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If you have news or events you wish us to know about,
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Deborah Garcia arrived at MIT Architecture (virtually) in the Fall of 2020 as a result of an international call for emerging designers to become Teaching Fellows. In a recent 3Q interview, Carol-Anne Rodrigues MArch ’22 asked Garcia about her practice, her own path to becoming an architect, and how she envisions the future of architectural education.
How pivotal were architecture high school outreach programs in starting your architectural career?
Submission Deadline: May 1, 2021
Thresholds 50: Before // After
Editors: Jola Idowu, Antonio Pacheco, Ardalan SadeghiKivi, and Meriam Soltan.
“Where were you when…?” A familiar phrase conjoining geography and a moment in time that marks out a sense of before and after. A collective stop. A turning point. A threshold.
out of frame is a student-edited platform supported by MIT Architecture. To learn more, read a letter from the editor.
MIT Architecture launches new program as part of strategic efforts around equity and inclusion.
This spring, the MIT Department of Architecture is launching a new peer-to-peer support group that currently exists across many departments at MIT: The departmental Resources for Easing Friction and Stress, or dREFS. The architecture department’s program, archREFS, is a group of graduate students trained in conflict management and mediation, here to support the broad architecture community of undergrads, MArchs, SMArchS, SMBTs, SMACTs, and PhDs.
The MIT Department of Architecture is pleased to announce our spring 2021 online public program. This spring, we turn with hope, but not certainty, to our post-pandemic future. Against what we cannot know, we turn to what we can; to history, and in particular to its alternatives, its margins, and its new, creative possibilities. We will explore the architecture of the Amazon, concrete architecture in the Global South, and mapping the architectural history of Cairo.
3D/5G: Surveillance and Agency
5:00 PM, Register
Never mere settings, the spaces in which cinematic stories take place have the capacity to invoke, represent, convey, and reinforce narratives. As spaces and landscapes intertwine with stories and actors, they make the tales of the world we know visible, and those of worlds we can only imagine possible and real.
Over MIT’s Independent Activities Period (IAP), students are able to engage and experiment in workshops that differ from the typical curriculums. This year's IAP workshops reflected the design challenges and opportunities that come with remote work. Learn more about the courses that were offered this year, and the work that came out of them.
A new educational model for a post-pandemic world
A collaboration between ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne and MIT Department of Architecture.
Long-term MIT Professor Emeritus of Architecture Maurice Smith died peacefully at home with his family on December 16, 2020, at age 94. Throughout his long life, Maurice remained singularly, passionately, and tirelessly devoted to teaching. His form language theory, developed over more than half a century, shaped how generations of MIT architecture students observe, analyze, and make form. His life, public and private personae, pedagogical tactics, realized and unbuilt work, publications, lectures, and stories were all ‒ in every best sense ‒ extraordinary, legendary, and unforgettable.
Doctoral student ElDante Winston explores the difference between history and memory in Renaissance architecture.
For many tourists, a stroll through Rome’s famous Piazza del Popolo is an opportunity to take in beautiful architecture, get some fresh air, and enjoy a little people-watching. What may not be top of mind is that the place has a much darker side: It was used for public executions by hanging.
As a part of it’s Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects, Architect has featured the thesis projects of Angeline Jacques, Alexandre Beaudouin-Mackay + Sarah Wagner, and Kevin Marblestone + Emily Whitbeck from the M.Arch class of 2020.
This FAQ corresponds with the December 16, 2020 edition of the Dispersed Department Digest takeover by the publications class. The questions below were developed by students and answers were vetted by the instructors.
What is it?
WWW (Work, Works, Working) is a pandemic-era effort to collect the informal and formal voices, works, and experiences of the Department of Architecture at MIT and gather them into a print publication.
Professor emeritus of architecture trained generations of urban planners, designers, and policymakers at MIT.
Professor Emeritus Julian Beinart, an internationally celebrated architect and longtime MIT professor known for his highly influential course on urbanism, died on Oct. 2 due to complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was 88.
On September 18, 2020 at 12 PM EST, the Department convened a Town Hall Meeting with the community as a follow-up on a June 8, 2020 Town Hall to discuss actions taken in order move towards a more equitable, diverse, and anti-racist Department.
Participants included: Students Jonathon Brearley (ASC), Katherine Kettner (S&E/NOMAS), Ruth Blair Moyers (NOMAS) Mohamed Ismail (NOMAS); faculty members Nicholas de Monchaux, Terry Knight, Liam O'Brien, Brandon Clifford, and Les Norford; and staff members Paul Pettigrew and Darren Bennett.
Welcome back to our series of occasional departmental FAQs! The push into studio and classwork slowed down the pace of questions this semester, but thanks to our ongoing quality-of-life surveys and some thoughtful communication from some of you, we now have a bumper crop for our first FAQ email of the fall (mid) semester.
Thanks to all those who helped with this week’s FAQ, which include Jim Harrington, Renée Caso, Cynthia Stewart, Les Norford and Andreea O’Connell. Thanks to Rania Kadaan, who is working in HQ this semester as well to coordinate surveys with ASC.
The MIT Department of Architecture is proud to launch our fall 2020 online public program: a series of conversations on where we are now. We will be talking about systemic racism and approaches to support art and design in Black communities; pandemics, inclusion, and history; democracy and data; architecture, power, and democracy; designing for resilience; the refugee crisis; art and slavery and vernacularism and diplomacy in an increasingly transnational, yet divided, world.
A team of MIT researchers is using the thermodynamic properties of water evaporation to bring off-grid cold storage of produce to remote, arid regions.
On Monday, October 26, 2020, the Department hosted a series of online information sessions to enable prospective Master of Architecture (MArch) and Master of Science (Architecture Studies, SMArchS; Art, Culture and Technology, SMACT; Building Technology, SMBT) students to learn about admissions, programs, school culture, and research at MIT.
Revitalized outdoor space to be redesigned along with Hayden Library.
Curated by Eliyahu Keller
Assistant: James Vincent Brice
Never mere settings, the spaces in which cinematic stories take place have the capacity to invoke, represent, convey, and reinforce narratives. As spaces and landscapes intertwine with stories and actors, they make the tales of the world we know visible, and those of worlds we can only imagine possible and real.
MIT Architecture students stay connected through the Summer Work and Pedagogy Program
Dear all,
Welcome to the Fall semester; and a particular welcome to those joining our community for the first time, as I did myself a few months ago.
It is apparently a tradition for the Department Head to send a welcome letter at the beginning of the Fall, with updates on all the remarkable things all of us have been doing while away from MIT.
Welcome to the last of our summer FAQ emails. (While we will still be answering FAQs for the foreseeable future, they will become Fall FAQs as of Monday...)
Once displaced by war, MIT’s Azra Akšamija creates works of cultural resilience in the face of social conflict.
This email continues our weekly series of FAQ’s; after several weeks without submitted questions we are returning to you this week after one of this summer’s only Arch HQ vacations. Those remaining behind and working on the FAQ this week include Andreea O’Connell, Doug La Vie, Matt Harrington, Cynthia Stewart, Reneé Caso and Les Norford. Many thanks to all!
PhD student Jessica Varner traces the way synthetic building materials have transformed our environment.
Just months before starting her PhD, Jessica Varner and her partner bought a small house built in 1798. Located on tidal wetlands along Connecticut’s Patchogue River, the former residence of an ironworker had endured over two centuries of history and neglect.
Known for embracing technical constraints in architectural design, Allen influenced students and professionals around the world.
Edward Allen, longtime professor of architecture, passed away from complications of Parkinson’s disease on July 7 in Wayland, Massachusetts. He was 81 years old.
MIT Architecture students have launched a new student-edited platform supported by the department. Read a letter from out of frame co-editors April Gao and Ginevra D’Agostino:
Dear community,
This email continues our weekly series of FAQ’s. As always, some questions are amalgamated. If you asked a question that you do not see here, please let us know ASAP so we can respond and include in next week’s list as well. We remain grateful to all of you as we seek to navigate the complex questions of how best to serve our Department community, and its mission of learning, making, and impacting the world. As ever, please send any follow-up questions to this email.
