Classes

UG: 4.378 | G: 4.379

In an era shaped by AI, digital fabrication, and mass production, this course explores the embodied knowledge of the traditional crafts as a radical frontier of design. We will examine how endangered textile techniques can be reimagined to create new cultural and economic value. From Bengali jamdaani weaving to American quilting and Egyptian khayamiya appliqué, students investigate how textile crafts connect art with innovative models of sustainability, material experimentation, and ethical production beyond fast fashion and industrial systems.

Through research-creation and collaboration with master craftspeople and contemporary designers, students will translate historical textile traditions into experimental fabric applications, from fashion prototypes to installations. The course emphasizes hands-on workshops, process documentation, and iterative prototyping, culminating in two final projects that integrate weaving, screen printing, and reverse appliqué techniques to envision future applications of crafts in design. Readings and guest lectures complement hands-on practice.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.

Explores the theory and criticism of intersections between art, culture, and technology in relation to contemporary artistic practice, critical design, and media. Students consider methods of investigation, documentation, and display and explore modes of communication. Students develop projects in which they organize research goals, engage in production, cultivate a context for practice, and explore how to communicate, display, and document work, with artistic practice as a method of critical inquiry/ knowledge dissemination. Regular presentation and peer-critiques, reviews with ACT faculty and fellows, and external guest reviewers provide feedback as projects develop. Simultaneously, students prepare for thesis through both foundational texts in contemporary theory and criticism and artist writings alongside presentations and discussions on methodological perspectives required of interdisciplinary approaches.

MIT Certificate Protected Syllabus

4.401 U (GIR REST) / 4.464J, 1.564J G

Introduction to the study of the thermal and luminous behavior of buildings. Examines the basic scientific principles underlying these phenomena and introduces students to a range of technologies and analysis techniques for designing comfortable indoor environments. Challenges students to apply these techniques and explore the role energy and light can play in shaping architecture.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.

Addresses advanced structures, exterior envelopes, and contemporary production technologies. Continues the exploration of structural elements and systems, expanding to include more complex determinate, indeterminate, long-span, and high-rise systems. Topics 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 systems, performance attributes, and analysis techniques, material specifications and novel construction technologies.

Fundamental research methodologies and ongoing investigations in building tehnology to support the development of student research projects. Topics drawn from low energy building design and thermal comfort, building systems analysis and control, daylighting, structural design and analysis, novel building materials and construction techniques and resource dynamics. Organized as a series of two- and three-week sessions that consider topics through readings, discussions, design and analysis projects, and student presentations.

Selection of thesis topic, definition of method of approach, and preparation of thesis proposal. Independent study supplemented by individual conference with faculty.

Selection of thesis topic, definition of method of approach, and preparation of thesis proposal. Independent study supplemented by individual conference with faculty.

4.500 U / 4.505 G

Introduces digital fabrication as a method of home, hut, and shelter delivery/construction. Explores the progression of industrial-based building production from prefab to digital fab. Examines new computational techniques for rapid construction, as well as the basics of tiny building design, 3D modeling systems, scalable ways to prototype, and computer numerical control (CNC) fabrication. Students use lab time to design a prototype of a small building as a single packaged product. Additional work required of students taking graduate version. Lab fee required. 

4.502 U / 4.562 G

Class website

Advanced projects in architectural visualization with an emphasis on the use of computer graphics animation, interactive media, and video production tools. Introduces advanced visualization software and teaches exploration of spatial expressions in motion graphics format. Review and discussion of selected literature and video materials on architecture and film.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.

An in-depth introduction to shape grammars and their applications in architecture and related areas of design. Shapes in the algebras Ui j, in the algebras Vi j and Wi j incorporating labels and weights, and in algebras formed as composites of these. Rules and computations, shape and structure, designs.

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/

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.