Presented by Professor Kent Larson, Director, Changing Places Research Group, MIT Media Lab; City of Melbourne Boston International Fellow; recipient, University of Melbourne William J Mitchell Professorship.

Professor Kent Larson brings his insights as an architect, researcher and academic at the renowned MIT Media Lab to this lecture. Professor Larson practiced architecture for 15 years in New York City, with work published in Architectural Record, Progressive Architecture, Global Architecture, The New York Times, A+U, and Architectural Digest. The New York Times Review of Books selected his book, Louis I. Kahn: Unbuilt Masterworks as one of the Ten Best Books in Architecture in 2000. Related work was selected by Time magazine as a “Best Design of the Year” project.

His research has three current areas of focus: Responsive Urban Housing – strategies to disentangle places of living into three independently configured layers: high performance chassis, integrated infill and responsive facade modules to create zero-energy, mass-customized, scalable housing; ubiquitous technologies – wireless sensing, algorithms and interfaces to understand and respond to human activity; and Living Lab Experiments – deploying and testing design and technology solutions in actual living environments. Professor Larson has conducted studies at the scale of the individual, home, office and city.

Sponsored by City of Melbourne, the University of Melbourne and ISS Institute.

[Free but register at the website]