Kent Larson

Kent Larson directs the City Science Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, USA. His research focuses on developing urban interventions that enable more entrepreneurial, livable, high-performance urban districts in. To that end, his projects include advanced simulation and augmented reality for urban design, transformable micro-housing for millennials, mobility-on-demand systems that create alternatives to private automobiles, and urban living lab deployments in Hamburg, Helsinki, Andorra, Taipei,  Shanghai, Toronto, and Guadalajara.
Larson and researchers from his group received the "10-Year Impact Award" from UbiComp in both 2014 and 2017. These is a "test of time" awards for work that, with the benefit of hindsight, has had the greatest impact over the previous decade. Larson practiced architecture for 15 years in New York City before joining the MIT Media Lab. His book, Louis I. Kahn: Unbuilt Masterworks was selected as one of the Ten Best Books in Architecture of the year by the New York Times Review of Books.  Larson's TED talk, "Brilliant designs to fit more people in every city," summarized his vision for cities in the future.  He is a founder of ORI, a company focused on the commercialization of architectural robotics, and Larson Living Labs, which provides design services and advanced simulation environments for large-scale urban projects.