behavior. We examine the key theoretical paradigms that have constituted the field since its founding, assess how and why they have changed over time, and discuss the implications of these paradi…

11.471 · Graduate · Spring 2010

This course treats public-sector policies, programs, and projects that attempt to increase employment through development-promoting measures in the economic realm, through support and regulation. It discusses the types of initiatives, tasks, and environments that are most conducive to equitable outcomes, and emphasizes throughout the understandings gained about why certain initiatives work and others don’t.

11.479 · Graduate · Spring 2005

This course examines the policy and planning for the provision of water supply and sanitation services in developing countries. It reviews available technologies, but emphasizes the planning and policy process, including economic, social, environmental, and health issues. The course incorporates considerations of financing, pricing, institutional structure, consumer demand, and community participation in the planning process. And it evaluates policies and projects in case studies from Asia, Afr…

11.483 · Graduate · Fall 2011

A truly inter-disciplinary course, Housing and Land Use in Rapidly Urbanizing Regions reviews how law, economics, sociology, political science, and planning conceptualize urban land and property rights and uses cases to discuss what these different lenses illuminate and obscure. It also looks at how the social sciences might be informed by how design, cartography, and visual studies conceptualize space’s physicality. This year’s topics include land trusts for affordable housing, mixed-use in pu…

11.484 · Graduate · Spring 2005

<p>This course covers techniques of financial analysis of investment expenditures as well as the economic and distributive appraisal of those projects. The course gives special consideration to cases in the developing world. Students will engage in a critical analysis of these tools and their role in the political economy of international development. The course will cover topics such as alternative planning strategies for conditions of uncertainty; organizations and project cycle management; t…

11.487 · Graduate · Fall 2004

This readings-based course analyzes the structure and operation of government systems in developing countries, with particular emphasis on regional and local governments. Major topics include: the role of decentralization in national economic reform programs, the potential impact of decentralized governments on local economic development, determination of optimal arrangements for sharing fiscal responsibilities among levels of government, evaluation of local revenue and expenditure decisions, a…

11.488 · Graduate · Fall 2015

Economic, religious, gender, and ethnic differences must be negotiated every day in the urban arena. When tensions and conflict escalate into violence, the urban space becomes the battlespace in which these tensions are negotiated. This course examines urban development challenges in conflict cities through multiple disciplinary perspectives on urban conflict. This course also reviews literature that focuses on when violence and cities intersect. Students will learn about policy innovations, an…

11.489 · Graduate · Fall 2005

This course examines the economic, political, social, and spatial dynamics of urban growth and decline in cities and their key component areas (downtown, suburbs, etc.). Topics include impacts of industrialization, technology, politics, and social practices on cities. Students will examine the role of public and private sector activities, ranging from zoning and subsidies to infrastructure development and real estate investment, in affecting urban growth and decline. Readings are both theoretic…

11.493 · Graduate · Fall 2005

This course is designed to offer an advanced introduction to key legal issues that arise in the area of property and land-use in American law, with a comparative focus on the laws of India and South Africa. The focus of the course is not on law itself, but on the policy implications of various rules, doctrines and practices which are covered in great detail. Legal rules regulating property are among the most fundamental to American, and most other, economies and societies. The main focus is on …

11.501 · Graduate · Fall 2002

<p>This seminar is an introduction to the usage and impacts of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on urban planning, the urban environment and communities. Students will explore how social relationships, our sense of community, the urban infrastructure, and planning practice have been affected by technological change. Literature reviews, guest speakers, and web surfing will provide examples and issues that are debated in class and homework exercises. We will examine metropolitan …

11.520 · Graduate · Fall 2005

<p>This class uses lab exercises and a workshop setting to help students develop a solid understanding of the planning and public management uses of geographic information systems (GIS). The goals are to help students: acquire technical skills in the use of GIS software; acquire qualitative methods skills in data and document gathering, analyzing information, and presenting results; and investigate the potential and practicality of GIS technologies in a typical planning setting and evaluate pos…

11.521 · Graduate · Spring 2003

<p>This semester long subject (11.521) is divided into two halves. The first half focuses on learning spatial database management techniques and methods and the second half focuses on using these skills to address a ‘real world,’ client-oriented planning problem. The first half of the semester may be taken separately using the class number 11.523 and the second half may be taken separately as 11.524.</p> <p>In order to help shape and utilize the information infrastructure that will support the …

