Provides instruction in designing and building a functional piece of furniture from an original design. Develops woodworking techniques from use of traditional hand tools to digital fabrication. Gives students the opportunity to practice design without using a building program or code. Surveys the history of furniture making. 

UG: 4.118, G: 4.117

Dedicated to bridging the gap between the virtual and physical world, the subject embraces modes of computation that hold resonance with materials and methods that beg to be computed. Students engage in bi-weekly exercises to solve complex design problems. Each exercise is dedicated to a different computation approach (recursion, parametric, genetic algorithms, particle-spring systems, etc.) that is married to a physical challenge, thereby learning the advantages and disadvantages to each approach while verifying the results in physical and digitally fabricated prototypes. Through the tools of computation and fabrication, it empowers students to design as architects, engineers and craftspeople. 

Additional work required of student taking for graduate credit. 

UG: 4.110 | G: 4.111

MAS.S60 is open to graduates and undergraduate students.

**TIME CHANGE: Lecture is now 3-5pm on Tuesdays**

Inspired by Charles and Ray Eames' canonical Powers of Ten, explores the relationship between science and engineering through the lens of design. Examines how transformations in science and technology have influenced design thinking and vice versa. Provides interdisciplinary skills and methods to represent, model, design and fabricate objects, machines, and systems using new computational and fabrication tools. Aims to develop methodologies for design research of interdisciplinary problems.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.

UG: 4.043, G: 4.044

Overview of core principles and techniques for the design of interaction, behavior, and intelligence across objects and spaces. In a studio environment, students develop low and high-fidelity interactive prototypes that can be deployed and experienced by real users. Lectures cover the history and principles of human-computer interaction, behavior prototyping, physical and graphical user interfaces, machine intelligence, neural networks, and large language models. Provides a foundation in technical skills, such as physical prototyping, coding, and electronics, as well as how to collect data, train, and deploy their own neural network models. Students complete a series of small interaction exercises and a portfolio-level final project. 

Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. 

Focuses on producing a small series of manufactured products. Students develop products that address specific user needs, propose novel design concepts, iteratively prototype, test functionality, and ultimately exhibit their work in a retail context. Stemming from new research and technological developments around MIT, students try to imagine the future products that emerge from new materials and machine intelligence. Provides an in-depth exploration of the design and manufacturing of products, through narrative, form, function, fabrication, and their relationship to customers. 

UG: 4.032, G: 4.033

Provides an introduction to working with information, data and visualization in a hands-on studio learning environment. Studies the history and theory of information, followed by a series of projects in which students apply the ideas directly. Progresses though basic data analysis, visual design and presentation, and more sophisticated interaction techniques. Topics include storytelling and narrative, choosing representations, understanding audiences, and the role of designers working with data. 

Graduate students are expected to complete additional assignments. 

Provides instruction in architectural design and project development with an emphasis on social, cultural, or civic programs. Builds on foundational design skills with more complex constraints and contexts. Integrates aspects of architectural theory, building technology, and computation into the design process. 

Introduces the tools, techniques and technologies of design across a range of projects in a studio environment. Explores concepts related to form, function, materials, tools, and physical environments through project-based exercises. Develops familiarity with design process, critical observation, and the translation of design concepts into digital and physical reality. Utilizing traditional and contemporary techniques and tools, faculty across various design disciplines expose students to a unique cross-section of inquiry.

Introduces fundamental design principles as a way to demystify design and provide a basic introduction to all aspects of the process. Stimulates creativity, abstract thinking, representation, iteration, and design development. Equips students with skills to have more effective communication with designers, and develops their ability to apply the foundations of design to any discipline.

“Architecture &” is a course framework that situates architecture (and cities) relative to a shifting subject that ranges from material, light, use, limits, time, memory, narrative, posthumanism, thresholds, etc.

This course is an exploration of the later stages of architectural design that occurs in architectural detailing and construction mock-ups. To initiate this course, students will select a building threshold from a project that they have previously designed and use it as a basis to produce 5-10 new threshold variations. The threshold variations will be a detailed response and study of select architectural precedents. For the final project, students will select one threshold design to build a physical model at full (or half) scale.

This course offers students the opportunity to explore the design potential passages, openings and closures. Choosing and isolating the threshold allows for an in-depth study of the passage between interiors, and exteriors, and the space in between. Each threshold is on the verge of; as illustrated in Marcel Duchamp’s door 11 rue Larrey from 1927, it is both an opening to and closure of and holds the space between two conditions.

Students will design and detail openings in response to atmospheres and spaces and inhabitants. Students will also explore multiple design options as each design will be approached through a different tectonic lens. Students will not redesign the entire building—only the threshold. Since the threshold is from a design that each student gave much consideration previously, each speculation on the threshold design hints toward alternative design approaches and potentials for building design.

The approach to tectonic studies is informed by a range of precedents from literature, mathematics, art, music and architecture. In art and music, instructional compositions informed by repetition, variation, and singularity (uniqueness) from the chance compositions of John Cage to the wall drawings of Sol Le Witt. Other models for this exploration are the books Elements of Style by Raymond Queneau and 99 Variations on a Proof by Philip Ording, two works that begin with a simple premise that is reinvented one hundredfold by a new set of principles, techniques, contexts, and histories.

Queneau the cofounder of OuLiPo (workshop of potential literature) begins with a narrative, while Ording begins with a theorem, yet each uses the same method to generate new perspectives of the original through an exploration of style. The OuLiPo group applied constraints and mathematical rules to conceive of and structure narratives. Architectural precedents will be drawn from editions of GA Detail, Global Architecture, El Croquis, and when possible, detailed vernacular, traditional African, Islamic, Japanese, and European examples.