The university's architecture department gets its first signature building in the form of a castle-like red-brick storage facility, transformed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Photo © Iwan Baan.
brnw.ch/21x69Vy

In a feat of adaptive reuse, the century-old Met Warehouse has become a new home for @mitsap. “It’s almost inconceivable that this brick box, which was not designed for human habitation but to store objects, has been opened up,” says John Ochsendorf. news.mit.edu/2026/met-wareh…

Inspired by pinecones, tree bark, and seedpods, MIT researchers developed a mathematical framework for designing manufacturable, adaptive materials that mimic complex behaviors found in nature — with applications from robotics to aerospace. bit.ly/4zr0VOK

Reducing carbon emissions from residential heating
New study from LIDS Audun Botterud, @saurabhamin, Rahman Khorramfar, and collaborators identifies steps that can lower not only emissions, but also costs, across electric power and natural gas industries. bit.ly/4hdP2Bt

Congratulations to Olivia Wynne Houck (@MITarchitecture) and Natasha Ansari (@MITdusp) for being awarded the 2024 Jeanne Guillemin Prize! Learn more: cis.mit.edu/news-media/new…. Apply for 2025 CIS PhD Grants by 3/14: cis.mit.edu/fellowships-gr… @MIT_SHASS

Winter Series: IAP Student Trips 2025
Brick x Brick: Drawing A Particular Survey 🧱📐
Carrie Norman & Adriana Giorgis

IAP Series 2/3

#BrickByBrick #Tuskegee #RobertRTaylor

campus. The course explores the architectural survey as a tool for reflecting on material practices through the lenses of race, place, and preservation.

Images:
1. Tuskegee University Archives
2-3. Ragland Clay Brick Plant
4-6. Students Surveying Wilcox
7. Ty Skeiky Field Sketches
8. A Lecture by Dr. Kwesi Daniels
9. Lifting the Veil, Booker T Washington

Image Credit: Jabari Canada

Winter Series: IAP Student Trips 2025
'ECOMPOSITES' PROTOTYPING
Antón García-Abril

The IAP workshop focused on developing a prototype at scale with an architectonic material “ecomposite - (ecological composites)” to push

the capabilities of different materials and understand their combined behavior to produce new meanings. The students engaged in the creation of fluid forms in physical space with the use of recycled materials sourced from the vicinity of the testing grounds at a lab in Madrid

to foster cohesive creations. Following #datatoprototype methodologies, the students conducted collaborative analysis and discussions, while exploring the union of these various materials

Images: Antón García-Abril

Series: 1/3

#testing #ground #prototypes #composites

Mexico Studio/Practicum IAP Trip
DUSP (MCP) + MIT Architecture (SMArchS Urbanism)
Professors: eran ben joseph, Mary Anne Ocampo, Alberto Meouchi;
Teacher Assistant: Daniela Martínez Chapa

This semester-long collaboration between MIT and UNAM focuses on Bordo Poniente, Latin America’s largest urban waste landfill, as the site for innovative site planning, urban design, energy transition, and/or landscape restoration.

Students: Anna Morgan, Anna Savino, Virginia Sun, Tatiana Jiménez, Wing Man Chan, Eunice Ngai, Sam Owen, Oz Fishman, Takumi Kitamura, Thomas Hyo-min King, S M Kaikobad, Ami Kurosaki, Daniela Martinez Chapa

#studiotrip #archiurbanism #mexico #trashtotreasure

"Soft Systems of Support"
4.021 How to Design, Fall 2024
Taught by Associate Professor Skylar Tibbits & Teaching Fellow Adriana Giorgis

#howtodesign #inflatables #course #frame #prop

our environments and daily lives, working in teams of three to design using a specific mode of fabrication: inflatables. The exercise challenged students to bring attention to everyday support structures that are typically engineered to be hidden.

By working with inflatables, students confronted the limitations and possibilities of pneuma—or breath—infusing each project with a sense of life, temporality.

Images: (1-3) S Seo, A Suk, S Kang (4-6) R Adkins, N Bunyatov, R Kim (7-9) K Jiang, K Foreman, L Sun, C Dai