This note continues our weekly series of FAQ’s. Please note, some questions have been amalgamated. If you asked a question that you do not see answered here, please let us know ASAP so we can respond. We remain grateful to all of you as we seek to navigate the complex questions of how best to serve our Department community, and its mission of learning, making, and impacting the world. As ever, please send any follow-up questions to this email, and we will send a new round of questions, and answers, next week.
MIT’s design minor and major programs give rise to polymath students with design skills they can apply to any field.
Dear MIT Architecture Alumni,
I write to update you on our conversations and actions over my first two weeks as Department Head. These two weeks have contained only two department-wide newsletters (these are a weekly, internal email begun by our communications office since our community became physically dispersed in March.) Their contents are illustrative;
This non-exhaustive list features resources and readings, which we hope will be particularly helpful to architects, designers, and community members. We're continuing to update this list, so please reach out to arch-comm@mit.edu with links to suggested resources.
Resources
Dear All,
I am writing to apologize to our larger community, and to the specific students involved, for errors in an Instagram post from MIT Architecture this weekend.
Please join us in congratulating this year's recipients of awards, fellowships, and prizes!
The William Emerson Prize, awarded to a graduating architecture senior for academic excellence.
Effie Jia BSAD ’20
The Henry Wentworth Gardner (1894) Prize for academic excellence and achievement in design.
Michelle Menkiti BSA ’20
Caroline Rosenzweig BSA ’20
Fusing art, science, and product design, senior Jierui Fang has followed — and sometimes created — her own path at MIT.
In the Maldives, an MIT team is conducting experiments to combat sea-level rise by redirecting natural sand movement.
Many island nations, including the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, are facing an existential threat as a result of a rising sea level induced by global climate change. A group of MIT researchers led by Skylar Tibbits, an associate professor of design research in the Department of Architecture, is testing ways of harnessing nature’s own forces to help maintain and rebuild threatened islands and coastlines.
Associate professor of architecture Rafi Segal creates projects meant to enhance a sense of community.
What makes a building great? To Rafi Segal, it is never just the form of a structure that counts. What matters is the way a building fits its surroundings and responds to its social and cultural environment.
Nicholas de Monchaux has been appointed head of the Department of Architecture at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, beginning July 2020. He joins the department this week as Professor of Architecture and Urbanism.
An internationally renowned scholar, educator, designer, architect, urbanist, and public intellectual, de Monchaux will bring extensive experience and a broad perspective to leading the department at a time of rapid technological change, enormous environmental challenges, and equally sweeping social shifts.
In response to developments surrounding COVID-19, Thresholds 49: Supply is extending our deadline for submissions to June 1, 2020. The Call for Submissions can be found below and on our website.
MIT has been named the top university in the world for “Architecture/Built Environment” in the subject rankings from QS World University Rankings for 2020. In “Art and Design,” the Institute ranked No. 5 globally. This year, MIT ranked No. 1 in 12 of 48 disciplines. Learn more at MIT News.
Photos by George X. Lin, MArch ’13.
6:00 PM EST. This lecture will be webcast here.
MIT Architecture end-of-year celebration and awards ceremony:
Join 2019-20 degree candidates, their families and friends, and our community of faculty, students, and staff for a special event to honor our graduates and celebrate the end of the year.
To help sustain our community over the months to come, the Department of Architecture has created a broad range of opportunities to support the professional and intellectual growth of our students over the summer of 2020. These opportunities include for-credit classes and workshops, summer internships within the department, and research and TA positions with faculty, all supported through Department funds.
MIT Department of Architecture invites applications for the Marion Mahony Emerging Practitioner Fellowship, named in honor of alumna Marion Mahony, for the academic year beginning in September 2020. This is a full time one-year appointment.
Work by Dalma Földesi M.Arch ’20 and Jung In Seo M.Arch ’20
Exhibition on view March 16, 2020 – April 3, 2020
RECEPTION
Wednesday, March 18, 2020 / 6:00pm
The MIT Department of Architecture launches its spring 2020 public program on February 10 with a film screening of Jill Magid’s The Proposal, followed by discussion with Caroline A. Jones, Timothy Hyde, and Ana Miljački.
Join us on February 14 at 6PM for the exhibition opening of PLAY ROOM.
Presented by the Critical Broadcasting Lab, the exhibit will be on view through March 6, 2020 in the Keller Gallery, 7-408.
PLAY ROOM
PRESENTED BY THE CRITICAL BROADCASTING LAB
On view February 14–March 6, 2020
MIT Keller Gallery, 77 Mass Ave, 7-408, Cambridge, MA
Renovated spaces will be more flexible and welcoming, maximizing views and natural light.
The MIT Libraries, working with Kennedy & Violich Architecture (KVA), have developed the design for the upcoming Hayden Library renovation. As seen in architectural concept renderings, the new design accommodates the library’s multiple uses with dynamic areas for collaboration, research, and community-building, as well as quiet study.
Transportation, communication, development, and social interaction are explored through the lens of the urban.
Inspired by the question “What are the problems our cities must confront?”, faculty, students, and alumni from the MIT School of Architecture and Planning participated in the 2019 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, which ran from September to November.
Ten multi-disciplinary teams join MIT’s design entrepreneurship accelerator.
Ten teams seeking to launch highly innovative ventures ranging from technology to connect bicyclists in safety “swarms”, to bespoke classrooms-in-a-box, to reimagined retail solutions for transit stations have been selected for the 2020 cohort at MITdesignX, the entrepreneurship accelerator of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P).
Skylar Tibbits makes materials that water, heat, or mechanical forces can alter into new shapes.
TRANSTECTONICS: Craft traditions and material narratives in the age of the Anthropocene
On view October 25, 2019 – January 31, 2020
MIT Keller Gallery, 77 Mass Ave, 7-408, Cambridge, MA
Thank you for your interest in MIT Architecture!
Watch video of our November 15, 2019 and November 22, 2019 online sessions.
********************************************
Fall 2019 Department of Architecture Graduate Orientation
For all incoming Architecture Graduate Students
Building Technology PhD student Norhan Bayomi uses drones to investigate how building construction impacts communities’ resilience to rising temperatures.
While doing field research for her graduate thesis in her hometown of Cairo, Norhan Magdy Bayomi observed firsthand the impact of climate change on her local community.
In a recent study, Michelle Xie BArch ’19 and Karly Bast MEng ’19 worked with Building Technology professor John Ochsendorf to discover that a bridge proposed by Leonardo da Vinci over 500 years ago would have been the world’s longest at the time. The project will be featured on the November 13 episode of NOVA.
“Every building is ultimately a compromise” involving many stakeholders, says architectural historian Timothy Hyde.
A building is many things: a stylistic statement, a form shaped to its function, and a reflection of its era.
To MIT architectural historian Timothy Hyde, a building represents something else as well.
Professor of Practice, award-winning architect, and alumnus, Phil Freelon died on July 9,2019 after a three year illness with ALS. Professor Freelon graduated from the M.Arch program in 1977 and went on to found his practice, The Freelon Group based in Durham, North Carolina. The practice became one of the largest African-American owned architecture firms, before merging with Perkins + Will in 2014. The National Museum of African American History and Culture, designed in collaboration with David Adjaye and the late Max Bond, is one of his most recently acclaimed and best known projects.
Congratulations to all of our 2018-2019 graduating students!! Special congratulations go to the following students who were the recipients of the 2019 Departmental Awards.
William Emerson Prize
For an Architecture Senior in Recognition
of Academic Excellence
MICHELLE T. XIE
Tucker-Voss Award
For a Building Technology Student in Recognition of Promise
for the Future in the General Field of Building Construction
JUSTIN DAVID LUEKER
In his new book, MIT’s Timothy Hyde looks at the architectural controversies that have helped shape Britain.
In 1984, when the British government was planning to build a flashy modernist addition to the National Gallery in London, Prince Charles offered a dissenting view. The proposed extension, he said, resembled “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.” A public controversy ensued, and eventually a more subtle addition was built.
Please join us in congratulating the following students who were selected by the Department of Architecture faculty this spring for the following competitive awards, fellowships, internships, and scholarships. Awards and prizes are given at the end of each academic year in recognition of outstanding scholarship and promise. Read more about each of the awards.
