If you want to make the world a better place, you have to think about the world as a place.
At the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, we believe that humanity’s toughest problems occupy the same ground as their solutions: the space between people and their environment. This is our territory. From the day MIT opened its doors and introduced Course 4 as the nation’s first academic program in architecture, our faculty, students, and alumni have explored the human landscape to discover—and deliver—better futures.
Since our inception, we have added the world’s premier department for urban studies and planning and offered the first advanced real estate degrees in the US. We’ve incorporated a world-class program in art, culture, and technology, and launched the incomparable Media Lab. Today, we bring together architects, planners, artists, engineers, scientists, historians, and others in a community that defies easy categorization—but whose unique blend of talents could not be more suited to confront complex challenges.
This potent mix of disciplines and departments fuels innovation and energizes MIT’s drive for meaningful progress. Whether our community is designing systems or cities, objects or structures, policies or technologies, we are committed to working every day, at MIT and around the globe, in service to a better world.
Confident that our history has prepared us for this moment—and excited for what comes next—we invite you to join us.
Hashim Sarkis
Dean, School of Architecture and Planning
Published in April 2016.
