These three areas of study, design and computation, design in settings, and influences on design, are often necessary components of a single research project.
Current research is polarized around the application of computer technology to design.
The research has both industrial and government sponsors. The group's challenge is innovative use of computation for solving problems stemmed in contexts of architectural design practice. Current projects encompass software and hardware development, computer graphics production and entries to architectural design competition. The MIT Design Studio of the Future is an interdisciplinary effort between the School of Planning, the School of Engineering, the Lab for Computer Science, and the Rapid Prototyping Laboratory which focuses on geographically distributed electronic design and work group collaboration issues. William Mitchell Sustainable Form Group SFG is focused on inquiring into how a broader concern for the environment and the issues of climate change, energy consumption and resource depletion can translate into a set of viable design strategies, forms and technologies at the heart of new directions in architecture.