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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

“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'.

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.

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.

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. 

Exhibition Opening & Reception: September 30, 2016, 6:30 PM
On View September 23 - November 1, 2016

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.

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.

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

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

Associate Professor Ana Miljacki, and alumna Zeynep Çelik Alexander, PhD '07, are among the 2016 winners of the Graham Foundation grants.

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.

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.

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 

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. 

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.

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

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.

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.

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:

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. 

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.

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.

Tozzer Anthropology Building by Kennedy & Violich Architecture Featured in Architect Magazine

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.

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."

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.