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    How a building creates and defines a region

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    As an undergraduate majoring in architecture, Dong Nyung Lee ’21 wasn’t sure how to respond when friends asked him what the study of architecture was about.“I was always confused about how to describe it myself,” he says with a laugh. “I would tell them that it wasn’t just about a building, or a city, or a community. It’s a balance across different scales, and it has to touch everything all at once.”As a graduate student enrolled in a design studio course last spring — 4.154 (Territory as Interior) — Lee and his classmates had to design a building that would serve a specific community in a specific location. The course, says Lee, gave him clarity as to “what architecture is all about.”Designed by Roi Salgueiro Barrio, a lecturer in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning’s Department of Architecture, the coursework combines ecological principles, architectural design, urban economics, and social considerations to address real-world problems in marginalized or degraded areas.“When we build, we always impact economies, mostly by the different types of technologies we use and their dependence on different types of labor and materials,” says Salgueiro Barrio. “The intention here was to think at both levels: the activities that can be accommodated, and how we can actually build something.”Research firstStudents were tasked with repurposing an abandoned fishing industry building on the Barbanza Peninsula in Galicia, Spain, and proposing a new economic activity for the building that would help regenerate the local economy. Working in groups, they researched the region’s material resources and fiscal sectors and designed detailed maps. This approach to constructing a building was new for Vincent Jackow a master’s student in architecture.“Normally in architecture, we work at the scale of one-to-100 meters,” he says. But this process allowed me to connect the dots between what the region offered and what could be built to support the economy.”The aim of revitalizing this area is also a goal of Fundación RIA (FRIA), a nonprofit think tank established by Pritzker Prize-winning architect David Chipperfield. FRIA generates research and territorial planning with the goal of long-term sustainability of the built and natural environment in the Galicia region. During their spring break in March, the students traveled to Galicia, met with Chipperfield, business owners, fishermen, and farmers, and explored a variety of sites. They also consulted with the owner of the building they were to repurpose.Returning to MIT, the students constructed nine detailed models. Master’s student Aleks Banaś says she took the studio because it required her to explore the variety of scales in an architectural project from territorial analysis to building detail, all while keeping the socio-economic aspect of design decisions in mind.“I’m interested in how architecture can support local economies,” says Banaś. “Visiting Galicia was very special because of the communities we interacted with. We were no longer looking at articles and maps of the region; we were learning about day-to-day life. A lot of people shared with us the value of their work, which is not economically feasible.”Banaś was impressed by the region’s strong maritime history and the generations of craftspeople working on timber boat-making. Inspired by the collective spirit of the region, she designed “House of Sea,” transforming the former cannery into a hub for community gathering and seafront activities. The reimagined building would accommodate a variety of functions including a boat-building workshop for the Ribeira carpenters’ association, a restaurant, and a large, covered section for local events such as the annual barnacle festival.“I wanted to demonstrate how we can create space for an alternative economy that can host and support these skills and traditions,” says Banaś. Jackow’s building — “La Nueva Cordelería,” or “New Rope Making” — was a facility using hemp to produce rope and hempcrete blocks (a construction material). The production of both “is very on-trend in the E.U.” and provides an alternative to petrochemical-based ropes for the region’s marine uses, says Jackow. The building would serve as a cultural hub, incorporating a café, worker housing, and offices. Even its very structure would also make use of the rope by joining timber with knots allowing the interior spaces to be redesigned.Lee’s building was designed to engage with the forestry and agricultural industries.“What intrigued me was that Galicia is heavily dependent on pulp production and wood harvesting,” he says. “I wanted to give value to the post-harvest residue.”Lee designed a biochar plant using some of the concrete and terra cotta blocks on site. Biochar is made by heating the harvested wood residue through pyrolysis — thermal decomposition in an environment with little oxygen. The resulting biochar would be used by farmers for soil enhancement.“The work demonstrated an understanding of the local resources and using them to benefit the revitalization of the area,” says Salgueiro Barrio, who was pleased with the results. FRIA was so impressed with the work that they held an exhibition at their gallery in Santiago de Compostela in August and September to highlight the importance of connecting academic research with the territory through student projects. Banaś interned with FRIA over the summer working on multiple projects, including the plan and design for the exhibition. The challenge here, she says, was to design an exhibition of academic work for a general audience. The final presentation included maps, drawings, and photographs by the students.For Lee, the course was more meaningful than any he has taken to date. Moving between the different scales of the project illustrated, for him, “the biggest challenge for a designer and an architect. Architecture is universal, and very specific. Keeping those dualities in focus was the biggest challenge and the most interesting part of this project. It hit at the core of what architecture is.” More