11.522 · Graduate · Fall 2005

<p>Seminar participants and invited guests will lead critical discussions of current literature and ongoing research. Each student will be responsible for identifying, reviewing, and presenting one structured discussion of articles from the current literature that are relevant to their research topic. The remaining time will be spent working on individual projects or thesis proposals. This fall, the seminar will focus on the following core issues that underlie most implementations of urban info…

11.601 · Graduate · Fall 2016

<p>This course focuses on national environmental and energy policy-making; environmental ethics; the techniques of environmental analysis; and strategies for collaborative environmental decision-making. The primary objective of the course is to help students formulate a personal theory of environmental planning practice. The course is taught comparatively, with constant references to examples from around the world. It is required of all graduate students pursuing an environmental policy and pla…

11.701 · Graduate · Fall 2003

This introductory course helps students learn to pose questions and analyze problems in the field of planning in developing countries. Not arguing for one “right” approach, the course draws on grounded empirical experiences - historical and recent - to help students navigate the way they approach their future work in developing-country governments, NGOs and international organizations.

11.701 · Graduate · Fall 2011

This introductory survey course is intended to develop an understanding of key issues and dilemmas of planning in non-Western countries. The issues covered by the course include state intervention, governance, law and institutions in development, privatization, participatory planning, decentralization, poverty, urban-rural linkages, corruption and civil service reform, trade and outsourcing and labor standards, post-conflict development and the role of aid in development.

11.800 · Graduate · Spring 2007

<p>This is a course about how research knowledge and other types of knowledge come to be actionable and influential in the world — or not. The course explores ways to make research knowledge more accessible, credible, and useful in the realm of public policy and practice, a project in which the course faculty collectively bring decades of professional experience, in both academic and non-academic roles.</p> <p>The course addresses the politics of the policymaking process, the power of framing a…

11.902 · Graduate · Spring 2009

<p>In analyzing fiscal issues, conventional public finance approaches focus mainly on taxation and public spending. Policymakers and practitioners rarely explore solutions by examining the fundamental problem: the failure of interested parties to act collectively to internalize the positive externalities generated by public goods. Public finance is merely one of many possible institutional arrangements for assigning the rights and responsibilities to public goods consumption. This system is cur…

11.914 · Graduate · Spring 2007

This three-week module, centered on a focal case, represents the second part of the Department’s introduction to the challenges of reflection and action in professional planning practice. As such, it builds on the concepts and tools in 11.201 and 11.202 in the fall semester. Working in teams, students will deliver a 20-minute oral briefing, with an additional 10 minutes for questions and comments, in the last week of the class (as detailed on the assignment and posted course schedule). The team…

11.941 · Graduate · Spring 2011

<p>“Designing a dream city is easy. Rebuilding a living one takes imagination.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -Jane Jacobs</p> <p>This course examines the challenges that cities will face and strategies they can use to prepare for the impacts of climate change. Particular attention will be paid to the presence of global disparities, the needs of vulnerable populations and resource constrained locales, and the ways in which local government and community-based activities can achieve equitable levels of clim…

11.941 · Graduate · Spring 2005

<p>In recent years, the redistribution of risk has created conditions for natural and technological disasters to become more widespread, more difficult to manage, and more discriminatory in their effects. Policy and planning decision-makers frequently focus on the impact that human settlement patterns, land use decisions, and risky technologies can have on vulnerable populations. However, to ensure safety and promote equity, they also must be familiar with the social and political dynamics that…

11.941 · Graduate · Fall 2003

11.941 and 11.942 make up a one-year seminar. The goal of this seminar is to explore the role of science and scientists in ecosystems and natural resources management focusing on joint fact finding as a new approach to environmental policy-making.&nbsp;Increasingly scientists and science organizations are confronting a conundrum: Why is science often ignored in important societal decisions even as the call for decisions based on sound science escalates? One reason is that decision-making is oft…

11.941 · Graduate · Fall 2008

The primary purpose of this seminar is to enable students to craft approaches to so-called “First World”/ “Third World” city comparisons that are theoretically sophisticated, methodologically rigorous, contextually grounded, and significantly beneficial. Since there exists very little literature and very few projects which compare “First World” and “Third World” cities in a sophisticated and genuinely useful manner, the seminar is structured around a series of readings, case studies, and discus…

