Prof. Ekene Ijeoma has been collecting video recordings of people counting to 100 in different languages and dialects for the past year as part of his project “A Counting,” and is now soliciting videos of people counting to 100 in sign language, writes Sophie Haigney for The New York Times. Ijeoma explains that he hopes the artwork will constantly evolve “into a more whole representation of society.”
Fast Company reporter Nate Berg highlights Ori, an MIT startup that makes motorized furniture that can be used to transform small spaces.
Nobull, a direct-to-consumer fitness brand co-founded by alumnus Marcus Wilson MBA ’04, is releasing a line of apparel designed by Boston teens, as part of an effort with Artists for Humanity to help connect under-resourced teens with opportunities in arts and design, reports Anissa Gardizy for The Boston Globe.
Boston Business Journal reporter Catherine Carlock spotlights how MIT has submitted plans for the second phase of the Volpe redevelopment in Kendall Square. “The second phase could house a combined 1,400 residential units; 1.7 million square feet of lab, research and office space; a 20,000-square-foot community center; 3.5 acres of open space and other retail, entertainment and cultural facilities,” writes Carlock.
Fast Company reporter Rachel Raczka spotlights Season Three, a startup founded by three MIT graduates aimed at designing a shoe that fits “practical parameters but performed like a stylish, everyday sneaker that you wouldn’t dread wearing.”
Boston Globe reporter Tim Logan writes about how MIT has submitted design plans for the next phase of its proposal to transform the Volpe Transportation Center into a dynamic mixed-use development, including “eight office and residential towers on the 14-acre site north of Broadway.”
In this video, Mashable spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a new system that can 3-D print objects without human intervention. “The system works thanks to a software toolkit that lets you design custom blueprints,” Mashable explains.
CSAIL researchers have developed a new system, dubbed LaserFactory, that can print custom devices and robots without human intervention, reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch. “The system is comprised of a software kit and hardware platform designed to create structures and assemble circuitry and sensors for the machine,” Heater writes.
Prof. Ceasar McDowell speaks with Fast Company reporter Mark Wilson about the importance of designing for communities and not individuals in order to help create a more equitable future. "We're living in a system that really is unequal," says McDowell. "As long as we continue to design things so that they fit what's prominently on the market today, we're going to continue to support that inequality."
Fast Company reporter Mark Wilson spotlights Prof. Ekene Ijeoma’s project, A Counting, which aims to capture audio recordings of the more than 1,300 languages that Americans speak. “The question for A Counting is how we can count to a whole using everyone’s voices to represent,” says Ijeoma, “not just languages, but voices and accents as a way of representing their cultural and ethnic identities.”
Graduate student Kenyatta McLean speaks with Fast Company reporter Nate Berg about BlackSpace, a non-profit she co-founded that aims to bring communities of color into the urban planning decision-making process. “We know that heritage is such an important part of Black neighborhoods and is something that Black neighborhoods continue to produce and conserve themselves, so we did want to amplify that work,” says McLean.
MIT alumna Angeline Jacques speaks with Archinect reporter Katherine Guimapang about her design for a new conceptual framework for Glacier National Park and her experience entering the workforce during the Covid-19 pandemic. Jacques explains that her MIT thesis “was on the design of National Parks in the age of climate change and spanned geography, landscape, and architecture as disciplines.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Carlo Ratti explores the importance of public spaces in bringing people together. “Public space is performing its primordial function: revealing fault lines in our society and helping to reconcile them,” writes Ratti. “This is a particularly important activity today, as the growth of digital communication is leading to increased polarization.”
Dean Hashim Sarkis speaks with Washington Post reporter Philip Kennicott about his new book, “The World as an Architectural Project” and the role of architecture in a post-pandemic world. “As architects, we are condemned to optimism,” says Sarkis. “Our field is necessarily about proposing and imaging new things, what the world could be through making a part of it better.”
MIT researchers have developed a new way to optimize how soft robots perform certain tasks. It "shrinks drastically the amount of computational overhead required to get good movement results out of soft robots,” writes Darrell Etherington for TechCrunch, “which is a key ingredient in helping make them partial to actually use in real-life applications.”