workshop

4.556 J / MAS.551 J Design Workshop: Design without Boundaries
Designing the Connected Sustainable Home

Instructors: William J. Mitchell, Federico Casalegno (MEL, Design Lab), Pattie Maes (Media Lab)
Course Collaborators: Orkan Telhan, Juhong Park

Prereq: Permission of instructors required
Classes: Thursdays 10am - 1pm
G (Spring)

First Class meeting:
Thursday, Feb 5th, 10:00am, MIT Design Lab Conference Room, NE18, 4th floor

Class description:
Among architects and designers, the notion of critical radical sustainability is an emerging notion. Most efforts in this area focus on the use of sustainable building materials and green energy. We are taking a broader approach; we call it the "Connected Sustainable Home."

Our vision is of a home that is not only built with sustainable materials and that uses green energy, but also takes full advantage of all the digital world has to offer to create a building that can respond to its environment and to the needs of its inhabitants more intelligently. It employs the latest in what we know about artificial intelligence, as well as advanced robotics, to improve the quality of life for those who live in the home. And, going even further, it is a home that by its very existence and the way it "works" optimizes human behavior and thus promotes social sustainability.

This class will provide opportunities to pursue real-world design projects that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries, apply advanced technologies and address significant social issues concerning the design of the "Connected Sustainable Home."

FINAL REVIEW - December 15th, 3- 5:30pm
MIT Media Lab, 3rd Floor
Room 368

Reviewers: Bill Mitchell (MIT), Federico Casalegno (MIT), Francesco Casetti (University of Milano)

Each of the groups will have 20 minutes to present their projects (La Conversazione, Enjoy RAI and Relive) and 20 additional minutes for questions and critiques.

Invited guests will be present.

http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=E15&Buildings=go

The students used this workshop as an opportunity to further refine their user cases/ scenarios. While fleshing out their inspirations and reference points for these, the discussion turned towards the recent attacks in Mumbai. In this particular situation, social media sites played a unique role in reporting first-hand accounts of the situation as it unfolded (more so than ever before). This timely example was especially relevant to the La Conversazione group, whose project is structured around civic journalism and participatory media.

These images document one of our first post-Rome workshops. After their presentations to the RAI group, the students were asked to conduct some fieldwork to further explore their concepts in a local way, one that would have been impossible to do from home. Some of them illustrated their thoughts via overlaid text while others simply let their raw footage play out, whether shot in the piazzas or elsewhere. This assignment gave the students the opportunity to experiment with the concept of narrative as well solidify a visual identity for their projects.

After much anticipation (and preparation!), the MIT delegation flew out of Logan International Airport on November 5th, 2008. After a few stops and a relatively smooth flight, we arrived early Thursday morning...looked for a shuttle and finally made our way to the InterContinental De La Ville - Roma.

Here are some images of our sleepy crew waiting to check into their rooms...

For this Friday workshop, Andrea Portante, Director of Marketing & Business Development at RAI New Media, joined the group to give feedback on student presentations. He opened the workshop with a brief overview of RAI and screened a promotional video that included clips from some of their most popular programs. Portante, having been affiliated with RAI for nearly a decade, was able to give important insights into what projects have proved most successful thus far and additionally, what concepts might be worth pursuing in the future.

During this workshop, students from each of the three groups gave follow-up presentations on their initial concepts from last week. In the interim between these meetings, the students met in their individual groups, using internal feedback to refine their concepts and again as a group on Friday, October 3rd, to consider them within the context of Italy. Much of the discussion developed around the idea of the (RAI) archive being utilized not only a resource, but also as a site for shared cultural memory to be tapped into and revitalized.

This workshop marked the beginning of the group concept generation phase.
After three weeks of discussions on mobile television and the future
of media, the students were divided into three groups to brainstorm and organize
their thoughts according to colorful Post-it notes. The goal was for each group
to develop a service and explain the technology that would support this service,
the mode of communication used and an appropriate business model to
implement it.