11.942 · Graduate · Spring 2007

This subject is on regional energy-environmental modeling rather than on general energy-environmental policies, but the models should have some policy relevance. We will start with some discussion of green accounting issues; then, we will cover a variety of theoretical and empirical topics related to spatial energy demand and supply, energy forecasts, national and regional energy prices, and environmental implications of regional energy consumption and production. Where feasible, the topics wil…

11.942 · Graduate · Spring 2004

This course makes up the second half of a year-long seminar on Joint Fact Finding in Science-Intensive Disputes. In 11.941, the first half of the seminar, students analyzed and discussed cases that involved or that should have involved Joint Fact Finding of various kinds. In this portion, students concentrate on gathering information to assist in resolving the Cape Wind project, the dispute concerning the placement of wind farms in waters adjacent to Nantucket. Students will lay the groundwork …

11.943 · Graduate · Fall 2001

This landscape and environmental planning workshop investigates and propose a framework for the enhancement, development and preservation of the natural and cultural landscape of the Cardener River Corridor in Catalunya, Spain. The workshop is carried out in conjunction with the Polytechnic University of Catalunya, and the Barcelona Provincial Council (Diputació de Barcelona).

11.945 · Graduate · Fall 2005

The Springfield Studio is a practicum course that focuses on the economic, programmatic and social renewal of an urban community in Springfield, Massachusetts by combining classroom work with an applied class project. The course content covers the areas of neighborhood economic development and the related analysis and planning tools used to understand and assess urban conditions from an economic and community development perspective.

11.945 · Graduate · Spring 2006

In the wake of Katrina the entire gulf coast is embroiled in a struggle over what constitutes “appropriate” rebuilding and redevelopment efforts. This practicum will engage students in a set of work groups designed to assist local community based institutions and people in shaping the policy and practices that will guide the redevelopment and rebuilding efforts in the city of New Orleans.

11.945 · Graduate · Spring 2004

<p>The Springfield Studio is a practicum design course that focuses on the physical, programmatic, and social renewal of an urban community in Springfield, Massachusetts by combining classroom work with an applied class project.&nbsp;The course content covers the areas of physical design/urban design and the related analysis and planning tools used to understand and assess urban conditions from a design and development perspective.&nbsp;Urban design issues are investigated in the context of soc…

11.946 · Graduate · Spring 2004

<p>During the last fifteen years, nations across the globe embarked on a historic transformation away from centrally planned economies to market-oriented ones. However, in the common pursuit for economic growth, these transition countries implemented widely different reform strategies with mixed results. With over a decade of empirical evidence now available, this new course examines this phenomenon that has pushed the discourse in a number of disciplines, requiring us to reconsider fundamental…

11.946J · Graduate · Summer 2004

The Beijing Urban Design Studio is a joint program between the MIT and Tsinghua University Schools of Architecture and Planning.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;Since 1995, almost 250 MIT and Tsinghua University students and faculty have participated in this annual studio, making it one of the most su…

11.947 · Graduate · Fall 2004

The course draws on faculty members from the Center for Real Estate, the City Design and Development Group (Department of Urban Studies and Planning), and the Media Lab to explore extraordinary projects that challenge conventional approaches to real estate development, urban design, and advanced digital technology.

11.947 · Graduate · Spring 2005

This course provides an introduction to the issues of immigrants, planning, and race. It identifies the complexities and identities of immigrant populations emerging in the United States context and how different community groups negotiate that complexity. It explores the critical differences and commonalities between immigrant and non-immigrant communities, as well as how the planning profession does and should respond to those differences. Finally, the course explores the intersection of immi…

11.947 · Graduate · Spring 2007

This class examines the history and theory of historic preservation, focusing on the United States, but with reference to traditions and practices in other countries. The class is designed to examine the largely untold history of the historic preservation movement in this country, and explore how laws, public policies and cultural attitudes shape how we preserve or do not preserve the built environment. The class will give students a grounding in the history, theory and practice of historic pre…