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      in Security

      Returning farming to city centers

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      A new class is giving MIT students the opportunity to examine the historical and practical considerations of urban farming while developing a real-world understanding of its value by working alongside a local farm’s community.Course 4.182 (Resilient Urbanism: Green Commons in the City) is taught in two sections by instructors in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society and the School of Architecture and Planning, in collaboration with The Common Good Co-op in Dorchester.The first section was completed in spring 2025 and the second section is scheduled for spring 2026. The course is taught by STS professor Kate Brown, visiting lecturer Justin Brazier MArch ’24, and Kafi Dixon, lead farmer and executive director of The Common Good.“This project is a way for students to investigate the real political, financial, and socio-ecological phenomena that can help or hinder an urban farm’s success,” says Brown, the Thomas M. Siebel Distinguished Professor in History of Science. Brown teaches environmental history, the history of food production, and the history of plants and people. She describes a history of urban farming that centered sustainable practices, financial investment and stability, and lasting connections among participants. Brown says urban farms have sustained cities for decades.“Cities are great places to grow produce,” Brown asserts. “City dwellers produce lots of compostable materials.”Brazier’s research ranges from affordable housing to urban agricultural gardens, exploring topics like sustainable architecture, housing, and food security.“My work designing vacant lots as community gardens offered a link between Kafi’s work with Common Good and my interests in urban design,” Brazier says. “Urban farms offer opportunities to eliminate food deserts in underserved areas while also empowering historically marginalized communities.”Before they agreed to collaborate on the course, Dixon reached out to Brown asking for help with several challenges related to her urban farm including zoning, location, and infrastructure.“As the lead farmer and executive director of Common Good Co-op, I happened upon Kate Brown’s research and work and saw that it aligned with our cooperative model’s intentions,” Dixon says. “I reached out to Kate, and she replied, which humbled and excited me.” “Design itself is a form of communication,” Dixon adds, describing the collaborative nature of farming sustenance and development. “For many under-resourced communities, innovating requires a research-based approach.”The project is among the inaugural cohort of initiatives to receive support from the SHASS Education Innovation Fund, which is administered by the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC).Community development, investment, and collaborationThe class’s first section paired students with community members and the City of Boston to change the farm’s zoning status and create a green space for long-term farming and community use. Students spent time at Common Good during the course, including one weekend during which they helped with weeding the garden beds for spring planting.One objective of the class is to help Common Good avoid potential pitfalls associated with gentrification. “A study in Philadelphia showed that gentrification occurs within 1,000 feet of a community garden,” Brown says. “Farms and gardens are a key part of community and public health,” Dixon continues. Students in the second section will design and build infrastructure — including a mobile chicken coop and a pavilion to protect farmers from the elements — for Common Good. The course also aims to secure a green space designation for the farm and ensure it remains an accessible community space. “We want to prevent developers from acquiring the land and displacing the community,” Brown says, avoiding past scenarios in which governments seized inhabitants’ property while offering little or no compensation.Students in the 2025 course also produced a guide on how to navigate the complex rules surrounding zoning and related development. Students in the next STS section will research the history of food sovereignty and Black feminist movements in Dorchester and Roxbury. Using that research, they will construct an exhibit focused on community activism for incorporation into the coop’s facade.Imani Bailey, a second-year master’s student in the Department of Architecture’s MArch program, was among the students in the course’s first section.“By taking this course, I felt empowered to directly engage with the community in a way no other class I have taken so far has afforded me the ability to,” she says.Bailey argues for urban farms’ value as both a financial investment and space for communal interaction, offering opportunities for engagement and the implementation of sustainable practices. “Urban farms are important in the same way a neighbor is,” she adds. “You may not necessarily need them to own your home, but a good one makes your property more valuable, sometimes financially, but most importantly in ways that cannot be assigned a monetary value.”The intersection of agriculture, community, and technologyTechnology, the course’s participants believe, can offer solutions to some of the challenges related to ensuring urban farms’ viability. “Cities like Amsterdam are redesigning themselves to improve walkability, increase the appearance of small gardens in the city, and increase green space,” Brown says. By creating spaces that center community and a collective approach to farming, it’s possible to reduce both greenhouse emissions and impacts related to climate change.Additionally, engineers, scientists, and others can partner with communities to develop solutions to transportation and public health challenges. By redesigning sewer systems, empowering microbiologists to design microbial inoculants that can break down urban food waste at the neighborhood level, and centering agriculture-related transportation in the places being served, it’s possible to sustain community support and related infrastructure.“Community is cultivated, nurtured, and grown from prolonged interaction, sharing ideas, and the creation of place through a shared sense of ownership,” Bailey argues. “Urban farms present the conditions for communities to develop.” Bailey values the course because it leaves the theoretical behind, instead focusing on practical solutions. “We seldom see our design ideas become tangible,” she says. “This class offered an opportunity to design and build for a real client in the real world.”Brazier says the course and its projects prove everyone has something to contribute and can have a voice in what happens with their neighborhoods. “Despite these communities’ distrust of some politicians, we partnered to work on solutions related to zoning,” he says, “and supported community members’ advocacy efforts.” More

