CONFERENCE
MIT MEDIA LAB 05.03.18–05.04.18
Housing is essential for a functional life Housing can be the foundation for a social community Housing can stimulate community building Housing extends beyond the private realm Housing can be an essential part of infrastructure Housing needs support of services and institutions Housing is an important factor in community health Housing ownership is an entry to the economy Housing is the largest fabric of urbanity The provision of housing is a global challenge with an urgent need for innovation. Attempts at comprehensive, scalable housing solutions have been ongoing by governments, private enterprises, and non-governmental organizations alike. Even though there are examples of progress made in the fields of social science, policy, and humanities, it continues to be a concern. Only recently has formal design been used as a lever for tackling housing affordability, whether at the scale of the house, neighborhood or city. There is a dearth of affordable housing design that is inspiring, sustainable, inclusive, or substantial enough to satisfy the full spectrum of human rights and aspirations at a meaningful level. In its third biennial theme, "Housing+", the MIT Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism explores this global phenomenon through the lens of multi-scalar design. The “+� acts as a harbinger of innovative responses to the challenge of affordable housing design that confront conventional associations and commentaries. The Housing+ conference will explore interpretations of the "+," extending the design dialogue beyond the scale of the housing unit. Panels will investigate the ways in which housing interacts with aspects of urbanity such as public space and infrastructure. Speakers will address the challenges that designers face in the housing sector, including those related to affordability, resilience, health and sustainability.
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For housing projects to be effective, they need to not only provide adequate shelter for residents, but also foster community building and empowerment. In such a context, does design have a role to play? This panel stresses upon the need to engage with local communities as an integral component of housing development, and questions the role of community participation in the design process. Additionally, it asks: How can design foster community building? What is the potential for scalability and replicability of community building processes currently commonly adopted in housing practice?
How important is the public realm in fostering strong and resilient communities? With this fundamental question framing the discussion, this panel explores ways in which placemaking and the design of the public realm can strengthen residential neighborhoods and encourage inclusivity, equity, and justice among local communities. It examines the contributions made by public space, urban amenities and social infrastructure in facilitating a higher quality of life for urban residents, and questions: What are the critical components of the public realm that contribute to the potential success of a residential development, especially for vulnerable populations?
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Housing forms the largest component of urban landscapes. Housing policy and planning can deeply affect the development of a household, a city, and a country. Current socioeconomic and environmental challenges such as macroeconomic instability, changing demographics, and climate change, confront designers and urban planners with the challenge of creating comprehensive, long-term and large-scale solutions to the problems of housing design and affordability. How can this planning process promote housing design that supports community social structures and economic livelihoods? What is the relationship between design thinking and policy making for housing? And, how can best practice solutions and innovation scale-up to affect development outcomes at large scales?
As demographics shift and communities adopt new modes of living, design disciplines must innovate to develop new housing typologies. This panel explores what these future typologies can look like, including examples such as co-housing, modular housing, and live+work typologies, and how they can be incorporated into existing neighborhood models within urban settings. It questions: How can the efficacy of innovation in housing typologies be maximized? What is the role of technology in this housing revolution? What are the barriers to implementation of any new housing typologies, and how can they be tackled?
Community Building
Large-Scale Planning
Placemaking
Form: Typologies
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Networks: Partnerships
As fabrication technologies evolve and proliferate at a global scale, designers need to develop innovative uses of these technologies to increase housing affordability internationally. This panel explores ways in which both low-tech and high-tech scenarios can provide innovative solutions to the affordability challenge for housing. It questions: Are there ways in which local communities can engage with new technology through a participatory process? What role can vernacular building mechanisms play in this innovation process? How can design and construction system solutions retrofit?