Buildings of the future may be lit by collections of glowing plants and designed around an infrastructure of sunlight harvesting, water transport, and soil collecting and composting systems. That’s the vision behind an interdisciplinary collaboration between an MIT architecture professor and a professor of chemical engineering.
Celebrated architect I.M. Pei ’40 died on May 16 in New York City. He was 102. Over the course of a long international career, he designed notable buildings that included museums, cultural and research centers, civic buildings, and office towers. A dedicated modernist, he received the architecture world’s highest honors for his large body of work.
Among his best-known projects are the glass pyramid entrance pavilion he designed for the Louvre Museum in Paris, and the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
The Office of Graduate Education recently honored Huma Gupta as one of the 2019 Graduate Women of Excellence at their biennial celebration on Monday, April 29. Huma and her fellow honorees were nominated by members of the MIT community, and selected based on their leadership and service contributions, dedication to mentoring, and commitment to improving the student experience.
Tuesday, May 14
4.154 Architecture Option Studios
1–6 PM
WorkLive Queens
Dan Wood, Sam Ghantous
North Dome & Corner
1–6 PM
Off-Campus: Transforming the Monastery of Toumliline
Linna Choi, Tarik Oualalou, Maya Shopova
7-429/Long Lounge
Henry A. Millon, a scholar of Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture who served on the faculty at MIT for almost 50 years, left a lasting legacy on his scholarly field through his own work and that of the many students he taught and advised.
In celebration of the Bauhaus centennial, MIT Virtual Experience Design Lab presents the Virtual Bauhaus, a virtual reality exhibition created by the Goethe-Institute Boston in collaboration with TH Köln. Presented as part of Wunderbar Together: The Year of German- American Friendship 2018/19 – an initiative funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, implemented by the Goethe-Institute, and supported by the Federation of German Industries (BDI).
Thresholds 48: Kin
Editors: Stratton Coffman, Dalma Földesi, Sarah Wagner
Spring 2020
Fall 2018 marked the 150th anniversary of MIT's first architecture class, making what is now the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) home to the oldest architectural course of study in the United States. To mark the occasion, the department is celebrating with a diverse array of educational and social programming on campus throughout the academic year. The events will culminate in a symposium and alumni open house on campus April 12–13.
New prize honors legendary developer and philanthropist Norman B. Leventhal.
Vibrant, innovative cities most often result from powerful collaborations among diverse constituencies.
To support this ideal, the MIT Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) has announced the creation of a new interdisciplinary prize aimed at catalyzing innovative urban design and planning approaches worldwide, with a goal of improving the quality of life and environment for residents.
Before she was a PhD student searching through art history archives around the world, a young Nisa Ari attended museums with her family and tried to discern the histories behind the artwork and artifacts she saw. “It always had the appeal of detective work,” Ari says. Sometimes, when she’d walk into a new gallery, she’d challenge herself to identify artists from paintings at a distance: “That’s a Cézanne, that’s a Picasso, that’s a Léger.”
Inside Ana Miljacki’s office in MIT’s Department of Architecture, a sign hangs on the wall bearing a wry message:
UTOPIA IS HERE
JUST FOR TODAY
By itself, that sign could be a lot of things: an earnest plea to enjoy the moment, an ironic commentary on the futility of seeking perfection, or a wistful nod to the impermanence of everything.
The Department of Architecture welcomes Rosalyne Shieh as the Marion Mahony Emerging Practitioner Fellow, and Hans Tursack, the Pietro Belluschi Teaching Fellow, for the 2018-2019 academic year. These Fellowships support architects and designers at various stages of their teaching and research careers. Rosalyne and Hans will be teaching design studios and graduate seminars while pursuing independent research; they will each share the work through public programs in Spring 2019.
Architect and planner remembered as a man who brought people together through a combination of wisdom, optimism, and charm.
Jean Pierre de Monchaux, an idealistic and optimistic planner and architect who served as dean of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning from 1981 to 1992, passed away on April 30, after living with Parkinson’s disease for 20 years. He was 81.
The construction and operation of all kinds of buildings uses vast amounts of energy and natural resources. Researchers around the world have therefore been seeking ways to make buildings more efficient and less dependent on emissions-intensive materials.
What if we could immerse ourselves in this UNESCO World Heritage Site through virtual reality or use augmented reality to interact with its 3-D site map?
"In order to digitally document and develop the foundations for future research, a laboratory team from the MIT Department of Architecture, led by Professor Takehiko Nagakura and PhD student Paloma Gonzales, has been working on the MISTI Global Seed Fund Machu Picchu Design Heritage project since 2016.
J. Meejin Yoon, professor and head of the Department of Architecture at MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, has been appointed the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University. She will take up this new position on January 1, 2019. Andrew Scott, professor of architecture and urbanism, currently associate head of the department, has agreed serve as interim head starting August 15.
Nearly 150 alumni gathered at the New Museum for Contemporary Art in New York on June 22, 2018 to celebrate 150 years of architectural education at MIT; Fall 2018 marks 150 years since the first class of architecture students. The event, jointly organized by the Department of Architecture and the Architecture Alumni Affinity Group (MITArchA), coincided with the American Institute of Architects Convention and brought together alumni with current faculty and recent graduates.
About 40 percent of all the energy consumed by buildings worldwide is used for space heating and cooling. With the warming climate as well as growing populations and rising standards of living — especially in hot, humid regions of the developing world — the level of cooling and dehumidification needed to ensure comfort and protect human health is predicted to rise precipitously, pushing up global energy demand.
Flooding, on the rise due to climate change, can devastate urban areas and result in drawn-out, costly repairs. Cities are in dire need of new strategies to manage the influx of stormwater. An interdisciplinary team of engineers and urban planners at MIT has now developed a solution: multifunctional urban stormwater wetlands and ponds that seamlessly integrate the control and cleaning of stormwater with ecological and recreational benefits.
Historic building would create “design hub” for MIT, with benefits for surrounding community.
MIT has identified the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse as a potential new location for the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P). The proposed move would let the Institute create a new hub for design research and education, allow the school to expand its full range of activities, and open new spaces for public use.
The building would need renovation, a process that would require approval from the City of Cambridge.
Special congratulations go to the following students who were the recipients of the 2018 Departmental Awards:
William Emerson Prize
For an Architecture Senior in Recognition of Academic Excellence
KATHERINE R. WEISHAAR
Please join us in congratulating Professor Leon Glicksman for receiving the 2018 Student Champion Award for First Year Advising!
Given by the Undergraduate Association, this award recognizes an advisor who has gone beyond the call of duty to be present in aspects of advisees' lives beyond academics, participating in student events and activities.
The Affordable Housing Development Competition, organized by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, annually brings together teams of graduate students in architecture, planning, finance, and policy with affordable-housing organizations to develop comprehensive proposals to address the needs of the organizations and local communities. Two interdisciplinary student teams received prizes for their projects that respect local interests and propose comprehensive design and development strategies.
Please join us in congratulating Mackenzie Muhonen (MArch ’19), one of three recipients of the 2018 Kohn Pederson Fox (KPF) Traveling Fellowship for her portfolio and proposal, "Learning from Love Motels: The Semiotics of a Civic Bedroom." Muhonen will travel to five cities in Brazil during a five-week trip this summer.
Stephanie Lee (MArch '19) and Ellen Shakespear (MArch/MCP '19) founded Spaceus to address issues of artistic practice and community engagement in a gentrifying city. Spaceus "rethinks how artists and communities interact and come together outside of galleries and museums. We do this by finding affordable, shared studio spaces for artists in vacant storefronts. We are experimenting with new ways of engaging the broader community with art through workshops, open studios—anything we can dream of together," they explain.
MIT faculty, students, and alumni will make significant contributions as exhibitors and curators at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. Considered one of the foremost global forums for architecture and the built environment and drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world, the Architecture Biennale takes place every two years in Venice, Italy.
"The notion of ‘artistic research’ has really taken hold and captured the imagination of the art world in the past fifteen years,” explains Gediminas Urbonas, associate professor in the Art, Culture & Technology (ACT) program in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning.
For the fourth year in a row, MIT has been named the top university in the world for “Architecture/Built Environment” in the subject rankings from QS World University Rankings for 2018. In “Art and Design,” the Institute ranked No. 4 globally.
