Critical review of works, theories, and polemics in architecture in the aftermath of WWII. Aim is a historical understanding of the period and the development of a meaningful framework to assess contemporary issues in architecture. Special attention paid to historiographic questions of how architects construe the terms of their "present." Required of M.Arch. students.

This course explores natural and electric lighting that integrates occupant comfort, energy efficiency and daylight availability in an architectural context. Students are asked to evaluate daylighting in real space and simulations, and also high dynamic range photography and physical model building.

Humanitarian Demining is the process of detecting, removing and disposing of landmines. Millions of landmines are buried in more than 80 countries resulting in 20,000 civilian victims every year. MIT Design for Demining is a design course that spans the entire product design and development process from identification of needs and idea generation to prototyping and blast testing to manufacture and deployment. Technical, business and customer aspects are addressed. Students learn about demining while they design, develop and deliver devices to aid the demining community. Past students have invented or improved hand tools, protective gear, safety equipment, educational graphics and teaching materials. Some tools designed in previous years are in use worldwide in the thousands. Course work is informed by a class field trip to a US Army base for demining training and guest expert speakers.

To build a high-growth, sustainable firm, an entrepreneur must know how to locate and recruit talented people and how to manage and retain them. Subject focuses on building, running, and growing an organization. Students examine three central themes: how to think analytically about designing organizational systems; how leaders, especially founders, play a critical role in shaping an organization's culture; and how to build a successful organization for the long-term. Through a series of cases, lectures, and readings, students address the principles of organizational architecture, group behavior and performance, interpersonal influence, leadership and motivation in entrepreneurial settings. Students develop competencies in organizational design, human resources management, and organizational behavior in the context of a new, small firm. This subject is about building, running, and growing an organization. Subject has four central themes: How to think analytically about designing organizational systems How leaders, especially founders, play a critical role in shaping an organization's culture What really needs to be done to build a successful organization for the long-term and What one can do to improve the likelihood of personal success. Not a survey of entrepreneurship or leadership; subject addresses the principles of organizational architecture, group behavior and performance, interpersonal influence, leadership and motivation in entrepreneurial settings. Through a series of cases, lectures, readings and exercises students develop competencies in organizational design, human resources management, leadership and organizational behavior in the context of a new, small firm.

Subject engages a dialogue with architecture and urbanism from the perspective of the visual artist. Ideas investigated thematically from early modernist practices to the most recent examples of contemporary production. Art making as an adjunct to the design process is challenged by both synthetic and critical models of production. Visual art practice is examined as a conceptual prologue to architectural and urbanistic thinking, as an integrated part of the design process, and as a critical epilogue. Lectures and discussions lead to the development of realized projects to be coordinated with architectural studio. In this class we will examine how the idea of the city has been "translated" by artists, architects, and other diverse disciplines. We will consider how collaborations between artists and architects might provide opportunities for rethinking / redesigning urban spaces. The class will look specifically at planned cities like Brasilia, Las Vegas, Canberra, and Celebration and compare such tabula rasa designs with the redesign of recyclable urban spaces demonstrated in projects such as Ground Zero, Barcelona 2004, and Boston's Rose Kennedy Greenway. While the course will involve some reading and discussion, coursework will focus largely on the students' own projects / interventions that should evolve over the course of the semester. Of the two weekly class meetings, one will be a group discussion or lecture with the whole class and visiting guests, and the other will be an individual meeting between the student and the instructor to discuss his or her work for the class, including the final project.

This is an advanced subject in computer modeling and CAD CAM fabrication, with a focus on building large-scale prototypes and digital mock-ups within a classroom setting. Prototypes and mock-ups are developed with the aid of outside designers, consultants, and fabricators. Field trips and in-depth relationships with building fabricators demonstrate new methods for building design. The class analyzes complex shapes, shape relationships, and curved surfaces fabrication at a macro scale leading to new architectural languages, based on methods of construction.

Seminar on downtown in US cities from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth. Emphasis on downtown as an idea, place, and cluster of interests, on the changing character of downtown, and on recent efforts to rebuild it. Subjects considered include subways, skyscrapers, highways, urban renewal, and retail centers. Focus on readings, discussions, and individual research projects. Meets with graduate subject 11.339, but assignments differ.

Seminar on a selected topic from Renaissance architecture. Requires original research and presentation of a report. The aim of this course is to highlight some technical aspects of the classical tradition in architecture that have so far received only sporadic attention. It is well known that quantification has always been an essential component of classical design: proportional systems in particular have been keenly investigated. But the actual technical tools whereby quantitative precision was conceived, represented, transmitted, and implemented in pre-modern architecture remain mostly unexplored. By showing that a dialectical relationship between architectural theory and data-processing technologies was as crucial in the past as it is today, this course hopes to promote a more historically aware understanding of the current computer-induced transformations in architectural design.