11.947 · Graduate · Spring 2009

The course examines the causes and effects of rapid urbanization in developing countries. Using case studies from the world’s four major developing regions, including (among others) Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Managua, Singapore, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Kabul, Beirut, Cairo, Kinshasa, Cape Town and Johannesburg, it explores the economic and political dynamics that grease the wheels of contemporary patterns of growth. In addition to examining both local and transnational forces that drive contempor…

11.947 · Graduate · Fall 1998

Kevin Lynch’s landmark volume, <em>The Image of the City</em> (1960), emphasized the perceptual characteristics of the urban environment, stressing the ways that individuals mentally organize their own sensory experience of cities. Increasingly, however, city imaging is supplemented and constructed by exposure to visual media, rather than by direct sense experience of urban realms. City images are not static, but subject to constant revision and manipulation by a variety of media-savvy individu…

11.947 · Graduate · Spring 2004

This course explores the application of environmental and economic development planning, policy and management approaches to urban neighborhood community development. Through an applied service learning approach, the course requires students to prepare a sustainable development plan for a community-based non-profit organization. Through this client-based planning project, students will have the opportunity to test how sustainable development concepts and different economic and environmental pla…

11.948 · Graduate · Spring 2001

<p>This workshop provides an introduction to urban environmental design and explores the potential of information technology and the Internet to transform public education, city design, and community development in inner-city neighborhoods. Integration of comprehensive (“top-down”) and grassroots (“bottom-up”) approaches to design and planning is a major theme.</p> <p>Students will work in a real neighborhood with real people on a real project, putting theory into practice and reflecting on ins…

11.948 · Graduate · Spring 2005

This course is being offered in conjunction with the colloquium The Politics of Reconstructing Iraq, which is sponsored by MIT’s Center for International Studies and Department of Urban Studies and Planning. Fundamentally, the course focuses on contemporary post-conflict countries (or in-conflict countries) and the role of planning and reconstruction in building nations, mitigating conflicts, reshaping the social, spatial, geopolitical, and political life, and determining the country’s future.

11.949 · Graduate · Fall 2003

<p>This course’s aims are two-fold:</p> <ol> <li>to offer students the theoretical and practical tools to understand how and why cities become torn by ethnic, religious, racial, nationalist, and/or other forms of identity that end up leading to conflict, violence, inequality, and social injustice; and</li> <li>to use this knowledge and insight in the search for solutions</li> </ol> <p>As preparation, students will be required to become familiar with social and political theories of the city and…

11.949 · Graduate · Spring 2004

This class is intended to introduce students to understandings of the city generated from both social science literature and the field of urban design. The first part of the course examines literature on the history and theory of the city. Among other factors, it pays special attention to the larger territorial settings in which cities emerged and developed (ranging from the global to the national to the regional&nbsp;context) and how these affected the nature, character, and functioning of cit…

11.950 · Graduate · Spring 2007

Citizen participation is everywhere. Invoking it has become <em>de rigueur</em> when discussing cities and regions in the developing world. From the World Bank to the World Social Forum, the virtues of participation are extolled: From its capacity to “deepen democracy” to its ability to improve governance, there is no shortage to the benefits it can bring. While it is clear that participation cannot possibly “do” all that is claimed, it is also clear that citizen participation cannot be dismiss…

11.952 · Graduate · Spring 2004

This practicum focuses on applying the principles of sustainability to improve the quality of life and activity along the Foshan downtown riverfront. The City has recently engaged in several planning efforts that, with the help of consultants and experts, will help to identify strategies to revitalize the City’s center and establish a new downtown. This practicum will compliment these efforts by focusing on planning and design options in and around the Pearl River, a now underutilized waterway …

11.952 · Graduate · Spring 2005

The studio will focus on the district of Gaoming, located in the northwest of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) - the fastest growing and most productive region of China. The District has recently completed a planning effort in which several design institutes and a Hong Kong planning firm prepared ideas for a new central area near the river. The class will complement these efforts by focusing on planning and design options on the waterfront of the proposed new district and ways of integrating water/h…

11.953 · Graduate · Spring 2006

This course focuses on the land use-transportation “interaction space” in metropolitan settings. The course aims to develop an understanding of relevant theories and analytical techniques, through the exploration of various cases drawn from different parts of the world. The course begins with an overview of the role of transportation in patterns of urban development and metropolitan growth. It introduces the concept of accessibility and related issues of individual and firm travel demand. Later…

11.954 · Graduate · Spring 2005

This course will examine literature and practice regarding community-owned enterprise as an alternative means of increasing community participation and development. The use of cooperatives, credit unions, land trusts, and limited stock ownership enterprises for increasing community participation and empowerment will be examined.