The collection features groundbreaking projects from pioneers working at the intersection of art, science, and technology.
Recipients of the 2017 Research Awards and Travel Fellowships, including the Schlossman Research Award, the Louis C. Rosenberg Travel Fellowship, the Julian Beinart Research Award, and the Marvin E. Goody Award, present their work to the department in April 2018. More information on each award and applications is available here.
"Repetition is displacement; repetition is difference... repetition is pushing the limits of resemblance and limitation."
—Elaine Sturtevant
Associate Professor Azra Akšamija, Art, Culture & Technology Program, MIT Department of Architecture, first visited the Al Azraq refugee camp in Jordan in 2016. “Once I saw [the camp], I couldn’t unsee it,” she says.
ACT’s year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of the internationally renowned MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) began in April 2017.
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, designed by Adjaye Associates, Freelon Architects, Davis Brody Bond, and SmithGroupJJR received the overall Beazley Design of the Year and the Architecture Award. Phil Freelon (MArch '77, Professor of the Practice) led the Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup team of architects working with the Smithsonian to complete the project.
Architecture faculty and alumni received numerous awards at the Boston Society of Architects 2018 Design Awards, held on January 18, 2018. See the entire list of BSA honorees and more information about the awards on the BSA website.
Awards for Design Excellence:
Professor Sheila Kennedy was awarded a 2017 Bose Grant for a joint project using nanotechnology to build plants that provide lighting for buildings and cities.
Fall 2017 Studio and Thesis Reviews
Monday, December 11
4.151 Architecture Design Core 1 Studio
Liam O’Brien (coordinator), Jennifer Leung, Rachely Rotem
Long Lounge/7-429 + adjacent pin-up space
1:00 to 5:00 pm
Tuesday, December 12
4.154 Architecture Option Studios
1-6 PM
Brandon Clifford has gone to Rome to look for ghosts. An assistant professor in the Department of Architecture, Clifford is in the Eternal City on a yearlong residency at the American Academy, one of approximately 30 American scholars to be awarded the Founders Rome Prize fellowship for 2017-18. His project, “Ghosts of Rome,” continues his innovative research into how ancient knowledge can engage with current technologies.
Associate Professor Takehiko Nagakura and Assistant Professor Skylar Tibbits co-chaired the 2017 ACADIA Conference: Disciplines and Disruption, which took place at MIT from November 2-4, 2017.
Projected Architectures
Keller Gallery, Room 7-408
November 27 - December 16, 2017
Open 12 - 9 PM, Monday through Saturday
The School of Architecture and Planning has announced that 10 faculty members have been recognized with promotions.
In addition, five new professors have joined the school in the Department of Architecture, the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and the Program in Media Arts and Sciences. Their research ranges from architectural history to disaster resilience to the design of prosthetics.
How will people live on Mars? An MIT team developed a design concept addressing this question as part of Mars City Design 2017, an international competition focused on sustainable cities on Mars to be built in the next century.
Two projects led by MIT faculty—a greenhouse in Massachusetts heralded as a “virtuosity of integration” and a plan to weave together working and living in a neighborhood in Cartagena, Colombia—were recognized in this year’s LafargeHolcim Awards for Sustainable Construction.
Professors Rania Ghosn and Caroline Jones joined Professor Rosalind Williams of the MIT Program on Science, Technology, and Society in responding to speaker Imre Szeman, a professor of communication and culture at the University of Waterloo.
“We moderns still tend to take energy as a largely neutral aspect of social life,” Szeman said. “But the forms of energy we use, and how we use them, shape society through and through.”
This fall, the Department of Architecture will host a series of online information sessions to enable more prospective Master of Architecture (MArch) and Master of Science (Architecture Studies, SMArchS; Building Technology, SMBT) students to learn about admissions, programs, school culture, and research at MIT. There will not be an on-site open house this fall. Please note that visiting campus does not affect admissions and we will host an open house for accepted students in Spring 2018.
The book, “Public Space? Lost and Found,” published by the MIT Press, is co-edited by Urbonas, who is also director of MIT’s Program in Art, Culture, and Technology (ACT); Ann Lui, an assistant professor at the Art Institute of Chicago; and Lucas Freeman, a writer in residence at ACT.
“Art teaches us how to disrupt, in order to create a new public space,” Urbonas says. “The point of art is not scaling up answers, but to tackle painful questions, to provoke and mobilize humanity to find the answers themselves, or to create a space of possibility where the truth can be found.”
Fifty years after its founding, the vision of CAVS and founder György Kepes lives on in the Program in Art, Culture and Technology.
The professional master's of architecture program at MIT has again been ranked among the top five in the nation in the latest DesignIntelligence rankings. MIT's architecture program has consistently appeared among the top 10 in this annual assessment of nationally accredited graduate programs.
In ratings of specific skills areas, MIT’s graduate architecture program ranked second in research.
As Hurricane Irma bears down on the U.S., the MIT Urban Risk Lab has launched a free, open-source platform that will help residents and government officials track flooding in Broward County, Florida. The platform, RiskMap.us, is being piloted to enable both residents and emergency managers to obtain better information on flooding conditions in near-real time.
DESIGN EARTH, the design practice of Assistant Professor Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy, is among four design firms selected as winners of the 2017 Design Biennial Boston, which seeks to support emerging architects, landscape architects, and designers from the New England area and provide a platform to test their ideas in the public realm.
Graduate orientation includes Institute-wide events organized by the Graduate Student Council (GSC) as well as events that are specifically for Architecture students. Incoming graduate students are encouraged to attend the GSC events that can be found here. https://gsc.mit.edu/orientation/2017/home
Monday, August 28.
ACT is proud to announce the receipt of an Art Works Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for the Futurity Island project.
Six from MIT, including History, Theory and Criticism PhD candidates Jesse Feiman and Albert José-Antonio López, will spend the 2017-2018 academic year conducting research abroad.
Three SA+P graduate students and three recent MIT alumni have been awarded Fulbright U.S. Student Program grants to conduct independent research projects overseas during the coming academic year. In addition, a graduate student alumnus was named a Fulbright Finalist but declined the award.
Graduate student Alpha Arsano wants to bring natural ventilation to the forefront of modern architecture.
Alpha Arsano is standing next to the MIT Chapel’s marble altar, admiring the view through the domed skylight above. Outside, water surrounds the cylindrical red-brick structure like a shallow moat. Inside the chapel, the brick walls ripple like waves. Tiny windows line the walls and face downward so guests can see slivers of the moat. When sunlight reflects off the water at a certain angle, it shines into the chapel and dances onto the walls.
Module would serve as a commercially owned space station, featuring a luxury hotel as the primary anchor tenant and NASA as a temporary co-anchor tenant.
While on location in remote areas of Kenya, researching automation and home manufacturing for his doctoral dissertation, Kenfield Griffith PhD Computation ’12 encountered a significant lack of data.
For example, information he needed about whether people had access to indoor plumbing was scarce or nonexistent — and conducting traditional surveys to gather the data would be arduous and time consuming. But nearly all rural Kenyans, he realized, had texting-capable cell phones.
Special congratulations go to the following students who were the recipients of the 2017 Departmental Awards:
William Emerson Prize
to an Architecture Senior for Academic Excellence
SOFIE BELANGER
Henry Wentworth Gardner (1894) Prize
to an Architecture Senior for Academic Excellence and Achievement in Design
MARIA E. ROLDAN
The Graham Foundation has announced over $560,000 in new grants to individuals around the world that engage original ideas in architecture. Five of this year's seventy-two funded projects were from members of the SA+P community including: Architecture's Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy; DUSP PhD candidate Suzanne Harris-Brandts; Caitlin Berrigan SMVisS ’09; Daniel Cardoso Llach SMArchS ’07, PhD ’12; and Nathan Friedman SMArchS ’15.
When Professor György Kepes founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) in 1967, he provided a home at MIT for “artistic tasks that have authentic roots in our present condition.”
