Title: "A Visual Approach for Exploring Computational Design", using a java program developed for teaching basic (two-dimensional) shape grammars.

Shaper2D (version 2.0)

Thesis (.pdf format)
Thesis Proposal (.pdf format)
Thesis Framework (.pdf format)

4.184 (Teaching Assistant)

Professor Terry Knight
Professor William Mitchell
Gabriela Celani

MIT/Miyagi Remote Collaborative Workshop: Computational Design for Housing

This is a hands-on, 9-session workshop to learn about Remote Collaboration and Design Computation. Students will explore the process of going from shape grammars to actual buildings, as a productive design methodology. MIT students will work with Japanese students and exchange design ideas with them using a virtual workspace.

4.226

Professor Terry Knight

Computational Design II: Theory and Applications

This course introduces advanced topics in shape grammar theory and applications. Generalizations of the shape grammar formalism that allow greater flexibility or alternative ways of creating and representing designs are discussed. These include parametric grammars and parametric design, parallel grammars, and color grammars. The computational and expressive powers of shape grammars are discussed and contrasted with other computational design systems.

MAS.712 (MIT Media Lab)

Professor Bakhtiar Mikhak
Professor Mitchel Resnick

Class work

Technological Tools for Learning: How to Learn (Almost) Anything

"The digital revolution is both necessitating and facilitating radical changes in how and what we learn. To flourish in today's rapidly-changing world, people must continue to learn all the time -- throughout the day, throughout their lives. At the same time, new technologies make possible new approaches to learning, new contexts for learning, new tools to support learning, and new ideas of what can be learned.

In this course, we will be exploring new opportunities for learning in the digital age, with special focus on what can be learned through immersive, hands-on activities. Students will participate in (and reflect on) a variety of learning situations, including: learning from a friend, teaching something to a friend, participating in a several-hour workshop, and learning on your own. As a final project, students will develop new workshops (using Media Lab technologies), iteratively run and refine the workshops, and analyze how and what the workshop participants learn."

4.201

Professor Terry Knight

Computational Design I

This subject introduces a computational approach to designing. Shape grammars are used to design or "compute" architectural or other spatial forms. They provide a complement and alternative to traditional approaches to designing.

4.288

Professor Edith Ackermann

Design Inquiry and Research Methods

Seminar about design, design inquiry and research methodologies in architectural design and design technology. The seminar considers the media in which design and research on design may be pursued, presented and published.

6.001

Professor Joel Moses
Professor Eric Grimson

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

Control of complexity in large programming systems. 1) Building abstractions: computational processes; higher-order procedures; compound data; data abstractions. 2) Controlling interactions: generic operations; self-describing data; message passing; streams and infinite data structures; object-oriented programming. 3) Meta-linguistic abstraction: interpretation of programming languages; machine model; compilation; embedded languages.

4.185

Architectural Design Workshop: Using Siza's Malagueira Grammars in Collaborative Design

This workshop was an intensive four week charrette conducted in collaboration with Miyagi University in Sendai, Japan. Students explored issues in shape grammars, rapid prototyping, and remote collaborative design. Students were introduced to concepts in shape grammars through the use of a grammar developed for Siza's Malagueira houses. Teams of participants designed a housing block composed of units, for a given set of clients, both by following the grammar rules and by changing these rules. Rapid prototyping techniques were used in the process of design. The project required students at MIT and Miyagi University to work collaboratively through the Web and videoconferencing technologies.

4.208

Final Project

Independent Study: Algorithmic Design and Java Programming

Developed the initial prototype for Shaper2D.

4.285

Dean William Mitchell
Daniel Greenwood

Electronic Commerce Architecture Project (ECAP)

Designing Better Systems Based on Business, Policy and Social Goals This seminar will explore the idea of a virtual collaborative space for the conduct of electronic transactions and e-commerce. The seminar will examine the special design and technical issues associated with using networks to facilitate working, learning, trading, self-governance and access to health care.

4.290

Professor William Porter
Professor Edith Ackermann

Work

Pre-Thesis Preparation for SMArchS

How research can enrich an understanding of design as an activity situated in particular cultures and times, and as an activity that necessarily embeds the individual designer as activist and participant. Underlining the importance of finding a rigorous framework for the testing of ideas.

GSD.7220 (Harvard GSD)

Professor Jef Huang

Assignment 1
Assignment 4

Collaborative Design

This seminar focused on issues of Internet-based design collaboration and business-to-business e-commerce in the building industry, including knowledge networking, distributed brainstorming, online communities and portals, electronic marketplaces, virtual offices, media spaces, and the convergence of physical and virtual architectures.

4.208

Mark Tapia

Interactive Programming in Java

4.221

Professor Roy Strickland

Final Paper

Architecture Studies Faculty Colloquium

4.273

Professor William Porter
Professor Edith Ackermann

Work

MAS.963 (MIT Media Lab)

Professor Judith Donath

Assignments
Final Project

Social Visualization

"Millions of people are on-line today and the number is rapidly growing - yet this virtual crowd is often invisible. In this course we will examine ways of visualizing people, their activities and their interactions. Students will study the cognitive and cultural basis for social visualization through readings drawn from sociology, psychology and interface design and they will explore new ways of depicting virtual crowds and mapping electronic spaces through a series of design exercises."