Data structures play a central role in modern computer science. You interact with data structures even more often than with algorithms (think Google, your mail server, and even your network routers). In addition, data structures are essential building blocks in obtaining efficient algorithms. This course covers major results and current directions of research in data structure.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to videographers Martin Demaine and Justin Zhang.

This resource addresses the experiences and challenges of women in American history. It focuses on the choices and leadership of particular women - both famous and ordinary - when confronting and dealing with inequality, subordination, and marginalization and seeking change. The documents and court cases in this resource not only illuminate larger issues concerning women’s experience, but also provide specific examples and context for understanding the experiences, and opportunities for women in U.S. history.   American women have experienced subordination and inequality deeply rooted in social, economic, legal & psychological practices. Although women have achieved major advances in the last 50 years, attitudes, practices, and structures reinforcing women’s inequality persist. This anthology provides an  array of materials covering the  experiences & accomplishments of American women using over 30 links, including a number that are significant compilations, such as the women included in the National Women’s Hall Of Fame. 

The rights, roles, and status of women in American society have been reflected in legal, economic, social, moral, and psychological structures that, in general, have historically subordinated all women. These deep roots go back many centuries of Anglo-American law and continue to affect the ways that society subordinates women through attitudes, social practices, and laws. Although major changes have taken place in the last 50 years, attitudes and structures reinforcing women’s inequality persist. This module focuses on the experiences of women and the challenges they faced in American history. It focuses on the choices and leadership of particular women - both famous and ordinary - when confronting and dealing with inequality, subordination, and marginalization and seeking change. The documents and court cases in this module not only illuminate larger issues concerning women’s experience, but also provide specific examples and context for understanding the experiences, rights, status, and opportunities for women in U.S. history.    

An analysis of historical structures is presented themed sections based around construction materials. Structures from all periods of history are analyzed. The goal of the class is to provide an understanding of the preservation of historic structures for all students.

The theme that unites the Level II studios in the fall semester is a focus upon the ‘making of architecture and built form’ as a tectonic, technical and materially driven endeavor. It is a design investigation that is rooted in a larger culture of materiality and the associated phenomena, but a study of the language and production of built form as an integrated response to the conceptual proposition of the project. The studio will look to works of architecture where the material tectonic and its resultant technology or fabrication become instrumental to the realization of the ideas, in whatever form they may take. This becomes the ‘art of technology’ – suggesting a level of innovation and creative manipulation as part of the design process to transform material into a composition of beauty and poetry as well as environmental control. In this regard the studio will look to the works and design processes of a number of architects including Shigeru Ban, Peter Zumthor, Herzog and deMeuron, Kazuyo Sejima, Richard Horden, Rick Joy and Glenn Murcutt among others.

This course addresses advanced topics in structures, exterior envelopes and contemporary production technologies. It continues the exploration of structural elements and systems; expanding to include more complex determinant, indeterminate, long-span and high-rise systems. Some of the topics covered include reinforced concrete, steel and engineered wood design, and an introduction to tensile systems. The contemporary exterior envelope is discussed with an emphasis on the classification of systems, their performance attributes and advanced manufacturing technologies. This course is the second of two graduate structures courses, the first of which is 4.462. They offer an expanded version of the content presented in the undergraduate course, 4.440.

This course addresses advanced structures, exterior envelopes and contemporary production technologies. It continues the exploration of structural elements and systems, and expands to include more complex determinate, indeterminate, long-span and high-rise systems. It covers topics such as reinforced concrete, steel and engineered wood design, and provides an introduction to tensile systems. Lectures also address the contemporary exterior envelope with an emphasis on their performance attributes and advanced manufacturing technologies. This course is required of MArch students.

This course offers an introduction to the history, theory, and construction of basic structural systems as well as an introduction to energy issues in buildings. It emphasizes basic systematic and elemental behavior, principles of structural behavior, and analysis of individual structural elements and strategies for load carrying. The course also introduces fundamental energy topics including thermodynamics, psychrometrics, and comfort. It is a required class for M. Arch. students.

Students use their knowledge of tornadoes and damage. The students will work in groups to design a structure that will withstand and protect people from tornadoes. Each group will create a poster with the name of their engineering firm and a picture of their structure. Finally, each group will present their posters to the class.

