About The Department
Some notes on the direction of architecture at MIT from the Department Head:
Architecture @ MIT = Design + Technology
Technology: New materials + construction methods, Computation (as tool), Renewable energy, etc.
Design = Innovation (vs. composition, pattern making, etc.)
meaning creative problem solving
Design process: Research and development (R&D)
meaning prototyping and hands-on exercises not only for the sake of having such
experience but as integral part of pedagogy
Studio = Lab (where one experiments and tests)
Key design skills:
Analysis and conceptualization
Computation (to process information not merely to make form)
Teamwork (with people with diverse expertise)
Core design knowledge includes
Basic material properties
Structure + Mechanical systems
Design addresses Issues…
City (and urbanization)
Climate change
Culture
and is shaped at the same time by the issues
Besides,
Architecture’s relationship with Urbanism:
Architecture and Urbanism form a continuum
City should and can be designed
The make-up of MIT Architecture Department - Discipline Groups:
Research engines
A Noah’s Arc as the intellectual platform for exchange and collaboration
Reading:
*Stanford Anderson: Architectural Design as a System of Research Programs
These are ideas in progress and materials for debate, internally for our students and faculty
as well as externally for whomever is taking an interest in MIT.
Yung Ho Chang
Professor and Head, Department of Architecture
*Stanford Anderson. "Architectural Design as a System of Research Programmes" and "Architectural Research Programmes in the Work of Le Corbusier," Design Studies (London), V (July 1984), 146-158 [both articles reprinted, with commentary, in K. Michael Hays, ed., Architecture | Theory | since 1968 (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1984), 490-505].
