massachusetts institute of technology

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Experts for: Architecture and design

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Eran Ben-Joseph

Associate professor of landscape architecture and planning; chair, PhD program in urban planning; City Design and Development Group, School of Architecture and Planning
areas of expertise: urban planning, urban design, standards and regulations, health and built environment, site development and infrastructure technologies, ecologic oriented development, urban simulation
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Eran Ben-Joseph is a member of the faculty at MIT. Research and teaching interests include urban and physical design, standards and regulations, site-planning technologies and urban simulation.

He has published numerous articles, monographs and book chapters, and co-authored the book Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities (Island Press, 2003), the anthology Regulating Place: Standards and the Shaping of Urban America (Rutledge, 2005) and The Code of the City (MIT Press, 2005). Eran worked as a landscape architect and urban planner in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the United States on projects including new towns and residential developments, streetscapes, stream restorations, and parks and recreation planning.

He is the founding principal of BNBJ, a planning firm in Tel-Aviv, Israel, and E. Ben-Joseph Consultants of Acton, Mass. He previously taught at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and has led national and international multi-disciplinary projects in Singapore, Barcelona, Santiago and Washington, D.C., among other places.

Eran is the recipient of the Wade Award for his work on Representation of Places — a collaboration project with MIT Media Lab, and MIT Graduate Teaching Award — for excellence in teaching. He holds degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and Chiba National University of Japan.

Carlo Ratti

Director, SENSEable City Lab; Associate Professor of the Practice
areas of expertise: urban design, electronic media and the design of public spaces, human computer interfaces
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Carlo Ratti is a civil engineer and architect who directs the SENSable City Lab.

Lawrence Sass

Associate professor, Department of Architecture
areas of expertise: computer technology in the design and construction of buildings, architectural design, design and computation technology, sustainable architecture, rapid prototyping
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Lawrence (Larry) Sass is an associate professor in the Department of Architecture at MIT. His research is focused on digital methods of building production and ranges from scientific exploration in computation to building fabrication and design theory.

He is mostly known for his digitally fabricated structures and teaches courses specifically in digital fabrication and design computing. He has been on the faculty since 2002 after earning a PhD and SMArchS also at MIT. His particular contributions to the field are in the area of fabricating houses exclusively with CAD/CAM methods. He has developed theoretical methods to build houses of wood and concrete aided by computer controlled machinery. His work is a demonstration of a new model of building design and delivery with small manufacturing machines, small spaces and a smaller labor force than today’s best prefab methods.

He is currently working on a book on digital fabrication and its potential impact on the modern factory. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and exhibited his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2008.

Jan Wampler

Distinguished Professor, ASCA; professor of architecture; director, Undergraduate Design Program, Department of Architecture
areas of expertise: architectural design, the understanding and designing of the space between buildings as well as buildings that can respond to people's needs
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Jan WamplerJan Wampler received his BS in architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1963 and a MAUD from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1964. He is a professor of architecture at MIT.

He teaches an Architectural Design Studio and a International Workshop each semester. In addition to teaching, Wampler runs an architectural office. His articles and buildings have been published in a number of architectural magazines. These include: "La Puntilla," Progressive Architecture; "L'Emprette," L'Architecture D'Aujourd'hui, May-June 1975; "Boston Architecture," Andrea Leers and Alex Krieger, A&U, V. 222, March, 1989; "Thinking the City," Exhibition; "Designing for Special Populations," Architecture, January 1987; "A Village in a House," Space and Society, June 1984. He also authored a book , All Their Own, People and the Places They Build.

He is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and was awarded the Distinguished Professor honor from the ASCA. In addition, he has received awards from MIT for his work in International Programs. He recently exhibited his work for the last 25 years at MIT in a show titled Open Strings for e - Search on the Journey. In a review of the exhibition by Robert Campbell, Wampler was referred to as "The Walt Whitman of Architects." His intention for the design studios he teaches is to expose students to cultural environments outside of the United States in order that future architects will become more sensitive to the international projects they may encounter in future years. He teaches both graduate and undergraduate studios as well as workshops on the “Space Between,” International Projects, Thesis Prep and Thesis students. Wampler is currently the director of the Undergraduate Design Program at MIT.

James Wescoat

Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Environmental Design
areas of expertise: architectural design; water systems in south asia and the u.s. from the site to river basin scales; landscape research; geographic theory
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James WescoatJames Wescoat has conducted water policy research in the Colorado, Indus, Ganges and Great Lakes basins, including the history of multilateral water agreements. He led a USEPA-funded study of potential climate impacts in the Indus River Basin in Pakistan with the Water and Power Development Authority. More recently, he led an NSF-funded project on Water and Poverty in Colorado.

He is currently conducting comparative research on international water problems. In 2003, he published Water for Life: Water Management and Environmental Policy, with geographer Gilbert F. White (Cambridge University Press); and in 2007 he co-edited Political Economies of Landscape Change: Places of Integrative Power (Springer Publishing) for LAF Landscape Futures Initiative.