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      in Energy

      Giving buildings an “MRI” to make them more energy-efficient and resilient

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      Older buildings let thousands of dollars-worth of energy go to waste each year through leaky roofs, old windows, and insufficient insulation. But even as building owners face mounting pressure to comply with stricter energy codes, making smart decisions about how to invest in efficiency is a major challenge.Lamarr.AI, born in part from MIT research, is making the process of finding ways to improve the energy efficiency of buildings as easy as clicking a button. When customers order a building review, it triggers a coordinated symphony of drones, thermal and visible-range cameras, and artificial intelligence designed to identify problems and quantify the impact of potential upgrades. Lamarr.AI’s technology also assesses structural conditions, creates detailed 3D models of buildings, and recommends retrofits. The solution is already being used by leading organizations across facilities management as well as by architecture, engineering, and construction firms.“We identify the root cause of the anomalies we find,” says CEO and co-founder Tarek Rakha PhD ’15. “Our platform doesn’t just say, ‘This is a hot spot and this is a cold spot.’ It specifies ‘This is infiltration or exfiltration. This is missing insulation. This is water intrusion.’ The detected anomalies are also mapped to a 3D model of the building, and there are deeper analytics, such as the cost of each retrofit and the return on investment.”To date, the company estimates its platform has helped clients across health care, higher education, and multifamily housing avoid over $3 million in unnecessary construction and retrofit costs by recommending targeted interventions over costly full-system replacements, while improving energy performance and extending asset life. For building owners managing portfolios worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Lamarr.AI’s approach represents a fundamental shift from reactive maintenance to strategic asset management.The founders, who also include MIT Professor John Fernández and Research Scientist Norhan Bayomi SM ’17, PhD ’21, are thrilled to see their technology accelerating the transition to more energy-efficient and higher-performing buildings.“Reducing carbon emissions in buildings gets you the greatest return on investment in terms of climate interventions, but what has been needed are the technologies and tools to help the real estate and construction sectors make the right decisions in a timely and economical way,” Fernández says.Automating building scansBayomi and Rakha completed their PhDs in the MIT Department of Architecture’s Building Technology Program. For her thesis, Bayomi developed technology to detect features of building exteriors and classify thermal anomalies through scans of buildings, with a specific focus on the impact of heat waves on low-income communities. Bayomi and her collaborators eventually deployed the system to detect air leaks as part of a partnership with a community in New York City.After graduating MIT, Rakha became an assistant professor at Syracuse University. In 2015, together with fellow Syracuse University Professor Senem Velipasalar, he began developing his concept for drone-based building analytics — an idea that later received support through a grant from New York State’s Department of Economic Development. In 2019, Bayomi and Fernández joined the project, and the team received a $1.8 million research award from the U.S. Department of Energy.“The technology is like giving a building an MRI using drones, infrared imaging, visible light imaging, and proprietary AI that we developed through computer vision technology, along with large language models for report generation,” Rakha explains.“When we started the research, we saw firsthand how vulnerable communities were suffering from inefficient buildings, but couldn’t afford comprehensive diagnostics,” Bayomi says. “We knew that if we could automate this process and reduce costs while improving accuracy, we’d unlock a massive market. Now we’re seeing demand from everyone, from municipal buildings to major institutional portfolios.”Lamarr.AI was officially founded in 2021 to commercialize the technology, and the founders wasted no time tapping into MIT’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. First, they received a small seed grant from the MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund. In 2022, they won the MITdesignX prize and were semifinalists in the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. The founders named the company after Hedy Lamarr, the famous actress and inventor of a patented technology that became the basis for many modern secure communications.Current methods for detecting air leaks in buildings utilize fan pressurizers or smoke. Contractors or building engineers may also spot-check buildings with handheld infrared cameras to manually identify temperature differences across individual walls, windows, and ductwork.Lamarr.AI’s system can perform building inspections far more quickly. Building managers can order the company’s scans online and select when they’d like the drone to fly. Lamarr.AI partners with drone companies worldwide to fly off-the-shelf drones around buildings, providing them with flight plans and specifications for success. Images are then uploaded onto Lamarr.AI’s platform for automated analysis.“As an example, a survey of a 180,000-square-foot building like the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, which we scanned, produces around 2,000 images,” Fernández says. “For someone to go through those manually would take a couple of weeks. Our models autonomously analyze those images in a few seconds.”After the analysis, Lamarr.AI’s platform generates a report that includes the suspected root cause of every weak point found, an estimated cost to correct that problem, and its estimated return on investment using advanced building energy simulations.“We knew if we were able to quickly, inexpensively, and accurately survey the thermal envelope of buildings and understand their performance, we would be addressing a huge need in the real estate, building construction, and built environment sectors,” Fernández explains. “Thermal anomalies are a huge cause of unwanted heat loss, and more than 45 percent of construction defects are tied to envelope failures.”The ability to operate at scale is especially attractive to building owners and operators, who often manage large portfolios of buildings across multiple campuses.“We see Lamarr.AI becoming the premier solution for building portfolio diagnostics and prognosis across the globe, where every building can be equipped not just for the climate crisis, but also to minimize energy losses and be more efficient, safer, and sustainable,” Rakha says.Building science for everyoneLamarr.AI has worked with building operators across the U.S. as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates.In June, Lamarr.AI partnered with the City of Detroit, with support from Newlab and Michigan Central, to inspect three municipal buildings to identify areas for improvement. Across two of the buildings, the system identified more than 460 problems like insulation gaps and water leaks. The findings were presented in a report that also utilized energy simulations to demonstrate that upgrades, such as window replacements and targeted weatherization, could reduce HVAC energy use by up to 22 percent.The entire process took a few days. The founders note that it was the first building inspection drone flight to utilize an off-site operator, an approach that further enhances the scalability of their platform. It also helps further reduce costs, which could make building scans available to a broader swath of people around the world.“We’re democratizing access to very high-value building science expertise that previously cost tens of thousands per audit,” Bayomi says. “Our platform makes advanced diagnostics affordable enough for routine use, not just one-time assessments. The bigger vision is automated, regular building health monitoring that keeps facilities teams informed in real-time, enabling proactive decisions rather than reactive crisis management. When building intelligence becomes continuous and accessible, operators can optimize performance systematically rather than waiting for problems to emerge.” More

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      in Environment

      A beacon of light

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      Placing a lit candle in a window to welcome friends and strangers is an old Irish tradition that took on greater significance when Mary Robinson was elected president of Ireland in 1990. At the time, Robinson placed a lamp in Áras an Uachtaráin — the official residence of Ireland’s presidents — noting that the Irish diaspora and all others are always welcome in Ireland. Decades later, a lit lamp remains in a window in Áras an Uachtaráin.The symbolism of Robinson’s lamp was shared by Hashim Sarkis, dean of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P), at the school’s graduation ceremony in May, where Robinson addressed the class of 2025. To replicate the generous intentions of Robinson’s lamp and commemorate her visit to MIT, Sarkis commissioned a unique lantern as a gift for Robinson. He commissioned an identical one for his office, which is in the front portico of MIT at 77 Massachusetts Ave.“The lamp will welcome all citizens of the world to MIT,” says Sarkis.