Due to rapid urbanization and the subsequent increase in the need for new housing, states are often unable to keep up with growing demands. To address these existing gaps, this discussion emphasizes the potential roles that other agencies, such as private and philanthropic organizations, need to play in making change happen on-the-ground. It reimagines the potential for engagement by these organizations within the larger housing provision ecosystem, to explore opportunities for partnerships, networking and investment. It questions: How can planners and designers develop attractive offers for philanthropists who demand a clear social return on their investment? How can housing philanthropy foster new housing solutions?
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Networks: Infrastructure Housing and infrastructure are inextricably linked. Traditional approaches to infrastructure include large-scale planning, high capital and operation costs, and extended construction timelines. But at what scale of infrastructure can affordable housing be best served? How can traditional infrastructure layouts be reimagined to accommodate the evolving needs of urban neighborhoods? How can infrastructure be used as a vehicle for community engagement? And, what role can architects, urban designers, and planners play in redefining the ways infrastructure is provided? This panel will explore the relationships between neighborhood form and the scale of infrastructure, through social, economic, and spatial lenses in affordable housing settings.
PANELS
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Form: Fabrication
05.03.18
8:30 am
Registration + Breakfast
9:00 am
HOUSING + Welcome and Introductions | Adèle Naudé Santos, MIT
9:20 am HOUSING + Community Building Andrea Bolnick, Ikhayalami Sheela Patel, Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres Andrew Freear, Rural Studio, Auburn University Moderator: Lawrence Vale, MIT 10:45 am
Georgetown, Guyana | Marie Law Adams, MIT
11:00 am
Break
11:30 am
Cartagena, Colombia | Adèle Naudé Santos, MIT
11:45 am HOUSING + Large-Scale Planning Fernando de Mello Franco, URBEM Kazi Ashraf, Bengal Institute Nora Libertun de Duren, Inter-American Development Bank Moderator: James L. Wescoat Jr., MIT 1:15 pm
Lunch
2:15 pm São Paulo, Brazil | Adèle Naudé Santos, MIT Angelo Bucci, University of São Paulo 2:30 pm HOUSING + Placemaking Alejandro Echeverri, EAFIT University Sol Camacho, Raddar Sharon Davis, Sharon Davis Design Moderator: Adèle Naudé Santos, MIT 4:00 pm
Break
4:15 pm Charles Correa (1955) Lecture on Housing and Urbanization Introduction: Hashim Sarkis, MIT Wang Shu, School of Architecture, China Academy of Art 5:15 pm
Reception and Exhibition Opening Media Lab [E14] Okawa Lobby
SCHEDULE
05.04.18
8:30 am
Registration + Breakfast
9:00 am
HOUSING + Welcome and Introductions | Adèle Naudé Santos, MIT
9:10 am
Chitravad, India | James L. Wescoat Jr., MIT
9:25 am HOUSING + Form: Typologies James Shen, People’s Architecture Office Nathalie de Vries, MVRDV Christoph Heinemann, IFAU Moderator: Rafi Segal, MIT 10:55 am
Break
11:25 am
Kigali, Rwanda | Rafi Segal, MIT
11:40 am HOUSING + Form: Fabrication Daniel Wyss, Skat Consulting Rwanda Anupama Kundoo, Anupama Kundoo Architects Ying Chee Chui, Design O Studio Moderator: Lawrence Sass, MIT 1:10 pm
Lunch
2:10 pm
Lima, Peru | Sheila Kennedy, MIT
2:25 pm HOUSING + Networks: Infrastructure Raúl Cárdenas Osuna, Torolab Alexandros Washburn, DRAW Brooklyn LLC Diane Jones Allen, DesignJones LLC Moderator: Sheila Kennedy, MIT 3:55 pm HOUSING + Networks: Partnerships Steve Weir, Habitat for Humanity Kenneth Munkacy, Kingbird Properties Robert Buckley, The Urban Institute Philip Yang, URBEM Moderator: Adèle Naudé Santos, MIT 5:45 pm
Concluding Remarks | Adèle Naudé Santos, MIT
Marie Law Adams is a co-founding partner of Landing Studio, an architecture, design and research practice whose work negotiates the intersection of large-scale global infrastructure with urban environments. Since 2005, Landing Studio has developed projects with port facilities and infrastructure entities in Boston and New York by designing shared industrial and public access landscapes, light installations, festivals, exhibitions and industrial/ community operations agreements. The work of Landing Studio has received honors such as an AIA Honor Award in Regional and Urban Design, a Progressive Architecture Award, and the Architectural League Prize and has been exhibited at institutions including MIT, RISD, Parsons and the City College of New York. Adams is a registered architect. She earned a B.S.Arch. degree from the University of Michigan and a MArch from MIT, where she was a Presidential Fellow and recipient of the AIA Medal.
