MIT Senseable City Lab
TheMIT Senseable City Laboratoryis a digital laboratory withinMIT's City Design and Development group,[1]within the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, which works in collaboration with theMIT Media Lab.The lab aims to investigate and anticipate howdigital technologiesare changing the way people live and their implications at the urban scale.
History and description[edit]
DirectorCarlo Rattifounded the Senseable City Lab in 2004.[citation needed]
Itsmission statementsays that it seeks to creatively intervene and investigate the interface between people, technologies and the city. The Lab's work draws on diverse fields such asurban planning,architecture,design, engineering,computer science,natural scienceand economics to capture the multi-disciplinary nature of urban problems and deliver research and applications that empower citizens to make choices to make a better liveable urban experience. Among the Lab's partners are a group of corporations, includingAT&T,General Electric,Audi,ENEL,SNCFas well as cities such asCopenhagen,London,Singapore,Seattle,andFlorence.[citation needed]
Projects have included "The Copenhagen Wheel",[2]which debuted at the2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference,"Trash_Track"[3]shown at theArchitectural League of New Yorkand theSeattle Public Library,"New York Talk Exchange"[4]featured in the MoMA TheMuseum of Modern Art,andReal Time Rome,included in the 2006Venice Biennale of Architecture.
In 2010 the lab opened a new research center in Singapore as part of a $35 million MIT-led initiative on the Future of Urban Mobility.[5]
Approach[edit]
The Senseable City Lab begins its project and research work with a vision for an urban future, or "urban demo". This vision is tailored to a particular city's needs and can be motivated by the challenges a place may be confronting, or by opportunities for providing new experiences or services due to advances in digital technologies. Urban demos are designed to be showcased at large public events and exhibitions to stimulate debate between citizens, public administrators, and industry. Following an urban demo, the Lab typically engages in more traditional academic research - analyzing the data that has been collected and producing research papers.
Achievements[edit]
Since 2004, the Senseable City Lab has grown rapidly reaching 35 completed projects by 2009 with a turnover of 63 researchers from all over the world. Lab researchers have produced166 scientific publicationsin high-impact academic journals such as "Eigenplaces: analysing cities using the space-time structure of the mobile phone network".[6]The Lab's design work has been exhibited in some of the world's leading venues including theVenice Biennale,MoMA The Museum of Modern Art,the 2008 Zaragoza World Expo, the Architectural League of New York,Design Museum Barcelona,theCanadian Centre for Architectureand theMIT Museum.The Lab's work have been recognized in TIME Magazine's Best Invention of the Year 2007,[7]Esquire Magazine's Best and Brightest 2008,[8]Blueprint Magazine's List of 25 Who Will Change the World of Design in 2010,[9]and Thames and Hudson's 2009 List of Innovators Shaping Our Creative Future. In January 2009, DirectorCarlo Rattirepresented the Lab as a delegate to theWorld Economic Forumin Davos. In 2011, he presented atTEDin Longbeach.[citation needed]
Treepedia[edit]
Treepedia is a Senseable City Lab project whose goal is to raise awareness ofurban forests.It uses digital vision techniques based onGoogle Street Viewimages. Its focus is on street trees rather than those in parks. Theopen-sourcelibrary, stored onGitHub,includes all thePythonprogramming code to allow anyone to use it to calculate tree cover (measured as Green View Index, or GVI) for their own city or region.[10][11]
References[edit]
- ^City Design and Development
- ^For Bicyclists Needing a Boost, This Wheel May Help, NYT, December 14, 2009[1]
- ^Following Trash and Recyclables on Their Journey, NYT, September 16, 2009[2]
- ^New York and the Vanguard of Digital Design, NYT City Room blog, February 22, 2008[3]
- ^MIT News Office, January 5, 2010
- ^Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 36(5)
- ^Best Inventions of 2007, TIME
- ^Four Innovative Mapmakers Reinventing the Very Idea of Maps, Esquire, December 9, 2008[4]
- ^Change in 2010, Blueprint, December 17, 2009ArchivedMarch 16, 2010, at theWayback Machine
- ^"Treepedia:: MIT Senseable City Lab".Treepedia:: MIT Senseable City Lab.RetrievedMarch 1,2021.
- ^"Treepedia study confirms Sacramento as City of Trees".Sactown Magazine.January 25, 2017.RetrievedMarch 1,2021.
