Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA)

Established in 1979 through an endowment from His Highness the Aga Khan, The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA) at MIT is dedicated to the study of Islamic architecture, urbanism, environmental and landscape design, and conservation. It prepares students for careers in research, design, and teaching and aims to enhance the understanding of Islamic architecture and urbanism in light of contemporary issues and to increase the visibility of Islamic cultural heritage in the modern world.

Architecture and Urbanism

Architecture and Urbanism is a special program for students interested in the development of critical urban design, as well as its history and theory. Consciously locating itself in the contemporary debate about what constitutes good city form, the program teaches students to develop articulate and intellectually grounded positions. Students are expected to interrogate current positions within the field in order to explore critical alternatives to existing paradigms of urbanism. The assumption is that design is an intellectual act with the capacity to yield both critique and alternative possibilities.

Center for Real Estate

The Center for Real Estate (MIT/CRE) was established in 1983 within the School of Architecture and Planning to join academic and industry resources in addressing the changing issues and needs of the built environment. Since then, MIT has awarded the Master's degree in Real Estate Development to almost 600 graduates of the program, ten percent of whom also received joint degrees from associated departments at MIT. The one-year program was the first of its kind and has served as a model for graduate degree programs at other universities both in the U.S. and abroad.

Media Arts and Sciences and the Media Lab

At MIT, the phrase Media Arts and Sciences signifies the study, invention and creative use of enabling technologies for understanding and expression by people and machines. The field is rooted in modern communication, computer and human sciences, and the academic program is intimately linked with research programs within the Media Laboratory. Computers and computation are the most prominent common denominators of this multi-disciplinary merger of previously separate domains. For underlying the explosive advances of the various technologies involved, they are discovering and cultivating a new set of shared intellectual and practical concerns that are becoming the foundations of a new academic discipline. In its simplest form, the field of Media Arts and Sciences can be thought of as exploring the technical, cognitive and aesthetic bases of satisfying human interaction as mediated by technology. In more forward-looking terms, it addresses the quality of life in the information-rich environment of the future.

SIGUS

The Special Interest Group in Urban Settlement links housing and community interests in the Departments of Architecture and Urban Studies. It offers workshops, short courses, and carries out research stressing participatory methods in promoting affordable and equitable housing. SIGUS started in 1984 and grew out of experience in developing countries and has evolved to include the developed countries with a commonality of issues and approaches.