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Though there was indeed a key shift in the meaning of “design” between 1300 and 1500, it had less to do with language and more with a fundamental shift in the making of things themselves. The relationship between drawing and design did not give rise to a word—or even expand its meaning. Rather, it diminished the word as it had previously been used, and in a way that may now be important to reverse. — MIT Technology Review
What’s the difference between modern and historic conceptions of the industry’s most misused word? MIT Head of Architecture Nicholas de Monchaux says it was the “literal mechanization of production that firmly separated the work of designing from making — with profound... View full entry
A team of researchers from MIT and Harvard University, working with laboratories in Italy and Switzerland, has made progress in understanding how concrete used by the ancient Romans has lasted for millennia. The discovery, outlined in a new paper published in the journal Science Advances, centers... View full entry
Researchers from the MIT Senseable City Lab have produced a series of maps visualizing commuting habits across Chinese cities. Titled Potato Project, the study used mobile phone location data from 50 million individuals across 234 cities to understand commuting patterns between a person’s home... View full entry
A study published then in the journal Materials Today shed light on the world’s first 3D-printed lab-grown wood. By the means of this research, the scientist at MIT demonstrated that deforestation is no longer needed to produce timber. — Interesting Engineering
The researchers developed customizable wood using the cells of a flowering plant named Zinnia elegans, known commonly as zinnia. They first treated the cells with a liquid medium and then a gel solution composed of hormones and nutrients. The researchers adjusted the concentration of the hormones... View full entry
A new architectural installation from MIT’s Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) for the Mextrópoli Architecture and City Festival in Mexico City is leveraging the school’s recent innovations in materials research to weave a narrative about the centuries-old capital through... View full entry
Researchers at MIT have developed a type of 3D printed material that can sense how it is moving and interacting with its surrounding environment. The 3D printed lattice materials contain networks of air-filled channels, allowing engineers to detect when bending, squeezing, or stretching of the... View full entry
A team of academics working in the Digital Structures research group at MIT's Building Technology Program has combined local aesthetic desires with the recent international push to expend increasing amounts of mass timber elements into new construction. Associate professor Caitlin Mueller is... View full entry
Chemical engineering researchers at MIT have announced the creation of a new material that is “stronger than steel and as light as plastic, and can be easily manufactured in large quantities.” The material, for which the team has filed two patents, may one day be used as a structural material... View full entry
After six years of design and research at MIT, a pair of autonomous boats have been launched into the canals of Amsterdam. Roboat, a research project undertaken by the MIT Senseable City Lab and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute), seeks to encourage a... View full entry
Researchers at the MIT Senseable City Lab have unveiled their latest project, which seeks to understand human mobility in cities. Titled Wanderlust, the project uses large-scale cellphone data to understand the movement of people in the metro areas of Boston, Abidjan, Braga, Lisbon, Porto, Dakar... View full entry
MIT has announced a goal of achieving net-zero emissions from their campus by 2026, and eliminating direct emissions by 2050. The goal is one of a number of initiatives announced under the institution’s new plan titled “Fast Forward: MIT’s Climate Action Plan for the Decade,” aimed at... View full entry
The MIT Senseable City Lab has unveiled their “Favelas 4D” project, dedicated to mapping the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Using 3D laser scanning technology to analyze the urban landscape of Rocinha, the project seeks to understand and quantify the architectural logic of one of... View full entry
MIT Press has launched an unprecedented digitization program for architecture and design publications, with 34 classic architecture and urbanism books now freely available on its platform. The “MIT Press Open Architecture and Urban Studies” is dedicated to classic and out-of-print titles... View full entry
ElDante Winston [...] PhD student in MIT’s History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art program is keenly interested in how spaces designed for violence retain a memory of violent acts in the present day. — MIT News
"These are places of violence that, when you go to them now, you just watch people mill around and eat gelato," ElDante Winston, a PhD student in MIT's History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art program, says about certain, prominent examples of Renaissance architecture, the subject of... View full entry
This post is brought to you by MIT Center for Real Estate The MIT Master of Science in Real Estate Development (MSRED) offers an unparalleled education in real estate practice. Our groundbreaking MSRED degree presents a program that is rigorous, concentrated, multidisciplinary and geared... View full entry
