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.

Note: Class ends at 4 pm on Fridays.

This class is a pre-approved Computation elective for Spring 2023.

Though industrial robotic arms are common tools for automotive and engineering practices, they are an emerging subfield in architecture and design. Academic research labs and explorative design practices have demonstrated the power of robotic fabrication for mass-customized design and construction. Still, there is a high barrier to entry to the computational methods used to control these machines.

Understanding the fundamentals of robotic programming is key to unlocking the potential applications of robotics in architecture and design. This workshop introduces the MIT Department of Architecture's robotic arm through parametric design tools and digital fabrication. We will explore architectural robotics through a series of short projects that will introduce users to the basic operations of robotic arms.

Note: More detailed description coming soon.

Addresses design inquiry in a studio format. In-depth consideration of selected issues of the built world. The problem may be prototypical or a particular aspect of a whole project, but is always interdisciplinary in nature.

Islands are examples of landscapes, ecologies and communities on the delicate and leading edge of sustainability and the imminent challenges brought about by climate change. The Galapagos are a prime example. Often challenged but sustained by consequences of tourism, they tread a fine line between economic and cultural viability on the one hand and the impacts of environmental and climatic vulnerability on the other. In such scenarios, island communities, such as Cuttyhunk, work hard to survive and become resilient- but with a concern around the policies they need to implement in the future to achieve a new form of ecological balance and real sustainability.  

The delicacy of this ecological balance is also subject to an understanding of the ‘flows’, in and out / to and fro, that sustain this native island and its culture - and perhaps provide a framework for understanding interactions over variable time scales that create strategies towards a more resilient future. As an example, many smaller-scaled islands such as Cuttyhunk, have flows and changing seasonal cycles of people, resources, goods, waste, climate variations, animals, vegetation and beaches to name a few of the most obvious. Also these flows and cycles can be traced and mapped through history to reveal a palimpsest of physical responses by earlier generations that have inhabited the island. Set against this scenario, the studio for the semester will work with the island of Cuttyhunk in southern Massachusetts, to consider how as architects we must engage with such issues in considering how to impact change on an island through design and architecture. 

While the nearby twelve-mile-long Elizabeth islands are unique as they are mostly uninhabited for the purposes of preservation, Cuttyhunk is the exception and grows from a population of only about twelve people in winter to several hundred with summer visitors, in addition to the regular day-trippers and significant numbers of visiting boaters from July to September. The island is about 1.5 x 0.75 miles and is accessed by a daily ferry from New Bedford. 

The southern half of the island is wild in nature and is still is farmed with oyster beds, while the northern end has a protected boat basin surrounded by mostly moderately-scaled summer homes and a network of roads. During three summer months the island is busy and active with flows of people, boats, resources, waste and fuel, but quietens down as it faces the winter months when essential repair and infrastructural work is completed and the people disappear. As mentioned, Cuttyhunk is in a balancing act as it questions whether it is a community that can exist outside of the short summer months for visitors - and if so it will need to figure out how to survive while preserving the island's culture and ecology, flora and fauna, and the future impacts of a changing climate. The thesis of the studio is that in times of climate change, sea level rise and a more-volatile climate, the island can retain positive outlook on its future as a year-round community, including being a laboratory for observing changes to the land, landscape and ocean and fishing, while also being a resource for learning and testing new ideas that enable it be exist sustainably. 

The studio will use Cuttyhunk as the context for making architecture as a strategic and physical act on the island. We will consider two projects: a short project that consider show to rethink the summit ‘destination’ and high point on the island (with 360 degree views) that is in need of new design thinking; and a longer project that is a modestly-scaled residential ecological education center that poses the possibility of new directions for public engagement on the island’s future. The idea is for the center to be a resource for visitors of different ages and backgrounds to spend time experiencing and researching the island and to express this through a non-invasive, resilient and adaptive form of architecture.  

‘Sites’ (as different landscape profiles, orientations and microclimates) will be determine from a larger consider of the island climate and ecology, together with the ability to support specific architectural concepts. Such concepts will look for a formal clarity as typologies together with a tectonic language of material and assembly appropriate for building on an island (including the notion of all timber prefabrication for transportation) with a variable climate that suggest different modes of openness and privacy. It is anticipated that design projects will have to be climatically resilient and self-sufficient in terms of energy and resources. The studio will aim to visit Cuttyhunk relatively early in the semester for experiencing the island and making specific studies to enhance and understanding of the inherent ‘ecological flows’. 
 

The fall studio seeks to analyze the location and through the #mattertodata methodology develop an architectural project for artist residences in La Illa del Rei, Menorca. The analysis of traditional materials and building practices in conjunction with experimental #mattertodata techniques will allow the student to explore and push the boundaries of architectural design.

The program of Artists' residences will form part of the creative process. The student after a thorough analysis of referential material and context will propose the relation with Hauser Wirth gallery beside.

#mattertodata is a space for experimentation. A testing ground that seeks to connect our head with our hands and our hands with the materials that build architecture. It is through this intimate encounter that we can understand, learn and unlearn, maybe then innovate. A space for  Action. 

#mattertodata explores the extraction of valuable creative resources from the manipulation of matter, and the exposure to the common forces and energies that constitute the spatial event, to be transformed into data, source to engineer, detail, and prescribe architecture documentation. This reverse process of design will allow students to explore the immense complexities of play with matter, the observation and analytical outlook that architects develop to read the spaces that the game generates, and how to transform them into architecture.

Location
The location will be in Illa del Rei, Menorca. An Island situated within the bay of Mahon with a rich history that reflects the complexity of Menorca’s history and culture.

Started as the first touching point of King Alfonso III of Aragon during the Christian conquest of the island, then moved on to be a British naval hospital, passing to the French and Spanish. Finally, in the 21st century, it has since 2021 become a cultural hotspot where the Spanish branch of the art gallery Hauser and Wirth is located.

This rich cultural baggage that is carried on to contemporary culture is an indicator of how any intervention should be consequential in its nature.

Mandatory lottery process.

The Ghost House Studio breaks the 30-year timeline of residential architecture into two modes: temporal and eternal. The existing model is sold through a false idea of permanence, one that is shored up by societal constructs such as settling-down, land-ownership, and capitalism financed by 30-year mortgages. While we suggest homes are built for forever, the reality of construction tells a different story. In North America, we build homes in 90 days: fast for forever. Not only does construction mis-align with the use proposition, but the suggestion that nuclear families purchase land, build a house, and hand that house down to their children is also a misnomer. The average homeowner lives in their home for only 8 years before selling. Whether it be through necessity of climate migration, or through societal shifts, we are a nomadic civilization. 

Alternatively, North America’s foundational architecture is arguably mound-building: eternal structures created by nomadic civilizations. These enigmas upend the assumption that nomadic architecture is dedicated to light-weight, deployable, temporary structures. Therefore, this studio will explore how alternative models of architecture can shift residential timescales. It requires students to design homes to last a short amount of time, while leaving a legacy behind for future residents, community, and society. By designing for two timescales: immediate and eternal, students will confront the societal constructs that have shaped our default approaches to residential architecture. 

Travel: The Ohio River Valley contains many of the most well-preserved mounds in North America. These range from ring mounds to conic, constellation clusters, and effigy mounds. Over the course of 4-5 days, students will experience the relationship between these multi-thousand-year-old mounds, their sites, and the impact they have beyond the immediate occupation of the grounds as well as the societies that created them. The goal of this experience will be to impart the students with a better understanding of scale and legacy that come naturally with these mound sites.

Mandatory lottery process.