Research and project activities, which cover the range represented by the various research interests and projects in the department. Students who wish a letter grade option for their work must register for 4.URG.

Research and project activities, which cover the range represented by the various research interests and projects in the Department.

Practical experience through summer and January IAP internships secured by the student in the field of architecture, urbanism, digital design, art, or building technology. Before registering for this subject, students must have an offer from the organization and complete the Department of Architecture application with their advisor's signature. Upon completion of the internship, students must submit an evaluation form available from the departmental academic office. Students are limited to a total of three approved experiences.

Practical experience through summer and January IAP internships secured by the student in the field of architecture, urbanism, digital design, art, or building technology. Before registering for this subject, students must have an offer from a company or organization and complete the Department of Architecture application signed by the advisor. Upon completion of the internship, students must submit an evaluation form available from the departmental academic office. Students are limited to a total of three approved experiences. 

Note: More detailed description will be posted here closer to the start of the Spring 2027 term.

Offers a broad range of advanced-level investigations in architectural design in various contexts, including international sites. Integrates theoretical and technological discourses into specific topics. Studio problems may include urbanism and city scale strategies, habitation and urban housing systems, architecture in landscapes, material investigations and new production technologies, programmatic and spatial complex building typologies, and research centered studies. Mandatory lottery process.

Note: More detailed description will be posted here closer to the start of the Spring 2027 term.

Offers a broad range of advanced-level investigations in architectural design in various contexts, including international sites. Integrates theoretical and technological discourses into specific topics. Studio problems may include urbanism and city scale strategies, habitation and urban housing systems, architecture in landscapes, material investigations and new production technologies, programmatic and spatial complex building typologies, and research centered studies. Mandatory lottery process.

Note: More detailed description will be posted here closer to the start of the Spring 2027 term.

Offers a broad range of advanced-level investigations in architectural design in various contexts, including international sites. Integrates theoretical and technological discourses into specific topics. Studio problems may include urbanism and city scale strategies, habitation and urban housing systems, architecture in landscapes, material investigations and new production technologies, programmatic and spatial complex building typologies, and research centered studies. Mandatory lottery process.

Description coming soon.

The MIT-LUMA Lab proseminar questions the role architecture and urbanism play in the use and transformation of material and energetic resources, investigating the potential for non-extractive territorial and construction systems. Grounded in literature spanning political ecology, territorial theory, cosmopolitics, geography, and architecture, the class provides students a framework to explore the interplay between geographical and ecological conditions, modes of production, labor relations, and architecture. The course is structured along a scalar continuum, simultaneously studying the processes and spaces of extraction, circulation, and transformation. By analyzing these dynamics, the proseminar examines how build new equilibria between architecture and territory that produce alternatives to the dominant processes of planetary urbanization. Through guest lectures, reading discussions, and a semester-long design research project, students will investigate how to conceptualize and produce new, equitable territorial and construction systems.

Undergraduates welcome.

The site called Dique Vila Gilda, located over the mangrove along the Bugres River at the border of municipalities of Santos and Sao Vicente. It is the largest 'favela' built on stilts in Brazil.

Housing and infrastructure systems in unplanned urbanizing fluvial neighborhoods and in wealthier gated communities alike are increasingly inadequate, under-funded, and uninspected by misaligned regulatory bodies for the level of population growth being experienced and for the nature of living with water in this context. Much is to be learned, nonetheless, from communities therein, for communities therein and for those in other geographies increasingly defined by the nature of living with water. Our research is centered on this task: how can communities sustainably and resiliently live with water in contexts where the very challenge is, in major part, water variability and water vulnerabilities: too much, too little, too polluted, too hot, too salinized, all in short and shifting timespans. Dique Vila Gilda is one in a sequence of case studies on the planning and design of housing and sanitation-related infrastructures to both leverage traditional regional knowledge and introduce novel proposals for how to live with water.

Undergraduates welcome.