Classes

Zoning has become the city’s hidden operating system—the invisible code that dictates how urban life unfolds.

It determines where and how people live, work, shop, learn, and move. It shapes the supply and cost of housing, the character of neighborhoods, access to everyday amenities, and the prospects of local businesses.

But today’s cities confront overlapping crises: climate risk, housing scarcity, infrastructure strain, demographic shifts, and the reconfiguration of work, retail, learning, and healthcare that is upending traditional urban anchors. The zoning frameworks inherited from the 20th century—built for stability and uniformity—are increasingly misaligned with the volatility and urgency of the 21st. What cities need now is not incremental reform, but a new, responsive operating system for urban life.

Course Focus: Students will investigate a radical alternative to static zoning—a dynamic, incentive-based, pro-social framework that treats the city as a living system. This model channels market forces through feedback loops, much like a natural ecosystem, to cultivate what we call civic homeostasis: a state of balance that adapts as conditions change.

San Francisco is now undergoing radical zoning reform, and the City Science group is collaborating with city leaders to help communities understand its impact, and to explore what comes beyond zoning. Students in the class will have the opportunity to contribute directly by:

• Analyzing urban data—from mobility flows and land use to demographic shifts—to decode the hidden patterns shaping communities today.
• Building simulations—both top-down statistical models and bottom-up agent-based systems—to test how interventions ripple through the social, economic, and environmental fabric of the city.
• Designing dynamic incentive structures to balance housing, workplaces, and daily amenities, while exploring how an AI Urban Advisor could provide city supervisors with continuous feedback—an early form of augmented intelligence for urban governance.
• Prototyping a CityScope platform to foster transparent, participatory community engagement.
• Experimenting with parametric design and generative AI tools as engines for reimagining urban rules and forms.

Deliverables: Weekly assignments, mid-term, and final project.

Teaching Collaborators: Maitane Iruretagoyena (Technical Associate), Yasushi Sakai, (Research Scientist), Markus Elkatsha (Research Scientist)
Website: https://www.media.mit.edu/courses/mas-552-city-science-beyond-zoning/

Summary: This is a rapid-fire, high-level exploration of how to model socio-economic-environmental interventions that could enable low-carbon, entrepreneurial cities using the MIT-Kendall Square district as the case study.   We will focus on two questions:

• What would be required for MIT-Kendall Square to achieve zero-carbon in 20 years?
• Can social performance be simultaneously increased to create a model entrepreneurship community?

Motivation: With cities generating more than 70% of current global CO2 emissions, and with 90% of future population growth occurring in urban areas, it is a societal imperative that cities rapidly transition to a low-carbon future.  In addition, a rapid transition to a hybrid form of work that emphasizes entrepreneurship will impact how we conceive of central business districts, office buildings, housing, public spaces, and services.  

Urban Interventions: Student teams will select one of the following systems for mid-term and final projects:

• Live-work symmetry. Ideally, available jobs in a district would be matched to appropriate and affordable housing.  What are the optimal configuration and mix of places of living and work to create high-performance, livable, entrepreneurial urban communities and how can this be achieved?
• Local amenities access. Few U.S. communities provide the assets required for daily living in close proximity to where people live (shopping, schools, culture, healthcare, daycare, recreation, etc.).  How can amenity proximity be measured and how can local access be achieved by government policy and/or market forces?
• Local food production. Significant CO2 emissions are from food-related supply chains and meat-based diets.  What food products can be produced near the point of consumption and how might new developments in industrial-scale hydroponic/aeroponic food production, cultured meats, and other innovations dramatically lower CO2 emissions?
• Community mobility. A large percentage of urban CO2 emissions is from commuting.  Market forces and current approaches to public policy do not typically lead to diverse and affordable housing near places of employment.  If live-work symmetry and local amenity access are achieved for net-zero commuting, how can we re-imagine local mobility networks and vehicles?  
• Fusion-ready cities. Power to the grid in MA is almost 80% fossil fuel.  What innovations in distributed high-density power could result in zero-carbon power to the district (micro-nuclear, small nuclear reactors, fusion) - and how can this be achieved?
• Compact-high-performance-transformable housing. How high-performance buildings can reduce CO2 emissions with new models for housing?