Diane Jones Allen has multiple years of practice focusing on land planning, and varied scales of open space design, including community development work. She is Principal Landscape Architect with DesignJones LLC in New Orleans, Louisiana, which received the 2016 American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Community Service Award. She is currently the Program Director for Landscape Architecture at the College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington. In Baltimore, Maryland, Diane was a member of the Urban Design Architecture Review Panel, providing design guidance on major development projects in the city, and a tenured professor in Landscape Architecture at the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State. Diane received the 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Environmental Design, University of California at Berkeley. Her research and practice is guided by the intersection of environmental justice, identity and sustainability in cultural landscapes.
Kazi Ashraf is an architect and architectural historian, trained at MIT and the University of Pennsylvania. Having taught at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Hawaii, Temple University and Pratt Institute in the US, he currently heads the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Institute is engaged in researching and envisioning urban futures of Bangladesh that integrate urbanism, landscape and hydrology. Ashraf has authored/edited 'Locations: An Anthology of Architecture and Urbanism', 'The Hermit’s Hut: Architecture and Asceticism in India', 'Designing Dhaka: A Manifesto for a Better City', and many other publications.
Andrea (Andy) Bolnick is the Founding Director of Ikhayalami, an NGO that was established in 2006, with the primary aim of developing and implementing innovative technical solutions for informal settlement upgrading. Andy is an urbanist and development practitioner who has a practical and theoretical base in architecture and urban planning (Wits 1985; Lund University 2010) and a degree in political science (Wits 1988). Her greatest learning, however, has come through the precedents she has set by working, conceptualizing and implementing catalytic projects with poor urban communities. In 2017, Ikhayalami won the first prize to further develop a digital toolkit for informal settlement upgrading. In January 2018, the Empower Shack project was nominated for the Royal Institute of British Architects Prize.
Angelo Bucci is an architect and educator based in São Paulo, Brazil. He received his undergraduate degree in 1987, Master's in 1998, and his Ph.D. in 2005 from the School of Architecture at the University of São Paulo (FAUUSP). In 2011, he was nominated to be an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. For over 25 years, he has been sharing his time between professional and academic duties. These parallel activities define a special approach to his projects, in which the professional demands are taken as an opportunity to research new possibilities. He is also the Founder and Principal-in-Charge of SPBR Architects, established in 2003. He has been a Professor at FAU-USP since 2001, and has served as a visiting professor in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Italy, Switzerland (ETH Zurich, 2013-2014), and the United States (ASU, 2005; Berkeley, 2006; Harvard, 2008; UT Austin, 2010; Yale, 2013, MIT, 2008, 2016-2018). His work has been exhibited worldwide through publications, lectures and exhibitions.
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written widely on urbanization and development in both the popular press and academic journals, and has helped prepare projects in a variety of places.
PARTICIPANTS
Bob Buckley, currently at the Urban Institute, has been a Senior Fellow at the New School, Managing Director at the Rockefeller Foundation, and Advisor at the World Bank. He has also taught at a number of universities,
Sol Camacho is an architect and urban designer (Harvard GSD, 2008). She is the founding partner of the architectural practice RADDAR, in São Paulo (2011), which was recently awarded the Silver Lafarge Holcim Award in Latin America (2017). She also acts as the Cultural Director of Instituto Bardi/Casa de Vidro.
