[Editors] SA+P News: October 2014

[Scott R Campbell]

Anything off?





  Jarzombek inside Clifford’s Round Room

  Höweler + Yoon’s ‘Swing Time’

  Sheila Kennedy in the News

  Alum Beth Galston at the Peabody Essex

  Tehrani’s Firm #1 (Twice)

 	
SA+P NEWS: October 2014

FROM MOONS TO CAVES.

I never cease to marvel at the truly extraordinary things that our students and faculty are doing. On September 11, I went to the public opening of ‘Swing Time’, designed by Höweler + Yoon Architecture. It is an interactive playscape designed for ‘The Lawn on D’, Boston’s first-of-its-kind experimental outdoor space at the epicenter of the Innovation District and South Boston neighborhoods.

The installation consists of multiple illuminated, ring-shaped swings, each of which holds an internal LED lighting system that creates colorful glowing effects generated by the motion of the swings. There were hundreds of people of all ages at the event, all having a hoot of a time, swinging around on these glowing moons! Meejin (our new head of architecture) was there with Eric and other members of their team, basking in the glow. Here is a link to a short video I made of it.

The very next day, I went to the opening of Brandon Clifford’s exhibition at the Keller Gallery on the fourth floor of Building 10. It features a vaulted room that one enters by sliding through a portal low on the ground to gaze upward through the space to the ‘sky’ above. A car mechanic's slide does the trick. See a video video of it.

The structure is part of Brandon’s research into uni-material, self-buttressing systems and indeed, the walls are made of Styrofoam blocks - but cut to replicate Inca stonework. One has to know in all of this that the ancient Inca word for ‘stone’ was ‘flesh’. Stone was not a dead material, but organic chunks of a living, mountain deity.

Imagine Meejin’s moons swinging from the dome in Lobby 7 and Brandon’s flesh-cave in the Science library reading room!

Hmm. I will talk it over with the Provost.

__________________________________
Mark Jarzombek
Interim Dean 
MIT School of Architecture + Planning
77 Massachusetts Avenue 7-231
Cambridge MA  02139 
sap-info at mit.edu 

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QUOTES OF NOTE

NADAAA has received numerous design awards, including being ranked the #1 design firm in the US by Architect Magazine for the past two consecutive years.

Martin Schmidt and Israel Ruiz announcing that Nader Tehrani’s firm has been chosen to design one of the buildings in the new MIT East Campus/Kendall Square Gateway development; the building will include graduate student housing, a child-care facility and academic space, with retail space on the ground floor. MIT News, September 23.
We were ourselves very surprised with the results.

Carlo Ratti talking about research at the Senseable City Lab, revealing how much more efficiently we could use the mobility infrastructure in cities. National Geographic, September 2.
Say you want to avoid depression.

Javier Hernandez (talking about SenseGlass, a new development of Google Glass that monitors your vital signs so you can modulate your own emotions; ‘it's about helping you to reflect on your daily life in a meaningful way,’ he said. NewScientist, September 4.
This map will introduce the benefits of solar to a broader audience.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh introducing a new map that will allow Boston homeowners and businesses to see their roof’s solar energy potential; the map was created in partnership with Mapdwell, a spinoff from SA+P’s Sustainable Design Lab. The Boston Globe, September 17.
This could be the new zeitgeist.

Terry Szold talking about the development opportunity presented by Boston’s Suffolk Downs’ failure to win a casino license; the 160-acre parcel straddles Boston and Revere, with two T stops and almost infinite potential to redefine an area hungry for an infusion of energy. The Boston Globe, September 27.
 

NEW FEATURES ONLINE

A Conversation with Meejin Yoon
On the Future of Architecture and Architectural Education

Industrial Urbanism: Places of Production
A Symposium and Gallery Exhibit

SA+P Students Win Visual Arts Awards
Candidates in Media Studies, in Architecture, and in Art, Culture and Technology

Planning Students Win in Affordable Housing Competition
SA+P Represented on First and Third Place Teams

Five of Nine MIT Fulbrights Go to Urban Planners
Recipients Will Work in Bangalore, Tanzania, Spain and Mexico

 

SELECTED PRESS CLIPS

Full Listing available here.

The healthy community (MIT News) The MIT Media Lab this week launched a wellness initiative designed to spark innovation in the area of health and well-being, and to promote healthier workplace and lifestyle behaviors.

The responsive house (The Vancouver Sun) “What is clear is the home of the future is not about the technology, it’s not about being smart and connected, it’s about working in a way so you don’t notice the technology at work.” – Kent Larson.

Women and Energy Systems (Scientific American) "The future of cities and energy efficiency could be a very bright one – but we have to get there,” said MIT Professor Dr. Amy Glasmeier.

Video games & the future of education (Scientific American) Few would argue that video games can do it all in terms of education, says Scot Osterweil, creative director of the school’s Education Arcade initiative to explore how games can be used to promote learning.

Streamline those screens (Fast Company) With THAW, a new project to emerge from the MIT Media Lab, smartphones can seamlessly interact with what's happening on laptop and tablet screens.

