MIT School of Architecture + Planning

MIT School of Architecture + Planning The School of Architecture + Planning is one of five schools at the Massachusetts Institute of Techn

The School of Architecture + Planning is one of five schools at MIT. The school comprises five main divisions:

The Department of Architecture
The Department of Urban Studies + Planning
The Media Lab
The Center for Real Estate
The Program in Art, Culture and Technology

The school is also host to the Levanthal Center for Advanced Urbanism and the Center for Bits and Atoms.

09/08/2026

A new chapter for the MIT Center for Real Estate.

Walter Torous, senior lecturer in MIT DUSP and MIT Sloan School of Management, and director of the Master of Science in Real Estate Development Program, has been named executive director of the MIT Center for Real Estate, effective July 1, 2026.

In his new role, Torous will lead CRE’s teaching, consortium activities, fundraising, and major events, while continuing to direct the MSRED program. He will also oversee the center’s staff, budget, and strategic direction.

Justin Steil, professor of law and urban planning, will represent CRE as faculty chair of the Academic Curriculum Council. Together, Torous and Steil will guide CRE’s academic and strategic direction, working on the continuing evolution of the center’s academic programs and industry engagement.

As real estate undergoes significant change across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, Torous sees an opportunity to prepare the next generation of leaders for a field increasingly shaped by technology and financial markets. He plans to explore a broader MSRED curriculum drawing on architecture, civil and environmental engineering, the Media Lab, MIT Sloan, and other areas of the Institute.

Torous also plans to more fully engage CRE’s 1,200-plus alumni, drawing on the experience of leaders the center has educated over its 43 years.

His research includes the financial aspects of real estate, mortgage defaults, and the application of machine learning to changes in the U.S. commercial office market following the Covid-19 pandemic. The MSRED curriculum now includes a class on AI and real estate, with plans for additional offerings.

🔗 https://news.mit.edu/2026/walter-torous-named-executive-director-mit-center-real-estate-0901

MIT Center for Real Estate | MIT DUSP | MIT School of Architecture + Planning | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

On Tuesday morning (Sept. 8), the MIT School of Architecture and Planning is on the move — literally.Join us for The Liv...
09/06/2026

On Tuesday morning (Sept. 8), the MIT School of Architecture and Planning is on the move — literally.

Join us for The Living Bucentaur, a joyful procession on MIT’s campus marking SA+P’s move into its new home in the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse (the MET). Designed by Professor Azra Akšamija and students, the procession is being brought to life by members of the entire school community.

What’s a Bucentaur? A ceremonial Venetian vessel recreated for a pageant staged by MIT in 1916 to celebrate the Institute’s move from Boston to Cambridge. 110 years later, we’re bringing the Bucentaur back — this time, it will be made out of people.

The procession will bring together the school’s community, its work, and its history for a collective journey to the MET, a century-old Cambridge landmark newly transformed into a home for architecture, design, and planning at MIT.

For weeks, faculty, students and staff of SA+P have been creating the costumes and props that will be worn and carried that day.

We’ll begin walking at approximately 9:45 am on Tuesday, September 8. Everyone is welcome to watch and cheer the procession along the route.

📆 Tuesday, September 8 | 9:45 am
📍 Building 7 → the MET, passing the Student Center
Free and open to the public
📷 archival image courtesy of the MIT Museum
🔗 https://calendar.mit.edu/event/sap-procession-the-living-bucentaur

MIT School of Architecture + Planning | MIT Alumni Association | MIT Media Lab | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | MIT Department of Architecture | MIT DUSP | Art, Culture, and Technology program at MIT

The Metropolitan Storage Warehouse, a fortress-like, five-story building with 2-foot-thick brick walls and 195,000 squar...
09/04/2026

The Metropolitan Storage Warehouse, a fortress-like, five-story building with 2-foot-thick brick walls and 195,000 square feet of interior space, has been transformed into a new home for MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, with larger studios, work areas, an auditorium, and galleries.

Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), the transformation works with the MET Warehouse’s original structure while introducing new ways to bring light, movement, and collaboration into the building. Four sections of the north façade were replaced with floor-to-ceiling glass, bringing natural light into the studios, while each floor features its own version of an Infinite Corridor.

Large design studios now occupy the center of the building, surrounded by offices, seminar rooms, teaching spaces, and research areas. Large stairs connect the floors, creating opportunities for exchange and interaction. The building itself has also become a teaching tool, with structural features revealed during construction left visible as part of what project leaders describe as a “living laboratory.”