Ying Chee Chui received a Master of Architecture from MIT and a Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is a registered architect in the State of New York and has founded her own studio in 2018. Chee has more than 10 years of international working experience including projects in New York, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur. Currently, her designed projects, the CITIC Tower (528m) in Beijing, and Suzhou IFS (450m) in Suzhou, are nearing completion. She has previously practiced at ASpace (Shanghai), KPF (New York, Shanghai, Hong Kong), Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA, Beijing), Atelier FCJZ (Beijing), and RMJM (Hong Kong).
Sharon Davis is the Founder and Principal of Sharon Davis Design. She is an award-winning designer whose work is driven by a deep belief in the transformative power of design. In 2007, after a successful career in finance and having earned a Master’s of Architecture degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, where she received the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize, Davis created her firm as a launching pad for collaborative design practice dedicated to human-centered environments around the globe. In 2016, Sharon was featured as one of the 26 Women Who Changed Architecture by Architizer. Curbed named her one of 6 “Groundbreakers” for “buildings that look good and do great”. In addition, her firm received an Architizer A+ award for the Partners in Health Share Housing as well as the Architectural Review Culture Award for the Women’s Opportunity Center, both located in Rwanda. Metropolis Magazine named the Women’s Opportunity Center a “Game Changer” in 2013.
Nora Libertun de Duren is an urban development and housing expert at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). Nora has comprehensive research and operational experience in the topics of housing, public space and urban growth. Prior to joining the IADB, she was the Director of Planning at New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, where she led a citywide strategy for creating sustainable and accessible parks. She has been the editor of the MIT Journal of Planning, and the co-editor of 'Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Politics in Urban Spaces' (Indiana University Press, 2011). Nora has been recipient of various awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship, a Harvard Fellowship, an MIT Presidential Scholarship, an MIT prize for outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Planning, and the University of Buenos Aires Highest Achievement medal. Nora holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the MIT; a Master in Urban Design from Harvard University, and in Architecture from the University of Buenos Aires.
Alejandro Echeverri believes in the ethical responsibility of designers to contribute towards a better society. He is cofounder and Director of URBAM, and the Center for Urban and Environmental Studies at EAFIT University in Medellin, Colombia. His experience combines architectural, urban, and environmental projects and planning. He is a Loeb Fellow from the Harvard GSD and was given the Obayashi Prize in 2016. His work has earned the Colombian National Architectural Award in 1996, the Pan-American Biennale in Urban Design Award 2008, the Curry Stone Design Prize in 2009, and the 10th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design from the Harvard GSD in 2013, among others.
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Fernando de Mello Franco is an architect and urbanist with a Ph.D. in Environmental Urban Structures from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He is currently the Director of URBEM – Institute of Urbanism and Studies for the Metropolis, a Brazilian NGO focused on structuring urban projects with social impact. He consults for several local and international institutions, among them: ITDP, UN Habitat and World Bank. He is also the former Secretary of Urban Development of the Municipality of São Paulo (2013-2016), founder of MMBB Architects, and collaborator of Paulo Mendes da Rocha.
Andrew Freear, from Yorkshire, England, is the Wiatt Professor and Director at Auburn University Rural Studio. The Rural Studio is a hands-on architectural pedagogy that not only teaches students to design and build charity homes and community projects, but also improves the living conditions in rural west Alabama. Educated at the Polytechnic of Central London and the Architectural Association, London, England, Andrew has practiced extensively in London and Chicago, and taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and as a Unit Master at the Architectural Association.
Christoph Heinemann studied architecture at RWTH Aachen University of Technology and at the École d’Architecture de Paris la Villette from 1990-97. He co-founded IFAU architects together with Susanne Heiß and Christoph Schmidt in 1998. From 2001-2009 he has been teaching urban design as an Assistant Professor at the Brandenburg University of Technology's Department of Urban Design. Since 2017, he is a Professor for Architecture and City at HCU Hamburg.
