Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism

It’s review season at MIT! Today, students from MIT’s "Interactive Data Visualization & Society" class showcased their projects about housing affordability in Greater Boston, informed by a collaboration with @mapcmetroboston . Students developed interactive dashboards, scrolling narrative stories, and transportation games about: - Speculation in the Boston housing market - Housing supply - how to build more, denser, lower-cost homes - Upzoning - Public transportation and housing density - Evictions and housing insecurity - Rental markets We were proud to cheer on LCAU research associate @ashsicle @mitdusp as she co-taught this course with Arvind Satyanarayan @miteecs !

At 5pm today, the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (@mit_lcau ) and MIT's Women's and Gender Studies Program (@mitwgs ) bring together scholars and practitioners from Europe, Latin America, North Africa, and Asia to examine how planning and design that accounts for care work can reshape urban environments at every scale. Speakers include Inés Sánchez de Madariaga, Visiting Scholar at LCAU and UNESCO (@unesco ) Chair on Gender, whose research on mobilities of care has earned international recognition; Daniela Chacón Arias, Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (@harvardgsd ) and co-founder of TANDEM, who launched Quito's first system for reporting sexual harassment in public transit; Sarah Boufkiri, architect and project manager coordinating development of the new eco-city of Zenata in Morocco; Sarah Williams (@datasew ), associate professor of Technology and Urban Planning at MIT and Director of the Civic Data Design Lab and LCAU; and Manduhai Buyandelger, anthropologist whose work examines gender, politics, and religion with a focus on Mongolia. 🗓 April 28, 5pm 🔗 RSVP and streaming link at the link in bio. @mit @mitsap @mitdusp

Join us for this closing lecture with Jane Mah Hutton on Tuesday, April 21. @janemahhutton Jane Mah Hutton is a landscape architect, researcher, and Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. Her work follows how building connects material supply chains, labor, and landscapes – from extraction and production to construction, demolition, and reuse. Her book, Reciprocal Landscapes: Stories of Material Movements (Routledge, 2019), traces five landscape materials that ended up in New York City over the past century. She is co-editor of  JAE 79.1 Architecture Beyond Extraction, Landscript 5: Material Culture – Assembling and Disassembling Landscapes (Jovis, 2017), and Wood Urbanism: From the Molecular to the Territorial (Actar, 2020). She also co-founded Scapegoat: Architecture, Landscape, Political Economy. Her research has received major recognition, including the EDRA Great Places Book Award, the Olmsted Fellowship, and a fellowship at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Caroline Murphy joins the conversation as respondent. @mithtc @caro.m.w 🗓️ Tuesday, April 21, 12-1pm 📍 7-429, Long Lounge, MIT Building “GEO–MATTERS,” asks how designers might respond to the earth’s matter, forces and signals. The series is organized by Rania Ghosn @_rghosn Director of SMArchS Urbanism, and co-hosted with the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) @mit_lcau @mitarchitecture @mitsap @waterloo_architecture

This semester, we’re excited to welcome two Global MIT At-Risk Fellows to our community. Learn more about their work at tomorrow’s (04/07) Visiting Scholar Lightning Talks (starting at 5:30pm in Bartos Theater). ⚡ The event is free and open to the public. Dr. Andriy Popov is a professor in land management and cadaster at Dmytro Motornyi Tavria State Agrotechnological University and holds a PhD in economics. His research addresses land tenure systems, land consolidation, cadastral infrastructure, and sustainable spatial planning, with a focus on rural development and post-conflict reconstruction. He has an extensive publication record in peer-reviewed international journals and has contributed to international research and policy-oriented projects supported by FAO, DAAD, and EU programs. Dr. Andrii Galkin is a transport and logistics engineer and senior researcher with 16+ years of expertise, combining a PhD in transport systems with hands-on data science and machine learning for policy decision-making. Currently a professor at O.M. Beketov National University of Urban Economy in Kharkiv, he turns complex mobility and logistics problems into actionable models, from predictive analytics to human-centric research. His work is keenly focused on transport accessibility, poverty, equity, and justice in protracted armed conflict, translating data into resilience and recovery strategies that decision-makers can actually use.