      Geolectric: Sustainable, Low-Carbon Ceramics for Embedded Electronics and Interaction DesignVideo: MIT Design Intelligence Lab

      No ordinary lanternThe bespoke lantern was created by Marcelo Coelho SM ’08, PhD ’12, director of the Design Intelligence Lab and associate professor of the practice in the Department of Architecture.One of several projects in the Geoletric research at the Design Intelligence Lab, the lantern showcases the use of geopolymers as a sustainable material alternative for embedded computers and consumer electronics.“The materials that we use to make computers have a negative impact on climate, so we’re rethinking how we make products with embedded electronics — such as a lamp or lantern — from a climate perspective,” says Coelho.Consumer electronics rely on materials that are high in carbon emissions and difficult to recycle. As the demand for embedded computing increases, so too does the need for alternative materials that have a reduced environmental impact while supporting electronic functionality.The Geolectric lantern advances the formulation and application of geopolymers — a class of inorganic materials that form covalently bonded, non-crystalline networks. Unlike traditional ceramics, geopolymers do not require high-temperature firing, allowing electronic components to be embedded seamlessly during production.Geopolymers are similar to ceramics, but have a lower carbon footprint and present a sustainable alternative for consumer electronics, product design, and architecture. The minerals Coelho uses to make the geopolymers — aluminum silicate and sodium silicate — are those regularly used to make ceramics.“Geopolymers aren’t particularly new, but are becoming more popular,” says Coelho. “They have high strength in both tension and compression, superior durability, fire resistance, and thermal insulation. Compared to concrete, geopolymers don’t release carbon dioxide. Compared to ceramics, you don’t have to worry about firing them. What’s even more interesting is that they can be made from industrial byproducts and waste materials, contributing to a circular economy and reducing waste.”The lantern is embedded with custom electronics that serve as a proximity and touch sensor. When a hand is placed over the top, light shines down the glass tubes.The timeless design of the Geoelectric lantern — minimalist, composed of natural materials — belies its future-forward function. Coelho’s academic background is in fine arts and computer science. Much of his work, he says, “bridges these two worlds.”Working at the Design Intelligence Lab with Coelho on the lanterns are Jacob Payne, a graduate architecture student, and Jean-Baptiste Labrune, a research affiliate.A light for MITA few weeks before commencement, Sarkis saw the Geoelectric lantern in Palazzo Diedo Berggruen Arts and Culture in Venice, Italy. The exhibition, a collateral event of the Venice Biennale’s 19th International Architecture Exhibition, featured the work of 40 MIT architecture faculty.The sustainability feature of Geolectric is the key reason Sarkis regarded the lantern as the perfect gift for Robinson. After her career in politics, Robinson founded the Mary Robinson Foundation — Climate Justice, an international center addressing the impacts of climate change on marginalized communities.The third iteration of Geolectric for Sarkis’ office is currently underway. While the lantern was a technical prototype and an opportunity to showcase his lab’s research, Coelho — an immigrant from Brazil — was profoundly touched by how Sarkis created the perfect symbolism to both embody the welcoming spirit of the school and honor President Robinson.“When the world feels most fragile, we need to urgently find sustainable and resilient solutions for our built environment. It’s in the darkest times when we need light the most,” says Coelho.  More

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      in Environment

      School of Architecture and Planning welcomes new faculty for 2025

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      Four new faculty members join the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) this fall, offering the MIT community creativity, knowledge, and scholarship in multidisciplinary roles.“These individuals add considerable strength and depth to our faculty,” says Hashim Sarkis, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning. “We are excited for the academic vigor they bring to research and teaching.”Karrie G. Karahalios ’94, MEng ’95, SM ’97, PhD ’04 joins the MIT Media Lab as a full professor of media arts and sciences. Karahalios is a pioneer in the exploration of social media and of how people communicate in environments that are increasingly mediated by algorithms that, as she has written, “shape the world around us.” Her work combines computing, systems, artificial intelligence, anthropology, sociology, psychology, game theory, design, and infrastructure studies. Karahalios’ work has received numerous honors including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, SIGMOD Best Paper Award, and recognition as an ACM Distinguished Member.Pat Pataranutaporn SM ’18, PhD ’20 joins the MIT Media Lab as an assistant professor of media arts and sciences. A visionary technologist, scientist, and designer, Pataranutaporn explores the frontier of human-AI interaction, inventing and investigating AI systems that support human thriving. His research focuses on how personalized AI systems can amplify human cognition, from learning and decision-making to self-development, reflection, and well-being. Pataranutaporn will co-direct the Advancing Humans with AI Program.Mariana Popescu joins the Department of Architecture as an assistant professor. Popescu is a computational architect and structural designer with a strong interest and experience in innovative ways of approaching the fabrication process and use of materials in construction. Her area of expertise is computational and parametric design, with a focus on digital fabrication and sustainable design. Her extensive involvement in projects related to promoting sustainability has led to a multilateral development of skills, which combine the fields of architecture, engineering, computational design, and digital fabrication. Popescu earned her doctorate at ETH Zurich. She was named a “Pioneer” on the MIT Technology Review global list of “35 innovators under 35” in 2019.Holly Samuelson joins the Department of Architecture as an associate professor in the Building Technology Program at MIT, teaching architectural technology courses. Her teaching and research focus on issues of building design that impact human and environmental health. Her current projects harness advanced building simulation to investigate issues of greenhouse gas emissions, heat vulnerability, and indoor environmental quality while considering the future of buildings in a changing electricity grid. Samuelson has co-authored over 40 peer-reviewed papers, winning a best paper award from the journal Energy and Building. As a recognized expert in architectural technology, she has been featured in news outlets including The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the BBC, and The Wall Street Journal. Samuelson earned her doctor of design from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. More

