[Editors] SA+P News: November 2014

[Scott R Campbell]

  Saiz Named Director of Center for Real Estate

  Urban Studies + Planning Again

  Alum's Prize-winning Car Park

  New Media Lab Logo

  Mazereeuw Anticipating Disaster

 	
SA+P NEWS: November 2014

On October 13, some of the committee in charge of the memorial to Sean Collier – which awarded design of the memorial to Meejin Yoon – flew to Washington DC and drove an hour and half into the beautiful, rolling countryside of Virginia.

The purpose was to visit the quarry from which the stones for the memorial were being processed. It was rainy morning but by the time we arrived the weather had cleared. Meejin was there with members of her design team to inspect and choose blocks of the granite – gray in color with delicate white banding.

The huge chunks of stone, weighing over ten tons each, were lying about at the edge of the quarry ready for her inspection. It was a process not all that different from what the architects of Stonehenge did some five thousand years ago, for our stones are not going to be sliced into thin veneer and glued to the side of a building. They are going to be used as solid mass to support what turns out to be the largest unreinforced granite vault in the world since perhaps the Middle Ages – 100% stone, no concrete and no steel! In this day and age! Our own John Ochsendorf figured out the structural equations to prove that it could be done. The old can indeed be the new-new.

I am sure I can humbly speak on behalf of the Collier Memorial Committee, that the visit was a moving moment for all of us. We are pictured here standing on one of the MIT blocks. From left to right: Me, Meejin, Cheryl Vossmer (representing the MIT Police) and Sara Ferry (representing the Collier family).



__________________________________
Mark Jarzombek
Interim Dean 
MIT School of Architecture + Planning
77 Massachusetts Avenue 7-231
Cambridge MA  02139 
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QUOTES OF NOTE

He is a person of bold ideas who likes to test them in the real world of practice.

Rafael Reif commenting on SA+P’s newly named dean, Hashim Sarkis; ‘I look forward to working with him to build upon the tremendous progress made by former dean Adèle Naudé Santos,’ he said. Sarkis will assume his new post in January, 2015. MIT News, October 22.
It is still somewhat rare to see women in real estate development.

Jim Castanes, talking about the success of alumna Lisa Picard (MCP/MSRED’95); Picard is part of a cadre of developers who are transforming historic neighborhoods and/or creating new ones during Seattle’s biggest building surge in three decades. Bloomberg, October 16.
There is no such thing as a new office design.

Ben Waber (PhD’11, Media Arts and Sciences) talking about the faddishness of workspace design; ‘we just take old ideas, put them into a kaleidoscope, and turn.’ It turns out that the newest thinking about workspace uses measurable data to figure out what actually works best. RadioBoston, October 14.
Ever since I was back in Kobe, Japan, volunteering in the aftermath of the earthquake in 1995.

Miho Mazereeuw recounting how long she’s been doing research on ways that cities can be better designed to prepare for such events; founder of SA+P’s Urban Risk Lab, she designs buildings and cities in anticipation of disasters. MIT Spectrum, Fall 2014.
Things move really fast.

Eric Mibuari (MIT’06) talking about traffic in Nairobi; SA+P’s Sarah Williams has developed a digital map of the city’s public transit, along with the data behind it, so developers can integrate that information into traffic apps. NPR’s All Tech Considered, September 23.
 

NEW FEATURES ONLINE

Hashim Sarkis Named New Dean of SA+P
Practicing Architect and Prominent Scholar of Architecture and Urbanism

Saiz Named Director of Center for Real Estate
Expert on Real Estate Economics and Urban Economic Development

New Books on the Shelf
Recent Publishing News from our Faculty

Advancing Wellness at MIT and Beyond
A $1M Grant for a New Initiative at the Media Lab

Six from SA+P Take Prizes at Holcim Awards
Recognizing Tangible Innovation in Sustainable Construction

Otto Piene: 1928 – 2014
World-Renowned Artist and Former CAVS Director

 

SELECTED PRESS CLIPS

Full Listing available here.

At the Intersection of Real Estate and Urban Economics. (ILP Insider) Albert Saiz leads research efforts looking at what's really going on in real estate and urban housing markets.

