Urban settlements and technology around the world are co-evolving as flows of population, finance, and politics are reshaping the very identity of cities and nations. Rapid and profound changes are driven by pervasive sensing, the growth and availability of continuous data streams, advanced analytics, interactive communications and social networks, and distributed intelligence. At MIT, urban planners and computer scientists are embracing these exciting new developments. — MIT News

The dream of nuclear fusion is on the brink of being realised, according to a major new US initiative that says it will put fusion power on the grid within 15 years.

The project, a collaboration between scientists at MIT and a private company, will take a radically different approach to other efforts to transform fusion from an expensive science experiment into a viable commercial energy source. — The Guardian

It’s 2027 (or 2037) and the age of the self-driving car. City-dwellers have traded in their car keys for ride hails. Street parking has been replaced by wider sidewalks and bike lanes, while developers are busy converting garages into much-needed housing.

That’s one vision of how self-driving cars will affect U.S. real estate, laid out in a report by MIT’s Center for Real Estate. But it’s not the only one. — bloomberg.com

The MIT project — the Managed, Reconfigurable, In-space Nodal Assembly (MARINA) — was designed as a commercially owned and operated space station, featuring a luxury hotel as the primary anchor tenant and NASA as a temporary co-anchor tenant for 10 years. NASA’s estimated recurring costs, $360 million per year, represent an order of magnitude reduction from the current costs of maintaining and operating the International Space Station. — MIT News

The list of materials that can be produced by 3-D printing has grown to include not just plastics but also metal, glass, and even food. Now, MIT researchers are expanding the list further, with the design of a system that can 3-D print the basic structure of an entire building. — MIT

The space elevator—a theoretical mode of transportation where transport modules move up and down a long cable that connects Earth to space—has long been the stuff of futuristic fantasy...Now, a team of MIT scientists has designed one of the strongest lightweight materials in existence, taking us one step closer to realizing that sci-fi dream—and creating a formula for a material that could revolutionize architecture and infrastructure right here on Earth, too. — FastCo. Design

computer vision and artificial intelligence are the keys to a debate behind a door that’s been locked for a long time: the social impact of design in cities. [...]

"Now that we have new tools to measure aesthetics, we can estimate its consequences" [...]

[MIT Media Lab associate professor Cesar Hidalgo] wants to develop more empirical ways to study cities and the way they’re perceived—and, in turn, provide better science to the policy-makers who shape legislation. — fastcodesign.com

That an apple can travel over 11,500 miles from where it was grown (spending over a year in shipment and in toxic, low-oxygen storage to suspend its maturation) is the perfect object lesson of our global agricultural system’s failures. [...]

And with the advent of natural-resource scarcity, flattening yields, loss of biodiversity, changing climates, environmental degradation, and booming urban populations, we’re hurtling toward its natural limit. — Near Future

[nuTonomy's] Level 4 autonomous vehicle "is designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip;" all you have to do is provide a destination and (possibly) open and shut the doors.

Google's autonomous cars, in contrast, are currently at Level 3, with limited self-driving automation [...]

[nuTonomy] is building into [its] decision-making engine the ability for cars to actually violate the rules of the road when it's necessary to do so — spectrum.ieee.org

For the second year in a row, MIT has been named the top university in the world for architecture/built environment in the latest subject rankings from QS World University Rankings. In art and design, the Institute ranked No. 2 globally, a jump from fourth position in 2015. Ten other subject areas at MIT were ranked No. 1.

“This ranking is testament to the success of the MIT model of research and teaching and its global commitment to address complex societal problems,” says [Dean] Hashim Sarkis — MIT

The collaboration will consist of seminars, workshops, and studio classes for MIT students and potential exhibitions at MIT and the Soane Museum. This fall, the Department of Architecture is offering the program’s first class, a reconsideration of architectural fragments [...]

“The Fragment,” taught by David Gissen, a visiting professor in the History, Theory and Criticism program, will explore architectural monuments rendered into a fragmented, disassembled, or ruined state. — news.mit.edu

Kinetic Blocks works by feeding spatial information read by a Microsoft Kinect into the display, allowing it to respond to physical objects.

However, where the inFORM could already manipulate objects in real time, the new project is faster and finely tuned to detect, orient, and stack blocks to make and even disassemble structures. The display can also be programmed to build structures stored in memory, or interact with special kinematic blocks that allow the pins to interact with other objects — theverge.com