MIT Class Examines Architecture’s Impact on Place

MIT architecture students are learning that design is not just the creation of buildings — it is the interpretation of an entire region. A new course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, titled 4.154 (Territory as Interior), explores how architecture can reveal, regenerate, and economically support the communities and landscapes it inhabits.

For graduate student Dong Nyung Lee, the course offered clarity to a question he struggled to describe as an undergraduate: what architecture really is.
“I was always confused about how to describe it myself,” he says with a laugh. He used to tell friends that architecture has multiple scales and must consider environment, community, and economics all at once. He now believes the course helped him understand “what architecture is all about.”

Led by lecturer Roi Salgueiro Barrio in MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, the studio combines material science, ecology, urban economics, and cultural research. Students were tasked with reimagining an abandoned fishing industry building in Galicia, Spain, transforming it into a space that could help stimulate the local economy.

Salgueiro Barrio emphasizes that building design is inseparable from labor, material sourcing, and economic systems.
“When we build, we always impact economies, mostly by the different types of technologies we use and their dependence on different types of labor and materials,” he explains. “The intention here was to think at both levels: the activities that can be accommodated, and how we can actually build something.”

Learning from Galicia

The course goes beyond traditional studio work. Students traveled to Galicia during spring break to meet fishermen, farmers, business owners, and the internationally renowned architect David Chipperfield, whose think tank — Fundación RIA (RIA) — collaborates with the class. RIA promotes sustainable and economically viable planning for the region.

Students studied the local maritime economy, timber craft traditions, changing industry demands, and the ecological challenges facing the coastline. The experience forced students to think beyond building aesthetics and consider how their design might support long-term community livelihoods.

For many, including graduate student Vincent Jackow, the approach was transformative.
“Normally in architecture, we work at the scale of one-to-100 meters,” Jackow says. “But this process allowed me to connect the dots between what the region offered and what could be built to support the economy.”

Student Projects: Architecture as Industry, Culture, and Resource

Each student’s work reflected the region’s material and economic realities.

• Aleks Banaś proposed the “House of Sea”, transforming the cannery into a gathering space with a boat-building workshop, restaurant, and maritime event venue. Inspired by ship carpentry and communal festivals, she wanted to celebrate skills that are valuable but not always profitable.
  “I’m interested in how architecture can support local economies,” she says. After meeting boat-makers and craftspeople, she saw how communities sustain traditions not for profit but identity. “A lot of people shared with us the value of their work, which is not economically feasible.”
• Jackow’s project, “La Nueva Cordelería”, reintroduced rope production using hemp — a renewable material. His building would produce rope and hempcrete, while doubling as a café, workspace, and public venue. He notes that hemp rope is “very on-trend in the E.U.”, offering an ecological alternative to synthetic materials.
• Lee’s design centered on biochar production, a carbon-rich material used to enrich soil. He observed Galicia’s reliance on pulp and timber and sought to repurpose post-harvest waste.
  “I wanted to give value to the post-harvest residue,” he explains, connecting architecture to forestry cycles and agricultural use.

Salgueiro Barrio praised how students sourced materials and labor directly from the region.
“The work demonstrated an understanding of the local resources and using them to benefit the revitalization of the area,” he says.

Bringing the Ideas Back to Galicia

RIA was so impressed by the studio projects that it curated an exhibition in Santiago de Compostela. Banaś returned to Galicia to intern with the organization and helped design the exhibit, which translated academic research for a general audience through maps, drawings, models, and photographs.

Redefining What Architecture Means

For Lee, the course underscored the central intellectual challenge of design. Architecture, he says, must hold two opposing truths simultaneously: it is universal, yet deeply rooted in place.
“Architecture is universal, and very specific. Keeping those dualities in focus was the biggest challenge and the most interesting part of this project. It hit at the core of what architecture is.”

Originally reported by Maria Iacobo | School of Architecture and Planning in MIT News.