The relationship of architecture and law runs far deeper than the regulatory strictures of building codes or zoning ordinances. Both architecture and law are humanistic disciplines that shape the contours of societies in ways beyond their instrumental or professional applications. They fashion judgments and values, define jurisdictions and transgressions; they invent and maintain cultural imaginaries, sponsor and constrain techniques and practices. Seen in an expansive historical view, architecture and law have long maintained a mutual engagement in the public sphere and in disciplinary discourse.

This reading seminar will explore the myriad manifestations of legal thought, practices, and objects that occur within architectural discourse, and, reciprocally, the many appearances of architecture within law and legal discourse. Each week, the seminar will read across a specific theme to discern and evaluate the circumstances and consequences of a particular relationship of architecture and law. Themes will include property, code, jurisdiction, taxation, precedent, human rights, the rights of nature, copyright, measurement, and other topics across a range of physical and social scales.

The seminar will parallel the Temporal Commons research platform, and therefore issues of design, temporality, and change in the relationship of architecture and law will be of particular interest. The seminar is open to doctoral and masters degree students (and undergraduates with the permission of the instructor). Students may enroll either for 12 units (to take the class as a seminar with a required research paper) or for 6 units (to take the class as a workshop with one required presentation).

This course uses the Mediterranean Sea as a framework for exploring early modern cities under Islamic and Christian rule. We look at key cities – Venice, Istanbul, Aleppo, Granada, Rabat-Salé, and others – tracing contacts between them, and discovering parallels and differences in urban form and architecture. Themes include dialogues with antiquity; religious complexes as urban design; social life and public space; trade and commerce; impacts of disasters and diasporas. We also consider wider global connections such as the intertwined histories of coffee, sugar, and slaves. 

A critical introduction to Islamic heritage in Spain, focusing on key surviving monuments and their complex, often contested afterlives. Each provides a window onto the dynasty that built it, with a range of ideological agendas, construction techniques, and mnemonic devices that track across the Mediterranean from Syria, Palestine, the Maghrib, and beyond. Along with North African exemplars, these structures represent a unique, western Islamic idiom that had a lasting impact on Spanish architecture.

Following defeat of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada in 1492, Islam was gradually banished from the peninsula – yet these monuments survived, openly or in disguise. Their transformations tell intriguing stories about Spaniards’ evolving views of the Islamic past. In this course we supplement historical sources, studies and building/site analysis with theoretical readings on time, memory, and agency in architecture. We explore hybrid methodologies for overcoming archival silences and teasing out new narratives, using the building as the primary text.

June 17 - September 16, 2026
Registration: FALL Term

To register: Complete the independent study form for subject number 4.394 and email advisor-signed form to Tonya Miller.

This special summer workshop is organized to invite students collectively create an artwork celebrating SA+P’s move. The Living Bucentaur is a processional artwork marking the school's move into the Metropolitan Warehouse. On September 8, somewhere between 100 and 250 students, staff, and faculty will walk the silhouette of MIT's 1916 ceremonial barge from Building 7 all the way to the MET, led by Tim the Beaver, the MIT drummers, and student dancers. You will be one of the designers and makers who dream it up. Together we will invent performative costumes, build gloriously crazy hats, and rig up body instruments, then choreograph the movement, sound, and activities that bring the whole parade to life. We are reframing a Venetian state barge as an ark for coastal species and turning a moving day into an unforgettable public spectacle that the entire school marches through together.

Open to students across MIT and especially geared toward students from all SA+P units (Architecture, ACT, DUSP, AKPIA, and beyond), the workshop runs the full arc of making, from first sketch to final procession to the documentation that outlives it. You will learn how to translate a concept into a wearable design, develop and prototype costumes and headpieces, build and play simple body instruments, choreograph collective movement and sound, fabricate at scale with materials and digital tools , and produce, perform, and document a live public event from start to finish. Apart form gaining fabrication skills and performance-making experience, you will shape a unique and memorable piece of a citywide artwork. Working in an independent study format from mid-June through August, you will add your own creative contribution to the collective ensemble while learning from everyone around you. The fall portion extends into documentation and reflection, where the cohort gets to relive and present what it pulled off.

Hands-on work in the ACT and Luna Lab fabrication spaces. Registration is for the fall term with this 4.394 independent study number. Come help architecture walk under its own power.

Detail is tricky. Despite its ubiquity, it remains underappreciated as a site of political, historical, and aesthetic meaning. It is elusive, often strange, and strung between opposites. It can be necessary or excessive, graphic or tectonic, honest or dishonest —often both. This course investigates various lineages of architectural detail, encouraging students to appreciate the 1:1 as an important scale of intention and invention in our discipline. Lectures and assignments will equip students in noticing the attitudes and sensibilities which emanate from the steps, sills, corners and eaves around them, and developing their own. Drawing on this cultivated awareness, the final project will allow students to experiment with a way of designing buildings that begins at the scale of the hand.

Undergraduates welcome.

Description posted here close to start of term.

Mandatory lottery process.

This seminar introduces students to environmental challenges in the US and across the globe. We will do this by meeting and talking with amazing professors and researchers across MIT who are working on the science, technology, design, and policy related to many of the major issues of the planet. In visiting these professors and researchers in their labs and workplaces we will discuss the principles of sustainability and explore diverse topics including the science and policy of climate change, material and energy needs of the modern world, the prospects for meaningful circular economies, biodiversity and the bioeconomy and more. Prof. Fernandez, as co-founder of MIT Environmental Research + Action, will guide the seminar through various departments, research groups, and labs to engage MIT faculty and researchers on the pressing environmental questions of our time. The goal of this seminar is to introduce first year students to the rich mosaic of work at MIT oriented toward the environment and the prospect of improving human life and all life on Earth. The sessions will also be an ideal way in which to learn more about the many opportunities for exploring the range of expertise at MIT and directing your studies as an undergraduate toward improving the state of the planet.

John E. Fernandez is professor of architecture, urbanism, and building technology in the Department of Architecture. His research and teaching centers on sustainability, climate change, and biodiversity as co-founder of MIT Environmental Research +Action (ERA), a new model for environmental research and action at MIT uniting cities, the biosphere, and artificial intelligence asco-evolving systems. Fernandez also serves as Head of House at Baker House, supports student-athletes, mentors UROPs, and is a member of the MIT class of 1985.

Description posted here close to start of term.

Mandatory lottery process.

Focuses on innovative propositions for shaping the cities of tomorrow, responding to emerging trends, technologies, and ecological imperatives. Students take part in "what-if?" scenarios to tackle real-world challenges. Through collaborative, project-based learning in small teams, students are mentored by researchers from the City Science group. Projects focus on the application of these ideas to case study cities and may include travel. Invited guests from academia and industry participate. Repeatable for credit with permission of instructor.