Friday, May 12, 9:30 - 11:30 AM
4.032/4.S02 Undergraduate Design Studio, 9:30 - 11:30 AM
Information and Visualization
Ben Fry and James Grady, Room 3-442
Tuesday, May 16, 1:00 to 6:00 PM
4.154 Graduate Architecture Option Studios
Ground Up: Transfiguring the Abattoirs of Casablanca
Linna Choi and Tarik Oualalou, Long Lounge/7-429
IN NO TIME:
a garden party
A night of installations, performances and outdoor screenings by Graduate Students in the Art Culture and Technology
Program at MIT. Schedule of events will be uploaded soon. Stay tuned!
Friday, May 19, 2017
Featuring works by:
Angel Chen
Jessica Sarah Rinland
Jessika Khazrik or The Society of False Witnesses
Jose Rivera
Laura Serejo Genes
Neil Sanzgiri
Nicolas Kisic Aguirre
Nolan Oswald Dennis
Pedro Zylbersztajn
Raafat Mazjoub
SKATKA
Yusef Audeh
Professor Anderson's legacy at MIT stretched from his scholarship and teaching to program building. This symposium will be an opportunity to reflect on his efforts by means of three roundtables chared by HTC alumni and his former students. The History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art program and the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture co-host the Memorial Symposium in honor of Professor Emeritus Stanford Anderson (1934-2016).
Public Space? Lost and Found explores the contemporary evolution of public space from the milieu of design and artistic thinking and practice at the civic scale. It gathers an eclectic cast of practitioners and theorists of the public domain and welcomes all readers interested in how the production of public space plays out (or could play out) under interrelated, accelerating conditions shaping the present, such as ubiquitous computing, climate change, economic austerity, and the rise of various stripes of political extremism and isolationism.
Olivia Huang (M.Arch '18) and Akshita Sivakumar (SMArchS '17) were nominated and honored at the 2017 Graduate Women of Excellence Reception. Each honoree was nominated by a member of the MIT Community in recognition of her leadership and service, dedication to mentorship and drive to improve the student experience. Below, Olivia and Akshita answer a few questions on their work inside and outside of MIT for the Office of the Dean of Graduate Education (ODGE).
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Olivia Huang (MArch 2018)
Brandon Clifford, Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture, has been awarded The Founders Rome Prize for 2017-2018 from the American Academy in Rome for his project titled "Ghosts of Rome."
Associate Professor William O'Brien Jr.'s exhibit 'Other Masks' is on view at Balts Projects in Zurich, Switzerland, from April 12 - May 14, 2017.
‘Being Material,’ the second MIT Center for Art, Science and Technology Symposium takes place on April 21-22, 2017.The conference is convened by Professor Stefan Helmreich, Anthropology; Leila Kinney, Arts at MIT Executive Director Leila Kinney; Assistant Professor Skylar Tibbits, Architecture; CAST Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer Rebecca Uchill (PhD HTC ‘15), Architecture; and Professor Evan Ziporyn, Music and Theater Arts.
The Art of the Dealers
Who doesn’t like a good story about art, international espionage, and global commerce? Consider this one. In 1765, the French government of Louis XV dispatched two emissaries to China with six large tapestries intended for the Qianlong emperor. In theory, this was a gesture of Enlightenment universalism by France’s minister of state, Henri-Leonard Bertin.
Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy of DESIGN EARTH are among four designers chosen to create installations on the Rose Kennedy Greenway as part of the fifth Design Biennial Boston. “The powerful drawings and installations of these exceptional designers make visible—in a profound and terrifyingly beautiful way—the deep and damaging impact that human activity has had on the earth and the consequences of that impact for our continued inhabitation of the planet,” said juror Keith Krumwiede on DESIGN EARTH’s work.
Azra Aksamija, Associate Professor in the Program in Art, Culture and Technology, and Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, talk to The Tech about their immigrant experience and how it informs their work and teaching as part of the Tech Transfers project, a photo series by Professor Daniel Jackson that features immigrant members of MIT.
“Imagine a structure that is quick to assemble, easy to transport and offers shelter in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Now, imagine one that can assemble itself in mid-air. This is the vision of a group of students from the Masters of Architecture Options Studio at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)," writes Alexandra Simon-Lewis for Wired Magazine on the Fall 2016 Options Studio 'Fast, Cheap and Out of the Box'.
The Tozzer Anthropology Building by Kennedy Violich Architecture, the architectural practice of Professor Sheila Kennedy, received an Architecture Merit award from the 2017 American Institute of Architects New York (AIANY) Design Awards. The project will be part of the Center for Architecture 2017 Design Awards Exhibition, on view April 21 through June 20, 2017.
Zain Karsan (M.Arch ‘18) is the recipient of the 2017 QuarraMatter Fellowship. Now in its third year, the QuarraMatter Fellowship allows students to spend a summer working with Quarra Stone, a stone fabricator in Madison, Wisconsin. Two fellows work closely with fabricators at Quarra to develop and implement a large-scale stone artifact; the intent of the research is to build processes that improve accuracy in production techniques and reduce the gap between drawing, modeling, and making.
HTC PhD Candidate Nisa Ari, whose research explores the relationships between cultural politics and the development of art and art institutions in the Middle East, won the 2017 Rhonda A. Saad Prize for Best Paper in Modern and Contemporary Arab Art from the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran and Turkey.
Pacific Aquarium, a project by DESIGN EARTH, led by Assistant Professor Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy, won the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) 2017 Faculty Design Award.
On Thursday, April 6th, Caroline A Jones, MIT Professor of Art History, and Rebecca Uchill, MIT Center for Art Science & Technology Postdoctoral Fellow, along with Harvard University Professor Peter Galison, will be the opening keynote panel for the graduate student conference “Technical Landscapes: Aesthetics and the Environment in the History of
Kristel Smentek's presentation entitled “Bouchardon, P.-J. Mariette, and the ‘Pure Taste’ of the Antique” is part of The Getty Center's symposium "Bouchardon and His Contemporaries" and examines mid-eighteenth-century conceptions of ancient Greek art and the role of antique engraved gems in constructions of a "pure" Greek style.
Announcing a Call for Papers for the MIT History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture + Art Graduate Student Conference to held on October 14, 2017
polemic… Polemic? POLEMIC!
For the third year in a row, MIT has been named the top university in the world for “Architecture/Built Environment” in the latest subject rankings from QS World University Rankings. In “Art and Design,” the Institute ranked No. 2 globally for the second year in a row.
Mark Jarzombek, Digital Stockholm Syndrome in the Post-Ontological Age
University of Minnesota Press, 2016
MIT professor John Ochsendorf has been named as the 23rd Director of the American Academy in Rome (AAR). Ochsendorf, a professor with dual appointments in the Departments of Architecture and Civil and Environmental Engineering, will serve a three-year term beginning July 1, 2017, after which he will return to MIT.
Thresholds 46: SCATTER!
Editors: Anne Graziano and Eliyahu Keller
Designing energy-efficient buildings can be challenging: Incorporating features that decrease the energy needed to run them often increases the energy-intensive materials required to build them, and vice versa. Now an MIT team has demonstrated a computer simulation that can help architects optimize their designs for both future operational energy and the initial energy required for making structural materials — at the same time.
Building 7 is most known for the soaring four-story lobby that greets visitors who enter the campus from Massachusetts Avenue. Not as widely recognized is that the building is home to four galleries that feature regular exhibitions of art, architecture, and design.
First year seminar inspires students to see the world with fresh eyes.
On a crisp afternoon in early September, seven MIT first year undergraduate students set out on a campus tour with their faculty advisor, John Ochsendorf, the Class of 1942 Professor in Architecture and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Their first stop was “The Big Sail,” the 33-ton steel sculpture by Alexander Calder that stands in McDermott Court.
Research shows how rebuilding Britain’s Houses of Parliament in the 1800s helped create clean-air laws.
Britain’s dazzling Houses of Parliament building, constructed from 1840 until 1870, is an international icon. But the building’s greatest legacy may be something politicians and tourists don’t think about much: the clean air around it.
Oscar Rosello, pursuing a Master degree in SMarchS Design and Computation, received Best Poster Award at the 29th ACM User Interface Software and Technology Symposium in October in Tokyo. The ACM Symposium (UIST) is the premiere forum for human-computer interface design and brings together research in virtual/augmented reality, multimedia, input/output devices, and graphical interfaces.
The School of Architecture and Planning and the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) at MIT have established a long-term initiative to rethink the future of affordable housing in Brazil, which faces an estimated shortage of 7 million units.
