MIT: The Latest Architecture and News

QS, Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, has announced the annual list of the top universities to study Architecture and the Built Environment in the year 2024. The ranking evaluates over 1,500 institutions from over 100 locations. The evaluation system has been updated this year to include new metrics such as sustainability, employment outcomes, and international research networks.

The top three contenders, the Bartlett School of Architecture, MIT, and Delft UT, have maintained their ranking from 2023, with ETH Zurich showing a slight decrease from an equal third position to the fourth. In the sixth position, Harvard University stands out as the top university for employer reputation in this subject. Among the top 10 universities, Politecnico di Milano had the greatest advancement in rankings, moving from the 10th position last year to the 7th.

The annual BAM ranking of International Master’s Programs in Architecture aims to assist architects and students in identifying the top international Master’s programs globally. Assessing programs from various leading architecture schools, it evaluates degrees through a comparative approach developed by a panel of 15 professors and international experts. For this edition, different Architecture and Built Environment programs have been selected to be part of the BAM Ranking 2023, and 18 Universities worldwide were featured in the 2023 edition of the BAM Ranking.

Similar to the past few years, Harvard University, Columbia University, and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid maintained their position at the top of the ranking. MIT has made the list with two programs, one focused on urbanism and the other on design. Moreover, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, made the list with their English Program for Master in Architecture. The ranking also features TUDelft (Netherlands), TUM (Munich), and TUBerlin (Berlin) in Europe.

Videos

The European Cultural Centre (ECC), a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering cultural exchanges on an international scale, showcased its sixth edition of the Time Space Existence architecture exhibition alongside this year's Venice Architecture Biennale. The 2023 installment was centered on the theme of sustainability in its various forms, encompassing subjects related to migration, digital building technologies and material research, future urban developments, and housing, bringing together architects, designers, artists, academics, and photographers from 52 different countries.

Through diverse mediums and perspectives, participants have explored the philosophical concepts of Time, Space, and Existence. With a total of 217 projects on display, the exhibition is held at Palazzo Bembo, Palazzo Mora, and the Marinaressa Gardens in Venice, throughout the six-month duration of the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, running from May 20th to November 26th, 2023. Focusing also on emerging young architects, designers, and researchers, the 2023 edition of the exhibition is a proactive endeavor to reimagine alternative lifestyles and reconceptualize architecture within the contemporary landscape.

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As farmers water crops by moonlight, undocumented children head to school and villagers scan the sky for surveillance airplanes—these are glimpses of a complex culture that emerges in south Lebanon after dark. In collecting some of these nightly practices, Mohamad Nahleh—lecturer in architecture and urbanism at MIT—journeyed across the landscapes of Jabal ‘Amil hoping to build a new alliance between architecture and the night. His "Path of Nightrise" research has turned into a construction to revive a forgotten river path and was published by Places Journal. The interview with Nahleh argues for a new nocturnal imagination in design and reveals, not only how the night has changed in Lebanon over time, but also how he has changed alongside it.

Norman Foster Foundation and Arup office in Berlin schemed a master plan for Kharkiv, Ukraine, to guide future urban regulations and prepare professionals for the city's reconstruction. In collaboration with a local advisory board, the outline is defined by a series of pilot projects to develop aspects such as heritage, infrastructure, and rivers. The initiative follows a request from the Kharkiv Mayor to the Foster Foundation through the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, weeks after the Ukraine War started in February 2022.

In a letter published on MIT's School of Architecture and Planning’s website, 16 deans from prominent architecture schools in the U.S, explain their position to stop participating in the annual survey that ranks universities. "Design education is not a popularity contest. Although generally our schools have been highly ranked in past DesignIntelligence reports and benefitted from the attention, we believe that it is time to stop participating", declares the statement signed by scholars, deans, and department chairs of MIT, Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Yale, Rice, and UCLA, to name a few.

Stating clearly their position to boycott future ranking, the decision came after two years of informal discussions where the methodologies used behind these academic surveys were questioned, as well as their consequences. In fact, the letter adds that "however well-intentioned they may be, we believe that the DI rankings have the potential to create a disservice to the public". 

In order to help architects and students to get to know the best International Master’s available in the world, BAM’s annual ranking compares and evaluates programs, from the best schools of architecture, through a comparative and objective methodology, developed by 13 international experts. For the 2022 edition, different Master’s Degree Programs from the recent QS Ranking – Architecture / Built Environment have been selected to take part in BAM’s Ranking.

Similar to previous years, in 2022, Harvard and Columbia maintained their leading positions in first and second place. MIT made a comeback to the list with two master's programs, in the fourth position, the Master of Science in Architecture Studies in Urbanism (SMArch Urbanism), and in the sixth position, the Master of Science in Architecture Studies in Design (SMArchS Design). Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and ETH Zurich were both ranked third, offering the best master’s program in Europe. Pontificia Universidad Católica in Chile occupied the 18th position, presenting a top master's degree in South America, followed closely in the 20th position by the Universidade de São Paulo.

Architect Cino Zucchi (b. 1955) grew up and practices in Milan, Italy. He was trained at MIT in Cambridge and the Politecnico di Milano, but claims to be largely self-taught, although influenced by such of his countrymen as Aldo Rossi and Manfredo Tafuri. He is internationally known for diverse projects across Europe. Many are both abstracted and contextual residential complexes in Italy, particularly in Milan, Bologna, Parma, Ravenna, and, most notably, in Venice. Zucchi’s D residential building in Giudecca, attracted international attention and praise when it was completed in 2003. I met Cino Zucchi last year during the Venice Architecture Biennale; that meeting led to an extensive interview that we recently engaged in over Zoom between New York and the architect’s sunlight and books-filled Milan studio.

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Funded by Andrew W. Mellon and the National Endowment for the Humanities foundations as part of the Open Book Program, a collection of classic books, published between 1964 and 1998 are now available online as open access e-books through the MIT Press Open Architecture and Urban Studies book collection.

Every year in March, the QS World University Rankings reveal the top universities to study each profession, covering 51 different subjects. Grading schools based on academic reputation, employer reputation, and research impact, the annual QS- Quacquarelli Symonds has unveiled that for the second year in a row, in the 2021 Architecture/ Built Environment division, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is still in the first position.

The city of Laval, Québec’s 3rd largest city, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Senseable City Lab (SCL) have released six preliminary concepts exploring the “park of the future”. Investigating new experiences, the publication entitled “Senseable City Guide to Laval” is part of an on-going work “to develop a human-centered, innovative and resilient downtown area” located in the Carré Laval, a former quarry to be transformed into a mixed-use innovation district.

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