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Kent Larson      

Director of MIT Media Lab's Changing Places Group

A majority of the world’s population lives in cities, with more people streaming in daily. At MIT’s Media Lab, Kent Larson thinks up better ways for people to live, play, and work—and even just move around—in urban environments. Larson’s solutions for transportation and shelter combine mind-blowing new technologies with classic human needs.

Kent Larson directs the MIT Media Lab's Changing Places group. Since 1998 he has also directed the MIT House_n research consortium in the School of Architecture and Planning. His current research focuses on four related areas: responsive urban housing, new urban vehicles, ubiquitous technologies, and living lab experiments. He practiced architecture for 15 years in New York City, with work published in The New York Times, Architectural Record, and Global Architecture among others. His book, Louis I. Khan: Unbuilt Masterworks was selected as one of the Ten Best Books in Architecture, 2000 by The New York Times Review of Books.

Speech Topics


Brilliant Designs to Fit More People in Every City

How can we fit more people into cities without overcrowding? Kent Larson shows off folding cars, quick-change apartments, and other innovations that could make the city of the future work a lot like a small village of the past. Our original settlements were built at human-size, every aspect of infrastructure was accessible and local. Through innovative strategies with public transportation and the design of buildings, Larson illustrates how we can recapture the feeling of intimacy with our surroundings all while boosting modern population density, the economy, and the environment.

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