All of the mathematics required beyond basic calculus is developed “from scratch.” Moreover, the book generally alternates between “theory” and “applications”: one or two chapters on a particular set of purely mathematical concepts are followed by one or two chapters on algorithms and applications; the mathematics provides the theoretical underpinnings for the applications, while the applications both motivate and illustrate the mathematics. Of course, this dichotomy between theory and applications is not perfectly maintained: the chapters that focus mainly on applications include the development of some of the mathematics that is specific to a particular application, and very occasionally, some of the chapters that focus mainly on mathematics include a discussion of related algorithmic ideas as well.

The mathematical material covered includes the basics of number theory (including unique factorization, congruences, the distribution of primes, and quadratic reciprocity) and of abstract algebra (including groups, rings, fields, and vector spaces). It also includes an introduction to discrete probability theory—this material is needed to properly treat the topics of probabilistic algorithms and cryptographic applications. The treatment of all these topics is more or less standard, except that the text only deals with commutative structures (i.e., abelian groups and commutative rings with unity) — this is all that is really needed for the purposes of this text, and the theory of these structures is much simpler and more transparent than that of more general, non-commutative structures.

This course provides the fundamental computational toolbox for solving science and engineering problems. Topics include review of linear algebra, applications to networks, structures, estimation, finite difference and finite element solutions of differential equations, Laplace’s equation and potential flow, boundary-value problems, Fourier series, the discrete Fourier transform, and convolution. We will also explore many topics in AI and machine learning throughout the course.

This course will focus on providing students with the tools needed to practice responsible architecture in a contemporary context. It will familiarize students with the materials currently used in responsible practice, as well as the material properties most relevant to assembly. The course will also introduce students to materials that are untested but hold promise for future usage. Finally, the course will challenge students to refine their understanding of responsible or sustainable design practice by looking at the evolution of those ideas within the field of architecture.

This subject provides an introduction to the mechanics of materials and structures. You will be introduced to and become familiar with all relevant physical properties and fundamental laws governing the behavior of materials and structures and you will learn how to solve a variety of problems of interest to civil and environmental engineers. While there will be a chance for you to put your mathematical skills obtained in 18.01, 18.02, and eventually 18.03 to use in this subject, the emphasis is on the physical understanding of why a material or structure behaves the way it does in the engineering design of materials and structures.

Students will review their knowledge of tension and focus on tensile loads and failure caused by them.

This course presents finite element theory and methods for general linear and nonlinear analyses. Reliable and effective finite element procedures are discussed with their applications to the solution of general problems in solid, structural, and fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer, and fluid-structure interactions. The governing continuum mechanics equations, conservation laws, virtual work, and variational principles are used to establish effective finite element discretizations and the stability, accuracy, and convergence are discussed. The homework and the student-selected term project using the general-purpose finite element analysis program ADINA are important parts of the course.

Inspired by the work of the architect Antoni Gaudi, this research workshop will explore three-dimensional problems in the static equilibrium of structural systems. Through an interdisciplinary collaboration between computer science and architecture, we will develop design tools for determining the form of three-dimensional structural systems under a variety of loads. The goal of the workshop is to develop real-time design and analysis tools which will be useful to architects and engineers in the form-finding of efficient three-dimensional structural systems.

Furniture making is in many ways like bridge building, connections holding posts apart with spans to support a deck. Many architects have tried their hand at furniture design, Wright, Mies Van Der Rohe, Aalto, Saarinen, Le Corbusier, and Gerhy.
We will review the history of furniture making in America with a visit to the Decorative Arts Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and have Cambridge artist/craftsman Mitch Ryerson show us his work and talk about design process. Students will learn traditional woodworking techniques beginning with the use of hand tools, power tools and finally woodworking machines.
Students will build a single piece of furniture of an original design that must support someone weighing 185 lbs. sitting on it 12 inches off the ground made primarily of wood. Students should expect to spend approximately 80 hours in the shop outside of class time.
Preregistered architecture students will get first priority but first meeting attendance is mandatory. Twelve student maximum, no exceptions.

This course develops and applies principles of game theory relevant to managers’ strategic decisions. Topics include how to reason about strategies and opponents; strategic commitment, reputation, and “irrational” actions; brinkmanship and negotiation; auctions; and the design of markets and contests. Applications to a variety of business decisions that arise in different industries, both within and outside the firm.