Building Both as a Verb and a Noun. (uncube) Yung Ho Chang explains his highly practical perspective when it comes to architecture education, gives an insight into what he sees as the main differences between the European, US and Asian models and why students need to be taught how to ‘do it right’.

Getting to Kendall Gateway Through the East Campus Planning Process. (MIT Faculty Newsletter) When Professor Adele Santos brought together an eclectic group of planning and architecture faculty to contribute as a school to the Institute’s East Campus Planning process, most of them were doubtful that they could ever reach consensus or that there would be an opportunity to have a real impact on a process that was well under way.

Soil-free, vertical farming (Fast Company) By precisely optimizing every input and output and creating customized designs, MIT’s CityFarm is an attempt to create a soil-free urban farming system that gets it right. Caleb Harper, a research scientist at the Media Lab, hopes that the open-source CityFarms project can one day be replicated all over the world.

New Video Game MOOC Takes a Different Approach to Education. (US News University Directory) Four new MOOCs from MIT will give students and teachers from around the world the opportunity to learn about educational video games and their role in the classroom. These classes are part of SA+P’s Education Arcade's EdTechX series of MOOCs.

 

NEWS FLASHES

Ezra Glenn has been named the 2014 recipient of the Jeffrey Graham Award for Excellence in Community Development, presented by the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporation; the award is presented to a person or organization from the private sector that has provided exceptional support and leadership for the community development movement in Massachusetts.

Hugh Herr has been honored with an American Ingenuity Award from the Smithsonian Institution, for developing a highly functional bionic leg for a dancer wounded in the Boston Marathon bombing; he was one of ten scientists and scholars recognized for their groundbreaking work.

Amalia Holub (MCP’14) and Laurie Pessah (MCP’02) have both been awarded Massachusetts Women’s Leadership Fellowships, part of Governor Patrick’s effort to place women in roles of leadership in the Executive Branch. Holub has been appointed Director of GreenDOT Policy Development at MassDOT and Pessah is now Chief-of-Staff in the Information Technology Division of the Executive Office of Administration and Finance. Jennifer James Price (MCP’01) coordinated the launch of the fellowship itself.

James Arthur Jemison (MCP’94) has been appointed Director of Housing and Revitalization for the city of Detroit. The position was created by the mayor and emergency manager to focus on multifamily housing development and related infrastructure. Most recently, Jemison has served as Deputy Undersecretary of Housing and Community Development for Massachusetts.

Diana Jue (MCP’12) and Jackie Stenson have been named 2014 Laureates of the Asia- Pacific Region for the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards; Jue and Stenson were honored for their company, Essmart Global, which distributes life-improving technologies, like solar lanterns and water filters, through mom-and-pop kirana shops in peri-urban and rural southern India.

Calestous Juma, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Professor at MIT, received a Lifetime Africa Achievement Prize for his leadership in socio-economic development in Africa; Juma is among 16 recipients of this year’s esteemed award.

Jae K. Kim (MArch’12) has won honorable mention in the 2014 Red Dot Design competition for his Dobongsan Car Park in Seoul; the project redefined the typical car park by dividing the building envelope into a number of separate bands, avoiding the dominant character of car parks, and turning the structure into a public space by creating a public garden and square on the roof.

Michael Mendez (MCP’03) has been appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the California State Mining and Geology Board, a position that requires Senate confirmation; he will serve as the ‘Environmental Protection/Ecosystems’ member.

Anastasia Shkilnyk (PhD’82, Urban Studies and Planning) passed away in May. Contributions in her memory may be made to Save the Children Canada, 4141 Yonge St., Toronto, Ont. M2P 2A8 / www.savethechildren.ca

Two teams from SA+P won FastCompany Innovation by Design 2014 Awards : Mapdwell Solar System by Mapdwell, a spinoff from SA+P’s Sustainable Design Lab, won the Data Visualization category; and InForm by Sean Follmer, Hiroshi Ishii and Daniel Leithinger (Tangible Media Group) won in the Experimental Category.