11.957 · Graduate · January IAP 2007

Urban governance comprises the various forces, institutions, and movements that guide economic and physical development, the distribution of resources, social interactions, and other aspects of daily life in urban areas. This course examines governance from legal, political, social, and economic perspectives. In addition, we will discuss how these structures constrain collective decision making about particular urban issues (immigration, education…). Assignments will be nightly readings and a s…

11.958 · Graduate · January IAP 2009

<p>An old saying holds that “there are many more good ideas in the world than good ideas implemented.” This is a case based introduction to the fundamentals of effective implementation. Developed with the needs and interests of planners—but also with broad potential application—in mind, this course is a fast paced, case driven introduction to developing strategy for organizations and projects, managing operations, recruiting and developing talent, taking calculated risks, measuring results (per…

11.959 · Graduate · January IAP 2007

For the last century, precepts of scientific management and administrative rationality have concentrated power in the hands of technical specialists, which in recent decades has contributed to widespread disenfranchisement and discontent among stakeholders in natural resources cases. In this seminar we examine the limitations of scientific management as a model both for governance and for gathering and using information, and describe alternative methods for informing and organizing decision-mak…

11.965 · Graduate · January IAP 2007

<p>The course is an introduction to the approach of Reflective Practice developed by Donald Schön. It is an approach that enables professionals to understand how they use their knowledge in practical situations and how they can combine practice and learning in a more effective way. Through greater awareness of how they deploy their knowledge in practical situations, professionals can increase their capacities of learning in a more timely way. Understanding how they frame situations and ideas he…

11.967 · Graduate · January IAP 2007

This intensive and brief 4-day seminar, taught during MIT’s Independent Activities Period in January, uses a case set in Hartford, Vermont to introduce economic development planning skills to students in the Master in City Planning (MCP) Degree Program. It introduces analytical tools that are used to assess local economic development conditions, issues, and opportunities as part of formulating economic development plans. The course is designed to provide MCP students with skills needed for appl…

11.969 · Graduate · Summer 2005

The Workshop on Deliberative Democracy and Dispute Resolution, sponsored by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and <em>The Flora and William Hewlett Foundation</em>, is a two-day conference that brings together dispute resolution professionals and political theorists in the field of deliberative democracy.

11.975 · Graduate · Fall 2009

The purpose of this seminar is to provide a context for understanding the challenges of urban food provisioning from a perspective of sustainability and social inclusion in cities of the global South. The seminar will be specifically geared towards preparing students for direct participation in urban markets and food policy project intervention in Cartagena, Colombia.

11.S196 · Undergraduate · Spring 2011

For the first time in history, the global demand for freshwater is overtaking its supply in many parts of the world. The U.N. predicts that by 2025, more than half of the countries in the world will be experiencing water stress or outright shortages. Lack of water can cause disease, food shortages, starvation, migrations, political conflict, and even lead to war. Models of cooperation, both historic and contemporary, show the way forward. The first half of the course details the multiple facets…

11.S940 · Graduate · Fall 2015

This is an advanced seminar that will analyze the effectiveness of development and planning theories from the perspective of practitioners who implement projects and policies based on such theories. The ultimate goal is to create new planning sensibilities, which theorize from practice, not the other way around.

11.S941 · Graduate · Spring 2016

This class examines the built, psychosocial, economic, and natural environment factors that affect health behaviors and outcomes. Students will be introduced to tools designed to integrate public health considerations into policy making and planning, and will be given hands-on training on the application of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) methodology. This class is designed to prepare graduate students from planning and policy fields to interface with public health organizations, agencies, or ad…

11.S942 · Graduate · Fall 2020

In this seminar we explore the history, present, and future of psychogeography, hoping to map the center and the edges of this elusive field and to pioneer potential new directions and applications for the principles we discover (or invent) along the way. We discuss classic and more recent texts—including novels, essays, poems, reviews, films, and other works of creative nonfiction and speculative fiction. Students also undertake their own psychogeographic wanderings and complete a final “carto…

11.S943 · Graduate · Fall 2017

This is an advanced graduate-level seminar that will analyze the effectiveness of development and planning theories from the perspective of practitioners who implement projects and policies based on such theories. The course will be organized around 12 implementation puzzles, which should be considered for re-theorizing both developmental and planning processes.