Experience: Students will gain hands-on experience with the collection and analysis of data, basic python scripts, and simulation tools.  Students will have an opportunity to evaluate the potential of a range of current and emerging urban interventions.

Enrollment: This class seeks highly motivated students with a background in data analytics, engineering, architecture, urban planning, public policy, business, and entrepreneurship. Programming experience is useful but not required (small-team assignments may pair, for example, a designer with a programmer).
 
Final Project: Students will select a backend module to develop that could later be integrated into an urban simulation tool, and write a research paper for a conference. See references to CityScope:

• https://cityscope.media.mit.edu/
• https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/cityscope/overview/

Repeatable for credit with permission of instructor.

Class website

Develop independent projects in the study of digital media as it relates to architectural design. Students propose a project topic such as digital design tool, modeling and visualization, motion graphics, interactive design, design knowledge representation and media interface.

Class website

Develop independent projects in the study of digital media as it relates to architectural design. Students propose a project topic such as digital design tool, modeling and visualization, motion graphics, interactive design, design knowledge representation and media interface.

Class website

Develop independent projects in the study of digital media as it relates to architectural design. Students propose a project topic such as digital design tool, modeling and visualization, motion graphics, interactive design, design knowledge representation and media interface.

Class website

Develop independent projects in the study of digital media as it relates to architectural design. Students propose a project topic such as digital design tool, modeling and visualization, motion graphics, interactive design, design knowledge representation and media interface.

Explores the varied nature, history and practice of computation in design through lectures, readings, small projects, discussions, and guest visits by Computation group faculty and others. Topics may vary from year to year. Aims to help students develop a critical awareness of different approaches to and assumptions about computation in design beyond the specifics of techniques and tools, and to open avenues for further research.

4.580 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

Explores the varied nature, history and practice of computation in design through lectures, readings, small projects, discussions, and guest visits by Computation group faculty and others. Topics may vary from year to year. Aims to help students develop a critical awareness of different approaches to and assumptions about computation in design beyond the specifics of techniques and tools, and to open avenues for further research.

4.580 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

Explores the varied nature, history and practice of computation in design through lectures, readings, small projects, discussions, and guest visits by Computation group faculty and others. Topics may vary from year to year. Aims to help students develop a critical awareness of different approaches to and assumptions about computation in design beyond the specifics of techniques and tools, and to open avenues for further research.

Explores the varied nature, history and practice of computation in design through lectures, readings, small projects, discussions, and guest visits by Computation group faculty and others. Topics may vary from year to year. Aims to help students develop a critical awareness of different approaches to and assumptions about computation in design beyond the specifics of techniques and tools, and to open avenues for further research.

4.581 Proseminar in Computation (G) / 4.582 Research Seminar in Computation (G)

In-depth presentations of current research in design and computation.

4.581 Proseminar in Computation (G) / 4.582 Research Seminar in Computation (G)

Introduction to traditions of research in design and computation scholarship.

4.582 Research Seminar in Computation

In-depth presentations of current research in design and computation.

4.581 Proseminar in Computation (G) / 4.582 Research Seminar in Computation (G)

In-depth presentations of current research in design and computation.

4.581 Proseminar in Computation (G) / 4.582 Research Seminar in Computation (G)

In-depth presentations of current research in design and computation.

Group discussions and presentation of ongoing graduate student research in the Computation program.

4.583 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

Group discussions and presentation of ongoing graduate student research in the Computation program.

4.583 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

Group discussions and presentation of ongoing graduate student research in the Computation program.

Group discussions and presentation of ongoing graduate student research in the Computation program.

Group discussions and presentation of ongoing graduate student research in the Computation program.

Preliminary study in preparation for the thesis for the SMArchS degree in Computation. Topics include literature search, precedents examination, thesis structure and typologies, and short writing exercise.

4.587 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)

Preliminary study in preparation for the thesis for the SMArchS degree in Computation. Topics include literature search, precedents examination, thesis structure and typologies, and short writing exercise.

Preliminary study in preparation for the thesis for the SMArchS degree in Computation. Topics include literature search, precedents examination, thesis structure and typologies, and short writing exercise.

2/27/23: Schedule changed to F 12-2 

Preliminary study in preparation for the thesis for the SMArchS degree in Computation. Topics include literature search, precedents examination, thesis structure and typologies, and short writing exercise.