SA+P’s graduate program in urban planning has been ranked #1 in the nation again. Planetizen has released its list of the top 25 graduate programs in urban planning and for the third straight release, MIT occupies the top spot; UC/Berkeley and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign round out the top three.

 

EXHIBITS

Programming Materials: Customized for Self-Folding
November 13 through December 19, 2014, Keller Gallery, Room 7-408.

Industrial Urbanism
Through December 19, 2014, Wolk Gallery.

Three Pioneers 
Through December 31, 2014, Media Lab.


EVENTS

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

November 3rd
DUSP Lightning Talks 
5:00pm, E14-648

November 3rd
MISTI Info Session: Singapore
5:00pm, E40-496

November 3rd
What Constitutes Excellence in Islamic Geometric Design? 
6:00pm, 3-133

November 4th
A Practical Introduction to Islamic Geometric Design Workshop 
10:00am, E25-117

November 4th
European Club info session 
7:00pm, 1-135

November 4th
Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar 
4:30pm, E51-151

November 4th
International Migration Symposium 
4:30pm, E40-496

November 5th
The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall 
4:30pm, E15-070: Bartos Theater

November 6th
Big Data in the Israeli Media Industry 
12:00pm, E40-496

November 6th
Steven Holl & Guy Nordenson: Architecture 
1:00pm, 7-429

November 6th
MISTI Info Session - South Africa 
5:00pm, E40-496

November 6th
Open Tunings: Brendan Fowler Performance 
6:00pm, E15: Reference Gallery, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames St.

November 7th
Architecture Lecture | Material Computation, Achim Menges 
12:00pm, 7-429

November 7th
Architecture Lecture | Betti Marenko, "Digital materiality and the Intelligence of the Technodigital Object" 
5:00pm, 7-429

November 8th
Memorial Celebration of Otto Piene 
3:30pm, W-16: Kresge Auditorium

November 13th
Architecture Graduate Admissions Open House 
9:00am, 7-429

November 13th
ACT Graduate Open House
11:00am, E15-070

November 13th
Stalin: Geopolitics, Power, Ideas 
4:30pm, 4-237

November 13th
MISTI Info Session - Japan 
5:00pm, E40-496

November 13th
Nader Tehrani: "Pedagogical Constructs" - Open House Lecture 
6:00pm, 7-429

November 13th
Urban Films: Rome Open City 
6:00pm, 3-133

November 14th
Architecture Graduate Admissions Open House 
9:00pm, 7-429

November 14th
Matt Ratto, "Beyond the Yoda Head: Making 3D Printing Meaningful" 
5:00pm, 7-429

November 15th
Urban Poetry Lateral Studio 
9:00am, Various

November 17th
Architecture Lecture in Building Technology | Ursula Eicker, "insel4D: Dynamic Simulation of Cities" 
12:30pm, 7-429

November 17th
Michele Lamprakos - Conflict, Convivencia, and the Life of Buildings 
6:00pm, 3-133

November 17th
Kelly Nipper: Tessa Pattern Takes a Picture 
7:00pm, E15-070: Bartos Theatre

November 18th
MIT School of Architecture and Planning Connections 
1:00pm, E14-648

November 18th
Kremlin propaganda: can Putin control it? 
4:30pm, E40-496

November 18th
Arab-Israeli Relations 
7:15pm, Location TBD

November 20th
MISTI Info Session - Russia 
5:00pm, E40-496

November 20th
DUSP Town Hall: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion 
5:30pm, E14-6th Floor

November 20th
Keller Easterling: Architecture | "Extrastatecraft" 
6:00pm, 7-429

November 20th
Ampersand Concert Series: Falzonic Research Ensemble / Grammar 
8:00pm, E15-070

November 21st
The Road Ahead: Forum of Future Cities 
5:00pm, E-14: Media Lab 6th Floor

November 24th
MISTI Info Session - Global Startup Labs 
5:00pm, E40-496

November 24th
European Club info session III 
7:00pm, 1-135

November 24th
Gabriel Kahan: regenarratives 
7:00pm, E15-070: Bartos Theatre

 

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