Design+ is a first-year undergraduate advising seminar made up of approximately 30 first-year undergraduate students, 4 faculty advisors, and 4 or more undergraduate associate advisors.

The academic program is flexible to account for diverse student interests within the field of design, and students work with advisors to select a mix of academic and experiential opportunities.

Design+ assists incoming first-year students in their exploration of possibilities in design across MIT. 

Design+ includes a dedicated study space, kitchen, lounge, and a variety of maker spaces which offer Design+ students a second campus home for making and braking.

Design+ introduces first year undergraduate students to opportunities 
Design+ around design such as internships, international travel, and 
Design+ UROPs with some of the most exciting design labs at MIT

For registration and other administrative questions contact The Office of the First Year.

Notes: 

• Schedule change from T 2-5 to M 9-12
• Computation students now register for 4.588 instead of 4.288

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.

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.

This is a fantastic course for those of you that are interested in investigating the breadth of positions, systems, and values that constitute the contemporary urban condition and its spatial manifestations. Not only is the course designed to help students both understand and represent—through drawing—the forces at play that shape our cities and the planet at large, but it also provides space for you to speculate on alternatives for what it might mean to inhabit our planet more responsibly. In short, the class is a great chance to conduct research and advocate for an urban/territorial/planetary concern of yours in conversation with an array of theories and real-world practices that reflect the complexity, nuance, and often obscured realities of urban production. 

While the course is requisite for incoming SMArchS Urbanism students, it is open to all MArchs, MCPs, and urbanists alike—past iterations of the class have benefitted greatly from the variety of perspectives and backgrounds that each student brings to the table. It is also a great chance for students that are thinking about their thesis, or other research projects, to enrich their work through explorations in theory and representation. This course also fulfills the seminar requirement for the Urban Design certificate (see the architecture website for more detail) and can be used for the M.Arch urbanism elective.

MIT Certificate Protected Syllabus

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. 

Through formal analysis and discussion of historical and theoretical texts, seminar produces a map of contemporary architectural practice. Examines six pairs of themes in terms of their recent history: city and global economy, urban plan and map of operations, program and performance, drawing and scripting, image and surface, and utopia and projection.

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 design of urban environments. Strategies for change in large areas of cities, to be developed over time, involving different actors. Fitting forms into natural, man-made, historical, and cultural contexts; enabling desirable activity patterns; conceptualizing built form; providing infrastructure and service systems; guiding the sensory character of development. Involves architecture and planning students in joint work; requires individual designs or design and planning guidelines.

Under One Roof explores the agency of the roof as public device.

Following two semesters focused on Enclosures, and on the primacy of the plan, Under One Roof will continue our investigation on collective form through a radical 90-degree turn, placing the section (and the worm’s-eye view) at the center of the discourse.

As for the previous iterations, the studio intends to stimulate an accurate research into the possibilities generated by a fundamental act of spatial delimitation. The project will be explored as selective device, capable of framing contemporary rituals, activating possible scenes of public life.

Under One Roof is not so much about the object roof itself as the covered space beneath it, understood as a plural and shared territory. A portion of space that interests us because of its specific spatial qualities: structure, proportions, light, atmospheric conditions, material expression.

Criteria of rationality, efficiency and climatic performance will meet the monumental, the archaic, the symbolic, the unconscious.

The expression Under One Roof can be read both literally and metaphorically. It describes an act of collective recognition - the effort of a multitude - as well as the form of the thing: the way it manifests itself to the sensible world.

Under One Roof celebrates the value of being physically present: the risk of bringing one’s own body in a specific place - sharing it with other bodies - as a basic form of democratic participation. It also celebrates the city as a place of material and immaterial accumulation, injecting architectural meaning and providing a condensed collective experience.

he studio will operate as a project-driven research unit. 
The design work will unfold in two segments:  
A Roof for 10-100 (weeks 1-5) and A Roof for 100-1,000 (weeks 7-14).

Throughout the semester, we will conduct local site visits to examine architectural precedents.

The students will participate in a series of Rooftalks: online conversations with the authors of some of the proposed case studies. Every talk will focus on one project, that will be presented and discussed in depth.

Mandatory lottery process.