Designers are concerned with the socially, culturally, and spatially situated application of technologies to meet specific human needs. Successful design depends upon deep understanding of needs and their contexts, practical knowledge of the means available to respond, and strategies for creatively relating the two. It combines resourceful problem solving with ongoing critical reflection.

From an economic perspective, design of products, systems, and environments is the means of immediate realization, in particular contexts, of the potential value of technological innovations. Institutions of design research and teaching, and innovative design practices, are, therefore, crucial components of creative economies.

The MIT Mass Customization Interest Group is an MIT-Industry collaboration devoted to improving the ability of companies to efficiently customize products and services in various industries and for diverse customer groups. This industry interest group aggregates the key players in the area of mass customization and strives to become a vital community of practice in this field.

Its faculty consists of William J. Mitchell, Marvin Minsky, Frank T Piller, Ryan Chin, as well as other members from throughout MIT.

Wireless technologies and mobile media change the way people communicate and interact, modify the dynamics of accessing and sharing knowledge, as well as alter notions of place and space. The Mobile Experience Lab, with a multidisciplinary approach, aims to understand peoples experiences using wireless communication technologies, exploring the impact of mobile media on communities, societies, and space.

We imagine technologies and design connections between people, places, and information.

mobile.mit.edu

In a highly efficient parking scheme, the stack receives incoming vehicles and electrically charges them. Similar to luggage carts at the airport, users simply take the first fully charged vehicle at the front of the stack. These City cars are not a replacement for personal vehicles, taxis, buses, or trucks, but rather a new vehicle type that promotes a socially responsible and more effective means of urban mobility.

cities.media.mit.edu

The home is rapidly becoming a center for proactive health care, distributed energy, learning, communication, commerce, entertainment, and work. This creates exciting opportunities and daunting challenges for companies developing related products and services. Consumers are reaching a limit to the number of stand-alone technologies that
they will accept into their lives, and products and services developed and tested in laboratories often fail because designers often make erroneous assumptions about the effectiveness and use patterns in complex natural settings such as homes.

architecture.mit.edu/house_n

The real-time city is now real! The increasing deployment of sensors and hand-held electronics in recent years is allowing a new approach to the study of the built environment. The way we describe and understand cities is being radically transformed - alongside the tools we use to design them and impact on their physical structure. Studying these changes from a critical point of view and anticipating them is the goal of the SENSEable City Laboratory, a new research initiative between the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the MIT Media Lab.

senseable.mit.edu

DE Focuses on design and implementation of commercially sustainable products and services for low-income communities around the world. MIT's commitment to technology, entrepreneurship, and global diversity provides a uniquely qualified environment to develop innovative products, services and organizations that improve the lives of people in low-income communities.

Amir Alexander Hasson, Founder and CEO of United Villages, providing Internet access for a village school in Ratanakiri, Cambodia.

web.mit.edu/de

ArchNet is a growing global community of scholars, students, and professionals concerned with architecture, planning, and landscape design. Through the use of online forums, chat rooms, and debates, it is hoped that the site can encourage and promote discussions amongst participants. ArchNet is accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. It is a bottom-up system, in which information flows from the user to a continually expanding database which can be shared by all.

archnet.org

The Design Fabrication Group is a center for education and research in areas of rapid prototyping and CAD/CAM operations for architects and designers. The groups pedagogy is to engage faculty and students in research focused on the relationship between design computing and the physical output of information using rapid prototyping and CAD/CAM machines for design representation and reflection. Projects on this website are the beginning of that process.

ddf.mit.edu