kent larson

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.

Kent Larson designs new technologies that solve the biggest questions facing our cities.

Brilliant designs to fit more people in every city

sprawl is not so smart

looking at the great cities that evolved before the cars

compact urban cells – most of what people want w/in a 20 min walk – then connect them per mesh network

boulder – can go from one end of the city to the other without crossing the (car) streets

copenhagen – 42% via bike

folding car

28x land utilization with shared use and folding..

democratize access to bike lanes

spaces to live – robotic walls – make very small apartment feel like it’s twice as big

his ted page: http://www.ted.com/speakers/kent_larson.html

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find/follow Kent:

Kent Larson is Director of the Changing Places research group and co-directs the City Science Initiative at the MIT Media Lab. His recent work has focused on four areas:

Responsive Housing. …These concepts are being deployed in the CityHome: a compact, transformable apartment for urban dwellers that functions as if a much larger space.

Urban Mobility-on-Demand. ..the MIT CityCar called Hiriko: a folding two-passenger vehicle with robot wheels and drive-by-wire control for urban mobility and highly efficient parking.

ubiquitous technologies..

Living Labs. …This work includes the exploration of data collection and analysis tools to understand the fine-grained attributes of a healthy, high-functioning community or city, and strategies to use this information to inform the design of new communities.

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. His book, Louis I. Kahn: Unbuilt Masterworks was selected as one of the Ten Best Books in Architecture, 2000 by the New York Times Review of Books.