Sheila Kennedy is an American architect, innovator and educator. She is a Professor of Architecture at MIT and a Principal of Kennedy & Violich Architecture Ltd. (KVA Matx), an interdisciplinary practice that is widely recognized for works in architecture, urban design, and the development of new infrastructure for emerging public needs. Kennedy was recognized with the 2014 Berkeley-Rupp Prize, one of the most significant awards in architecture. She is the recipient of the 2015 national Design Innovator Award, and the 2016 Lemulson Green Innovation grant with SELCO, India.
Anupama Kundoo received her B.Arch. from the University of Bombay in 1989, and her PhD from the Technische Universitaet Berlin in 2008. She has built extensively in India and has had the experience of working, researching and teaching in a variety of cultural contexts across the world: TU Berlin, AA School of Architecture, London, Parsons New School of Design, New York, University of Queensland, Brisbane, IUAV Venice, ETSAB Barcelona, Cornell University, UCJC Madrid and IE University, Madrid. She is the author of ‘Roger Anger: Research on Beauty/Recherche sur la Beauté, Architecture 1958-2008' published in Berlin by Jovis Verlag in 2009. Her book chapter ‘Rethinking affordability in economic and environmental terms’ is published in the Routledge book ‘Inclusive Urbanisation: Rethinking Policy, Practice and Research in the Age of Climate Change’, 2015.
Kenneth Munkacy is the Senior Managing Director of Boston-based Kingbird Properties, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Grupo Ferré Rangel (GFR). Kingbird Properties is a real estate investment management company focused on value-added multi-family apartments in the U.S. and Latin America, primarily in secondary and tertiary cities. With over 25 years of real estate experience, Mr. Munkacy has worked on real estate investments and managed real estate operating companies in 15 states and 16 countries. His experience includes serving as Managing Director, Asia at Starwood Capital (Tokyo); Senior Managing Director of GE Capital Golub Europe (Prague); President of Koll Asia Pacific Development (Shanghai); and Managing Director at TrizecHahn Asia Pacific (Hong Kong). He also served as Director, Development/Acquisitions with Xerox Realty (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xerox).
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studies in the realm of lifestyles to better grasp the idea of quality of life. His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia; Havana, Liverpool, Lyon, Montreal and Venice Biennials; and has been awarded by
PARTICIPANTS
Raúl Cárdenas Osuna is the Founder and Principal at Torolab (1995), an artist collective, workshop and laboratory of contextual studies that identifies situations or phenomena of interest for research, basing the
the Rockefeller Foundation, and Harvard’s Cultural Agents Initiative, among others.
Sheela Patel is the Founding Director of the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), an NGO that has been working since 1984 to support community organizations of the urban poor in their efforts to access secure housing and basic amenities and seek their right to the city. Patel is widely recognized – nationally and internationally – for bringing urgent attention to the issues of urban poverty, housing and infrastructure onto the radar of governments, bilateral and international agencies, foundations and other organizations. She is a founder, among many, of Slum Dwellers International, a transnational social movement of the urban poor, whose board she presently chairs.
Adèle Naudé Santos, is a Professor of Architecture, Planning and Urban Design and served as the Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT from 2004 to 2015. Prior to that, she was a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, College of Environmental Design, where her academic focus was the design of housing environments. Professor Santos has an AA Diploma from the Architectural Association in London. She also received a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard University, and a Master of Architecture and a Master of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. Her academic career includes professorships at University of California Berkeley, Harvard University, Rice University, and the University of Pennsylvania, where she also served as Chair of the Department of Architecture. She was the founding Dean of the new School of Architecture at UC San Diego and has had numerous visiting appointments around the world, including Italy and in her native South Africa.