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      in Environment

      VAMO proposes an alternative to architectural permanence

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      The International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia holds up a mirror to the industry — not only reflecting current priorities and preoccupations, but also projecting an agenda for what might be possible. Curated by Carlo Ratti, MIT professor of practice of urban technologies and planning, this year’s exhibition (“Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective”) proposes a “Circular Economy Manifesto” with the goal to support the “development and production of projects that utilize natural, artificial, and collective intelligence to combat the climate crisis.” Designers and architects will quickly recognize the paradox of this year’s theme. Global architecture festivals have historically had a high carbon footprint, using vast amounts of energy, resources, and materials to build and transport temporary structures that are later discarded. This year’s unprecedented emphasis on waste elimination and carbon neutrality challenges participants to reframe apparent limitations into creative constraints. In this way, the Biennale acts as a microcosm of current planetary conditions — a staging ground to envision and practice adaptive strategies.VAMO (Vegetal, Animal, Mineral, Other)When Ratti approached John Ochsendorf, MIT professor and founding director of MIT Morningside Academy of Design (MAD), with the invitation to interpret the theme of circularity, the project became the premise for a convergence of ideas, tools, and know-how from multiple teams at MIT and the wider MIT community. The Digital Structures research group, directed by Professor Caitlin Mueller, applied expertise in designing efficient structures of tension and compression. The Circular Engineering for Architecture research group, led by MIT alumna Catherine De Wolf at ETH Zurich, explored how digital technologies and traditional woodworking techniques could make optimal use of reclaimed timber. Early-stage startups — including companies launched by the venture accelerator MITdesignX — contributed innovative materials harnessing natural byproducts from vegetal, animal, mineral, and other sources. The result is VAMO (Vegetal, Animal, Mineral, Other), an ultra-lightweight, biodegradable, and transportable canopy designed to circle around a brick column in the Corderie of the Venice Arsenale — a historic space originally used to manufacture ropes for the city’s naval fleet. “This year’s Biennale marks a new radicalism in approaches to architecture,” says Ochsendorf. “It’s no longer sufficient to propose an exciting idea or present a stylish installation. The conversation on material reuse must have relevance beyond the exhibition space, and we’re seeing a hunger among students and emerging practices to have a tangible impact. VAMO isn’t just a temporary shelter for new thinking. It’s a material and structural prototype that will evolve into multiple different forms after the Biennale.”Tension and compressionThe choice to build the support structure from reclaimed timber and hemp rope called for a highly efficient design to maximize the inherent potential of comparatively humble materials. Working purely in tension (the spliced cable net) or compression (the oblique timber rings), the structure appears to float — yet is capable of supporting substantial loads across large distances. The canopy weighs less than 200 kilograms and covers over 6 meters in diameter, highlighting the incredible lightness that equilibrium forms can achieve. VAMO simultaneously showcases a series of sustainable claddings and finishes made from surprising upcycled materials — from coconut husks, spent coffee grounds, and pineapple peel to wool, glass, and scraps of leather. The Digital Structures research group led the design of structural geometries conditioned by materiality and gravity. “We knew we wanted to make a very large canopy,” says Mueller. “We wanted it to have anticlastic curvature suggestive of naturalistic forms. We wanted it to tilt up to one side to welcome people walking from the central corridor into the space. However, these effects are almost impossible to achieve with today’s computational tools that are mostly focused on drawing rigid materials.”In response, the team applied two custom digital tools, Ariadne and Theseus, developed in-house to enable a process of inverse form-finding: a way of discovering forms that achieve the experiential qualities of an architectural project based on the mechanical properties of the materials. These tools allowed the team to model three-dimensional design concepts and automatically adjust geometries to ensure that all elements were held in pure tension or compression.“Using digital tools enhances our creativity by allowing us to choose between multiple different options and short-circuit a process that would have otherwise taken months,” says Mueller. “However, our process is also generative of conceptual thinking that extends beyond the tool — we’re constantly thinking about the natural and historic precedents that demonstrate the potential of these equilibrium structures.”Digital efficiency and human creativity Lightweight enough to be carried as standard luggage, the hemp rope structure was spliced by hand and transported from Massachusetts to Venice. Meanwhile, the heavier timber structure was constructed in Zurich, where it could be transported by train — thereby significantly reducing the project’s overall carbon footprint. The wooden rings were fabricated using salvaged beams and boards from two temporary buildings in Switzerland — the Huber and Music Pavilions — following a pedagogical approach that De Wolf has developed for the Digital Creativity for Circular Construction course at ETH Zurich. Each year, her students are tasked with disassembling a building due for demolition and using the materials to design a new structure. In the case of VAMO, the goal was to upcycle the wood while avoiding the use of chemicals, high-energy methods, or non-biodegradable components (such as metal screws or plastics). “Our process embraces all three types of intelligence celebrated by the exhibition,” says De Wolf. “The natural intelligence of the materials selected for the structure and cladding; the artificial intelligence of digital tools empowering us to upcycle, design, and fabricate with these natural materials; and the crucial collective intelligence that unlocks possibilities of newly developed reused materials, made possible by the contributions of many hands and minds.”For De Wolf, true creativity in digital design and construction requires a context-sensitive approach to identifying when and how such tools are best applied in relation to hands-on craftsmanship. Through a process of collective evaluation, it was decided that the 20-foot lower ring would be assembled with eight scarf joints using wedges and wooden pegs, thereby removing the need for metal screws. The scarf joints were crafted through five-axis CNC milling; the smaller, dual-jointed upper ring was shaped and assembled by hand by Nicolas Petit-Barreau, founder of the Swiss woodwork company Anku, who applied his expertise in designing and building yurts, domes, and furniture to the VAMO project. “While digital tools suited the repetitive joints of the lower ring, the upper ring’s two unique joints were more efficiently crafted by hand,” says Petit-Barreau. “When it comes to designing for circularity, we can learn a lot from time-honored building traditions. These methods were refined long before we had access to energy-intensive technologies — they also allow for the level of subtlety and responsiveness necessary when adapting to the irregularities of reused wood.”A material palette for circularityThe structural system of a building is often the most energy-intensive; an impact dramatically mitigated by the collaborative design and fabrication process developed by MIT Digital Structures and ETH Circular Engineering for Architecture. The structure also serves to showcase panels made of biodegradable and low-energy materials — many of which were advanced through ventures supported by MITdesignX, a program dedicated to design innovation and entrepreneurship at MAD. “In recent years, several MITdesignX teams have proposed ideas for new sustainable materials that might at first seem far-fetched,” says Gilad Rosenzweig, executive director of MITdesignX. “For instance, using spent coffee grounds to create a leather-like material (Cortado), or creating compostable acoustic panels from coconut husks and reclaimed wool (Kokus). This reflects a major cultural shift in the architecture profession toward rethinking the way we build, but it’s not enough just to have an inventive idea. To achieve impact — to convert invention into innovation — teams have to prove that their concept is cost-effective, viable as a business, and scalable.”Aligned with the ethos of MAD, MITdesignX assesses profit and productivity in terms of environmental and social sustainability. In addition to presenting the work of R&D teams involved in MITdesignX, VAMO also exhibits materials produced by collaborating teams at University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design, Politecnico di Milano, and other partners, such as Manteco. The result is a composite structure that encapsulates multiple life spans within a diverse material palette of waste materials from vegetal, animal, and mineral forms. Panels of Ananasse, a material made from pineapple peels developed by Vérabuccia, preserve the fruit’s natural texture as a surface pattern, while rehub repurposes fragments of multicolored Murano glass into a flexible terrazzo-like material; COBI creates breathable shingles from coarse wool and beeswax, and DumoLab produces fuel-free 3D-printable wood panels. A purpose beyond permanence Adriana Giorgis, a designer and teaching fellow in architecture at MIT, played a crucial role in bringing the parts of the project together. Her research explores the diverse network of factors that influence whether a building stands the test of time, and her insights helped to shape the collective understanding of long-term design thinking.“As a point of connection between all the teams, helping to guide the design as well as serving as a project manager, I had the chance to see how my research applied at each level of the project,” Giorgis reflects. “Braiding these different strands of thinking and ultimately helping to install the canopy on site brought forth a stronger idea about what it really means for a structure to have longevity. VAMO isn’t limited to its current form — it’s a way of carrying forward a powerful idea into contemporary and future practice.”What’s next for VAMO? Neither the attempt at architectural permanence associated with built projects, nor the relegation to waste common to temporary installations. After the Biennale, VAMO will be disassembled, possibly reused for further exhibitions, and finally relocated to a natural reserve in Switzerland, where the parts will be researched as they biodegrade. In this way, the lifespan of the project is extended beyond its initial purpose for human habitation and architectural experimentation, revealing the gradual material transformations constantly taking place in our built environment.To quote Carlo Ratti’s Circular Economy Manifesto, the “lasting legacy” of VAMO is to “harness nature’s intelligence, where nothing is wasted.” Through a regenerative symbiosis of natural, artificial, and collective intelligence, could architectural thinking and practice expand to planetary proportions? More

