Professor at MIT Department of Architecture, director of the Building Technology Program and head of the Sustainable Design Lab about…
Engineering & Architecture Lecture
Monday 3 December 2018 – 18:00
The Project Room, SG building EPFL
Cities for the Millennials – Design Tools in Support of Sustainable Urban Architecture
Lecture organised with LIPID lab
For today’s knowledge workers, the boundaries between work and private lives are eroding. We can now work anywhere and anytime: At Starbucks and during our kids’ swim practice. While at work, we may play Pokemon Go, go running or catch a nap. As our schedules are becoming unique imprints of our lifestyle choices, our buildings and neighborhoods need to become flexible enough to accommodate potentially conflicting environmental needs when one building occupant may go for a blue-light fix along with a double shot espresso while her colleague opts for low color temperature lighting and herbal tea.
While accommodating such intensely individualized experiences, our cities have to house more people using less natural resources. Drawing on recent work at the MIT Sustainable Design Lab on environmental urban performance analysis regarding building energy use, daylighting, outdoor thermal comfort and building integrated agriculture, this presentation demonstrates how a new generation of design tools can be productively used at the interface between architecture and urban planning and reflects on what types of urban living may emerge from these design explorations.