Dr. Mae-ling Lokko joins us for a lecture on Thursday, April 9. @maelokko Lokko is an architectural scientist, designer, educator and artist from Ghana and the Philippines whose work broadly explores the design of value systems around biobased materials. Her work has been exhibited globally, including at the 19th Architecture Venice Biennale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin; Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Nobel Prize Museum, Stockholm; Triennale Milano, the Sonsbeek Biennial and at the Museum of the Future, Dubai. Lokko is an Assistant Professor at Yale University’s School of Architecture, Assistant Director at Yale’s Center for Ecosystems in Architecture and the founder of Willow Technologies Ltd, in Accra, Ghana. Dr. Caitlin Mueller joins the conversation as respondent. Mueller is Associate Professor at MIT Architecture, where she directs the Building Technology Program and leads the Digital Structures research group (@digitalstructures ). In addition, she serves as Associate Director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium, advancing interdisciplinary partnerships for decarbonization and sustainability education; and co-leads ODDS & MODS, with research spanning computational design, digital fabrication, interdisciplinary collaboration, material circularity, and the reuse of standardized and irregular materials in architecture. 🗓️ Thursday, April 9, 12-1pm 📍 7-429, Long Lounge, MIT Building “GEO–MATTERS,” asks how designers might respond to the earth’s matter, forces and signals. The series is organized by Rania Ghosn @_rghosn Director of SMArchS Urbanism, and co-hosted with the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) @mit_lcau @mitarchitecture @mitsap

Join us for The Fluvial City, Manaus, a workshop exploring housing and sanitation in the urbanizing Amazon. Bringing together researchers, practitioners, and students from Brazil and MIT, the workshop focuses on real conditions and design responses in Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon. The program includes perspectives on Indigenous culture and the built environment, as well as discussions on the role of architecture and planning in rapidly changing urban contexts. The workshop features Vanda Witoto and Washington Fajardo, with faculty from the MIT School of Architecture and Planning and partner institutions in Brazil, including the Federal University of Amazonas and the University of São Paulo. Organized with support from the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism and MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, the event highlights ongoing collaboration across SA+P on climate, infrastructure, and urban futures. 📍 MIT Building 7 (Long Lounge) 🗓 April 6, 9:00 am–12:30 pm 🔗 Registration at the link in bio Also on view: an exhibition of student work presented at COP30 in Belém, exploring housing and sanitation across residential typologies in Manaus (Building 9 lobby, April 6–11). FACULTY PARTNERS — Professor Marcos Cereto of the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM), Brazil and the Núcleo de Arquitetura Moderna na Amazônia (NAMA) — Professor Alexandre Delijaicov (virtually) of the University of São Paulo (USP) — Professor Angelo Bucci of MIT - Architecture — Professor Gabriella Carolini of MIT - Department of Urban Studies and Planning — with support from Professor Marcelo Coehlo (MIT - Architecture) and Gabriela Bila (MIT Media Lab) STUDENT PARTNERS — UFAM: Alex Martins, Ângelo Pontes, Beatriz Atem, Ester Komorowski, Eliana Rego, Giovanna Assis, Julia Mendes, Juliana Cambeiro (in-person), Maria Eduarda Cohen, Nathyele de Souza Dias, Isabela Cavalcante — USP: Ana Julia Bettio Pereira (virtual), Lucas Karmann, Mariana Peruchi — MIT: Shreya Bansal, Aashna Daga, Valeria Duenas, Marine Gapihan, Anushka Maqbool, Reishan McIntosh, Jacob Payne, Kaede Polkinghorne

Next up in our visiting scholar series: Inés Sánchez de Madariaga, visiting from @somosupm . We are so thrilled the Inés will be presenting at our Visiting Scholar Lightning Talks on 04/07! The event and reception are free and open to the public. More info at the 🔗 in our bio. Next week, Inés will also present her work on care infrastructure as part of the “Domestic Revolutions and Feminist Cities” Symposium at Yale (04/09 and 04/10). Be sure to register! About Inés: Inés is UNESCO Chair on Gender, Professor of Urban Planning at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and Chair of the Advisory Group on Gender Issues to the Executive Director of UN-Habitat. She is a leading international expert on gender in transportation, urban planning and architecture with extensive experience spanning public office, policy, practice, and research. A Fulbright grantee and Real Colegio Complutense Fellow, she has been Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, MIT, UCLA, the Bauhaus-Weimar, LSE, and Columbia University. She has held public office in the Spanish Government as Director of the Women and Science Unit, Director General for Architecture, advisor to the Ministers of Housing and of Science and Innovation, and member of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Public Housing Corporation.