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      in Environment

      After more than a decade of successes, ESI’s work will spread out across the Institute

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      MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI), a pioneering cross-disciplinary body that helped give a major boost to sustainability and solutions to climate change at MIT, will close as a separate entity at the end of June. But that’s far from the end for its wide-ranging work, which will go forward under different auspices. Many of its key functions will become part of MIT’s recently launched Climate Project. John Fernandez, head of ESI for nearly a decade, will return to the School of Architecture and Planning, where some of ESI’s important work will continue as part of a new interdisciplinary lab.When the ideas that led to the founding of MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative first began to be discussed, its founders recall, there was already a great deal of work happening at MIT relating to climate change and sustainability. As Professor John Sterman of the MIT Sloan School of Management puts it, “there was a lot going on, but it wasn’t integrated. So the whole added up to less than the sum of its parts.”ESI was founded in 2014 to help fill that coordinating role, and in the years since it has accomplished a wide range of significant milestones in research, education, and communication about sustainable solutions in a wide range of areas. Its founding director, Professor Susan Solomon, helmed it for its first year, and then handed the leadership to Fernandez, who has led it since 2015.“There wasn’t much of an ecosystem [on sustainability] back then,” Solomon recalls. But with the help of ESI and some other entities, that ecosystem has blossomed. She says that Fernandez “has nurtured some incredible things under ESI,” including work on nature-based climate solutions, and also other areas such as sustainable mining, and reduction of plastics in the environment.Desiree Plata, director of MIT’s Climate and Sustainability Consortium and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, says that one key achievement of the initiative has been in “communication with the external world, to help take really complex systems and topics and put them in not just plain-speak, but something that’s scientifically rigorous and defensible, for the outside world to consume.”In particular, ESI has created three very successful products, which continue under the auspices of the Climate Project. These include the popular TIL Climate Podcast, the Webby Award-winning Climate Portal website, and the online climate primer developed with Professor Kerry Emanuel. “These are some of the most frequented websites at MIT,” Plata says, and “the impact of this work on the global knowledge base cannot be overstated.”Fernandez says that ESI has played a significant part in helping to catalyze what has become “a rich institutional landscape of work in sustainability and climate change” at MIT. He emphasizes three major areas where he feels the ESI has been able to have the most impact: engaging the MIT community, initiating and stewarding critical environmental research, and catalyzing efforts to promote sustainability as fundamental to the mission of a research university.Engagement of the MIT community, he says, began with two programs: a research seed grant program and the creation of MIT’s undergraduate minor in environment and sustainability, launched in 2017.ESI also created a Rapid Response Group, which gave students a chance to work on real-world projects with external partners, including government agencies, community groups, nongovernmental organizations, and businesses. In the process, they often learned why dealing with environmental challenges in the real world takes so much longer than they might have thought, he says, and that a challenge that “seemed fairly straightforward at the outset turned out to be more complex and nuanced than expected.”The second major area, initiating and stewarding environmental research, grew into a set of six specific program areas: natural climate solutions, mining, cities and climate change, plastics and the environment, arts and climate, and climate justice.These efforts included collaborations with a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, three successive presidential administrations from Colombia, and members of communities affected by climate change, including coal miners, indigenous groups, various cities, companies, the U.N., many agencies — and the popular musical group Coldplay, which has pledged to work toward climate neutrality for its performances. “It was the role that the ESI played as a host and steward of these research programs that may serve as a key element of our legacy,” Fernandez says.The third broad area, he says, “is the idea that the ESI as an entity at MIT would catalyze this movement of a research university toward sustainability as a core priority.” While MIT was founded to be an academic partner to the industrialization of the world, “aren’t we in a different world now? The kind of massive infrastructure planning and investment and construction that needs to happen to decarbonize the energy system is maybe the largest industrialization effort ever undertaken. Even more than in the recent past, the set of priorities driving this have to do with sustainable development.”Overall, Fernandez says, “we did everything we could to infuse the Institute in its teaching and research activities with the idea that the world is now in dire need of sustainable solutions.”Fernandez “has nurtured some incredible things under ESI,” Solomon says. “It’s been a very strong and useful program, both for education and research.” But it is appropriate at this time to distribute its projects to other venues, she says. “We do now have a major thrust in the Climate Project, and you don’t want to have redundancies and overlaps between the two.”Fernandez says “one of the missions of the Climate Project is really acting to coalesce and aggregate lots of work around MIT.” Now, with the Climate Project itself, along with the Climate Policy Center and the Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy, it makes more sense for ESI’s climate-related projects to be integrated into these new entities, and other projects that are less directly connected to climate to take their places in various appropriate departments or labs, he says.“We did enough with ESI that we made it possible for these other centers to really flourish,” he says. “And in that sense, we played our role.”As of June 1, Fernandez has returned to his role as professor of architecture and urbanism and building technology in the School of Architecture and Planning, where he directs the Urban Metabolism Group. He will also be starting up a new group called Environment ResearchAction (ERA) to continue ESI work in cities, nature, and artificial intelligence.  More

