Department of Architecture

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Department of Architecture

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The Department of Architecture conceives of architecture as a discipline as well as a profession. Five semi-autonomous, graduate degree–granting "discipline groups" provide an architectural education that is as complex as the field itself. Each discipline group is supported by the other four, and all five contribute to a mutual enterprise. Students learn ways of working that draw upon the whole range of resources that architecture affords in finding and defining the expansive problems of building, as well as in proposing effective solutions. The groups are Architectural Design; Building Technology; Computation; History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art (HTC); and Visual Arts.

In the several disciplines of the department, there is a substantial body of research activity. Moreover, the department's setting within MIT permits greater depth in such technical areas as computation, new modes of design and production, materials, structure, and energy as well as in the arts, humanities and area studies. The department builds on, and contributes to, such valuable institutional commitments.

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The department offers six degree programs: the Bachelor of Science in Art and Design, Master of Architecture, Master of Science in Architecture Studies, Master of Science in Building Technology, Master of Science in Visual Studies, and the Doctor of Philosophy.

In the United States, most state registration boards require a degree from an accredited professional degree program as a prerequisite for licensure. The National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), which is the sole agency authorized to accredit US professional degree programs in architecture, recognizes three types of degrees—the Bachelor of Architecture, Master of Architecture, and Doctor of Architecture. A program may be granted a five-year, three-year, or two-year term of accreditation, depending on its degree of conformance with established educational standards.

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Master's degree programs may consist of a preprofessional undergraduate degree and a professional graduate degree, which, when earned sequentially, comprise an accredited professional education. However, the preprofessional degree is not, by itself, recognized as an accredited degree.

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The Department of Architecture offers the MArch degree in programs ranging from two to three and one-half years. These professional degrees are structured to educate those who aspire to registration and licensure as architects.

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The undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Art and Design is a preprofessional degree program. It is useful for those wishing a foundation in the field of architecture as preparation for either continued education in a professional degree program or for employment options in architecturally related fields.

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Architectural Design is taught from a broad range of perspectives linking several common concerns: site and context, use and form, building methods and materials, and the role of the architect. Context is considered in terms of existing and historical physical form (natural and constructed) and sociological patterns of use. The architect is seen less as the sole creator of a completed building than as a participant with others in the shaping of our physical environment.

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Diverse architectural design studios are offered. After establishing a basis in a core curriculum, the focus shifts to choices among design projects of ascending complexity. Introductory studios provide a basic architectural design background and help undergraduates decide whether they want to continue in architecture. Entering graduate students have a basic studio crafted for their needs. The intermediate studios provide a range of experiences of form-making in which individual faculty present their particular ways of exploring a design issue. The advanced studios give graduate students the opportunity to sharpen their skills and to develop their own attitudes of form-making. In their theses, students carry through a project of their own from concept through theory and design to a final product.

Computer resources for educational purposes are distributed in the laboratories and studios of the department and overseen by the staff of the Computer Resource Office. Students are required to learn the fundamentals of computer-aided visualization. Other computation subjects or studio work permit further experimentation with modeling techniques, graphic representations, design methods, technical analysis, prototyping, and assistance with the design process. Students may also participate in research work in these areas.

The work of the Architectural Design faculty extends beyond the studio. Workshops, lectures, seminars, and research engage the built environment, the forces that mold it, and the design process itself. The work of the faculty covers such areas as large-scale physical settings, environmental programming, the form and evaluation of cities, computation and architecture, architectural theory and design methodology, decision-making procedures in design, housing and settlement forms in developing countries, self-help processes, and design in nonwestern cultures. Central to these topics is the role of the user as an active force in the development of environments and the role of the designer as an agent in the process of human habitation.

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This group offers a concentration to undergraduates in Course 4 as well as Master of Architecture and Master of Science in Architecture Studies degrees.

Building Technology includes teaching and applications of the fundamentals of technology as well as research in technology for the next generation of buildings. Topics include building structures, materials, industrialized building systems, appropriate technology for developing countries, sustainable design, new indoor air quality technologies, and development of computational methods for research and design through visualization of building performance in its many aspects. Subjects include fundamentals of technology, applications to buildings, laboratories, and independent research projects. For example, students may study problems of energy resources and technologies and use this knowledge to design physical environments or buildings for the next decade that embody current research concepts. Research facilities include the Building Technology Laboratory, a full-scale indoor environmental chamber, as well as computer work stations. Research facilities of other departments such as Mechanical and Civil and Environmental Engineering are also used in joint research projects.

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This group offers a concentration to undergraduates in Course 4 as well as a Master of Science in Building Technology (SMBT) and a doctoral degree with emphasis on building technology.

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The Computation group teaches diverse subjects dealing with theory, history, methods, and applications of computation and digital technology. The aim is to cover the many facets of a rapidly changing and growing area with in-depth, agenda-setting research and teaching. Topics taught cover the description, generation, and construction of architectural and urban form and other designed artifacts using computational means, including computer visualization, rendering, and modeling; generative theories, strategies, and software for design synthesis and analysis; and digital fabrication and construction processes and technologies. Students are encouraged to acquire both the technical skills and the theoretical and conceptual foundations to rethink and challenge the limits of current design processes and practices, and to consider the social and cultural implications of their positions.

The Computation group offers subjects at the graduate and undergraduate levels. It is responsible for a concentration in the Master of Science in Architecture Studies (SMArchS) program, and for a doctoral program. SMArchS and PhD students are encouraged to take subjects in other discipline areas as a means to explore and develop their interests.

The History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art group teaches subjects dealing with the history of art and architecture. Offerings range in content and method. Some study questions internal to the discipline of architecture, while others seek contexts in social, political, and intellectual history. Some are motivated by questions derived from the problems of contemporary practice. Others take their organization from a body of historical material investigated in ways that develop skills of analysis applicable to a wide range of topics. The group teaches subjects from the Renaissance forward in time, focusing on materials that are both abstract and concrete, with scales that range from the architectural drawing to the urban environment. There is a special emphasis on topics of modern art and architecture.

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HTC offers a concentration to undergraduates in Course 4 and a HASS concentration and minor in the history of architecture to all MIT undergraduates. There is a doctoral program with emphasis on the history, theory, and criticism of art and architecture, and students in the Master of Science in Architecture Studies program may choose to concentrate in HTC.

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The Visual Arts group offers a diverse range of subjects in studio practice. Emphasis is placed on the development of the student's ideas in relation to experimental media. Discussion in contemporary art and theory complements studio production.

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This group offers a concentration to undergraduates in Course 4 and a HASS concentration in the visual arts to all undergraduates. It also offers a graduate major leading to a Master of Science in Visual Studies. Undergraduate and graduate subjects are also offered to students from other disciplines who would like to experiment in the visual arts.

More information about the Department of Architecture and its programs can be found on the department's home page. The URL is http://architecture.mit.edu/.