Research — MIT Media Lab

We are an antidisciplinary research lab working to invent the future of

human-machine interaction
health
art
learning
artificial intelligence
architecture
robotics
consumer electronics
kids
networks
music
wearable computing
entertainment
politics
history
cognition
economy
archives
design
bioengineering
storytelling
social science
data
machine learning
technology
developing countries
interfaces
prosthetics
sensors
social media
human-computer interaction
social robotics
computer science
wellbeing
imaging
environment
space
privacy
ethics
civic technology
civic media
urban planning
engineering
transportation
communications
synthetic biology
affective computing
neurobiology
augmented reality
energy
data visualization
virtual reality
computer vision
blockchain
biotechnology
banking and finance
systems
3d printing
agriculture
biomechanics
prosthetic design
wiesner
open source
crowdsourcing
biology
cryptocurrency
genetics
fashion
food
gaming
government
collective intelligence
makers
social change
behavioral science
zero gravity
performance
language learning
public health
manufacturing
ecology
nonverbal behavior
perception
internet of things
construction
industry
security
mapping
extended intelligence
climate change
long-term interaction
ocean
visualization
social networks
physiology
data science
gesture interface
autonomous vehicles
orthotic design
networking
point of care
medicine
racial justice
bionics
holography
civic action
trust
human augmentation
pharmaceuticals
neural interfacing and control
hacking
interactive
community
mechanical engineering
autism research
clinical science
rfid
member event
academia
primary healthcare
clinical trials
trade
open access
cognitive science
alumni
soft-tissue biomechanics
randomized experiment
startup
chemistry
member company
voice
real estate
biomedical imaging
sports and fitness
gis
electrical engineering
mechatronics
publishing
natural language processing
fabrication
event
materials
marginalized communities
exhibit
metamaterials
microbiology
installation

Promoting deeper learning and understanding in human networks

Deep Image of the City

DeepScope is a novel platform for interactive, real-time, and setup-less urban design visualization. It attempts to substitute comm...

Research

City Science

Looking beyond smart cities

Project Research

City as Classroom, City as Laboratory

Often, we neglect to see the city as living, complex, and dynamic. However, shrouded by its masses of concrete and steel lie unique ecosy...

Project Research

City Science Lab Andorra

Andorra and the City Science research group at the MIT Media Lab are taking on the challenge of turning Andorra into an “Internationally ...

Project Research

Theme | CityScope

City Science researchers are developing a slew of tangible and digital platforms dedicated to solving spatial design and urban planning c...

Research

Open Agriculture (OpenAg)

Open Agriculture Initiative (OpenAg)

Project Research

City Science Lab Hamburg

Read more about this project hereMIT City Science is working with HafenCity University to develop CityScope for the neighborhood of Rothe...

Project Research

Aalto Campus-as-a-Service Simulations

How can we get more value from the same buildings? Cities contain many different resources and spaces and typically, these resources...

Project Research

City Science Lab Aalto

Aalto University, Finland, and the MIT Media Lab’s City Science group are co-developing a version of the MIT CityScope platform for urban...

Project Research

BASIC: Blockchained Agent-based Simulator for Cities

Autonomous vehicles (AVs), drones, and robots will revolutionize our way of traveling and understanding urban space. In order to operate,...

Project Research

Theme | Mobility On-Demand

Urban populations around the world are rapidly growing. To improve livability, urban residents must reduce dependency on fossil fuels and...

Archived

Project Research

Field Experimentation in Boston's Intertidal Zone

The Intertidal Experimentation Workshop will take place September 29 and 30 (9am to 2pm) at the MIT Media Lab, open to students ages 8-14...

Archived

Article Research

Home

How the home will be disrupted and transformed by radical technological change.

Project Research

MoCho: Mobility choices and societal impacts

MoCho (short for "Mobility Choices") is a CityScope module focused on mobility choices and societal impacts. This tool helps pr...

Project Research

Measuring and reducing social segregation in cities

We use high-resolution geospatial data collected from mobile phones to measure social segregation at an unprecedented resolution in citie...

Research

Poetic Justice

Exploring new forms of social justice through art

Project Research

CityScope PlayGround: MIT East Campus

This project depicts the design, deployment and operation of a Tangible Regulation Platform, a physical-technological apparatus made for ...

Publication Research

Finding Places: HCI Platform for Public Participation in Refugees’ Accommodation Process

Finding Places: HCI Platform for Public Participation in Refugees’ Accommodation Process. Ariel Noyman , Tobias Holtz, Johannes Kröger, Jörg Rainer Noennig, Kent Larson. a Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Media Lab, Changing Places Group, Cambridge MA, b HafenCity University Hamburg, CityScienceLab, c HafenCity University Hamburg, Lab for Geoinformatics & Geovisualization

Project Research

AI, Automation, Labor, and Cities: How to map the future of work

Should workers worry about automation and AI?Many workers, policy makers, and researchers are asking themselves exactly this question. Bu...