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      in Energy

      “Each of us holds a piece of the solution”

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      MIT has an unparalleled history of bringing together interdisciplinary teams to solve pressing problems — think of the development of radar during World War II, or leading the international coalition that cracked the code of the human genome — but the challenge of climate change could demand a scale of collaboration unlike any that’s come before at MIT.“Solving climate change is not just about new technologies or better models. It’s about forging new partnerships across campus and beyond — between scientists and economists, between architects and data scientists, between policymakers and physicists, between anthropologists and engineers, and more,” MIT Vice President for Energy and Climate Evelyn Wang told an energetic crowd of faculty, students, and staff on May 6. “Each of us holds a piece of the solution — but only together can we see the whole.”Undeterred by heavy rain, approximately 300 campus community members filled the atrium in the Tina and Hamid Moghadam Building (Building 55) for a spring gathering hosted by Wang and the Climate Project at MIT. The initiative seeks to direct the full strength of MIT to address climate change, which Wang described as one of the defining challenges of this moment in history — and one of its greatest opportunities.“It calls on us to rethink how we power our world, how we build, how we live — and how we work together,” Wang said. “And there is no better place than MIT to lead this kind of bold, integrated effort. Our culture of curiosity, rigor, and relentless experimentation makes us uniquely suited to cross boundaries — to break down silos and build something new.”The Climate Project is organized around six missions, thematic areas in which MIT aims to make significant impact, ranging from decarbonizing industry to new policy approaches to designing resilient cities. The faculty leaders of these missions posed challenges to the crowd before circulating among the crowd to share their perspectives and to discuss community questions and ideas.Wang and the Climate Project team were joined by a number of research groups, startups, and MIT offices conducting relevant work today on issues related to energy and climate. For example, the MIT Office of Sustainability showcased efforts to use the MIT campus as a living laboratory; MIT spinouts such as Forma Systems, which is developing high-performance, low-carbon building systems, and Addis Energy, which envisions using the earth as a reactor to produce clean ammonia, presented their technologies; and visitors learned about current projects in MIT labs, including DebunkBot, an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that can persuade people to shift their attitudes about conspiracies, developed by David Rand, the Erwin H. Schell Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.Benedetto Marelli, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering who leads the Wild Cards Mission, said the energy and enthusiasm that filled the room was inspiring — but that the individual conversations were equally valuable.“I was especially pleased to see so many students come out. I also spoke with other faculty, talked to staff from across the Institute, and met representatives of external companies interested in collaborating with MIT,” Marelli said. “You could see connections being made all around the room, which is exactly what we need as we build momentum for the Climate Project.” More

