MAS.551: New Media Building

In collaboration with VEGA - VEnice Gateway for Science and Technology, Italy [www.vegapark.ve.it] students from MIT are working to develop exciting proposal to assist in the creation of a state-of-the art and iconic, sustainable media building. In the MIT Media Lab Design Without Boundaries class led by Professor Federico Casalegno, they have considered how buildings of the future will support the creation and evolution of innovative ideas. Pandora is a newly commissioned "factory of ideas" which furthers the gap between traditional industry and the future of modern social working relations. Pandora is a living organism, which through a dialogue between people, objects (Internet of Things), and the surrounding environment, can generate innovation and wealth.

Student Proposals

Students work in multi-disciplinary teams from across MIT and Harvard, and have travelled to Italy early in the semester to showcase their vision to VEGA park representatives. They will then prototype their ideas around emerging technology and innovative user experiences to reshape the way peple work, communicate and interact. The class explores creatively how the smart building interacts with its environment and the smart city at large, how new technologies support dynamic building reconfiguration and how to support better communication for high-tech knowledge workers who need to interact with the global research community. Students for the class were selected for this rewarding and challenging project with complimentary skill ranging from a variety of backgrounds in architecture, product design, mechanical engineering, design computation and business.