DUSP/MIT: Labs

LABS AND CENTERS

> DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING MIT

Faculty and students at DUSP are working on hundreds of research projects, organized by dozens of different labs, centers, courses, and ongoing initiatives. These efforts cut across the intellectual interests of department and connect DUSP with researchers across MIT and around the globe. Helping to coordinate all this activity, the following five groups serve as hubs for both research and practice in planning and development: + CENTER FOR REAL ESTATE AND DEVELOPMENT (CRE) + COMMUNITY INNOVATORS LAB (COLAB) + LEVENTHAL CENTER FOR ADVANCED URBANISM (LCAU) + SAMUEL TAK LEE (STL) REAL ESTATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP LAB + SENSEABLE CITY LAB In addition to these, the department hosts and collaborates with many other labs and centers: > Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA) > AgeLab > Changing Places Lab > Civic Data Design Lab > Critical Infrastructure Lab > Lab on Regional Innovation and Spatial Analysis (LRISA) > Mobility Systems Lab > Organization for Permanent Modernity > Project for Reclamation Excellence Lab (P-REX) > Real Estate Innovation Lab > Resilient Cities Housing Initiative > Science Impact Collaborative > Sustainable Design Lab > Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) > Urban Economics Lab > Urban Risk Lab

Place It by james Rojas DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING MIT

MIT CENTER FOR REAL ESTATE The Center for Real Estate provides an intellectual focus for research on issues affecting the real estate industry. Faculty associated with the center are drawn from the departments of Architecture, Urban Studies and Planning, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Economics, and the Sloan School of Management.

The center’s research initiatives cover a range of disciplines and areas of application within real estate, and all offer synergy between the real world of practice and MIT’s faculty and research capabilities.

The center encourages interaction between members of the real estate industry and the academic community through seminars, colloquia, lectures, and a series of non-credit professional development courses offered through the Professional Development Institute.

STL REAL ESTATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP LAB The MIT Samuel Tak Lee (STL) Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab provides an intellectual focus for research on issues affecting the real estate industry.

It promotes social responsibility among entrepreneurs and academics in the real estate profession worldwide, with a particular focus on China.

The Lab funds fellowships to attract both U.S. and international students; supports research on sustainable real estate development and global urbanization; and make available online curricula to learners worldwide via MITx.

MIT LEVENTHAL CENTER FOR ADVANCED URBANISM The MIT Normal B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism is a premier research center focused on the design and planning of large-scale, complex, 21st century metropolitan environments. The Center aims to redefine the field of urban design to meet contemporary challenges utilizing interdisciplinary collaborative practices and the most advanced analytical and representational tools. > To enable real world collaboration among interdisciplinary professionals to build new knowledge and deliver large-scale design and planning projects that address pressing global urban design, architectural, and environmental challenges. > To disseminate the learning from these projects in the form of new modes of analysis, frameworks for practice, and recommendations for the long-term functionality of metropolitan areas. > To educate a new generation of leaders who not only have a deep understanding of the issues facing our urban future, but also have the real world project experience to catalyze change.

> Photo by Alan Berger.

SENSEABLE CITY LAB The SENSEable City Laboratory aims to investigate and anticipate how digital technologies are changing the way people live and their implications at the urban scale. The Lab’s mission is to creatively intervene and investigate the interface between people, technologies and the city. Recent projects include “The Copenhagen Wheel” which debuted at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, “Trash_Track” shown at the Architectural League of New York and the Seattle Public Library, “New York Talk Exchange” featured in The Museum of Modern Art, and Real Time Rome included in the 2006 Venice Biennale of Architecture.

The Lab’s work draws on diverse fields such as urban planning, architecture, design, engineering, computer science, natural science, and economics to capture the multi-disciplinary nature of urban problems and deliver research and applications that empower citizens to make a better liveable urban experience.

The Copenhagen Wheel DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING MIT

COMMUNITY INNOVATORS LAB CoLab supports the development and use of knowledge from excluded communities to deepen civic engagement, improve community practice, inform policy, mobilize community assets, and generate shared wealth. The Lab emphasizes collaborative research, media, and culture by: generating new and relevant knowledge about urban sustainability with community partners and co-crafting theories of community engagement, development, and social change; and preparing new cadres of planners with the commitment, skills, and ability to lead innovation across sectors and address systemic failures.

The Lab’s projects fall under these major subject areas: > Democratic engagement > Shared wealth generation > Urban sustainability

Making charcoal from waste. Photo by Kevin Kung.