MIT - Mobile Experience Laboratory
Other research projects at MIT relevant to Connected Urban Development
MIT Energy Initiative
The MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), established in September 2006, is an Institute-wide initiative designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the needs of the future and to help build a bridge to that future by improving today's energy systems. A major focus of MITEI is developing technologies and conducting underlying policy analyses that will improve how we produce, distribute and consume conventional energy sources.
Solar Revolution Project
In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.
Media Lab
At the Media Lab, the future is lived, not imagined. In a world where radical technology advances are taken for granted, we design technology for people to create a better future. The Lab comprises rigorous research and graduate degree programs, where traditional disciplines get checked at the door. Future-obsessed product designers, nanotechnologists, data-visualization experts, industry researchers, and pioneers of computer interfaces work side by side to tirelessly invent and reinvent how humans experience, and can be aided by, technology.
Centre for Bits & Atoms - Internet Zero
MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms is an ambitious interdisciplinary initiative that is looking beyond the end of the Digital Revolution to ask how a functional description of a system can be embodied in, and abstracted from, a physical form. One of its leading projects is the Internet Zero project.
'The success of the Internet rests on the invention of "internetworking" across unlike networks; the Internet zero (I0) project is extending this insight to enable "interdevice internetworking" of unlike devices.'
http://www.media.mit.edu/physics/publications/papers/04.10.sciam/
http://cba.mit.edu/
Smart Cities
The research of the Smart Cities group focuses upon intelligent, sustainable buildings, mobility systems, and cities. It explores the application of new technologies to enabling urban energy efficiency and sustainability, enhanced opportunity and equity, and cultural creativity.
School of Architecture & Planning
The School of Architecture and Planning comprises the Department of Architecture, the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), the Program in Media Arts and Sciences (MAS), the Media Laboratory, the Center for Real Estate (CRE), and the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS). The unifying theme of all our activities is design. Through the design of physical spaces, and through the design of policies and technologies that shape how those spaces are used, we aim to sustain and enhance the quality of the human environment at all scales, from the personal to the global.
Soft Space - Flexible Printed Solar Panels
Designs for flexible photovoltaic materials that may change the way buildings receive and distribute energy. These new materials, known as solar textiles, work like the now-familiar photovoltaic cells in solar panels. Made of semiconductor materials, they absorb sunlight and convert it into electricity. The concept Utilizes 3-D modeling software to design with solar textiles, generating membrane-like surfaces that can become energy-efficient cladding for roofs or walls. Solar textiles may also be draped like curtains.
New Century Cities - MIT Center for Real Estate
New Century Cities (NCC) is a joint research project among the Center for Real Estate, City Design and Development in Urban Studies and Planning, and the Smart Cities Group/Media Lab which focuses on a new generation of development projects. These very large-scale projects are deliberately located at the intersection of technology, urban design, and real estate development.
Senseable City Lab
The real-time city is now real! The increasing deployment of sensors and hand-held electronics in recent years is allowing a new approach to the study of the built environment. The way we describe and understand cities is being radically transformed - alongside the tools we use to design them and impact on their physical structure. Studying these changes from a critical point of view and anticipating them is the goal of the SENSEable City Laboratory
MIT Portugal
Coordinated at MIT, the MPP includes collaborations with various other departments, divisions and schools at MIT. In four main Focus Areas-Sustainable Energy Systems, Bioengineering Systems, Transportation Systems, and Engineering Design and Advanced Manufacturing-a number of joint research and educational projects have begun involving participants from both Portugal and MIT.
MIT Building Technology Program
Research in the Building Technology Program (BTP) encompasses a wide range of building technology innovations, including recent advances in materials, in designing eco-efficient buildings with both good air quality and energy efficiency. Passive solar design and other siting options, along with the incorporation of efficient appliances, distributed energy sources, and combined heat and power systems, are key to the design of eco-buildings.