Satoshi Ebina, Ph.D., of Tokyo, a longtime friend and colleague of Paul Lukez Architecture (PLA), recently came to visit Boston, Mass. As founder of the Boston Bridge to Higher Education (BBHE) program Satoshi’s goal is to build a communicative bridge between Boston and Tokyo based on educational exchanges between the cities. 
To do so, he annually takes small Japanese groups on tours of Boston and Cambridge. The ages of the participants depend on the specific tour he conducts—sometimes, senior executives participate; other times, he focuses on secondary-school students. All of his tours provide a rich array of educational opportunities for all participants. Besides taking daily English classes and touring local historic sites, BBHE tourists visit some of Boston’s cutting-edge laboratories.
As part of this effort, PLA helped to coordinate a visit to MIT’s Media Lab and its “Changing Places” group for Satoshi’s students. Several PLA team members tagged along for an exciting day, touring, discussing and sharing ideas along the way.
Founded by Professor Kent Larson, Changing Places (CP) is a remarkable incubator of ideas about cities, technology and design (see Kent’s TED X talk at YouTube). The lab’s mission is to “Work on new strategies for cities to meet the profound challenges of the future.” (http://cp.media.mit.edu). They benefit from the talented staff, who work as needed within multi-disciplinary teams. These include architects, designers, engineers, scientists, and a wide range of other specialists. The lab’s current research areas include:
1) Mobility on Demand
2) Places for Living and Work
3) Computational Urbanism
4) Building Integrated Agriculture
Ira Winder, a research scientist in the group, gave Satoshi’s students a mesmerizing presentation. (He worked in Tokyo for two years, so his fluency in Japanese was a big hit with our guests.) Ira provided a rich overview of CP’s research initiatives, many of which conduce to programs, products and processes that change the way we think about the city. CP’s most famous research subject is the MIT Car of the Future, aka the “CityCar,” a compact, stackable electric automobile that prompts us to reconsider mobility in the city: how do we get from place to place as economically and sustainably as possible? Ryan C.C. Chin has been a key investigator in this project, which is now produced and tested in Spain. 
If you like Lego, you will love to see how the lab is using Lego bricks as an interactive urban design tool. Combining Lego’s easy-to-use modules, urban design ideas can be tested as designers and participants build models while layering the design proposals in real time with computational analytical tools. These include studying the effects of sun and shadow on urban spaces, as well population density calculations. This powerful tool creates a new platform—part digital, part analog—that fosters meaningful dialogue among urban stakeholders.
To see more sci-fi technology come to life, check out how micro-units can be transformed throughout the day to meet the needs of residents. Walls, cabinets, and furniture are programmable and movable as a range of uses and configurations are accommodated in a comfortable yet compact area. Making the most of limited space is key to making cities more affordable, efficient places to live.
A busy morning of presentations, demos and tours left our guests hungry and in search of nourishment. The Clover Food Lab in Kendall Square did the trick. Founded in 2008 by a MIT Material Science graduate and another partner with a Harvard M.B.A., Clover boasts six restaurant locations and nine food trucks in greater Boston alone. Clover Food Labs provides creative, tasty vegan and vegetarian dishes.
We look forward to seeing Satoshi and his group in the future!
For more information on Boston Bridge to Higher Education, contact:
Satoshi Ebina, Ph.D., Representative
NGO Boston Bridge to Higher Education
Nitto Bldg., 9th Floor
1-9-16 Asakusabashi, Taito-ku
Tokyo 111-0053
JAPAN
Phone + Fax: +81 3-3866-5977
Cell: +81 90-6453-3487; +81 90-9037-3487 BBhe Personal: boston.ebina@bbhe.co.jp
BBhe Rep: boston-bridge@bbhe.co.jp
Home: dqi01242@nifty.com
BBHE WEBSITE
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