Note: schedule change from TR 2-5 to TW 2-5 (11/18/2025)

4.352 UG | 4.353 G

Advanced video production, installation, and exhibition design introduces advanced image and sound design strategies from both a technical and conceptual perspective. Storytelling is the linchpin that unites these seemingly disparate forms. Visual semiotics and media analysis, alongside installation and exhibition design, offer a perspective from which to consider how meaning is constructed when you engage across different forms of art production such as within individual artworks, media installations, and the design of exhibitions. Each of these forms implies a different spatial configuration and it is the relationship between the artwork and the space where it is displayed that determines how the work is understood by a viewer.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version. 

4.322 UG | 4.323 G

Explores three-dimensional artwork, including sculpture, installation, and fashion from concept to finished piece. Addresses design, fabrication, process, context, and relationships between objects, the body, and material culture. Lectures, screenings, field trips, readings, and class discussions supplement studio practice. Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.

Students select thesis topic, define method of approach, and prepare thesis proposal for SMArchS degree. Faculty supervision on an individual or group basis. Intended for SMArchS program students prior to registration for 4.THG.

This edition of the class will be structured around four key debates: 1) the city and the urban, 2) spatial forms of the political, 3) world systems and urban economies, and 4) environmentalism. We will analyze these topics both cross-historically and cross-geographically, consistently moving between historical and contemporary urban formations.

The class will explore these four questions by examining the various artifacts and mechanisms that make up the urban environment (infrastructures, buildings, plans) and the spatial structures they generate. Throughout, we will consider cities as part of broader processes of territorial structuring, investigating how cities depend on these processes for their functioning while also contributing to their shaping.

The class debates will be complemented by an individual, semester-long design-research project, which will be discussed through presentations and dedicated workshops.
 

Preparatory research development leading to a well-conceived proposition for the MArch design thesis. Students formulate a cohesive thesis argument and critical project using supportive research and case studies through a variety of representational media, critical traditions, and architectural/artistic conventions. Group study in seminar and studio format, with periodic reviews supplemented by conference with faculty and a designated committee member for each individual thesis.

The Temporal Commons is a multi-year research project that aims to bridge two millennia—one behind us & one to come—by integrating speculative futures with historical foundations. In doing so, it challenges the immediacy that dominates architectural discourse and the instinctive temporal narrowing of modernism’s legacy of presentism, proposing instead a pedagogy and practice grounded in the longue durée: an expanded historical horizon attentive to cycles of continuity, transformation, and stewardship.

This year’s studio, FLOOD, will situate architectural thinking within the fragile ecologies of mountain and riverine systems—landscapes increasingly vulnerable to flash flooding. Here, water is both a destructive force and a generative agent, revealing how architectural, legal, and ecological structures are intertwined. The studio will examine how forest depletion, timber extraction, and shortened building lifespans accelerate hydrological instability—how the rhythms of design and demolition reverberate through riparian systems. Through design speculation, students will explore how altering and extending the lifespan and regulatory contexts of materials and structures might stabilize these environments, fostering architectures of stewardship rather than extraction.

Operating between research & design, the studio will adopt a dual structure:

• As a seminar, students will pursue historical and theoretical investigations into topics such as riparian law, forest governance, cultural practices of riverine settlements, timber economies, and hydraulic science. These inquiries will establish a shared intellectual foundation and critical vocabulary.
• As a studio, students will translate this research into speculative architectural proposals—projects that test new modes of temporality, adaptation, and ecological reciprocity. Design will serve as both method and argument, transforming research into spatial, material, and environmental propositions.

Builds on Core I skills and expands the constraints of the architectural problem to include issues of urban site logistics, cultural and programmatic material (inhabitation and human factors), and long span structures. Two related projects introduce a range of disciplinary issues, such as working with precedents, site, sectional and spatial proposition of the building, and the performance of the outer envelope. Emphasizes the clarity of intentions and the development of appropriate architectural and representational solutions.

Fosters a holistic understanding of the architectural-building cycle, enabling students to build upon the history of design and construction to make informed decisions towards developing innovative building systems. Includes an overview of materials, processing methods, and their formation into building systems across cultures. Looks at developing innovative architectural systems focusing on the building envelope. Seeks to adapt processes from the aerospace and automotive industries to investigate buildings as prefabricated design and engineering assemblies. Synthesizes knowledge in building design and construction systems, environmental and structural design, and geometric and computational approaches.

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.