 

NEWS FLASHES

Ling Bao, Emmanuel Munguia Tapia, Kent Larson and Stephen S. Intille have received the ‘10-Year Impact Award’ from Ubicomp 2014; the award honors work presented ten years previously that, with the benefit of hindsight, has had the greatest impact. The award committee chose the team unanimously for two papers presented in Vienna in 2004 based on the quality of the research and especially on the impact the papers have had in terms of citations and inspirations to similar research.

Janelle Chan (MCP’07) has been named one of the Boston Business Journal's 40 under 40 business and civic leaders who are making a major impact in the Boston area; Chan has led the Asian Community Development Corporation for the past eight years, helping to preserve and bring affordable housing into the Greater Boston area.

Sheila Kennedy is on a major roll. In the span of one week in September, she was awarded the $100K Berkeley-Rupp Prize by the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design and a $25K Acknowledgment Award from the Holcim Foundation; those two honors were preceded in August with the inaugural Design Innovator Award from Architectural Record magazine. She was also the focus of a recent feature on the MIT News site.

Beth Galston (SMVisS’81) is featured in a new show at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem MA; for a show called Branching Out: Trees as Art; Galston created a 300-foot rope made of acorn caps she collected from under a single red oak in Boston's Arnold Arboretum. The exhibit will be on view through September 20 of next year.

Sandy Pentland has been appointed to a special United Nations advisory group on the Data Revolution in Sustainable Development; the group will advise the Secretary-General on measures required to close the data gaps and strengthen national statistical capacities.

Ai-Jen Poo and Rick Lowe – Mel King Fellows at SA+P’s CoLab in 2013 and 2014 respectively – have both been named MacArthur Fellows this year and will each receive a no-strings-attached stipend of $625K paid out over five years; the fellowships recognize exceptionally creative individuals with a track record of achievement and the potential for significant contributions in the future.

Larry Vale has received an award from the International Planning History Society for Best Book on Planning History in the USA, for Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Design Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Along with his co-editors Bishwapriya Sanyal and Christina Rosan (MCP/PhD’02), he also received an award for Best Edited Volume on Planning History for Planning Ideas That Matter: Livability, Territoriality, Governance, and Reflective Practice (MIT Press, 2012).  Vale is coordinating a Fall 2014 series of debates and a PhD seminar linked to the latter book and teaching a new Gateway case related to the former.

Several teams from SA+P are finalists in FastCompany’s 2014 Innovation by Design competition, chosen from 1587 boundary-pushing entries. In the Data Visualization category - Immersion by César Hidalgo, Deepak Jagdish and Daniel Smilkov (Media Lab); and Mapdwell Solar System by Mapdwell, a spinoff from SA+P’s Sustainable Design Lab. In the Experimental Category - InForm by Sean Follmer, Hiroshi Ishii and Daniel Leithinger (Tangible Media Group). In the Student Category - CityHome by Oier Ariño, Phillip Ewing, Daniel Goodman and Hasier Larrea (Media Lab Changing Places group); and IinForm (again) By Sean Follmer, Hiroshi Ishii and Daniel Leithinger (Tangible Media Group). In the Spaces Category - CityFarm by Caleb Harper (Media Lab). Category winners will be announced October 15.

 

EXHIBITS

Round Room: Matter Design & Quarra Stone 
Through October 15, 2014, Keller Gallery.

Three Pioneers 
Through December 31, 2014, Media Lab.

Industrial Urbanism
Through December 19, 2014, Wolk Gallery.


EVENTS

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

October 5
The Storytelling Majlis 
5:00pm, E15-001: ACT Cube

October 6
MISTI Info Session - Russia
5:00pm, E40-496

October 6
CULTURUNNERS at MIT 
7:00pm, E15-070: Bartos Theater

October 7
African Migration 
4:30pm, E40-464

October 7
MISTI Info Session - Mexico 
5:00pm, E40-496

October 9
FACTS: French Ameri-Can Climate Talks 
5:00pm, E51-115

October 9
Starr Forum: Whither US Grand Strategy 
4:30pm, E25-111

October 13
MISTI Info Session - Israel 
5:00pm, E40-496

October 14
Architecture Lecture | Hrvoje Njiric: "Concepts" 
6:00pm, 7-429

October 16
MISTI Info Session - Europe 
5pm, E40-496

October 16
Architecture Lecture | Andres Jacque: "Architecture is a Rendered Society" 
6:00pm, 7-429

October 20
Open House: Master of Science in Real Estate Development 
6:00pm, 9-354

October 20
Homecoming after Death: An Islamic Cemetery in Austria 
6:00pm, E15: Bartos Theater

October 23
Vegetarian Architecture 
6:00pm, 7-429

October 25
Bamboo Structures Lateral Studio with Simón Vélez 
9:00am, Various

October 25
2014 East Coast Real Estate Lectures 
11:30am, 250 W. 55th St, New York, NY

October 28
Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? 
4:30pm, E40-496: One Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA

October 28
Architecture | HTC Forum | Henriette Huldisch 
6:00pm, 7-429

October 29
MISTI Info Session - India 
5:00pm, E40-496

October 29
European Club info session III 
7:00pm, 1-135

October 30
MISTI Info Session - Global Start-up Labs 
5:00pm, E40-496

October 30
Architecture: Amale Andraos, WORKac & Dean, Columbia GSAPP 
6:00pm, 7-429

October 31
Palestine Now: A conversation with Husam Zomlot 
12:00pm, E40-496: The Lucian Pye Room

 

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