Hashim Sarkis was appointed Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning in January of 2015. Prior to that, he was at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design (GSD) as the the Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism. In addition to professorships at Harvard University and MIT, Dean Sarkis has held numerous visiting appointments around the world including at the American University of Beirut and the Metropolis Program in Barcelona. In addition to his academic work, Dean Sarkis is principal architect in the Cambridge and Beirut based firm, HashimSarkis Studios, founded in 1998. His architectural and planning projects include affordable housing, institutional buildings, and town planning throughout the globe. His current projects include the Byblos Town Hall and the Courtowers, both under construction.
Lawrence Sass is an architectural designer and researcher exploring digital design and fabrication across scales. As an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at MIT, Larry has taught courses specifically in digital fabrication and design computing since 2002. He earned his Ph.D. (2000) and S.M.Arch.S. (1994) from MIT, and has a B.Arch. from Pratt Institute in NYC. Larry has published widely, and has exhibited his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Larry’s research focuses on digital delivery of housing for low income families.
Rafi Segal is an award-winning designer and Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at MIT. His practice engages in design and research on both the architectural and urban scales. Segal’s projects include Villa 003 of the ORDOS 100 Project, the Kitgum Peace Museum in Uganda, the Ashdod Museum of Art, and more recently the winning proposal for the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. His current ongoing projects include the design of a new communal neighborhood for a kibbutz in Israel and the curation of the first ever exhibition
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on the architecture of Alfred Neumann undertaken during the 1960s. Rafi Segal holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and a B.Arch. and M.Sc. from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. Prior to MIT he taught architecture and urbanism at various European and US schools including Harvard University’s GSD, Columbia University’s GSAPP, the Cooper Union School of Architecture, and Princeton University.
James Shen, originally from Los Angeles, received his M.Arch. from MIT and a B.Sc. in Product Design from California State University, Long Beach. He is a Visiting Lecturer at MIT and a Harvard Loeb Fellow. In 2010, James co-founded Beijing-based People's Architecture Office (PAO), a multi-disciplinary studio focused on social impact through design. People’s Architecture Office is the first architecture practice in Asia certified as a B-Corporation and serves as a model for social entrepreneurship. The office of PAO is located in a traditional courtyard house in Beijing’s historic core, a setting characterized by urban informality, and one that inspires the studio’s work. PAO engages in urban issues through designs that straddle architecture and product design. The Courtyard House Plugin is a prefab system for urban regeneration that quickly and efficiently upgrades dilapidated homes without demolition or relocating inhabitants. The recently completed People’s Station is a cultural center that incorporates mobile parts that expand and detach in order to bring cultural activities to surrounding communities. The studio’s award-winning works have been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, and the London Design Museum.
Wang Shu, an architect and professor, was born in 1963 in Urumqi, a city in Xinjiang, the western most province of China. He received his first degree in architecture in 1985 and his Masters degree in 1988, both from the Nan Nanjing Institute of Technology. Wang Shu and his wife, Lu Wenyu, founded Amateur Architecture Studio in 1997 in Hangzhou, China. The office name references the approach an amateur builder takes – one based on spontaneity, craft skills and cultural traditions. Wang Shu spent a number of years working on building sites to learn traditional skills. The firm utilizes his knowledge of everyday techniques to adapt and transform materials for contemporary projects. This unique combination of traditional understanding, experimental building tactics, and intensive research defines the basis for the studio’s architectural projects. The studio takes a critical view of the architecture profession’s part in the demolition and destruction of large urban areas. Wang Shu is Professor and Head of the Architecture School at China Academy of Art, Hangzhou. In 2011, he became the first Chinese Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Lawrence Vale is Ford Professor of Urban Design and Planning at MIT, where he served as the Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning from 2002 until January 2009. He has taught in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning since 1988, and he is currently the director of the Resilient Cities Housing Initiative (RCHI), a unit of the School’s Center for Advanced Urbanism. He was president of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History for 2011-2013. Vale holds degrees from Amherst College (B.A. in American Studies, summa cum laude), MIT (S.M.Arch.S.), and the University of Oxford (D.Phil.), which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. He is the author or editor of 10 books examining urban design, housing and planning.