Research

Human Dynamics

Exploring how social networks can influence our lives in business, health, governance, and technology adoption and diffusion

Article Research

City Science Lab Taipei

NTUT, MIT sign ‘smart’ development agreement

Publication Research

Toward understanding the impact of artificial intelligence on labor

Frank, Morgan R., David Autor, James E. Bessen, Erik Brynjolfsson, Manuel Cebrian, David J. Deming, Maryann Feldman, et al. “Toward Understanding the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Labor.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, March 25, 2019, 201900949. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1900949116.

Project Research

The Atlas of Inequality

Segregation is hurting our societies and especially our cities. But economic inequality isn't just limited to neighborhoods. The restaura...

Project Research

Urban Swarms

Modern cities have to respond to the growing demands of more efficient and sustainable urban development, as well as an increased quality...

Post Research

This city is a classroom

Avery Normandin and Devora Najjar are on a mission to build literacy and appreciation for urban ecology.

Project Research

CityScope Volpe

CityScope Volpe is demonstrating most of the urban planning, analysis, and prediction features developed for the CityScope project. The s...

Project Research

Reversed Urbanism

Predicting Urban Performance through Behavioral Patterns in Temporal Telecom DataThis study explores a novel method to analyze diverse be...

Project Research

FindingPlaces

What is FindingPlaces?In reaction to the sudden arrival of tens of thousands of refugees in the city of Hamburg (DE) in 2015, the Lord Ma...

Research

Camera Culture

Making the invisible visible–inside our bodies, around us, and beyond–for health, work, and connection

Research

Sculpting Evolution

Exploring evolutionary and ecological engineering

Research

Scalable Cooperation

Reimagining human cooperation in the age of social media and artificial intelligence

Research

Collective Learning

Transforming data into knowledge

Article Research

Give way to droids, bots, and drones: the driverless city will look like this

An NYC exhibit imagines driverless buses and mobile medical units resembling Popemobiles.

Archived

Research

Social Computing

Creating sociotechnical systems that shape our urban environments

Research

Personal Robots

Building socially engaging robots and interactive technologies to help people live healthier lives, connect with others, and learn better

Future Storytelling

Archived

Project Research

City Science Lab Toronto

City Science Lab Toronto was established in cooperation with Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. It started in 2018 and is...

Project Research

Andorra | Energy + Environment

View the main City Science Andorra project profile.

Publication Research

Urban Swarms: A new approach for autonomous waste management

Alfeo, A. L., Ferrer, E. C., Carrillo, Y. L., Grignard, A., Pastor, L. A., Sleeper, D. T., Cimino, M. G. C. A., Lepri, B., Vaglini, G., Laron, K., Dorigo, M., Pentland, A. `Sandy’. (2018). Urban Swarms: A new approach for autonomous waste management. ArXiv:1810.07910 [Cs].

Project Research

cityIO

Cloud-Based Urban Data PlatformcityIO (input/output) is a cloud- and database-driven platform which allows remote participation, database...

Project Research

Managing Travel Demand: Location recommendation for system efficiency

Growth in leisure travel has become increasingly significant economically, socially, and environmentally. However, flexible but uncoordin...

Article Research

AR is transforming tech. What can it do for cities?

Cities need to work to ensure that AR makes the leap from “cool experience,” to a technology that improves residents’ lives.

Project Research

Persuasive Electric Vehicle (PEV)

An Alternative Autonomous Revolution System design for emerging urban contexts and societal aspirationsThe Persuasive Electric Vehic...

Post Research

10+ years of Human 2.0

Revisit Human 2.0, a 2007 Media Lab symposium focused on the future of human adaptability.

Project Research

Andorra | Innovation

View the main City Science Andorra project profile.The MIT Media Lab's City Science research group, the University of Andorra, and nation...

Post Research

The hackable bike and the future of the MamaChari

Rapid urbanization causes a need for new mobility modes which may not be totally dependent on cars.

Project Research

Hackable Bike

To explore future mobility modes, the City Science group is working with Media Lab member company Panasonic to explore the use and potent...

Archived

Project Research

Place Pulse

Mapping the urban perception

Archived

Gallery Research

School and Energy Awareness, City Science Andorra

SCHOOL, ENERGY AWARENESSUsing TerMITes in the Santa Coloma School in Andorra we want to help students understand the relation between the...

Archived

Project Research

Ant-Based Modeling

Ant-Based Modeling explores the possibility of implementing agent-based modeling with living ants and external stimuli such as ...

Archived

Publication Research

CityScopeAR: Urban Design and Crowdsourced Engagement Platform

Noyman, Sakai, Larson 2018. CityScopeAR: Urban Design and Crowdsourced Engagement Platform. CHI 2018, 4,2007

Publication Research

Roadmap for Autonomous Cities: Sustainable Transformation of Urban Spaces

Noyman, Ariel, Agnis Stibe, and Kent Larson. "Roadmap for Autonomous Cities: Sustainable Transformation of Urban Spaces." (2017).

Article Research

Robotic interiors

Smart furniture transforms spaces in tiny apartments into bedrooms, work spaces, or closets.

Thesis Research

POWERSTRUCTURES : the urban form of regulations

POWERSTRUCTURES : the urban form of regulations, Noyman, Ariel, Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2015.; Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.; Includes bibliographical references (pages 232-236).