Changing Cities ~ Prototype New Urban Systems

I'm leading a module this Fall 2014 in the Changing Cities course taught by my MIT Media Lab colleagues Kent Larson and Ryan Chin, starting Wednesday, 3 September at 2pm, as part of our MIT Cities Initiative. We seek to move beyond so-called “Smart City” solutions that have focused on optimization rather than vital re-invention. This course will focus on how to design and prototype new urban systems to address the challenges of mobility, food, living & working, planning, and more through five “How to” modules:

1. How to prototype autonomous, shared, electric mobility systems 
2. How to prototype hyper-efficient, transformable spaces (robotic architecture) 
3. How to prototype controlled environment urban food systems 
4. How to realize computational urbanism using augmented tangible models 
5. How to quantify innovation, entrepreneurship, and creative vitality in cities

Together with colleagues Daan Archer, Jennifer Saura, and Dan Harple, we're keen on #5 -- Our overarching goal is to seek better indices (or rankings or scores) and analyses of vitality in the city by tapping into novel datasets and new analytic approaches. Ultimately we aspire to compare and contrast not only cities and neighborhoods, as they exist today, but simulate how they might become as new urban systems and solutions are deployed.

Innovation Village ~ Kirsner Spots Ames Biz Park

The Globe's Scott Kirsner spotlights the revitalized Somerville, MA Ames Business Park and its many creative tenants in his Innovation Economy column this Sunday...

"The obituary of the Ames Safety Envelope Company was written in February 2010. [...] Most of the equipment was sold at auction, and the factory went dark. [...] The descendants of Ames’ founder considered selling the property, but weren’t sure they could find a buyer. And they fretted over filling the 290,000-square-foot complex with tenants. “I thought it was an almost impossible task,” says Arthur Fitzgerald, grandson of the company’s founder, John W. Fitzgerald. Skip ahead four years: The final chunk of space in the Ames complex was leased this month. And what is now known as the Ames Business Park is not only fully occupied, it also has become the entrepreneurial epicenter of Somerville, home to a brewery, dozens of start-ups, [etc.] It’s a more diverse blend of people and ideas than you’d find in Kendall Square -- in part because rent is cheaper -- and it’s more densely-packed than Boston’s Innovation District. [...] Now, the question for Somerville is how to encourage similar “innovation villages” to spring up. What happened at the Ames complex was a rare confluence of empty industrial space, entities eager to fill it, and a light touch when it came to planning and marketing. [...] Ames, says [Somerville] Mayor Curtatone, “has really had an impact on our thinking as policy-makers about how to preserve such spaces, to allow for more startups and ideas to flourish in Somerville, and to grow that new economy in our city.” Magic can be hard to replicate -- but it’s worth trying."

Innovation Hubs ~ MIT Urban Design Workshop

My MIT Media Lab CityScience colleagues Kent Larson and Ryan Chin (and team) are hosting a design workshop this Fall 2013 on Innovation Hubs looking at the greater Kendall Square area as a Living Lab for high-density, thriving urban neighborhood design.

"This workshop will explore new urban systems for high-density cities including systems for mobility, energy, food production, and live/work. The workshop will focus on the design of resilient, scalable, adaptable, and reconfigurable systems. This course will utilize CityScope, an urban simulation tool [...] to prototype the design of Compact Urban Cells [...] walkable neighborhoods with a diverse mix of live/work areas that utilize shared mobility systems, distributed renewable power generation, shared spaces, and integrated vertical urban farming. As a test case, the course will focus on the redesign of Kendall Square as a new sustainable model for developing hyper-dense urban environments in the U.S. and abroad. Students will initially study precedents for innovation hubs in other cities, and then they will build [CityScope urban models] to represent their design interventions and illustrate system-level affects."

Cluster Crafting ~ TR on Tech Hot Spot Secrets...

TR's Antonio Regalado writes In Innovation Quest, Regions Seek Critical Mass asking "What’s the secret to becoming the next technology hot spot?"

"Kendall has become what economists call a cluster, a concentration of interconnected companies that both compete and collaborate. [...] net job growth comes from startup companies, especially the kind that explode from a few employees to several thousand. In technology, those winners have a way of producing more winners. The process reaches critical mass in the web of intertwined companies, resources, advantages, ideas, talent, opportunity, and serendipity that defines a technology cluster. It’s clear that what’s essential is proximity to human talent and new ideas. [...] The big questions in this month’s MIT Technology Review Business Report are why technology clusters arise and what the ingredients are to create one."

LabCentral ~ Shared Bio-Bench Venture Space

Excellent to see MIT-related LabCentral open!

"LabCentral supports creation of innovative startup biotechnology companies by providing a world-class environment for entrepreneurs, and a fully functional life sciences laboratory within the Kendall Square innovation hub."