Nathalie de Vries is an architect and urbanist. She is director and co-founder of the globally operating architecture and urban planning firm MVRDV, which she set up together with Winy Maas and Jacob van Rijs in 1993. Since 2013, she has been a Professor for Architecture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. She is currently the chairman of The Royal Institute of Dutch Architects (BNA).
Alexandros Washburn is the former Chief Urban Designer of New York City. He is a global expert on urban design in an era of climate change who believes resilience begins at home. After a long public career, he now works with his community in Red Hook Brooklyn to create bottom-up urban design solutions through his development company, Brooklyn Capital Partners LLC, and his design company, DRAW Brooklyn LLC.
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and is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Liveable Cities in Singapore. He has been a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, New York University, and Princeton University. He is a graduate of Harvard University and a winner of the New York Public Architect Award.
PARTICIPANTS
He is the author of the landmark book, 'The Nature of Urban Design: A New York Perspective on Resilience'
Steve Weir has managed a wide range of volunteer programs in his work at Habitat for Humanity International as the country director for Sri Lanka, Asia Pacific VP, and most recently as the VP of Global Program Design and Implementation. Mr. Weir has been responsible for supporting the work in India in all of these roles and has overseen US government grants in a wide range of countries and programs. Early in his career, he worked with an architecture and construction management company and held a research internship, working on solar energyassisted commercial mechanical systems. He gained experience managing public private venture partnerships and facilitating community-based design workshops. Mr. Weir is a licensed architect with over 30 years of field experience. He spent 16 years in private practice, most of that time with a San Francisco-based architectural and real estate development firm, working on projects throughout the Pacific Rim.
James L. Wescoat Jr. has concentrated research on water systems in South Asia and the US from the site to river basin scales. For the greater part of his career, Professor Wescoat has focused on small-scale historical waterworks of Mughal gardens and cities in India and Pakistan. He led the Smithsonian Institution's project titled, 'Garden, City, and Empire: The Historical Geography of Mughal Lahore,' which resulted in co-edited volumes 'Mughal Gardens: Sources, Places, Representations, Prospects,' and 'The Mughal Garden: Interpretation, Conservation, and Implications' with colleagues from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore. These and related books have won awards from the Government of Pakistan and the Punjab Government. The overall Mughal Gardens Project won an American Society of Landscape Architects national research merit award, as did a project on 'The Moonlight Garden: New Discoveries at the Taj' led by Elizabeth Moynihan. This work has been generously supported by fellowships from Dumbarton Oaks, the Freer and Sackler Galleries of Asian Art, and the American Academy in Rome.
Daniel Wyss is an architect and urban planner practicing in developing countries and in post-conflict and postdisaster contexts. Daniel graduated from the University of Geneva – his final project on post-war reconstruction was published in FACES Revue d’Architecture: Sarajevo-Sortir de l’Urbicide, 2004 – before joining Atelier 5 (Switzerland), working on housing and urban design for the portscapes of Hamburg and Prague. Since 2012, Daniel has led Skat Consulting’s offices in Rwanda, Burundi and DRC Congo, in the implementation of the Swiss Cooperation’s construction industry transformation program for Africa’s Great Lakes Region. The program introduces affordable and easy-to-build construction systems to the region’s fast growing urban agglomerations and facilitates the construction industry’s shift to environment friendly production of durable building material for the mass supply of affordable urban houses.
Philip Yang is the founder of URBEM, a “do tank” focused on urban development projects in the metropolis of São Paulo. Yang is a former Brazilian diplomat and one of the founding owners of Petra Energia S.A., a Brazilian oil and gas company. He holds a Master in Public Administration from the J.F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and began his studies at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the School of Arts of the University of São Paulo. Yang had a brief career as a concert pianist and premiered as a soloist with the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra. Philip recently served as a member of the MIT Corporation’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning Visiting Committee (2012-2016). He is also an advisor of Arq.Futuro, Brazil’s leading platform for architecture and urbanism.
