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ArchNet

Located in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Design Lab in the School of Architecture and Planning, ArchNet is a web-based international community of scholars, students, and professionals working in architecture, planning, landscape design, and the related fields focussed on addressing the built environment in Muslim societies. This community shares expertise, local experience, and resources, and engages in dialogue around pertinent issues. The website itself provides access to scholarly resources and a forum for community members to interact, promoting debate and critical thinking. This is achieved by providing images, databases, and a large publication library. The website aims to foster close ties with users through opening up a wide range of possibilities for user contributions to its content.

Members can store their own image and file collections in their Personal Workspace; they can contribute events to the Digital Calendar, post a topic or response to the Discussion Forum, create or join a Group Workspace and work on a collaborative project, and add to the Web Links directory.

Within the Digital Library, members have full access to an extensive range of information on cities, sites, and buildings. Downloadable online resources include images, publications, and other types of media files such as CAD, video, and PowerPoint. Members can also use course syllabi and bibliographic resources; visit a calendar of conferences, exhibitions, and events; and work with others on a group project. Discussion and scholarly dialogue takes place in the Discussion Forum; group projects, as well as classes supplementing university lectures, are available in the Group Workspaces. Member files in a Personal Workspace can also be shared with the larger community, fostering interaction.

The site is currently undergoing a major redesign to take advantage of the tremendous development in hardware and software since its inception in 1999. ArchNet 2.0, currently under development at MIT, builds on the significant successes of ArchNet. It is being reorganized and redesigned to shift the project into an Open Source and Open Content framework that will provide long-term sustainability. The intent of ArchNet 2.0  is to take much greater advantage of the energy and creativity of the user community, whose new role will be one of active content creators rather than passive consumers. It will provide enhanced functionality and access to continually-expanding content resources; provide intellectual structure and framing around topical issues in architecture, landscape, and planning.

ArchNet will remain committed to open-source resources and our core mission remains unchanged. The site, envisioned as a bottom-up system, will remain open and free to all. And the site will continue to aim to influence the teaching and study of historic Islamic architecture while simultaneously providing a portfolio of contemporary works, informing and furthering debate on current professional practice.

ArchNet is supported by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. The project works closely with the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as the Fine Arts Library at Harvard University and the Rotch Library of the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT.