MIT School of Architecture and Planning

See also: Campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT School of Architecture and Planning
Established	1865
Type	Private
Dean	Adèle Naudé Santos
Location	Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Campus	Urban
Website	[1]

Studios are arrayed around the Little Dome in the Rogers Building (Building 7)

The MIT School of Architecture and Planning is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Founded in 1865 by William Robert Ware, the School offered the first formal architectural curriculum in the United States, and the first architecture program in the world, operating within the establishment of a University.

In the 20th century, the School came to be known as a leader in introducing modernism to America. MIT has a history of commissioning progressive buildings, many of which were designed by faculty or former students associated with the School. In recent years, MIT has commissioned a mix of modernist and post-modernist buildings, some of which were designed by "starchitects" not previously affiliated with MIT.^[1][2]

Most of the School facilities are located in or near the Rogers Building, at the main entrance to the central MIT campus (chiefly designed by William Welles Bosworth), or at the Wiesner Media Lab Building (designed by I.M.Pei and later expanded by Fumihiko Maki) located at the eastern gateway to the central campus. The current Dean of Architecture and Planning is Professor Adèle Naudé Santos.^[3]

Departments

Architecture

Architecture was first taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1868. In 1932, when the president of MIT, Karl T. Compton, reorganized the Institute's academic structure, the School of Architecture was established, incorporating the Department of Architecture. The head of the Department of Architecture, William Emerson, became the first dean of the School of Architecture.

The Department of Architecture is divided into five main research areas: Architectural Design; Building Technology; Design and Computation; History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art (for which MIT was the first to establish such a program); and the Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) program. Further, there are three special research groups: Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (in partnership with Harvard University), the Center for Real Estate and the Special Interest Group in Urban Settlements.

The Department offers several degrees, including the Bachelor of Science in Art and Design (SBAD) and Bachelor of Science (SB) as pre-professional, undergraduate degrees. The department offers five masters-level graduate degrees: Master of Architecture (MArch), Master of Science in Architecture Studies (SMArchS), Master of Science in Building Technology (SMBT), Master of Science in Visual Studies (SMVisS), Master of Science Without Specification. The Department offers the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in the fields of Building Technology; Design and Computation; and History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art.

The department is currently led by Nader Tehrani, principal of Office dA.

Media Laboratory

Main article: MIT Media Lab

The MIT Media Lab (The Media Laboratory) grew out of the work of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the Department of Architecture, and remains a key part of the School of Architecture and Planning. The Media Lab was formed in 1980 by Nicholas Negroponte and Jerome Wiesner, and was formally opened on October 1, 1985. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of multimedia and technology, the Media Lab was widely popularized in the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a series of innovative but practical inventions in the fields of wireless networks, field sensing, web browsers and the World Wide Web. The Media Lab works primarily on the question of physical-virtual interface. As Negroponte envisioned it, interface has become an architectural problem. There have been numerous notable research spinoffs growing out of the Media Lab including One Laptop per Child (OLPC), Electronic Ink and LEGO Mindstorms.

Urban Studies and Planning

A course in city planning was added in 1932, and in 1944 the school was renamed the School of Architecture and Planning. In 1947, the Department of City and Regional Planning was established, which was renamed the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) in 1969. The Department has four specialization areas: City Design and Development; Environmental Policy; Housing, Community and Economic Development; and the International Development Group. There are also three cross-cutting areas of study: Transportation Planning and Policy; Urban Information Systems (UIS); and Regional Planning.

DUSP offers a two-year Master in City Planning (MCP) degree and a PhD in Urban and Regional Studies, or in Urban and Regional Planning. Under special circumstances, admission may be granted to candidates seeking a one-year Master of Science (SM) degree. DUSP also offers a Bachelor of Science (SB) in Planning, a five-year SB/MCP, and minors in Public Policy and in Urban Studies and Planning.

The MIT Design Advisor is an online tool for exploring the energy performance of building designs. The tool allows the user to simulate and compare major design decisions - quickly and with little or no experience. Real-time calculations provide results typically within a minute's time, allowing the user to quickly explore the design space.

Visual Arts

The Program for Art, Culture and Technology (ACT), housed within the Department of Architecture, was created in the summer of 2009 by the merger of the Visual Arts Program (VAP) and the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS). The CAVS, now the ACT Fellows program, was founded in 1968 with György Kepes as the director. The CAVS had the goal of encouraging collaboration among artists, scientists, and engineers, and it served as a precursor to the MIT Media Lab decades later. The successor ACT Fellows program is still held in high regard as a research center for practicing artists.

Center for Real Estate

The MIT Center for Real Estate was established in 1983 with the aim of improving the quality of the built environment. An intensive one-year program leads to a Master of Science in Real Estate degree.

Research, Projects & Partnerships

MIT@Lawrence

MIT@Lawrence is a partnership between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), several Lawrence, Massachusetts-based community organizations, and the City of Lawrence. The partnership is aimed at facilitating affordable housing development, building community assets, and improving youth pathways to advancement. It is funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Pioneered by the MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), MIT@Lawrence supports service learning coursework with clients in Lawrence, internships and fellowships connecting MIT students with Lawrence organizations, and community-university collaboration for action-oriented urban scholarship and community improvement.

MIT Senseable City Lab

Main article: MIT Senseable City Lab

The MIT Senseable City Laboratory aims to investigate and anticipate how digital technologies are changing the way people live and their implications at the urban scale.