A few weeks ago, we were lucky to be joined by @jeanne_gang of @studiogang as part of the Spring 2026 MIT Architecture Lecture Series. The lecture was presented with the Architecture and Urbanism Group and in collaboration with the LCAU. 📺 The recording has now been posted online (link in bio). @mitarchitecture @mitsap

Next week on April 6th: The Fluvial City, Manaus: Workshop on Housing and Sanitation in Amazonia. In 2025, the LCAU supported the course Fluvial Amazonian City, thanks to the Charles Correa (1955) Fund for Housing and Urbanization. The course asked students to consider how the architecture, design, and urban planning professions could learn from riverfront communities in the urbanizing Amazon and might best serve them in addressing and improving strategies for growth. On April 6, participants will host the bi-annual Charles Correa (1955) Symposium. The workshop will explore housing and sanitation realities and opportunities in the unique setting of the urbanizing Amazon and its largest city, Manaus. RSVP and join the team on April 6 from 9:00am-12:30pm in MIT Long Lounge (link in bio). Class and workshop supported by: The Charles Correa (1955) Fund for Housing and Urbanization at the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism, MIT-LUMA, MISTI-Brazil Amazonia, @mitdusp , and the @el_bid City Lab.

Join us Thursday, April 2, for a lecture from Roi Salgueiro Barrio. Roi is founder of design practice RSAU, Lecturer at MIT Architecture, and curator-director of the MIT Morningside Academy for Design. His work focuses on the interrelations between architecture, systems of territorial organization, and globalization. For the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, Roi co-curated the Spanish Pavillion, Internalities: Architectures for Territorial Equilibrium, which explores strategies for decarbonizing architecture. He is author, with Hashim Sarkis and Gabriel Kozlowski, of The World as an Architectural Project (MIT Press: 2020). He is principal investigator of the 2025 Norman B. Leventhal City Prize, “Eume Energy Basin” (Galicia, Spain), which he will develop along a transdisciplinary team of architects, urbanists, landscape architects, and photographers. This semester, he is teaching a related architecture option studio, “Territory as Interior: Post-carbon Landscapes of the Eume River,” in collaboration with Fundacion RIA. LCAU Director, Sarah Williams @datasew joins the conversation as respondent. 🗓️ Thursday, April 2, 12-1pm 📍 7-429, Long Lounge, MIT Building “GEO–MATTERS,” asks how designers might respond to the earth’s matter, forces and signals. The series is organized by Rania Ghosn @_rghosn Director of SMArchS Urbanism, and co-hosted with the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) @mitsap @mitarchitecture @mit_lcau @mitdesignacademy @fundacionria @internalities.eu

🗓️ Join us on April 7 for a series of lightning talks from our Spring 2026 LCAU Visiting Scholars. ⚡ Each of the five scholars will discuss their research and various approaches to urbanism, from post-disaster recovery to human-centered mobility and logistics. The event will be followed by a reception. Spring 2026 Visiting Scholars: Andrii Galkin (OM Beketov National University of Urban Economy), Xusheng Huang (Southeast University), Ines Sanchez de Madariaga (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid), Skirmante Mozuriunaite (Vilnius Tech), Andriy Popov (Dmytro Motornyi Tavria State Agrotechnological University). Please RSVP at the link in our bio. 🔗 Details: April 7, MIT Bartos Theater, 5:30pm-7:30pm, free and open to the public.

Next up in our visiting scholars series: Skirmante Mozuriunaite! Over the past few months, we’ve had the pleasure of hosting Skirmante as a visiting Fulbright Research Scholar. We are lucky that she is with us for a few more months! Skirmante investigates post-conflict and post-disaster urban recovery at the intersection of public institutions, urban governance, and practice. She serves as Head of the Doctoral School and Associate Professor of Urban Design at @vilniustech , and over last 5 years she has been affiliated as a visiting researcher with @aaltouniversity 's Faculty of Arts in Finland. With prior leadership experience as Vice-Dean for Studies, she brings expertise in doctoral education, international research collaboration, and design-led approaches to urban transformation. She also contributes as an evaluator of medium- to large-scale EU-funded research projects, with particular strengths in impact assessment, consortium readiness, and implementation feasibility. We are lucky to have Skirmante as part of our LCAU community!