11.123 | Spring 2014 | Undergraduate

Big Plans and Mega-Urban Landscapes

Calendar

LEC # TOPICS KEY DATES
1 “The City and the Storm” - Megacities, Superstorms, and Other Big Problems  
2

Present Day Paradox - “Smart Cities” vs. Global Crises

How are we so connected, yet so at risk? And, Why plan? Why plan big?

 
3

Boston Redevelopment Authority Field Trip

Visit to Boston planning office, meet with Prataap Patrose, Deputy Director

 
4

Library Research on Big Plans

Presentation by Peter Cohn, MIT Libraries

How to (Read a) Plan

Assignment 1 Out
5

Big Plans Past, Present, …

And what is the future big plan?

 
6

Rethinking: No Boundaries (Scale)

Exploding the city – what is urban anyway? / the “urban age”?

 
7 Workshop: Diagramming and CS Suite 1 (Illustrator Tutorial, available in Assignments page)  
8

Rethinking: No Boundaries (Disciplines)

What / where / how is the city? Science, economics, sociology, art, and grassroots activism discuss the urban

Trans-disciplinary Urbanism

 
9 Group work / “Desk Crits”  
10 Assignment 1 Project Presentations Assignment 1 Due
11

Assignment 1 Project Presentations (cont.)

Discussions on Post-Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Initiatives

Assignment 2 assigned
12 How to Read a Photograph: Initial Data Collection  
13 Workshop: CS Suite 2 (Photoshop Tutorial, available in Assignments page)
Assignment 2 Initial Deliverables Due
14

Re-envision: New Urban Form

Guest Lecture – Alan Berger, MIT DUSP

 
15 Assignment 2 Initial Discussion Assignment 2 Report Due Before Lecture
16

Rethinking: The “Just” City?

Social justice and the city?

Guest Discussant – Karilyn Crockett, MLK Visiting Scholar, MIT

 
17 Assignment 2 Presentation & Discussions Assignment 3 Out
18 Walking Tour of Southwest Corridor, with Tunney Lee, Prof Emeritus, MIT.  
19

Assignment 3 Preliminary Discussion

Local design at the scale of the global

Assignment 3 Initial Deliverables Due
20

Work on draft final project presentations

Workshop: In Design Tutorial (available in assignments page)

 
21

Rethinking: No Boundaries (“Worlding”)

Local design at the scale of the global

 
22 Final Project Draft Presentations  
23

Re-envision: Post-Disaster Planning

Guest Lecture – Miho Mazereeuw, MIT Architecture

Assignment 3 Final Deliverables Due
24 Group work  
25 Final Project Presentations  
26 Final Project Presentations (cont.) Individual essay due 4 days after lecture

Course Info

Instructor
As Taught In
Spring 2014
Learning Resource Types
Presentation Assignments
Written Assignments