Faculty Rania Ghosn, Joel Lamere, and William O’Brien Jr. were recognized for their design work in The Architect’s Newspaper and Architect magazine’s 2016 Design Awards.
Faculty members Timothy Hyde and Lauren Jacobi and Alumni Lucia Allais (PhD 2008) and Martin Bressani (SMArchS 1985) will be speaking at St. Catherine’s College in Oxford England on January 14, 2017.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) a $1.5 million grant in continued support for the Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative (GAHTC).
Monday, December 12
10:00 am to 6:00 pm, 4.154 Architecture Option Studio (G), Future Heritage, Maria Segantini and Carlo Cappai, Long Lounge/7-429
12:00 to 6:00 pm, 4.154 Architecture Option Studio (G), Architecture as Landscape, Fabrizio Barozzi and Jongwan Kwan, South Dome + South Corner
1:00 to 6:00 pm, 4.154 Architecture Option Studio (G), Fast, Cheap & Out of the Box, Skylar Tibbits, Aran Chadwick and Neil Thomas, location to be announced
Tuesday, December 13
The School of Architecture and Planning has announced that seven faculty members have been recognized by being promoted, granted tenure, or given significant new roles, and four new faculty joined their ranks. Among these are six faculty from the Department of Architecture.
A number of alumni and faculty are participating in the annual Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) Conference, October 24-28, 2016. This year’s theme “Posthuman Frontiers: Data, Designers and Cognitive Machines” aims to discuss work at the intersection of procedural design, designed environments, and autonomous machines.
Professor and Department Head J. Meejin Yoon will receive the ACADIA 2016 Teaching Award of Excellence and deliver a keynote lecture on October 28.
Exhibition Opening & Reception: September 30, 2016, 6:30 PM
On View September 23 - November 1, 2016
Seattle-based mwworks, an architecture studio best known residences and strong contextual work that knits into landscape, has received the 2016 Northwest and Pacific Region Emerging Firm Award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The award recognizes emerging firms less than ten years old that are challenging traditional perceptions and methods of architecture. The AIA Northwest and Pacific Region (NWPR) includes the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and Hawaii, and the territory of Guam.
Please join us on Thursday, October 27th for our Fall Graduate Programs Open House. Come learn about one of the top ranked architecture schools in the world!
The post-professional Master of Science in Architectural Studies (SMArchS) program session will begin at 11 AM. Schedule below:
SMArchS Open House
Long Lounge, Building 7 Room 429
The professional master's of architecture program at MIT has tied for second in the nation in the latest DesignIntelligence rankings, a jump from fifth position last year. MIT's architecture program has consistently appeared among the top 10 in this annual assessment of nationally accredited graduate programs.
In ratings of specific skills areas, MIT’s graduate architecture program ranked first in computer applications, second in sustainability, and third in construction methods and materials.
Please join us in congratulating Jongwan Kwon, M.Arch '16, on receipt of the 2016 SOM Prize in Architecture, an annual $50,000 research and travel prize. Jongwan's research proposal, "After Efficiency: Logistics Infrastructure from a Regional Perspective," focuses on the impact of major international gateways (ports, airports, canals and tunnels) on their regional environments.
Grove, a project by Assistant Professor Joel Lamere and Cynthia Gunadi, GLD Architecture, received an Honorable Mention in Architect magazine's 2016 R+D Awards.
“Grove represents a significant advancement in architectural form-making. By combining composite-based structural analysis with inflatable vinyl forms, GLD has developed a workflow that embeds structural logic into design from the very start—and at a low cost,” writes Nate Berg.
One graduate student and two recent alumni are recipients of the 2016-2017 Fulbright Grants. PhD Candidate Christianna Bonin and alumni Aurimas Bukauskas and Elizabeth Yarina will spend the coming year in Russia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, respectively.
The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded MIT’s Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) of the School of Architecture and Planning an NEA Art Works grant to support the digitization and online presentation of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) Special Collection.
Alumnus Robert White, (M.Arch '15), J. Meejin Yoon, Professor, Department Head, and Principal of Höweler + Yoon Architecture, and Alex Anmahian, Lecturer and Principal of Anmahian Winton Architects, are three of four winners of the Northern Avenue Bridge Ideas Competition organized by the City of Boston and the Boston Society of Architects.
Congratulations to all of our 2015-2016 Department of Architecture graduates!
A special congratulations goes to the following students who were the recipients of the 2016 Departmental Awards:
William Emerson Prize
to an Architecture Senior for Academic Excellence
MARIANA BALLINA
Henry Wentworth Gardner (1894) Prize
to an Architecture Senior for Academic Excellence and Achievement in Design
DOHYUN LEE
The department congratulates the recipients of the 2016 Schlossman Research Fellowship, Louis C. Rosenberg (1913) Travel Fellowship, the Marvin Goody Award, and the Julian Beinart Research Award. Students will present their research in Spring 2017.
Schlossman Research Fellowship
"Uncamping: Rethinking Refugee Housing”
Grisha Enikolopov
M.Arch 2017
"Design Analysis and Digital Archive of Korean Dancheong Patterns”
Hunmin Koh
SMArchS Design and Computation, 2017
Faculty, researchers, graduate students, and alumni represented in 15 exhibitions and pavilions.
Architects, artists, and designers from the MIT community constitute a robust presence at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Suk Lee, MA'15, is winner of the First Award in the area of Institutional Building for his thesis concept, MIT I2—Idea Incubator, a project that explores the future of the campus and online learning with structures on and below the Charles River.
Learn more about MIT I2 — Idea Incubator
The Architectural League of New York has honored two members of the School of Architecture and Planning community with its annual prize for young architects and designers.
Design Earth, a collaborative practice led by MIT Assistant Professor Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy, and The Open Workshop, the practice of Neeraj Bhatia SM '07, are two of six architecture and design offices selected for the 2016 prize. The award is given to architects and designers who are no more than 10 years out of school.
Associate Professor Ana Miljacki, and alumna Zeynep Çelik Alexander, PhD '07, are among the 2016 winners of the Graham Foundation grants.
1:00 to 6:00 pm
4.163J/11.332J Urban Design Studio (G)
RENACIMIENTO: Reviving Mexico’s Abandoned Towns
Rafi Segal and Brent Ryan
Long Lounge/7-429 + adjacent pin-up areas
11:00 am to 6:00 pm
4.152 Architecture Design Core Studio II (G)
Ana Miljacki (coordinator), Cristina Parreno-Alonso, Ryan Murphy
Long Lounge/7-429 + North & South Domes
MIT has named its Center for Advanced Urbanism (CAU) in honor of Norman B. Leventhal '38, a visionary developer and philanthropist at the center of Boston’s postwar revival. A life member emeritus of the MIT Corporation who died last year, Mr. Leventhal was a vital member of the MIT community for three-quarters of a century.
The center was officially named the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism today at a signing ceremony attended by Alan and Sherry Leventhal and other members of Norman Leventhal’s extended family.
HTC alumnus Karl Haglund PhD '97 and faculty/alumnus Mark Jarzombek PhD '86 featured in MIT Alumni Associations' s VIDEO: "Island on the Charles" as part of the MIT Centennial Celebration on the MIT Campus. The following article describes the video. Images above include only one of the island ideas.
by JULIE BARR on April 22, 2016
MITArchA is the newly formed MIT Architecture Alumni affinity group, within the MIT Alumni Association. Open to all MIT Architecture Alumni, undergraduates and graduates, as well as current students and friends of the program, MITArchA is our forum to connect with each other, with current students and faculty, the School of Architecture and Planning and the Institute at Large.
Professor and Department of Architecture head J. Meejin Yoon has been awarded the 2016 Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) Teaching Award of Excellence. The jury cited Yoon’s “innovative and critical pedagogical approach to integrating new ideas, techniques and technologies into her teaching and research. This approach is supported by excellence in academic leadership, scholarship and professional practice.”
"MIT2016: Celebrating a century in Cambridge" commemorates the Institute’s 1916 move from Boston’s Back Bay as it honors MIT’s special relationship with the City of Cambridge and looks toward the frontiers of the future. On Saturday, April 23, 2016, the entire campus will be open for a day-long participatory Open House.