Ecologies of Construction examines the resource requirements for the making and maintenance of the contemporary built environment. This course introduces the field of industrial ecology as a primary source of concepts and methods in the mapping of material and energy expenditures dedicated to construction activities.

This is a project to assist in the design, drawing, modeling and hopefully constructing of a small Community Children‰ŰŞs Center near Guayaquil, Ecuador. For the last year, Nicki Lehrer, from MIT‰ŰŞs Aero/Astro Department, has been organizing efforts to build the project. The goal of the workshop is to provide her with a full fleshed out design for the community center so it can be built in the summer of 2007.

This course will focus on providing students with the tools needed to practice responsible architecture in a contemporary context. It will familiarize students with the materials currently used in responsible practice, as well as the material properties most relevant to assembly. The course will also introduce students to materials that are untested but hold promise for future usage. Finally, the course will challenge students to refine their understanding of responsible or sustainable design practice by looking at the evolution of those ideas within the field of architecture.

A general introduction to the diverse roles of microorganisms in natural and artificial environments. Topics include: cellular architecture, energetics, and growth; evolution and gene flow; population and community dynamics; air, water, and soil microbiology; biogeochemical cycling; and microorganisms in biodeterioration, bioremediation, and pest control.

Students explore material properties in hands-on and visually evident ways via the Archimedes' principle. First, they design and conduct an experiment to calculate densities of various materials and present their findings to the class. Using this information, they identify an unknown material based on its density. Then, groups explore buoyant forces. They measure displacement needed for various materials to float on water and construct the equation for buoyancy. Using this equation, they calculate the numerical solution for a boat hull using given design parameters.

Uses scale models to design environments that orchestrate contrasting material properties and conventional constructional systems to create places that foster specific ways of inhabiting space. Demonstrates how architecture differs from other forms of design. Intended for students to test aptitude for architectural design and to experience an unfamiliar mode of thought. Conducted in a studio format, with lectures on architectural theory and history, and structured for students with no previous experience in design. Required of Course IV majors.

SPARK drops in on Jaime Guerrero at the Bay Area Glass Institute as he creates an elaborate snake sculpture and introduces his "Homies" series. This Educator Guide is about glass blowing, the dynamic work of Jaime Guerrero, Mayan and Aztec iconography, and the history of glass work in art and architecture.

Inspired by the work of the architect Antoni Gaudi, this research workshop will explore three-dimensional problems in the static equilibrium of structural systems. Through an interdisciplinary collaboration between computer science and architecture, we will develop design tools for determining the form of three-dimensional structural systems under a variety of loads. The goal of the workshop is to develop real-time design and analysis tools which will be useful to architects and engineers in the form-finding of efficient three-dimensional structural systems.

" This class provides an introduction to quantitative models and qualitative frameworks for studying complex engineering systems. Also taught is the art of abstracting a complex system into a model for purposes of analysis and design while dealing with complexity, emergent behavior, stochasticity, non-linearities and the requirements of many stakeholders with divergent objectives. The successful completion of the class requires a semester-long class project that deals with critical contemporary issues which require an integrative, interdisciplinary approach using the above models and frameworks."

This design-based subject provides a first course in energy and thermo-sciences with applications to sustainable energy-efficient architecture and building technology. No previous experience with subject matter is assumed. After taking this subject, students will understand introductory thermodynamics and heat transfer, know the leading order factors in building energy use, and have creatively employed their understanding of energy fundamentals and knowledge of building energy use in innovative building design projects. This year, the focus will be on design projects that will complement the new NSTAR/MIT campus efficiency program.

Furniture making is in many ways like bridge building, connections holding posts apart with spans to support a deck. Many architects have tried their hand at furniture design, Wright, Mies Van Der Rohe, Aalto, Saarinen, Le Corbusier, and Gerhy. We will review the history of furniture making in America with a visit to the Decorative Arts Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and have Cambridge artist/craftsman Mitch Ryerson show us his work and talk about design process. Students will learn traditional woodworking techniques beginning with the use of hand tools, power tools and finally woodworking machines. Students will build a single piece of furniture of an original design that must support someone weighing 185 lbs. sitting on it 12 inches off the ground made primarily of wood. Students should expect to spend approximately 80 hours in the shop outside of class time. Preregistered architecture students will get first priority but first meeting attendance is mandatory. Twelve student maximum, no exceptions.

The studio will focus on the district of Gaoming, located in the northwest of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) - the fastest growing and most productive region of China. The District has recently completed a planning effort in which several design institutes and a Hong Kong planning firm prepared ideas for a new central area near the river. The class will complement these efforts by focusing on planning and design options on the waterfront of the proposed new district and ways of integrating water/hydrological factors into all aspects and land uses of a modern city (residential, commercial, industrial) - including watershed and natural ecosystem protection, economic and recreational activities, transportation, and tourism.