Students select thesis topic, define method of approach, and prepare thesis proposal for SMArchS Computation degree. Faculty supervision on a group basis. Intended for SMArchS Computation program students, prior to registration for 4.ThG.

Zoning has become the city’s hidden operating system—the invisible code that dictates how urban life unfolds.

It determines where and how people live, work, shop, learn, and move. It shapes the supply and cost of housing, the character of neighborhoods, access to everyday amenities, and the prospects of local businesses.

But today’s cities confront overlapping crises: climate risk, housing scarcity, infrastructure strain, demographic shifts, and the reconfiguration of work, retail, learning, and healthcare that is upending traditional urban anchors. The zoning frameworks inherited from the 20th century—built for stability and uniformity—are increasingly misaligned with the volatility and urgency of the 21st. What cities need now is not incremental reform, but a new, responsive operating system for urban life.

Course Focus: Students will investigate a radical alternative to static zoning—a dynamic, incentive-based, pro-social framework that treats the city as a living system. This model channels market forces through feedback loops, much like a natural ecosystem, to cultivate what we call civic homeostasis: a state of balance that adapts as conditions change.

San Francisco is now undergoing radical zoning reform, and the City Science group is collaborating with city leaders to help communities understand its impact, and to explore what comes beyond zoning. Students in the class will have the opportunity to contribute directly by:

• Analyzing urban data—from mobility flows and land use to demographic shifts—to decode the hidden patterns shaping communities today.
• Building simulations—both top-down statistical models and bottom-up agent-based systems—to test how interventions ripple through the social, economic, and environmental fabric of the city.
• Designing dynamic incentive structures to balance housing, workplaces, and daily amenities, while exploring how an AI Urban Advisor could provide city supervisors with continuous feedback—an early form of augmented intelligence for urban governance.
• Prototyping a CityScope platform to foster transparent, participatory community engagement.
• Experimenting with parametric design and generative AI tools as engines for reimagining urban rules and forms.

Deliverables: Weekly assignments, mid-term, and final project.

Teaching Collaborators: Maitane Iruretagoyena (Technical Associate), Yasushi Sakai, (Research Scientist), Markus Elkatsha (Research Scientist)
Website: https://www.media.mit.edu/courses/mas-552-city-science-beyond-zoning/

Selection of thesis topic, definition of method of approach, and preparation of thesis proposal in computation. Independent study supplemented by individual conference with faculty.

Students select thesis topic, define method of approach, and prepare thesis proposal for SMArchS Computation degree. Faculty supervision on a group basis. Intended for SMArchS Computation program students, prior to registration for 4.ThG.

Group discussions and presentation of ongoing graduate student research in the Computation program.

4.581 Proseminar in Computation (G) / 4.582 Research Seminar in Computation (G)

Introduction to traditions of research in design and computation scholarship.

4.582 Research Seminar in Computation

In-depth presentations of current research in design and computation.

Explores the varied nature, history and practice of computation in design through lectures, readings, small projects, discussions, and guest visits by Computation group faculty and others. Topics may vary from year to year. Aims to help students develop a critical awareness of different approaches to and assumptions about computation in design beyond the specifics of techniques and tools, and to open avenues for further research.

Class website

Develop independent projects in the study of digital media as it relates to architectural design. Students propose a project topic such as digital design tool, modeling and visualization, motion graphics, interactive design, design knowledge representation and media interface.

An in-depth introduction to shape grammars and their applications in architecture and related areas of design. Shapes in the algebras Ui j, in the algebras Vi j and Wi j incorporating labels and weights, and in algebras formed as composites of these. Rules and computations, shape and structure, designs.