The project reflects a broader approach to adaptive reuse: adapting a historic structure for a new generation of design education, research, and collaboration.

https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-architects-turned-hulking-brick-box-newest-academic-hub-0904

📷️ Images courtesy of Iwan Baan.

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08/27/2026

🔨 Installation has officially kicked off for "Occupancy" — the MET Commons' inaugural all-school exhibition!

"Occupancy" brings together work from 20+ faculty, students, fellows, and affiliates from across SA+P, all exploring one question: what does it mean to inhabit a new space? Organized around five themes (Ongoing Relations; Footprints; Labor and Trades; Migratory Desires; Polymaths) the exhibition celebrates the opening of the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse (the MET).

Pictured are works-in-progress on "Unit 402" a hand-drawn mural by Assistant Professor Carrie Norman and MArch students Zaynab Altaib and Mara Jovanovic. Their work imagines the X-rayed outlines of objects that were stored at the MET Warehouse when the building served as a storage facility for over a century. The resulting storage unit is at a 1:1 scale and tells stories of class, culture, society, and human behavior. The contrast between the technical precision and the imagined value of each object invites the viewer to think about where and why we bond with objects, and how they anchor us, home and away.

Occupancy was produced collaboratively through an open call to the SA+P community, led by the MET Commons Committee, with curatorial guidance and groundwork by Caroline A. Jones, SA+P Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives, and Mehveş Lelic, Head of Exhibitions and Programs for the MET Commons. Polymaths was produced by the Morningside Academy for Design (MAD) and curated by Roi Salgueiro Barrio.

📍 Come see it in person at the MET Open House & Future Fest — Saturday, October 3. "Occupancy" will be on view through the Fall Semester.

MIT School of Architecture + Planning | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | MIT Department of Architecture

Nearly 1 billion people worldwide live in informal settlements — places that are often massive, but largely invisible to...
08/24/2026

Nearly 1 billion people worldwide live in informal settlements — places that are often massive, but largely invisible to traditional mapping technologies.

Favelas 4D, a project by Fabio Duarte at the MIT Senseable City Lab, uses 3D laser scanning to analyze the morphology of Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro’s largest favela.

By making informal urban form visible in four dimensions, the project asks how new tools can help cities better understand places that conventional maps often miss — and, in turn, support more inclusive approaches to planning and urban rights.

The work reflects the Senseable City Lab’s broader mission to develop and deploy tools for learning about cities through design and science.

🔗 Explore Favelas 4D via the MIT Senseable City Lab: https://senseable.mit.edu/favelas/

📷 Screenshots of the project website

MIT DUSP | MIT Senseable City Lab

A new exhibition presented by MIT Libraries at the Institute's Maihaugen Gallery explores the history of Howe, Manning &...
08/22/2026

A new exhibition presented by MIT Libraries at the Institute's Maihaugen Gallery explores the history of Howe, Manning & Almy, the first-known all-women architecture firm in Massachusetts, and its deep connections to MIT.

Lois Lilley Howe was one of the first women to study architecture at MIT, graduating in 1890. She established her own practice in 1900 and was later joined by fellow MIT alumnae Eleanor Manning and Mary Almy. Together, the architects completed more than 900 commissions.

“Howe, Manning & Almy: Boston’s First All-Woman Firm and the Changing Face of Architecture” looks at the role MIT’s architecture program played in supporting women in the field beginning in the 1890s, the firm’s influence on the built environment of Cambridge, and its approaches to renovation and reuse.

Boston’s First All-Woman Firm and the Changing Face of Architecture
📍 Maihaugen Gallery, Building 14N-130, MIT
📅 On view through May 27, 2027

https://libraries.mit.edu/exhibits/exhibit/howe-manning-almy/

Images: Images: Archival photographs, architectural drawings, and artwork related to Howe, Manning & Almy. MIT Museum and MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections, MIT Libraries

MIT Libraries | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | MIT Department of Architecture | MIT School of Architecture + Planning

08/12/2026

The Metropolitan Storage Warehouse opens as the new home of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning.

A Cambridge landmark for more than a century, the massive brick storage facility has been transformed into a light-filled center for teaching, research, and public engagement. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in close collaboration with MIT and SA+P, the MET brings together the Department of Architecture, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism, and MIT Morningside Academy for Design.

