8/17/22 Note: The design and urbanism sections will now meet together.

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.

• Computation students: register for section L2
• Design & Urbanism students register for L1

Introduces critical theories and contemporary practices in the field of urbanism that challenge its paradigms and advance its future. Includes theoretical linkages between ideas about the cultures of urbanization, social and political processes of development, environmental tradeoffs of city making, and the potential of design disciplines to intervene to change the future of built forms. Events and lecture series co-organized by faculty and doctoral students further engage and inform research.

Through extensive reading and writing, students will explore the promise and perils of the variegated city, focusing on topics that demand urgent attention: climate change, inequality, racial injustice, and public space. Students will work to create artful narratives by examining how various forms—essay, memoir, longform journalism, poetry, fiction, film, photography, and song—illuminate our understanding of cities. Special emphasis will be on the imagination as a rich reservoir for inhabiting and understanding cities, the writer as the reader's advocate, and on the indispensability of the writer-editor relationship, with the goal of better engaging with and understanding cities, not to mention writing with greater creativity and sophistication for specialized and general-interest audiences. 

Admission is only by application. Prerequisite: Submit by Saturday, September 10, at 8:00 p.m. an application letter (no longer than 600 words, and as a Microsoft Word document with your full name in the top right margin) that explains your interest in the class, and discuss a work—novel, essay, film, painting, sculpture, song, play, building—that influences how you see a particular city.

Examines the evolving structure of cities and the way that cities, suburbs, and metropolitan areas can be designed and developed. Surveys the ideas of a wide range of people who have addressed urban problems. Stresses the connection between values and design. Demonstrates how physical, social, political and economic forces interact to shape and reshape cities over time.

Through a studio-based course in planning and urban design, builds on the foundation acquired in 11.328 to engage in creative exploration of how design contributes to resilient, just, and vibrant urban places. Through the planning and design of two projects, students creatively explore spatial ideas and utilize various digital techniques to communicate their design concepts, giving form to strategic thinking. Develops approaches and techniques to evaluate the plural structure of the built environment and offer propositions that address policies and regulations as well as the values, behaviors, and wishes of the different users.

Introduces methods for observing, interpreting, and representing the urban environment. Students draw on their senses and develop their ability to deduce, question, and test conclusions about how the built environment is designed, used, and valued. The interrelationship of built form, circulation networks, open space, and natural systems are a key focus. Supplements existing classes that cover theory and history of city design and urban planning and prepares students without design backgrounds with the fundamentals of physical planning. Intended as a foundation for 11.329.

Critical introduction to key contemporary positions in urbanism to the ends of researching, representing, and designing territories that respond to the challenges of the 21st century. Provides an overview of contemporary urban issues, situates them in relation to a genealogy of urban precedents, and constructs a theoretical framework that engages the allied fields of architecture, landscape architecture, political ecology, geography, territorial planning, and environmental humanities. Comprised of three sections, first section articulates a framework on the urban as both process and form, shifting the emphasis from city to territory. Second section engages a series of related urban debates, such as density/sprawl, growth/shrinkage, and codes/exception. Third section calls upon urban agency in the age of environment through the object of infrastructures of trash, water, oil, and food.

Gives a critical orientation towards a career in architectural practice. Uses historical and current examples to illustrate the legal, ethical and management concepts underlying the practice of architecture. Emphasis on facilitating design excellence and strengthening connections between the profession and academia. 

Aims to create a discourse across the various SMArchS discipline groups that reflects current Institute-wide initiatives; introduce SMarchS students to the distinct perspective of the different SMarchS discipline groups; and provide a forum for debate and discussion in which the SMarchS cohort can explore, develop and share ideas. Engages with interdisciplinary thinking, research, and innovation that is characteristic of MIT's culture and can form a basis for their future work.