[Editors] SA+P News: February 2014

Wed Feb 12 16:46:24 EST 2014

  Award-Winning Work from Tehrani

  Honored for Lifetime Achievements

  Death and the Powers in Dallas

  One of the World’s Brightest Minds

  Photographing Urban Change

SA+P NEWS: February 2014

Mixed emotions, here.

On January 28, our much-loved dean, Adèle Naudé Santos, publicly announced she will be stepping down in June. She will stay on the faculty of both the architecture and planning departments and remain deeply involved with the new Center for Advanced Urbanism, an important part of her legacy, while continuing work with her prize-winning architectural practice.

As reported by the MIT News Office, her tenure as dean has been marked by dramatic increases in interest in SA+P. Since she arrived in 2004, applications for the MArch and masters in MAS programs have both more than doubled; applications for the SMArchS program have risen by 85 percent and applications for the MCP program have risen by 70 percent.

Forty percent of the school’s current faculty was hired during her tenure, 38 percent have been tenured and 55 percent promoted. The school has been consolidated from a diaspora of six locations to two dense concentrations in the Institute’s most visible sites – the Main Group along Massachusetts Avenue and Fumihiko Maki’s high-design Media Lab complex near Kendall Square, which was brought to completion under budget and ahead of schedule during her tenure.

There were many other achievements, as well, detailed in the MIT News Office story. But let us take a moment here to register our deep appreciation for all she has done for us, and for the spirit in which she’s done it. It has been a fun and eventful ride and we’re going to miss her at the wheel. The good news is she’ll still be around to share her sharp wit, her pragmatic wisdom and her incomparable sense of style.

__________________________________
Scott Campbell
Director of Communications 
MIT School of Architecture + Planning
77 Massachusetts Avenue 7-231
Cambridge MA  02139 
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QUOTES OF NOTE

They may want to reconsider the way they do it.

Albert Saiz, reviewing a Boston Globe analysis of the fee discounts for certain developers by the Boston Redevelopment Authority; ‘it looks like they left a lot of money on the table,’ said Ezra Glenn. Boston Globe, December 22.
You’re never never never never never going to get your equity back.

William Wheaton talking about your fate if you bought a house in Las Vegas at the peak of the market in 2007; but in San Francisco, he said, ‘you’re going to be 45% ahead of where you were in ’07.’ Wheaton’s new research report forecasts prices in 60 US cities, each market very different. NPR, January 24.
Do you really want to say this?

Karthik Dinakar’s app for ‘empathic computing’, anti-cyber-bullying software that matches what you write online to a database of words and slang, detecting whether it’s hostile or inappropriate; if the app senses something nasty in a message you’re about to send, it will pop up a little message to give you pause. WGBH News, January 13.
A truth that urban planners for many years have not realized.

Adèle Naudé Santos referring to The State of Health + Urbanism, a new report from SA+P’s Center for Advanced Urbanism examining an array of public health matters in eight major US cities; ‘there is no silver bullet for urban health,’ she said. Since every city has its own issues, ‘the solution to make urban health better is going to [vary].’ Arch Daily, December 15.
I still quote him to this day.

Matthew Mazzotta (SMVisS’04) talking about Antoni Muntadas, one of the teachers who most influenced him; in honor of Muntadas’ 24 years of teaching at SA+P, from which is he retiring this spring, the Art, Culture and Technology Program will host a symposium and exhibition on Public Space in April. ACT News, January 15.

NEWS FLASHES

Faculty

Wayne Andersen, co-founder of the History, Theory and Criticism program in the Department of Architecture, died January 9 at age 85; Andersen established MIT’s Hayden Gallery, predecessor of the List, as a major venue for contemporary art in Boston; oversaw the creation of MIT’s outdoor sculpture collection – including all the well known pieces now on prominent display – and was highly regarded as a teacher of art history here.

Eran Ben-Joseph and Sarah Williams were members of selected design competition teams for the Long Island Index, a project of the Rauch Foundation to encourage transformative thinking about parking structures in suburban downtowns and how they could be re-imagined to better address downtown needs.

Cynthia Breazeal named one-time Media Lab researcher Rana el Kaliouby as an emerging talent who will shape our future, part of Wired’s second Smart List compiled from ‘fifty of the world’s brightest minds’.

Hiroshi Ishii and a team from his Tangible Media Group are taking part in a special exhibit at the Milan Design Week in April. Sponsored by Lexus, the exhibit will feature work by three world-renowned designers working under the Lexus brand concept ‘Amazing in Motion’; the other participants are Italian designer Fabio Novembre and Japanese designer Nao Tamura.

Cameron Kerry, former acting secretary and general counsel of the US Department of Commerce, has joined the Media Lab as a visiting scholar; he will be working with Sandy Pentland and the Human Dynamics group on issues related to privacy and personal data ownership, and on Pentland’s Big Data for Public Good research initiative.

Paul Levy (MCP’74) and Farzana Mohamed (MCP’01) have published a new book, How To Negotiate Your First Job: 8 Steps That Will Bring Value to You and Your New Employer; the book aims to help college graduates plan for their first important negotiation – the terms and conditions of their employment.

Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers will be presented for four performances this month at the Dallas Opera, including a first-ever global interactive simulcast broadcast live to ten sites worldwide – including the Media Lab – on February 16 at 2PM CT (3PM EST)..

