Following The Power of Without agenda, the City Science group proposes the Technologies Toolkit. This research aims to translate the knowledge gathered through the Taxonomy collected into actionable and impactful insights for new technologies shaping existing and future communities.
The Technologies Toolkit offers researchers an opportunity to review current methods, trends, and technologies that can substitute traditional infrastructure. The combination of the Toolkit database and the CityScope tool will help researchers understand the potential impact of different proposals when implementing future technologies in urban communities. The simulations of “what if?” scenarios developed in the CityScope platform will help to inform the development of solutions and deployments for real-world impact.
The current Toolkit was tested during the 2019 City Science Summit, the MAS.552 Settlements Without Course, Fall, and Spring Term 2019-2020, and at MIT Media Lab. In the workshop and consequent courses, participants and students aimed to find lightweight, distributed solutions for informal settlements in collaboration with leaders from the community. In the class, they also worked on rapid prototypes of the proposals and projects.