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.

Examines themes in the history of design, with emphasis on Euro-American theory and practice in their global contexts. Addresses the historical design of communications, objects, and environments as meaningful processes of decision-making, adaptation, and innovation. Critically assesses the dynamic interaction of design with politics, economics, technology, and culture in the past and at present. 

4.657 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)

2/8/23 note: room changed to E15-207

Incommensurability is defined as the inability to express or comprehend one conceptual scheme in terms of another. That is, in other words, a lack of a common measure between models of observations, value systems, or ideologies. Environmental observational methods present incommensurability when scale becomes a variable. This lack of a common measure presents itself as well in the general inability to comprehend magnitudes of planetary phenomena related to climate change and the effects it has on humans and more than humans. The answer, as Thomas Kuhn or Paul Feyerabend would state, is not to push for a common, universalized system of measure, but to exist and experiment on incommensurable alternatives. The role of experimentation is crucial for imagining these incommensurable alternatives as it is the foundation for the translations which can potentially be actualized, demonstrating that scientific change– as well as economical and societal– are not cumulative or progress driven (conceptual conservatism), but rather never-ending spirals full of ambiguity and constant change. The incommensurability of scale and its different translations, instruments, affects, and misinterpretations will be the main exploration topic for this course.

4.301- Scale, Signal, Spectrum offers an introduction to artistic experimentation through the lens of incommensurability. By focusing on observation, measurement, and translation of the environment, this course employs artistic methodologies in order to understand conceptual and political implications of scaling mechanisms by way of time and space through biological, geological, astronomical, urban, and mechanical devices and lenses. Students will produce their own time-based instruments of environmental observation, learning from a variety of contemporary and historical technologies such as astrolabes, pantographs, and geological sections to scanning devices, radio antennas or electromagnetic signals. Strong interest is vested not just in the prototyping, conception, design, and implementation of such experiments but on their deployment and observation in public space.

Through a series of lectures, presentations, walks, and trainings, students will be introduced to a wide variety of research based artistic practices that deal with the matters of scale and its possible translations. Students will develop three studio-based exercises using different scales as media where we will explore site interventions and strategies for artistic engagement in the public realm. The production of time-based media/ instruments of environmental observation include: printmaking, molding and casting, scaling mechanisms, sonic translations, visual representations, and time-based recording devices.

4.301 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)

2/7/23: Note, recitation room for all is now 9-451

Inspired by Charles and Ray Eames' canonical Powers of Ten, explores the relationship between science and engineering through the lens of design. Examines how transformations in science and technology have influenced design thinking and vice versa. Provides interdisciplinary skills and methods to represent, model, design and fabricate objects, machines, and systems using new computational and fabrication tools. Aims to develop methodologies for design research of interdisciplinary problems.

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.

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.

4.648, 21A.507 U / 4.649, 21A.519 G

Examines the sonic phenomena and experiences that motivate scientific, humanistic, and artistic practices. Explores the aesthetic and technical aspects of how we hear; measure or describe vibrations; record, compress, and distribute resonating materials; and how we ascertain what we know about the world through sound. Although the focus is on sound as an aesthetic, social, and scientific object, the subject also investigates how resonance is used in the analysis of acoustics, architecture, and music theory. Students make a sonic artifact or research project as a final requirement.

Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Course Syllabus (MIT Certificate required)

Examines the history of Islamic architecture and culture spanning fifteen centuries on three continents - Asia, Africa, Europe. Students study a number of representative examples, from the 7th century House of the Prophet to the current high-rises of Dubai, in conjunction with their urban, social, political, and intellectual environments at the time of their construction.

4.614 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

4.603 UG / 4.604 G

Examines modern architecture, art, and design in the context of the political, economic, aesthetic, and cultural changes that occurred in the twentieth century. Presents foundational debates about social and technological aspects of modern architecture and the continuation of those debates into contemporary architecture. Incorporates varied techniques of historical and theoretical analysis to interpret exemplary objects, buildings, and cities of modernity.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.

4.603/4.604 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

Introduction to the history and interpretation of western art in a global context that explores painting, graphic arts and sculpture from the 15th century to the present. Engages diverse methodological perspectives to examine changing conceptions of art and the artist, and to investigate the plural meaning of artworks within the larger contexts of culture and history.

4.601 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)