Neri Oxman will be receiving an award this spring for her continued work in the field of design from the Vilcek Foundation – an organization that aims to raise public awareness of foreign-born scientists and artists who have made positive contributions to society in the United States.

Nasser Rabbat has been awarded a grant from the D’Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in Education to support the development of an undergraduate course in ‘Imag(ing) Islamic History’; the course will use selected miniature pictures, photos, illustrations, architecture and objects to present a historical narrative. .

Carlo Ratti co-authored a report that was named Best Research Paper of 2011 by the IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems: ‘Real-Time Urban Monitoring Using Cell Phones: A Case Study in Rome.’

Nader Tehrani’s office NADAAA received one of four awards in the ‘Work’ category of this year’s annual design review by Architect Magazine; the Samsung Model Home Gallery is ‘a 105,000-square-foot, high-design shell to house the model apartments’. Andre Tchelistcheff (MArch’92) also received an award in the ‘Live’ category for the Hudson Valley Spa, a 337-square-foot space modeled on traditional Finnish saunas.

Alumni

Paul Fallon (MArch’81) completed the design and construction of two buildings in Haiti in 2013 and has written a book about the experience that is being published by the University of Missouri Press; he is now devoting his full energies to writing and work in developing countries. Follow his blog at: theawkwardpose.com

Héctor Pérez (SMArchS’99) has been appointed Graduate Programs Coordinator at the Woodbury University School of Architecture in San Diego and two of his projects recently won design awards – The San Diego Architectural Foundation, Orchid Award – La Esquina Mix-Use project; and American Institute of Architects’ San Diego Merit Award – La Jolla Shores Lifeguard Station, in collaboration with RNT Architects.

Seth Knudsen (MCP’08) reports the opening of the Broad ReFresh Project, an adaptive reuse of a former supermarket on New Orleans’ blighted Broad Street that aims to improve access to fresh, high-quality food in the neighborhood; the effort is a project of Broad Community Connections, founded and directed by Jeffrey Schwartz (MCP’08), which grew out of a Spring ‘07 practicum taught by Karl Seidman and Susan Silberberg, and has involved a number of SA+P students and alumni.

Bill Rawn (MArch’79) reports that his firm William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc., is seeking a Design Architect with 3-5 years of experience, strong design skills and a proven ability to develop interior and exterior detailing. Refer to their website for firm profile and project information: rawnarch.com and send resumes, portfolios and questions to Peg MacDonald at pmacdonald at rawnarch.com .

Peter Sramek (SB’73, Architecture) has published a new book with the University of Chicago Press; Piercing Time: Paris After Marville and Atget 1865-2012 examines the role of photography in documenting urban change by juxtaposing contemporary ‘rephotographs’ taken by Sramek with images of nineteenth century Paris taken by Charles Marville and corresponding images by Eugène Atget taken in the early twentieth century.

NEW FEATURES ONLINE

Spectrum
The Future of Cities

Toward a Wider View of Architectural History
A $1M Grant to Create a Global Teaching Collaborative

The Bill Mitchell ++ Fund
Student Support in the Name of Our Former Dean

SELECTED PRESS CLIPS

Full Listing: http://sap.mit.edu/news_events/press_clips

This Is What Informal Transit Looks Like When You Actually Map It (Atlantic Cities) The Civic Data Design Lab partnered with two other colleges to map the informal public transit system of Nairobi.

Boston as the harmonious, driver-friendly glass city (Boston.com) "But this week, that’s exactly where those three scenarios are playing out, under the bright lights of the Consumer Electronics Show. Boston architecture firm Höweler + Yoon, with funding from Audi, built a table-sized glass model of Boston’s downtown from Copley Square to the Seaport."

Clean Technology: Remaking Auto Alley (Mother Earth News) "Catherine Tumber, Research Affiliate with MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, believes that renewable clean technology can bring industry and prosperity back to America." Book excerpt.

Picard questions difference between machines and humans (Duke Chronicle) Rosalind Picard, founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group, recently visited Duke University to discuss her research.

3 Questions: Arindam Dutta on MIT and architectural modernism (MIT News) New book, edited by MIT architectural historian, examines the evolution of modernism during its postwar heyday at the Institute.

EXHIBITS

Space-Time: On View at the Keller Gallery
Through February 23, 2014, Keller Gallery.

Solidarity Works: Politics of Cultural Memory 
Through March 21, 2014, Wolk Gallery.

EVENTS

Many of our regular lecture series are in various stages of planning. Our full online calendar is always available here.

February 24
Lonely Ideas: Can Russia Compete? A public lecture with Loren Graham. 12:00 – 1:30 pm, E70-1201a

Tea with Nefertiti: or How the Arts Shape Culture . 6:00 – 7:30 pm, 3-133

February 25
Architectural Design Series: Dinner with the In-Laws | Joel Lamere and Cameron Wu. 5:30 – 7:30 pm, 7-429

February 27
Architecture Lecture: Goldstein Lecture / Shigeru Ban : Works and Humanitarian Activities. 6:30 – 10:30 pm,10-250

February 28
Fighting to the End: the Pakistan's Army Way of War. 2:30 – 4:30 pm, E40-496

Architecture Lecture | Vincent James: Material/Immaterial. 5:30 – 7:00 pm, 7-429

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