The Spring 2013 Urban Design Ideals and Action seminar, taught by Professor Brent D. Ryan since 2010 at MIT, provided the forum for investigating parametric urbanism, while the island nation and city of Singapore provided the site. A January 2013 workshop organized and sponsored in partnership with Professor Andres Sevtsuk of the Singapore University of Technology and Design permitted a group of 11 MIT graduate students in urban design and planning to visit Singapore and generate preliminary design proposals based on parametric variables for two Singapore neighborhoods, Bugis and Punggol. As the world’s only independent city-state, Singapore is a particularly design and technology-oriented nation where urban design and planning are paramount elements in shaping the future.
