This studio will investigate the social, programmatic, tectonic and phenomenological performance and character of a student gathering place on the MIT campus. Whether it is simply for socializing or for more specific events, the student gathering place will serve as a refuge from the vigorous educational environment of the Institute, and it will reinforce a critical sense of "place" through the almost logical organization of its program. The place will foster a casual discovery of "being": a reflection upon the student's own existence based upon participation in group events and an intellectual attitude toward acting. To create a space that inspires, rather than imposes: such a discovery is the foremost challenge of this studio.

The project for this studio is to design a demonstration project for a site near the French Quarter in New Orleans. The objectives of the project are the following:

To design more intense housing, community, educational and commercial facilities in four to six story buildings.
To explore the "space between" buildings as a way of designing and shaping objects.
To design at three scales - dwelling, cluster and overall.
To design dwellings where the owners may be able to help build and gain a skill for employment.
To provide/design facilities that can help the residents to gain education and skills.

This subject introduces skills needed to build within a landscape establishing continuities between the built and natural world. Students learn to build appropriately through analysis of landscape and climate for a chosen site, and to conceptualize design decisions through drawings and models.
This class was taught concurrently with course 4.125A. Some of the assignments are the same, some are different, and the sites for the final project are different. But since they were taught in tandem, it would be useful to look at both together.

This subject introduces skills needed to build within a landscape establishing continuities between the built and natural world. Students learn to build appropriately through analysis of landscape and climate for a chosen site, and to conceptualize design decisions through drawings and models.
This class was taught concurrently with 4.125B. Some of the assignments are the same, some are different, and the sites for the final project are different. But since they were taught in tandem, it would be useful to look at both together.

This is the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Urban Design Studio, which is a joint program between the MIT and Tsinghua University Schools of Architecture and Planning. The goal of the studio is to foster international cooperation through the undertaking of a joint urban design and planning initiative in the city of Beijing involving important, often controversial, sites and projects. Since 1995, almost 250 MIT and Tsinghua University students and faculty have participated in this annual studio, making it one of the most successful and enduring international academic programs between China and the U.S. It has received the Irwin Sizer Award from MIT for outstanding innovation in education. The studio takes place over five weeks in June and July including several weeks in residence at Tsinghua University and two brief study tours to locations and projects that inform the work. It will include 18-20 MIT and 10-15 Tsinghua Architecture and Planning students. The Beijing City Planning Institute, responsible for strategic planning in the city, participates in the studio as the client.

Students will play a game called "Colorful Vocabulary". Students will practice describing people, places, and items using a game. This will teach students how to describe multiple topics using different vocabulary words.

In this lab, students will converse with their partners to make a plan to meet. The students will ask their partners when they are able to meet and where they would like to meet. Students will learn about days of the week, time, and making plans with other people. 

This is a project to assist in the design, drawing, modeling and hopefully constructing of a small Community Children's Center near Guayaquil, Ecuador. For the last year, Nicki Lehrer, from MIT's 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.

In this activity, students will practice describing their "ideal" French plaza. Students will also take a quiz relating to directions and will practice giving directions to each other.

In this activity, students will practice giving directions and observing public plazas from French speaking countries.

In this activity, students will practice talking about transportation and giving directions. Students will also practice asking questions

This activity will help students practice initiating conversations in your language with someone. They will use phrases and vocabulary that will help them gather information from a person as well as giving information about themselves.

What is a city? What shapes it? How does its history influence future development? How do physical form and institutions vary from city to city and how are these differences significant? How are cities changing and what is their future? This course will explore these and other questions, with emphasis upon twentieth-century American cities. A major focus will be on the physical form of cities—from downtown and inner-city to suburb and edge city—and the processes that shape them.

These questions and more are explored through lectures, readings, workshops, field trips, and analysis of particular places, with the city itself as a primary text. In light of the 2016 centennial of MIT’s move from Boston to Cambridge, the 2015 iteration of the course focused on MIT’s original campus in Boston’s Back Bay, and the university’s current neighborhood in Cambridge. Short field assignments, culminating in a final project, will provide students opportunities to use, develop, and refine new skills in “reading” the city.

Class website: The Once & Future City
What is a city? What shapes it? How does its history influence future development? How do physical form and institutions vary from city to city and how are these differences significant? How are cities changing and what is their future? This course will explore these and other questions, with emphasis upon twentieth-century American cities. A major focus will be on the physical form of cities—from downtown and inner-city to suburb and edge city—and the processes that shape them.
These questions and more are explored through lectures, readings, workshops, field trips, and analysis of particular places, with the city itself as a primary text. In light of the 2016 centennial of MIT's move from Boston to Cambridge, the 2015 iteration of the course focused on MIT's original campus in Boston's Back Bay, and the university's current neighborhood in Cambridge. Short field assignments, culminating in a final project, will provide students opportunities to use, develop, and refine new skills in "reading" the city.

Teaching Prepositions of Place – in, at, onThis lesson plan is part of an eight-part series and it discusses how to use prepositions with place. It starts with an explanation and moves into communicative activities that give students plenty of time to practice. You’ll also cover how to use prepositions when discussing vehicles (as noted in the example above). These lesson plans are guaranteed to clear up any questions students have regarding how to use these tricky words! With both, it’s important to note that using in,at and on with time and place are totally different,students should treat them as new prepositions with each lesson.If you want additional lesson plans and support, including teachers’ notes, be sure to register for a free Off2Class account.

This course explores photography as a disciplined way of seeing or investigating urban landscapes, and expressing ideas. Readings, observations, and photographs form the basis of discussions on light, detail, place, poetics, narrative, and how photography can inform design and planning.
The current version of the class website for the course can be found here: Sensing Place: Photography as Inquiry.

This course explores photography as a disciplined way of seeing, of investigating landscapes and expressing ideas. Readings, observations, and photographs form the basis of discussions on landscape, light, significant detail, place, poetics, narrative, and how photography can inform design and planning, among other issues.
The class website can be found here: Sites in Sight: Photography as Inquiry.

This workshop explores how designers might become as sensitive to space as they are to objects. Through a number of projects and precedent studies, architectural design is studied in relation to the Space Between. The design process is studied in reverse, considering space first and objects second. This is not to imply that objects are not important, but rather that space is equally important.

Students will play a game called "Colorful Vocabulary". Students will practice describing people, places, and items using a game. This will teach students how to describe multiple topics using different vocabulary words.

The transition from high school and home to college and a new living environment can be a fascinating and interesting time, made all the more challenging and interesting by being at MIT. More than recording the first semester through a series of snapshots, this freshman seminar will attempt to teach photography as a method of seeing and a tool for better understanding new surroundings. Over the course of the semester, students will develop a body of work through a series of assignments, and then attempt to describe the conditions and emotions of their new environment in a cohesive final presentation.