11.S945 · Graduate · Spring 2019

This course explores equity as a key value, measure, and framework for operationalizing local economic development plans and policies. It examines the implementation of local policy initiatives for equity in U.S. cities and investigates a wide range of contemporary theory and practice in the field of urban economic development, from contracting and municipal procurement to arts and culture-driven approaches.

11.S945 · Graduate · Fall 2013

The course explores the interactions between state and market as instigators of China’s urbanization, and its consequences of land, housing, transportation, energy, environment, migration, finance, urban inequality. Themes include the de-synchronization of China’s urbanization, potential differences between China’s past and future development, and differentiators between China’s urbanization and those of other countries. This discussion-based course asks students to participate in the conversat…

11.S948 · Graduate · Spring 2018

This course explores the city through writing—listening to the voices of poets, short story writers, novelists, journalists, critics, historians, ethnographers, urbanists, musicians, filmmakers, and visual artists. Through extensive reading that informs their work on a longform story, students will join the chorus of storytellers to richly represent the variegated city. Our focus is on three nonfiction forms—essay, memoir, literary narrative—with special emphasis on the writer-editor relationsh…

11.S955 · Graduate · January IAP 2021

This course explores the importance of public transportation to social and economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and seeks to identify approaches to restoring transit ridership, with a focus on Metro Boston. We will attempt to (1) understand whether and how the COVID-19 pandemic can advance sustainable mobility, and specifically the role(s) of public transportation in the COVID-19 recovery process, and (2) identify policies and/or interventions that may encourage pre-COVID transit riders…

21G.031J · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

<p>21G.031 examines the terms “avant garde” and “Kulturindustrie” in French and German culture of the early twentieth century. Considering the origins of these concepts in surrealist and dadaist literature, art, and cinema, the course then expands to engage parallel formations across Europe, particularly in the former Soviet Union. Emphasis on the specific historical conditions that enabled these interventions. Guiding questions are these: What was original about the historical avant-garde?&nbs…

RES.11-001 · Non-Credit · Fall 2015

Created in 2012 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation (CITE) is the first-ever program dedicated to developing methods for product evaluation in global development. CITE produces technology evaluations that provide evidence for data-driven decision-making by development workers, donors, manufacturers, suppliers, and consumers themselves. In addition, CITE evaluations lead to significant developing insights, helping us better understa…

RES.11-002 · Undergraduate · Fall 2017

During the fall of 2017, art educator B. Stephen Carpenter II began a residency at the MIT Center for Art, Science &amp; Technology (CAST). He provided new perspectives on issues of access, privilege, and the global water crisis through a series of seminars, performances, and workshops. Carpenter’s seminars illustrated ways of disrupting systems of oppression and ways to increase access to potable water in politically marginalized communites in the United States and abroad.

RES.11-003 · Non-Credit · Spring 2025

<p>The Climate Justice Instructional Toolkit was created by MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative as part of a larger initiative to expand climate justice education at MIT.</p> <p>The primary goal of these resources and programming is to provide support to faculty members and instructors across disciplines within introductory undergraduate courses to facilitate the integration of climate justice content and related instructional approaches into their courses.</p>

RES.11-004 · Graduate, Non-Credit · Fall 2024

<p>This four-part dinner series was created by Prof. Lawrence Susskind at the request of a group of students in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) who felt the need for a graduate-level leadership course that would be attuned specifically to the needs of public sector professionals.</p> <p>The trailer and session videos may be freely viewed, downloaded, and reused under MIT OpenCourseWare’s Creative Commons BY-NC-SA&nbsp;license.</p>

RES.11-550 · Non-Credit · Spring 2021

<p>In this course, we explore how new mobility systems can be leveraged to promote equity, improve health outcomes, and increase accessibility. Lectures by&nbsp;transportation professors from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the United States are supplemented with&nbsp;interviews with preeminent entrepreneurs, city planners, community development experts, and mobility justice advocates.</p> <p>Topics covered include land use and urban form; new mobility business models, pricing, policy,…