Beijing Urban Design Studio
A joint studio between MIT and Tsinghua University's Schools of Architecture and Planning, running every year since 1995. Roughly 18 to 20 MIT students and 10 to 15 Tsinghua students spend five weeks in June and July working on a real urban design and planning project in Beijing, often on sites the city considers sensitive or contested. The Beijing City Planning Institute, the agency responsible for the city's strategic planning, acts as the studio's client, giving students an actual brief rather than a hypothetical one. Coursework includes weeks in residence at Tsinghua, two short study tours to relevant sites, and collaborative design work between the two student groups. MIT OpenCourseWare provides the syllabus, project materials, and studio structure. The program has received MIT's Irwin Sizer Award for innovation in education, and its long run makes it one of the more established international design exchanges between American and Chinese universities.