Distinguished Alumni and Former Faculty

See also: List of Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni

Former Students and Research Fellows

(In alphabetical order by family surname)

• Christopher Alexander — architecture theorist, author
• Christopher Charles Benninger — founder of School of Planning, CEPT, Ahmedabad, architect and urban planner.
• William Welles Bosworth — architect and original planner of MIT's Cambridge Campus
• Gordon Bunshaft — partner in Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, modernist architect, Pritzker Prize (1988)
• Idit Harel Caperton — educational psychologist and epistemologist
• Ogden Codman, Jr. —
• Charles Correa — architect, Japan Praemium Imperiale, RIBA Royal Gold Medal
• Daniel Chester French — architect of the Lincoln Memorial
• John Desmond —
• Mantle Fielding —
• Rob Fisher — artist
• Benjamin Fry — co-creator of Processing computer language
• Cass Gilbert — architect of the United States Supreme Court Building
• Marion Mahony Griffin — co-designer of the plan for Canberra, Australia
• Saul Griffith — inventor, recipient of MacArthur Award "Genius grant"
• K. Michael Hays — architecture theorist
• Nathanael Herreshoff — naval architect-engineer, yacht designer
• Raymond Hood — architect of Rockefeller Center
• Myron Hunt —
• Mark Jarzombek — architecture historian
• Mitchell Joachim — professor and urban designer
• Piotr Kowalski — Polish sculptor
• Kevin A. Lynch — urban planner, professor and author
• John Maeda — President of Rhode Island School of Design, graphic designer, computer scientist, author
• Steve Meretzky — computer game designer
• Kathleen Merrigan — United States Deputy Secretary of Agriculture
• Benjamin Netanyahu — 9th and 13th Prime Minister of Israel
• Nicholas Negroponte — architect, technology visionary, author, founder of Media Lab, Chairman of One Laptop per Child
• William Pedersen of Kohn Pedersen Fox — American architect
• I.M.Pei — architect, RIBA Royal Gold Medal, Pritzker Prize (1983)
• Carlo Ratti — Italian architect, engineer, Director of MIT Senseable City Lab
• Casey Reas — co-creator of Processing computer language
• Mitchel Resnick — professor of learning research
• Douglas T. Ross — scientist who coined the term CAD for computer-aided design
• Arthur Rotch — American architect and activist
• Steve Russell — creator of the first videogame Spacewar!
• Dennis Shelden — co-founder of Gehry Technologies and application Digital Project
• B. Stanley Simmons —
• Louis Skidmore — founding partner of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, AIA Gold Medal
• Michael Sorkin — American architect
• Edward Durell Stone — modernist architect
• Louis Sullivan — "Prophet of Modern Architecture", recipient of AIA Gold Medal
• Tomas Taveira — Portuguese architect
• James Knox Taylor — supervisory architect of Denver Mint and Philadelphia Mint
• Robert Taylor — architect, MIT's first black graduate
• Stanley Tigerman —
• John Tsang — Financial Secretary (Hong Kong), Chair of the MC6 of the WTO
• Harry Mohr Weese — architect, historic preservation advocate
• Sarah Whiting — Dean of Rice University School of Architecture
• Noral White — author of AIA Guide to New York City, founder of City College School of Architecture

Former Faculty Members

(In alphabetical order of family name)

• Alvar Aalto — Finnish architect, recipient of AIA Gold Medal and RIBA Royal Gold Medal
• Pietro Belluschi — architect, former Dean, recipient of AIA Gold Medal and National Medal of Arts
• Muriel Cooper — influential graphic designer, first female tenured professor at the Media Lab, first art director of the MIT Press
• William Ralph Emerson — former Dean
• Buckminster Fuller — visionary architect, designer, author, invented the geodesic dome
• Sigfried Giedion — former Chairman of Harvard Graduate School of Design
• Dolores Hayden —
• Louis Kahn — architect, urban planner, Albert F. Bemis Professor of Architecture and Planning
• Bashirul Haq - architect, regional modernist, ex-professor at BUET and SUST
• Kevin A. Lynch — urban planner, professor, author
• Winy Maas — Dutch architect, member of MVRDV
• John Maeda — President of the Rhode Island School of Design, graphic designer, author
• William J. Mitchell — former Dean, prolific author, architect, urban designer who played a major role in 21st century MIT campus expansion
• Kenzo Tange — architect, AIA Gold Medal, Pritzker Prize (1987)
• William Robert Ware — founder of architecture programs at MIT and Columbia University
• William Wurster — former Dean, recipient of AIA Gold Medal, founder of architecture program at UC Berkeley

Further reading

• Paul Bennett, "Landscape Organism: The West Philadelphia Landscape Project", Landscape Architecture (March 2000): 66-71, 82.
• Campbell, Glenn, "Learning Gets Real With Service." Philadelphia Daily News, May 7, 1998.
• Steve Curwood, "Nature in the City: Redesigning the Granite Garden", Living on Earth, National Public Radio, 1993 [2]
• Anne Whiston Spirn, "Restoring Mill Creek: Landscape Literacy, Environmental Justice, and City Planning and Design", Landscape Research 30:5 (July 2005): pp. 359-377. [3]
• Anne Whiston Spirn, The Language of Landscape, Yale University Press, 1998.
• Keiko Takayama, "The West Philadelphia Landscape Project", Bio-City 17 (November 1999), pp.57-67. In Japanese.

References

1. ^ Dillon, David (2004-02-22). "Starchitecture on Campus". Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2004/02/22/starchitecture_on_campus/. Retrieved 2006-10-24. 
2. ^ Flint, Anthony (October 13, 2002). "At MIT, Going Boldly Where No Architect Has Gone Before". Boston Globe. 
3. ^ "School of Architecture and Planning: About Us". MIT. http://sap.mit.edu/. Retrieved 2007-08-13. 

External links

• Official website
• Design Advisor home page
• Lawrence Project homepage
• Lawrence CommunityWorks
• WPLP Site
• Anne Whiston Spirn

Coordinates: 42°21′54.50″N 71°05′35.58″W / 42.365139°N 71.0932167°W / 42.365139; -71.0932167