The Department of Architecture will launch a new Minor in Design (D-Minor) in Fall 2016. "Undergraduates across MIT are excited about design. They’re participating in increasing numbers in classes and research projects that engage challenging, multi-disciplinary design problems. We are delighted to now offer our very creative and talented undergrads a more structured opportunity to pursue their particular design interests," says Terry Knight, Professor of Design and Computation and Design Minor Advisor.
Join us to toast the release of thresholds 44: workspace and the opening of the exhibition “The Contingent Space of Work” this Friday, April 15 at 5:30pm at the MIT Keller Gallery (Building 7-408).
Featuring a public talk by Shelly Ronen (of Object Solutions) and copies of thresholds available for $5
(Exhibition on view in Keller Gallery April 7 - May 6)
Christoph Reinhart, (https://architecture.mit.edu/faculty/christoph-reinhart) associate professor of architecture, and Carlos Cerezo, a PhD student in the Building Technology Program, together with their Sustainable Design Lab (http://mit.edu/SustainableDesignLab/) colleagues, have developed a citywide urban building energy model of unprecedented scale and spatio-temporal detail.
The Department of Architecture welcomes admitted freshmen and their parents to an Open House, Department Tour and an Open Studio, April 7-10. Visitors can sit in on classes and participate in other related events.
Friday, April 8
Nineteen from the Department of Architecture Alumni, Faculty and Students are participating at the Annual Conference of the Scoiety of Architectural Historians. Sorted by group, each list is in event order by date and time of the panel session or roundtable, so some people are listed twice.
Nathan Brown, Architecture student in the Master of Science in Building Technology Program is the recipient of the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) Foundation 2016 Structural Engineering Traveling Fellowship.
The Institute will commemorate its move to Cambridge and the dedication of the Main Group with academic and celebratory programming beginning on the last day of February and concluding on Commencement and Reunion weekend. Festivities are outlined in the event schedule below and will include a special centenary exhibit at the MIT Museum, academic symposia, music and theater arts performances, and events—including an Open House—that welcome members of the MIT community, our neighbors, and friends.
David Adjaye presents his keynote lecture, "Geography, History, Community: Designing to Context", as part of his McDermott Prize in the Arts at MIT Residency on Tuesday, March 29 at 5:00 PM in Lecture Hall 10-250.
MIT faculty, students, and alumni consistently find creative ways to apply their knowledge to local contexts, collaborating with partners around the globe to make the world a better place. Arguably, no MIT exchange is more fertile than the one the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) enjoys with Mexico.
Matter Design and Quarra Stone have announced this week that Inés Ariza of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Shan Sutherland of the University of Michigan have been selected as the 2016 QuarraMatter Fellows.
The following obituary was graciously provided to us by the family of Professor Myer:
John Randolph Myer, known as Jack to his friends and family, died of natural causes on February 17th, surrounded by his family. He was 89 years old. Mr. Myer was a prominent Boston architect, founder of Arrowstreet, Inc. and was department head of MIT’s Department of Architecture from 1982-1987. With Kevin Lynch, and others, Jack Myer was instrumental in the Downtown Waterfront Renewal Plan, the Boston Architectural Center, and the Massachusetts State Archives Building.
The "Heart of Hearts” pavilion, designed by Collective—LOK, opened in Father Duffy Square in Times Square, NYC on February 9th, 2016. It will remain on view through March 6, 2016.
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Love for Times Square: MIT professor, PhD candidate design Valentine’s Day pavilion for New York City.
http://news.mit.edu/2015/love-for-times-square-art-installation-1228
A team of four students – David Birge, Gabriel Kozlowski, Difei Xu (SMArchS Urbanism ’15) and Barry Beagan (M.Arch ’15) received Second Prize in the invited International Student Urban Design Competition for Shanghai Railway Station Area.
Congratulations to Dessen Hillman (SMArchS 2014) and Erioseto Hendranata (MArch 2014) recipients of the 2015 Lawrence B. Anderson Award for their proposal, "Rediscovering Communal Spaces Through The Everyday Rituals in Indonesia.” The award will help them to study traditional cultures and their rituals across Indonesia in order to learn and uncover knowledge on communal spaces that can inform larger current architecture design discussions.
Landlines: Drawing Terrain is an exhibition of drawings that reflect on the capacity of line to represent a contentious surface. There are eight methods of representing islands in this exhibition; the grouping of drawings positions these methods in relation to one another. There are a total of 24 drawings and 6 animations, organized into eight sets: projecting, hatching, growing, graining, slitting, animating, dashing, and boiding.
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Launched last year by Master of Architecture students, Tengjia Liu, Kun Qian and Marwan Abou Dib, Micro-gallery site Tekuma is recently featured in articles, from Boston to China.
Architecture Professor of the Practice Sheila Kennedy, Lecturer Ryan Murphy, and Professor J. Meejin Yoon received awards at the Boston Society of Architects 2016 Design Awards, held January 28, 2016.
Professor Stanford Anderson, in the History, Theory and Criticism discipline group of the Department of Architecture, died on Jan. 5. He will be missed by many in the School, as well as those touched by his 50 years at MIT. His obituary is available on the MIT News website.
Claudia Bode, M.Arch 2015, is included in Wallpaper Magazine’s Graduate Directory for 2016. Bode’s thesis examines the challenges of the ‘Green Heart’, an agricultural area situated in the center of the Randstad, a metropolis in the western Netherlands. The region faces multiple challenges, including the need to accommodate for water as a strategy to deal with climate change, and the difficult task of operating small family dairy farms in an increasingly globalized market.
Skylar Tibbits, Research Scientist and Director of the Self-Assembly Lab, was named the Innovator of the Year by R&D Magazine at the annual R&D 100 Awards. The award is presented each year to an “individual or team who has demonstrated leadership, creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and success in the pursuit of science and technology.” It is the magazine’s top individual award.
The arc of technological innovation in the practices of architecture and construction have continually emerged out of a ritual desire for improved mechanical advantage, control over material behaviour and enhanced complexity in design and making. Despite these advances the material world has never ceased to provide ample resistance to this attempt of control; matter remains dynamic, undomesticated, and wild. It is through this wildness that materials challenge the design ideas and intentions that we base so much of our efforts on.
Eight student-led teams hoping to launch ventures ranging from real estate development, to urban diagnostics, to novel design solutions for schoolchildren have been selected as the inaugural cohort for DesignX, the new entrepreneurship accelerator from MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P).
Archinect's Paul Petrunia and Amelia Taylor-Hochberg sat down with SA+P Dean Hashim Sarkis to hear his perspective in comparing architecture education and practice.
"Our interview revolves around the same questions we ask in our Deans List series – how architecture education and practice are changing, how to address student needs, MIT’s particular take on how to cultivate exceptional architects, and the culture of the school in a global urban context."
Tuesday, December 8, 10:30 to 5:00 pm
4.153 Architecture Design Core 3 Studios: BAJA WINERY: Architecture in Times of Drought
Sheila Kennedy, Alex Anmahian, Andrew Scott
Long Lounge/ 7-429
Wednesday, December 9, 2:00 to 7:00 pm
4.151 Architecture Design Core 1 Studios
Liam O'Brien and Brandon Clifford
Long Lounge/7-429
An architectural exploration into ancient building techniques led students to create a 2,000 pound monument in honor of classmate Carrie McKnelly's parents who were lost in a fire.
Last May, students in Brandon Clifford's Megalithic Robotics class each designed small-scale models, but decided to create McKnelly's sculpture in full size: http://architecture.mit.edu/architectural-design/project/mcknelly-megalith
Design Earth, a collaborative practice led by Assistant Professor Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy won first prize in the Jacques Rougerie Foundation International Architecture Competition for their project, Neck of the Moon.
Daniel Cardoso Llach (SMArchS and Ph.D. in Architecture from MIT) recently published a book titled Builders of the Vision: Software and the Imagination of Design (New York: Routledge, 2015). His investigations shed light on the social and political histories of digital design software in the years following World War II through the present.
Professor of the Practice Sheila Kennedy and her team at Kennedy Voilich Architecture (KVA), designed an innovative entryway as part of their transformation of Harvard's Tozzer Building, which was recently awarded a Best in Class prize from the Brick Industry Association of America. The entryway evokes ancient monuments while harnessing state-of-the-art computational design.