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      in Energy

      Reducing carbon emissions from residential heating: A pathway forward

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      In the race to reduce climate-warming carbon emissions, the buildings sector is falling behind. While carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the U.S. electric power sector dropped by 34 percent between 2005 and 2021, emissions in the building sector declined by only 18 percent in that same time period. Moreover, in extremely cold locations, burning natural gas to heat houses can make up a substantial share of the emissions portfolio. Therefore, steps to electrify buildings in general, and residential heating in particular, are essential for decarbonizing the U.S. energy system.But that change will increase demand for electricity and decrease demand for natural gas. What will be the net impact of those two changes on carbon emissions and on the cost of decarbonizing? And how will the electric power and natural gas sectors handle the new challenges involved in their long-term planning for future operations and infrastructure investments?A new study by MIT researchers with support from the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) Future Energy Systems Center unravels the impacts of various levels of electrification of residential space heating on the joint power and natural gas systems. A specially devised modeling framework enabled them to estimate not only the added costs and emissions for the power sector to meet the new demand, but also any changes in costs and emissions that result for the natural gas sector.The analyses brought some surprising outcomes. For example, they show that — under certain conditions — switching 80 percent of homes to heating by electricity could cut carbon emissions and at the same time significantly reduce costs over the combined natural gas and electric power sectors relative to the case in which there is only modest switching. That outcome depends on two changes: Consumers must install high-efficiency heat pumps plus take steps to prevent heat losses from their homes, and planners in the power and the natural gas sectors must work together as they make long-term infrastructure and operations decisions. Based on their findings, the researchers stress the need for strong state, regional, and national policies that encourage and support the steps that homeowners and industry planners can take to help decarbonize today’s building sector.A two-part modeling approachTo analyze the impacts of electrification of residential heating on costs and emissions in the combined power and gas sectors, a team of MIT experts in building technology, power systems modeling, optimization techniques, and more developed a two-part modeling framework. Team members included Rahman Khorramfar, a senior postdoc in MITEI and the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS); Morgan Santoni-Colvin SM ’23, a former MITEI graduate research assistant, now an associate at Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc.; Saurabh Amin, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and principal investigator in LIDS; Audun Botterud, a principal research scientist in LIDS; Leslie Norford, a professor in the Department of Architecture; and Dharik Mallapragada, a former MITEI principal research scientist, now an assistant professor at New York University, who led the project. They describe their new methods and findings in a paper published in the journal Cell Reports Sustainability on Feb. 6.The first model in the framework quantifies how various levels of electrification will change end-use demand for electricity and for natural gas, and the impacts of possible energy-saving measures that homeowners can take to help. “To perform that analysis, we built a ‘bottom-up’ model — meaning that it looks at electricity and gas consumption of individual buildings and then aggregates their consumption to get an overall demand for power and for gas,” explains Khorramfar. By assuming a wide range of building “archetypes” — that is, groupings of buildings with similar physical characteristics and properties — coupled with trends in population growth, the team could explore how demand for electricity and for natural gas would change under each of five assumed electrification pathways: “business as usual” with modest electrification, medium electrification (about 60 percent of homes are electrified), high electrification (about 80 percent of homes make the change), and medium and high electrification with “envelope improvements,” such as sealing up heat leaks and adding insulation.The second part of the framework consists of a model that takes the demand results from the first model as inputs and “co-optimizes” the overall electricity and natural gas system to minimize annual investment and operating costs while adhering to any constraints, such as limits on emissions or on resource availability. The modeling framework thus enables the researchers to explore the impact of each electrification pathway on the infrastructure and operating costs of the two interacting sectors.The New England case study: A challenge for electrificationAs a case study, the researchers chose New England, a region where the weather is sometimes extremely cold and where burning natural gas to heat houses contributes significantly to overall emissions. “Critics will say that electrification is never going to happen [in New England]. It’s just too expensive,” comments Santoni-Colvin. But he notes that most studies focus on the electricity sector in isolation. The new framework considers the joint operation of the two sectors and then quantifies their respective costs and emissions. “We know that electrification will require large investments in the electricity infrastructure,” says Santoni-Colvin. “But what hasn’t been well quantified in the literature is the savings that we generate on the natural gas side by doing that — so, the system-level savings.”Using their framework, the MIT team performed model runs aimed at an 80 percent reduction in building-sector emissions relative to 1990 levels — a target consistent with regional policy goals for 2050. The researchers defined parameters including details about building archetypes, the regional electric power system, existing and potential renewable generating systems, battery storage, availability of natural gas, and other key factors describing New England.They then performed analyses assuming various scenarios with different mixes of home improvements. While most studies assume typical weather, they instead developed 20 projections of annual weather data based on historical weather patterns and adjusted for the effects of climate change through 2050. They then analyzed their five levels of electrification.Relative to business-as-usual projections, results from the framework showed that high electrification of residential heating could more than double the demand for electricity during peak periods and increase overall electricity demand by close to 60 percent. Assuming that building-envelope improvements are deployed in parallel with electrification reduces the magnitude and weather sensitivity of peak loads and creates overall efficiency gains that reduce the combined demand for electricity plus natural gas for home heating by up to 30 percent relative to the present day. Notably, a combination of high electrification and envelope improvements resulted in the lowest average cost for the overall electric power-natural gas system in 2050.Lessons learnedReplacing existing natural gas-burning furnaces and boilers with heat pumps reduces overall energy consumption. Santoni-Colvin calls it “something of an intuitive result” that could be expected because heat pumps are “just that much more efficient than old, fossil fuel-burning systems. But even so, we were surprised by the gains.”Other unexpected results include the importance of homeowners making more traditional energy efficiency improvements, such as adding insulation and sealing air leaks — steps supported by recent rebate policies. Those changes are critical to reducing costs that would otherwise be incurred for upgrading the electricity grid to accommodate the increased demand. “You can’t just go wild dropping heat pumps into everybody’s houses if you’re not also considering other ways to reduce peak loads. So it really requires an ‘all of the above’ approach to get to the most cost-effective outcome,” says Santoni-Colvin.Testing a range of weather outcomes also provided important insights. Demand for heating fuel is very weather-dependent, yet most studies are based on a limited set of weather data — often a “typical year.” The researchers found that electrification can lead to extended peak electric load events that can last for a few days during cold winters. Accordingly, the researchers conclude that there will be a continuing need for a “firm, dispatchable” source of electricity; that is, a power-generating system that can be relied on to produce power any time it’s needed — unlike solar and wind systems. As examples, they modeled some possible technologies, including power plants fired by a low-carbon fuel or by natural gas equipped with carbon capture equipment. But they point out that there’s no way of knowing what types of firm generators will be available in 2050. It could be a system that’s not yet mature, or perhaps doesn’t even exist today.In presenting their findings, the researchers note several caveats. For one thing, their analyses don’t include the estimated cost to homeowners of installing heat pumps. While that cost is widely discussed and debated, that issue is outside the scope of their current project.In addition, the study doesn’t specify what happens to existing natural gas pipelines. “Some homes are going to electrify and get off the gas system and not have to pay for it, leaving other homes with increasing rates because the gas system cost now has to be divided among fewer customers,” says Khorramfar. “That will inevitably raise equity questions that need to be addressed by policymakers.”Finally, the researchers note that policies are needed to drive residential electrification. Current financial support for installation of heat pumps and steps to make homes more thermally efficient are a good start. But such incentives must be coupled with a new approach to planning energy infrastructure investments. Traditionally, electric power planning and natural gas planning are performed separately. However, to decarbonize residential heating, the two sectors should coordinate when planning future operations and infrastructure needs. Results from the MIT analysis indicate that such cooperation could significantly reduce both emissions and costs for residential heating — a change that would yield a much-needed step toward decarbonizing the buildings sector as a whole. More