“I think it sends a very good message that this vanguard school of architecture, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is moving into a historic building and adapting it for the future,” says SA+P Dean Hashim Sarkis. “This is a big statement on the part of MIT.”

The SA+P community is beginning its transition into the MET ahead of the new academic year. In October, the doors will open more widely for the MET’s official public opening as part of MIT Future Fest on October 3.

Read more about the transformation of the MET Warehouse in MIT News.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | MIT School of Architecture + Planning | MIT Department of Architecture | MIT DUSP

Meet the 2026 MIT Morningside Academy for Design Fellows.Each year, MAD supports MIT graduate students pursuing design r...
07/31/2026

Meet the 2026 MIT Morningside Academy for Design Fellows.

Each year, MAD supports MIT graduate students pursuing design research that crosses disciplinary boundaries. This year's ten fellows bring together work spanning AI and live musical performance, urban climate resilience in informal settlements, adaptive construction materials, soft robotics and accessibility, climate-responsive architecture, glass fabrication for lunar and terrestrial applications, affective engineering, civic technology, metamaterials, and robotics.

The 2026 cohort:

- Stephen Brade, EECS, designing AI systems that improvise alongside jazz musicians in live performance.
- Temuulen Enkhbat, Urban Studies and Planning, transforming underserved urban spaces in Ulaanbaatar through community co-design and youth engagement.
- Yuki Gray, Architecture, exploring material and form through traditional construction and the invention of everyday materials.
- Thomas Hyo-min King, Architecture and City Planning, examining the political ecology of building technologies and their role in meaningful climate action.
- Anita Lin, Architectural Studies, prototyping complex soft robotic and pneumatic systems through accessible fabrication methods.
- Daniel Massimino, Mechanical Engineering, developing glass 3D printing to produce construction materials on the Moon and from recycled glass on Earth.
- Maggie Nelson, Materials Science and Engineering, advancing affective engineering in which technical performance and human experience are inseparable design criteria.
- Joseph Mulenga Ntaimo, Mechanical Engineering, designing robotics and controls systems with a focus on inspiring students to make.
- Cassandra Overney, MIT Media Lab, building AI-powered platforms that strengthen accountability between civic institutions and the communities they serve.
- Ling Xu, Mechanical Engineering, investigating how the mechanics of entangled matter can inform the design of tunable, functional metamaterials.

🔗 More about the cohort: https://design.mit.edu/news/introducing-the-2026-mad-design-fellows

Congratulations to Sanjana Paul, doctoral student in MIT DUSP, on being selected as a 2026–2027 GE Vernova Graduate Fell...
07/29/2026

Congratulations to Sanjana Paul, doctoral student in MIT DUSP, on being selected as a 2026–2027 GE Vernova Graduate Fellow.

Established through the MIT–GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance, the fellowship supports MIT graduate students pursuing research that advances solutions for the global energy transition. Paul's research focuses on data centers, examining the rapidly expanding infrastructure behind digital technologies through questions of energy, governance, and responsible deployment.

Paul works with the MIT Science Impact Collaborative, directed by Professor Lawrence Susskind, which brings together research, education, and public service to advance public-interest technology and support a just energy transition. At the center of that work is a fundamental question: how can emerging technologies and infrastructure systems be developed in ways that incorporate community perspectives and public priorities.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | MIT School of Architecture + Planning

📙 How can design help create neighborhoods where more people feel they belong?A new open-access book co-edited by Lawren...
07/27/2026

📙 How can design help create neighborhoods where more people feel they belong?

A new open-access book co-edited by Lawrence J. Vale, Ford Professor of Urban Design and Planning in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and associate dean of the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P), and Tali Hatuka of Tel Aviv University explores how the built environment can communicate welcome and inclusion.

“Designing Signals of Inclusion: A Framework for Fostering Shared Neighborhoods” examines the sensory gestures, spatial elements, and planning approaches that shape shared urban life — with case studies from cities around the world.

Developed following a Bemis-funded workshop at MIT, the volume includes contributions from several MIT DUSP and SA+P alumni and offers a toolkit for advancing inclusive design practices at the neighborhood scale.

The book is available now as a free open-access download through Routledge.

🔗 Read more: https://www.routledge.com/Designing-Signals-of-Inclusion-A-Framework-for-Fostering-Shared-Neighborhoods/Hatuka-Vale/p/book/9781041163084

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | MIT School of Architecture + Planning

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