A former SMArchS thesis project has found its way into outer space! Pupil Lab, founded by alumni Will Patera and Moritz Kassner (SMArchS Computation, ’12), created custom vision headsets for Space Application Services as part of the Mobile Procedure Viewer (mobiPV) project. The headset captures the astronaut’s field of vision and allows for real-time video to be streamed to mission control where specialists can engage astronauts in real-time consultation and without lengthy delays.
J. Meejin Yoon, a professor and head of the Department of Architecture, was honored this week with the 2015 New Generation Leader award at a ceremony held Oct. 6 by Architectural Record as part of the magazine’s second annual Women in Architecture Forum and Awards event.
Joining faculty from different discipline groups, the Cross-Studios are a new model of teaching studios in the Department of Architecture. The cross-studios allow students to experience novel and innovative research that bridges between design, history, and engineering.
Thank you so much for joining us for the MIT Architecture Graduate Open House! We had a wonderful time meeting you and we hope that you had a great time learning about MIT. You can find the Open House booklet with schedule and departmental information to the right under "download".
If you have any questions or missed the Open House and would like to arrange a visit, please contact arch@mit.edu.
Images:
The first issue of 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing was released under the editorship of Skylar Tibbits, faculty and Director of the Self-Assembly Lab. Tibbits takes over the position from Hod Lipson of Cornell University.
A new film highlights the Course 4 Undergraduate Program in Architecture. Watch the video to see the work and hear from our current Course 4 students and recent alumni, here.
"The magical thing about Course 4 is it teaches you how to take your creativity and design ideas and translate them into physical realities that are spatial, occupiable, inhabitable and have a powerful cultural resonance," said Meejin Yoon, Professor and Department Head.
A new group has formed to offer opportunities for alumni of MIT architecture to connect and re-connect with each other, current students, and the Department of Architecture, as well as the School of Architecture and Planning and the Institute at large.
The MIT Architecture Alumni group—or MITArchA, pronounced "mit-ARK-ah", for short—was proposed and formed by alumni of the school, led by Jacob Kain MArch ’00. Official approval by the Alumni Association is pending, with a formal vote schedule for Sept. 24, 2015.
Two events will help launch MITArchA later this month:
Three MArch students, Tengjia Liu, Kun Qian and Marwan Abou Dib recently created Tekuma, to help bridge the divide between creators of art and potential clientele, with the help of the MIT Global Founders’ Skills Accelerator. Their goal is to set up physical exhibition spaces in apartments listed on rental sites that can be accessed digitally, and to facilitate the sale of exhibited artwork.
The architectural design firms of Professors Brandon Clifford and Joel Lamere are highlighted in interviews by Modelo and published on Design Manifestos. Design Manifestos, "Feature Interviews with Architects & Designers from Around the World."
BUST brings together eleven established architects and firms to reconsider the relevance of a seemingly anachronous means of evaluation for a work of architecture: the façade.
The exhibition at JAI & JAI Gallery, in Los Angeles, features works by: Andrew Kovacs, Bureau Spectacular, CODA, First Office, MILLIØNS, MOS, Norman Kelley, Pita + Bloom, PARA Project, SO-IL, WOJR.
Assistant Professor Joel Lamere and his firm GLD, lecturer Cristina Parreño Alonso of Cristina Parreño Architecture, and Marie Law Adams MArch '06 with Landing Studio, designed three of four installations for the 2015 Design Biennial Boston.
The installations are on view on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in downtown Boston through Sept. 25, 2015.
NESEA will be awarding nine scholarships to students and recent graduates through the Kate Goldstein Award for Emerging Professionals in Sustainable Energy. Award recipients will receive scholarships to attend NESEA conferences or enrollment in a Masters Series online course in sustainability.
The Nomination Period for the scholarships has been extended to September 10. Take a moment today to nominate yourself or someone you know.
Three students from our MArch and SMArchS program have joined the faculties at Rice School of Architecture, Knowlton School of Architecture at the Ohio State University and School of the Art Institute of Chicago:
David Costanza (MArch '13, SMBT '15) joins Rice School of Architecture as First Technology Fellow
Aurimas Bukauskas, BSA '15, won the Carroll R. Wilson Award last Spring for his project "Whole-Section Timber and Bamboo: Naturally-Engineered High-Performance Structures". The award comes with a financial stipend of $25,000 to cover research travel costs.
Höweler + Yoon's ShadowPlay opened recently in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. The project is a public parasol at an urban scale formed by an aggregation of geometric modules. Together, the modules create a hovering canopy which filters the intense Phoenix sun, casting variable shadows on the pedestrian space throughout the day. Photovoltaic panels mounted to the top surface of several cells generates the power to illuminate the parasol in the evening.
Tozzer Anthropology Building by Kennedy & Violich Architecture Featured in Architect Magazine
Timothy Hyde is guest editor of the latest issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Architectural Education. Entitled "Crisis," the issue includes an editorial by Hyde, as well as the work of Rania Ghosn and alumna Panayiota Pyla (PhD'02).
View digital version: http://www.jaeonline.org/issues/crisis#/page1/
Last winter painfully highlighted the public transportation challenges facing the Greater Boston region, as the struggles of the T became the struggles of Bostonians and Massachusetts residents to get to work and manage their daily lives.
The architecture firm of [#J. Meejin Yoon and partner Eric Höweler is featured in an article describing the firm's diverse range of projects.
Elizabeth Yarina is the first runner-up for the 2015 RAMSA Travel Fellowship, while alumna Kayla Manning, BSAD '11, received honorable mention.
Yarina's runner-up proposal, Littoral Urbanism: Vernacular Stilt Architecture Communities as Models for Coastal Living, "impressed the judges for its clarity."
Caleb Harper, SM '14, and Research Scientist and lecturer for the Department of Architecture, Skylar Tibbits, were recently named among National Geographic's 2015 Emerging Explorers. Four were chosen from the School of Architecture + Planning, including two from the Media Lab.
Michael Kubo, PhD Candidate, and Michael Rakowitz, SMVisS '98, are among the 2015 winners of the Graham Foundation grants.
Kubo's work, HEROIC: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston, co-authored with Chris Grimley and Mark Pasnik, won in the Publication group. The piece examines the "powerful, civic-minded legacy" of Boston's architecture from 1960 until 1976.
Matter Design and Quarra Stone have announced this week that Dustin Brugmann of the University of Michigan and Luisel Zayas of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been selected as the inaugural 2015 QuarraMatter Fellows.
Architectural Design Professor Sheila Kennedy's work with inexpensive materials to create flexible public infrastructure, such as cardboard street lights, is featured in a CBS News video. Prof. Kennedy describes the project and its applications, and discusses the ideas behind it. In her position as visiting professor at UC Berkeley, where she is the 2014 Berkeley-Rupp Prize winner, she has developed a studio called Here There to design practical solutions for the developing world.
The Eyeo Festival is celebrating its fifth year with talks, workshops and interactions with open source instigators and practitioners.
J. Meejin Yoon will present "Interactive Play in Public Space" as the keynote lecture on Tuesday, June 2.
"[W]hat I most want is for us to have a debate about what is appropriate for an engineer to do when approaching a structure that’s more than a century old and where we have an obligation to think beyond our own lifetimes when we intervene," says Professor John Ochsendorf in a recent interview with Nautilus Magazine for its issue on Error. Ochsendorf, who teaches architecture and engineering, discusses the Masonry Research Group's current work testing the structural limits of the Pantheon, his past work on Incan woven suspension bridges, engineering interventions in historical buildings, amo
Landing Studio, founded in 2005 by Marie Adams (MArch ’06) and Dan Adams, was named one of the six recipients of the 2015 Architectural League Young Architects and Designers Award. Landing Studio’s work focuses on the intersections of architecture, infrastructure, and landscape in industrial settings, which often dwell in uneasy alliance. Their clients and projects range from port facilities and ocean transport to demolition plans and shared industrial/public park landscapes.
by Scott R Campbell
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded MIT's School of Architecture + Planning (SA+P) a $1 million grant to help create a Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative.
