What is the history of the building site? 

The paradox of the building site lies in the fact that, although the building site is inescapably essential to the realization of architecture, it must inevitably vanish, superseded by the durable forms of the completed building. Such traces that remain, in documents, photographs, or physical marks upon the building, have been of passing interest to architectural history for the information they reveal about the realized object, but the building site itself—as a place, as an event, as a design—has largely been ignored by architectural history and theory.

This seminar will take the building site as its focus of inquiry. Readings and discussions will develop several approaches to a knowledge of the building site as a point of organization, material transformation, and intellectual and physical work. These approaches to the building site will address questions such as the valuation of tools and techniques, the legal armature of contracts and regulations, the social conventions of race, class, and gender, and the cultural appraisal of work and craft.

The goal of the seminar will be to develop prototypical approaches to the history of the building site, with a series of experimental digital histories. Students in the seminar will carry out detailed and speculative research into selected building sites, and will use that research in digital representation to create model histories that will expand the historical accounting of a building site to include information extending from wages to weather reports.

Introduction

Faculty and Students within the Department of Architecture at MIT have finished design of four small shelters for the H22 festival in Sweden, scheduled for summer 2022.  Shelter fabrication and hosting of students for the project will be sponsored by Ikea in Sweden with the expectation that students will assembly the structures they design. The four shelters will be set within the forest of Fredriksdalsskogen to explore new ways we can live together in face-to-face in community. Student designs below the address Ikea’s five democratic principles of design: Forms, functioning, sustainability, affordability and quality.

Expectations

Although the shelters will be constructed in a distant location using digital fabrication the project presents a great opportunity for the students to learn about ways to apply materials to a lightweight structure. Water is the greatest enemy of any wooden structure. It penetrates through layers of material, weakening the structure by trapping moisture. Research novelty in this project will come from the many ways we will use precision fabrication to align layers of plastic and wood for varying levels of performance and appearance. Our layering technique will allow water to drain from the structures and sustain is overall strength. Finally, we planning to exhibit the process, models and drawings as part of a gallery exhibition in 2023. We will devote the second half of the semester toward building museum quality materials for display.

Summary: This is a rapid-fire, high-level exploration of how to model socio-economic-environmental interventions that could enable low-carbon, entrepreneurial cities using the MIT-Kendall Square district as the case study.   We will focus on two questions:

• What would be required for MIT-Kendall Square to achieve zero-carbon in 20 years?
• Can social performance be simultaneously increased to create a model entrepreneurship community?

Motivation: With cities generating more than 70% of current global CO2 emissions, and with 90% of future population growth occurring in urban areas, it is a societal imperative that cities rapidly transition to a low-carbon future.  In addition, a rapid transition to a hybrid form of work that emphasizes entrepreneurship will impact how we conceive of central business districts, office buildings, housing, public spaces, and services.  

Urban Interventions: Student teams will select one of the following systems for mid-term and final projects:

• Live-work symmetry. Ideally, available jobs in a district would be matched to appropriate and affordable housing.  What are the optimal configuration and mix of places of living and work to create high-performance, livable, entrepreneurial urban communities and how can this be achieved?
• Local amenities access. Few U.S. communities provide the assets required for daily living in close proximity to where people live (shopping, schools, culture, healthcare, daycare, recreation, etc.).  How can amenity proximity be measured and how can local access be achieved by government policy and/or market forces?
• Local food production. Significant CO2 emissions are from food-related supply chains and meat-based diets.  What food products can be produced near the point of consumption and how might new developments in industrial-scale hydroponic/aeroponic food production, cultured meats, and other innovations dramatically lower CO2 emissions?
• Community mobility. A large percentage of urban CO2 emissions is from commuting.  Market forces and current approaches to public policy do not typically lead to diverse and affordable housing near places of employment.  If live-work symmetry and local amenity access are achieved for net-zero commuting, how can we re-imagine local mobility networks and vehicles?  
• Fusion-ready cities. Power to the grid in MA is almost 80% fossil fuel.  What innovations in distributed high-density power could result in zero-carbon power to the district (micro-nuclear, small nuclear reactors, fusion) - and how can this be achieved?
• Compact-high-performance-transformable housing. How high-performance buildings can reduce CO2 emissions with new models for housing?

Experience: Students will gain hands-on experience with the collection and analysis of data, basic python scripts, and simulation tools.  Students will have an opportunity to evaluate the potential of a range of current and emerging urban interventions.

Enrollment: This class seeks highly motivated students with a background in data analytics, engineering, architecture, urban planning, public policy, business, and entrepreneurship. Programming experience is useful but not required (small-team assignments may pair, for example, a designer with a programmer).
 
Final Project: Students will select a backend module to develop that could later be integrated into an urban simulation tool, and write a research paper for a conference. See references to CityScope:

• https://cityscope.media.mit.edu/
• https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/cityscope/overview/

Repeatable for credit with permission of instructor.

4.542:

An advanced examination of the shape grammar formalism and its relationship to some key issues in a variety of other fields, including art and design, philosophy, history and philosophy of science, linguistics and psychology, literature and literary studies, logic and mathematics, and artificial intelligence. Student presentations and discussion of selected readings are encouraged. Topics vary from year to year.

4.582:

In-depth presentations of current research in design and computation.

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

Topics vary from year to year. Can be repeated with permission of instructor.

Introduces a visual-perceptual, rule-based approach to design using shape grammars. Covers grammar fundamentals through lectures and in-class exercises. Focuses on shape grammar applications, from stylistic analysis to creative design, through presentations of past applications and through short student exercises and projects. Presents computer programs for automating shape grammars.

Additional work required of students taking graduate version.

UG: 4.507 G: 4.567

Class website

Addresses fundamental methods, theories, and practices that engage contemporary modeling tools in the context of architectural design. Introduces selected academic and professional topics through lectures, demonstrations, and assignments. Topics include parametric modeling, component types and assembly, prototyping, scripting, and simulations. Initiates intellectual explorations in the use of building information modeling in research projects and design practices.

Additional work required of students taking graduate version.

Focuses on applications of machine learning (ML) for creative design generation and data-informed design exploration, with an emphasis on visual and 3-D generative systems. Explores how recent advances in artificial intelligence, and specifically machine learning, can offer humans more natural, performance-driven design processes. Covers a wide range of machine learning algorithms and their applications to design, with topics including neural networks, generative adversarial networks, variational autoencoders, dimensionality reduction, geometric deep learning, and other ML techniques. Includes an open-ended, applied research or design project demonstrating an original, creative use of machine learning for design, architecture, engineering, or art.

Describes interactions between people and sound, indoors and outdoors, and uses this information to develop acoustical design criteria for architecture and planning. Principles of sound generation, propagation, and reception. Properties of materials for sound absorption, reflection, and transmission. Design implications for performance and gathering spaces. Use of computer modeling techniques.