Prof. Martin Bechthold was honored to deliver a keynote lecture at the Future Strategy Symposium, celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the Graduate School of Future Strategy at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST).
During the fall 2022 Nathan King taught the ‘Material Systems: Digital Design and Fabrication’, once again with a focus on ceramic-based design research. The course continued our decade-long collaboration with the Harvard Ceramics Studio, with support by ASCER Tile of Spain. The show is located in Gallery 224 at the Harvard Ceramics Studio in Allston, and is open to the public from Monday to Friday between 10 am – 4 pm. More information is here.
Our work on a novel evaporative cooling system based on our patented ceramic technology was recently featured in Fast Company. Over the summer we were able to install a prototype in Harvard’s HouseZero, gathering data and experience about the real world challenges of cooling with water in Boston’s humid and hot summers. The results look very promising!
Our research on auxetic metamaterials will be shared at the March Meeting of the American Physical Society in Denver, Colorado. Hope to see you there!
Hold the date for an intriguing day of conversations and presentations. The conference will be held on March 27 at the Radcliff Gym at Harvard – the event is free and open to the public. Breakfast and lunch will be served. Description:
Science and design are often thought to represent opposite mindsets of analysis versus conjecture, of explanatory versus disruptive modes of thinking. Audacious, provocative, and unconventional work emerges when we cross the traditional disciplinary divide between science and design. The March 2020 conference assembles thought leaders from both areas—researchers and practitioners who interrogate the spaces in between through their work. The sessions, which are thematically aligned with the human senses, present a multitude of approaches, methods, and techniques that transcend the disciplinary focus. Conceived as an open forum for exploration and discussion, the conference is co-hosted by faculty from the Graduate School of Design and the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard University. The projects and explorations featured range from fashion to material science, from therapeutic devices to building science, and from cooking to cognitive science.
Click here for more.
We will be presenting this year’s ceramic installation, our tallest ever, at the Cevisama trade fair in Valencia from 3 – 7 February! Hope to see you there! We thank the Cevisama Trade Fair Organization and ASCER Tile of Spain for their support.
Mark your calendar for our first Design – Science Conference at Harvard, showcasing intriguing and compelling work at the intersection of design and science at Harvard and beyond. Curated by Allen Sayegh, Joanna Aizenberg and Martin Bechthold, the event is held at the Radcliff Institute for Advanced Studies, free and open to the public. more
Congratulations to Zach Seibold and Jose Luis García del Castillo y López for both joining the faculty this year! Zach will be teaching in the MDE program, as well as offering ‘Digital Media: Manipulations‘ (co-taught with Hyojin Kwon, a research associate with the Laboratory for Design Technologies). Jose Luis is teaching the MDE tech required ‘Introduction to Computational Design‘ as well as ‘Structural Design I‘ with Martin Bechthold.
Check out Saurabh’s winning photos in the Wyss post! And enjoy many of his great images on this website ….
Our cold-SNAP project, an innovative evaporative cooling system developed jointly with Prof. Aizenberg’s Adaptive Materials Platform (involving Jack Alvarenga), the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities (involving Jonathan Grinham and Saurabh Mhatre), and MaP+S, was featured in a story issued by the Wyss institute. Cold-SNAP was recently patented.
We are happy to participate, along with our colleagues Andrew Witt and Allen Sayegh, in the Aerial Futures Conference at Harvard and MIT. Short distance autonomous flight is technically possible but significant questions remain on where and how it can add value to society. We are thrilled to be part of the conversation!
Prof. Bechthold is lecturing on ‘Multi-Scalar Design: Material Matters’ at Georgia Tech on January 15 at noon in the Flex Space, Caddell Building, 280 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0680. The talk focuses on the challenges and opportunities provided by the expanded range of scales that design and science interact in.
MaP+S is founding partner of the Laboratory for Design Technologies (LDT), a new research organization at the GSD. LDT is the umbrella organization for all technology related GSD design labs such as REAL (Allen Sayegh), the Geometry Lab (Andrew Witt) and the City Form Lab (Andres Sevtsuk). LDT also integrates work by our colleagues currently not associated with a particular design lab – for example Prof. Sawako Kaijima. LDT is currently supported by several industry advisors that include Perkins & Will, Hickok Cole Architects, and Advanced Multitech Corp. We expect to be announcing other industry partners shortly…
Chuck Hoberman’s course review is testing small models and large prototypes of pneumatically actuated origami systems that could potentially assemble into building-scale kinetic structures. Hoberman’s work is expanding the known approaches to kinetic building systems, with potential applications in other fields such as consumer products.
Prof. Bechthold is heading to China to serve as jury member for the Solar Decathlon China. There are 16 entries, built and ready to be evaluated, in Dezhou, Shandong Province. It is hot and humid there – challenging conditions for the participants!
Work by the Adaptive Living Environments (ALivE) group is featured in the March supplements of DOMUS. The article – co-authored by Martin Bechthold and Joanna Aizenberg – highlights ongoing research at Harvard that integrates science and design. Special thanks to James Weaver and Jack Alvarenga for their help with images such as the close-up of the butterfly wing!
The end of semester review of SCI 6317 Material Systems will take place on 14 December at the GSD. Our jurors are Prof. Eric Howeler, Prof. Sawako Kaijima (both GSD), Kevin Rothero (Yale University), Jonathan Grinham (DDes ’17), Rachel Vroman (GSD), Nathan King (Virginia Tech and Autodesk, DDes ’13). Several MaP+S researchers will join us as well. 37 students will present their design research projects. Swing by if you are in the neighborhood – we will be in the Portico rooms at Gund!
MaP+S Martin Bechthold is participating in the 2017 RIBA Symposium in Liverpool, UK, organized by Rosa Urbana Gutierrez. The event looks at the future of ceramics in architecture, and includes an exhibition on ceramics in architecture. The show is open until 10 Feb 2018. Hope to see you there!
Our long term collaboration with material scientists from the Wyss Institute has recently led to another paper – this time a review of the reciprocal relationship between materials science and architecture and architectural engineering. The paper can be viewed free online – just follow the link.