Eran Ben-Joseph
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism wishes to thank the following for their generous support, guidance, and collaboration: Norman B. (1938) and Muriel Leventhal Family Foundation Sherry and Alan Leventhal Family Foundation Dean Hashim Sarkis and the Dean’s Office MIT School of Architecture + Planning In addition, the Center would like to acknowledge and thank its members and research collaborators: Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Lab, Fundación Mario Santo Domingo, Masdar Institute- MIT Cooperative Program, Philips Lighting. The Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism wishes to thank the following for their generous support: Charles Correa (1955) Fund for Housing and Urbanization, Kenneth and Doreen Wang Faculty Research Fund, Meehan Family Fund for Socially Responsible Design, and Kenneth P. Wong (M.Arch/MCP 1982). In addition, the Center wishes to recognize its workshop collaborators: Aga Khan Agency for Habitat, India, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT, Arq.Futuro, Fundación Mario Santo Domingo, Inter-American Development Bank, La Victoria Lab – Intercorp, MIT-Africa, MIT-Brazil, MIT-India, MIT Center for Art, Science and Technology (CAST), Rwanda Housing Authority (RHA), Humanities Arts and Social Sciences (SA+P HASS), and the MIT TATA Center for Technology + Design. With thanks to our local partners and tech sponsors: Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo, Headlight Audio Visual, Inc., Skat Consulting Ltd., SONY, Strawtec Building Solutions, and the University of Guyana. CREDITS Exhibition and Conference: Adèle Naudé Santos Exhibition Curator: Gabriel Kozlowski Conference Curator: Laura Wainer Art Director: Paul Montie Graphic Design: Siena Scarff Design Map Production: Waishan Qiu Model Fabrication: Joey Jacobson Table Fabrication: Airport Railings Co. Ltd. Publication Production: Sneha Mandhan Short Films: Matthew Niederhauser and John Fitzgerald Main Exhibition Team: Justin Lim, Juncheng Yang, and Alexander Wiegering Exhibition Assistants: Diana Ang, Giovanni Bellotti, Andrew Brose, Sarah Brown, Sea Hoon Kim, Kelly Main, and Manuela Uribe Faculty collaborators: Anton Garcia-Abril, Marie Law Adams, Azra Aksamija, Angelo Bucci, Lorena Bello Gomez, Mark Goulthorpe, Sheila Kennedy, Debora Mesa Molina, Brent D. Ryan, Larry Sass, Rafi Segal, and James L. Wescoat Jr. MIT student workshop participants: Diana Ang, Andrea Baena, Natalie Bellefleur, Giovanni Bellotti, Xhulio Binjaku, Kyle Branchesi, Andrew Brose, Sarah Brown, Wenxin Cai, Wan Chantavilasvong, Bumsuk Cho, Eric Van Dreason, Jaya Eyzaguirre, Paloma Gonzalez, Anne Graziano, Monica Hutton, Max Jarosz, Zain Karsan, Kadeem Khan, Alexander Kobald, Jacob Kohn, Pavlo Kryvozub, Justin Lim, Qianhui Liang, Yi Liu, Mary Lynch-Lloyd, Kelly Main, Daniel Marshall, Mackenzie Muhonen, Alina Nazmeeva, Ching Ying Ngan, Rushil Palavajjhala, Daniel Heriberto Palencia, Sean Phillips, Karthikeyan K.S. Raman, Helena Rong, Riddhi Shah, Ellen Shakespear, Maya Shopova, Taeseop Shin, Ranu Singh, Angelos Siampakoulis, Nneka Sobers, Danniely Staback, Tyler Swingle, Yair Titelboim, Sera Tolgay, Waishan Qiu, Manuela Uribe, Ayna Verella, Alexander Wiegering, Yue Wu, and Daya Zhang