Building a Sustainable Home Project Updates

Team architect Juhong Park created this typology showing which green technology will work best with which housing form.

Hundreds of MIT students and affiliates will learn about the sustainable building project on Friday, October 24th when an early rendering is used as the background for MIT's homepage. Clicking on the image directs web users to the MEL-FBK page.

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* CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT *
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Introduction: Prof. ANDREA ZANOTTI (President of the Fondazione Bruno Kessler)

Dr. GIANLUCA SALVATORI (Minister for Planning, Research and Innovation)

Dr. PAOLO TRAVERSO (Director of the Center for Information Technology – Irst)

Speaker: Dr. FEDERICO CASALEGNO (MIT Mobile Experience Laboratory, MIT Design Laboratory)

Title: "Presentation of the FBK-MIT Mobile Experience Lab Alliance"

Date: Friday, October 24th, 2008 @ 11:00 am

Director Federico Casalegno is currently in Italy and will soon be joined by MEL team members Leonardo Benuzzi, Simon Kim, Juhong Park and Orkan Telhan. The Team will meet the members of FBK and present our work at the October 23rd-24th conference in Trento.

Photo credits: ({{Information |Description=Panoramic view of Trento. Picture taken by Giovanni Iachello. |Source=first uploaded to en.wikipeda by en:user:Giac |Date=30/06/2006 |Author=en:user:Giac |Permission=relasead by Giac under the Creative Commons Attribut)

Sustainable homes and villages are being built all over the world. This map is a work in progress that will help us keep track of who's building where and how. As we learn about more sustainable projects, we will be adding more here: http://www.communitywalk.com/ecovillages_and_homes/ecovillages_and_homes...

We have been discussing ways to embed information into the built
environment for visualizing energy consumption, providing contextual
feedback to influence the habitants, and monitoring the environmental
effects on the house. Orkan has started looking at some smart material
literature and there are a number of interesting projects that explore
ways to transform traditional materials into information surfaces.

One relatively known example (dating from 2004) uses "electrochromatic"
dyes mixed into concrete, where information is displayed with selective

Mobile Experience Lab Director Federico Casalegno discusses sustainable homes with Stavros Dimas, the European Commissioner for Environment, and the Greek Consul General Constantinos Orphanides.

Our architects are experimenting with the exterior of the home to design energy harvesting walls. We are working with solar, wind, biomass and fuel cells to fit the best technology with the best placement to collect the most energy in the most efficient way.

The MEL FBK Alliance launched our new brochure at the Green Italy exhibit. Our Zambana project is one of many collaborations between Italy and Massachusetts that supports the global need for sustainable practices in our society and environment. The display is located in Logan Airport Terminal E and will run until December 15th.