Why you should listen to him:
Kent Larson has been the director of the MIT House_n research consortium in the School of Architecture and Planning since 1998 and is also the current director of the MIT Media Lab’s Changing Places group. Both projects are dedicated to developing technologies that solve contemporary issues in the home, the workplace, and the city. Larson practiced architecture in New York City for 15 years and wrote for several architectural publications and the New York Times. In 2000, his book, Louis I. Kahn: Unbuilt Masterworks, was selected among the Ten Best Books in Architecture by the New York Times Review of Books. His current work has three focusses: responsive urban housing, ubiquitous technologies, and living lab experiments to test his group’s designs in practical environments.