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

DCP: Digital Construction Environment

The Digital Construction Environment is the first architectural-scale structure fabricated with the Digital Construction Platform (DCP). ...

Research

Conformable Decoders

Converting the patterns of nature and the human body into beneficial signals and energy

Project Research

Moon Village

In 2015, the director general of the European Space Agency (ESA), Jan Wörner, introduced the concept of the “Moon Village.” Inspired by t...

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Space Exploration Initiative

Project Research

The Deep Image of the City

How do you image a city that doesn't exist? DeepScope is a novel platform for interactive, real-time, and setup-less urban design vi...

Project Research

Totems

Biodiversity on planet Earth is under momentous threat, with extinction rates estimated between 100 and 1,000 times their pre-human level...

Article Research

Dezeen Awards 2019 design longlist announced

The Dezeen Awards 2019 design longlist includes two projects from the Mediated Matter group.

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City Science

Looking beyond smart cities

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...

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Scalable Cooperation

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

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Social Machines

Promoting deeper learning and understanding in human networks

Project Research

Water-Based Additive Manufacturing

This research presents water-based robotic fabrication as a design approach and enabling technology for additive manufacturing (AM) of bi...

Project Research

Living Distance

Living Distance is a mission and a fantasy realized, in which a wisdom tooth is sent to outer space and back down to Earth again. Carried...

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

Maiden Flight

Maiden Flight is an autonomous biological laboratory environment designed for studying the impact of space flight on the sole reproductiv...

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

AR Enhanced Wall Plants: Escape Pod

An environment of plants and mirrors that extends beyond the terrarium walls.

Project Research

Telepresent Drawings in Space

This project asks, how can we transmit experiences across space and time? The launching point of the project is to create a drawing that ...

Article Research

Six suborbital research payloads from MIT fly to space and back

Space Exploration Initiative research aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard experiment capsule crossed the Karman line for three minutes

Post Research

Six suborbital research payloads fly on Blue Origin New Shepard

The projects on board the Media Lab's first suborbital rocket flight

Project Research

TESSERAE: Self-Assembling Space Architecture

Overview: How will we build the coming generations of Space Architecture--the modules, space ships, and space stations that will ens...

Post Research

TESSERAE: Suborbital launch test

On May 2nd, 2019 we launched three TESSERAE v2 hardware tiles into space and back! They rode to just over 100km (past the Karman line) on...

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

Piccolo Kitchen

This project aims to create a modular platform for exploring micro-kitchens that are culture specific. Cooking is a personal experi...

Project Research

Spatial Flux: Body and architecture in space

Structurally, zero gravity means that we do not have to contend with architecture's greatest arch-nemesis, gravity. This opens up a new w...

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Poetic Justice

Exploring new forms of social justice through art

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Object-Based Media

Changing storytelling, communication, and everyday life through sensing, understanding, and new interface technologies

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 ...

Article Research

Space is poised for explosive growth. Let’s get it right.

Before low-earth orbit is clogged with hotels, satellite traffic, and debris, we should plan for the extra-planetary community we want.

Project Research

Escape Pod

The esc-Pod (or Escape Pod) is an exploratory platform for researchers investigating moments of refuge within our bustling work liv...

Publication Research

Self-Assembling Space Habitats: TESSERAE design and mission architecture

Ekblaw, Ariel, and Joseph Paradiso. “ Self-Assembling Space Habitats:TESSERAE Technology and Mission Architecture for Zero-g Construction ” To appear in the Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference (2019).

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

FIBERBOTS: Design of a multi-agent, fiber composite digital fabrication system

FIBERBOTS is a digital fabrication platform fusing cooperative robotic manufacturing with abilities to generate highly sophisticated mate...

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Mediated Matter

Designing for, with, and by nature

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...

Archived

Project Research

Amoetecture

Amoeba Wall: a context aware wall system. Amoetecture is a set of amoeba-like dynamic spatial elements, including transformable floors, c...

Archived

Project Research

Amoeba Wall: A context-aware wall system

Amoeba Wall: A context aware wall system: Amoetecture is a set of amoeba-like dynamic spatial elements, including transformable floo...

Archived

Project Research

Spaces that Perform Themselves

As we generally experience on earth, there is no space without sound and there is no sound without space. Building on the understanding o...

Communications Futures Program

Archived

Publication Research

Self-Assembling Space Architecture: tessellated shell structures for space habitats

Ekblaw, A. and Paradiso, J.A., "Self-assembling Space Architecture: tessellated shell structures for space habitats," In AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum, Smart/Adaptable Deployable Structures (p. 0481).

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.

Publication Research

TESSERAE: Self-Assembling Shell Structures for Space Exploration

Ekblaw, Ariel and Joseph Paradiso. "TESSERAE: self-assembling shell structures for space exploration." In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium of the International Association of Shell and Spatial Structures: Extra Planetary Architecture, p. 317 (2018).

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Personal Robots

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

Archived

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Consumer Electronics Laboratory

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Hundred Dollar Laptop

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Post Research

A calm house is a smart house

Receptive Skins envisions a living building that silently interacts with air and temperature

Project Research

Glass II

Optically transparent and structurally sound, glass has played a significant role in the evolution of product and architectural design ac...

Project Research

Andorra | Energy + Environment

View the main City Science Andorra project profile.

Project Research

CityMatrix

An Urban Decision-Support System Augmented by Artificial IntelligenceThe decision-making process in urban design and urban planning is ou...

Inventing the future of digitally augmented objects and environments.

Archived

Article Research

Project TESSERAE, a Self-Assembling Space Architecture

The TESSERAE project is a design experiment in imagining how to bring the concept of geodesic domes from Earth into orbit.

Publication Research

CityScope: A Data-Driven Interactive Simulation Tool for Urban Design. Use Case Volpe

Alonso, L., Zhang, Y. R., Grignard, A., Noyman, A., Sakai, Y., ElKatsha, M., ... & Larson, K. (2018, July). Cityscope: a data-driven interactive simulation tool for urban design. Use case volpe. In International Conference on Complex Systems (pp. 253-261). Springer, Cham.