The New Wave consists of three components: a modular sidewalk platform that enables hailing through human gestures, a public-private AV fleet and a coordinating logic for routing. The New Wave begins as a cost-effective interim solution, but scales to reconfigure urban form. 

The New Wave democratizes the interaction between people and autonomous vehicles, by creating public space for currently privatized services. A shift in perception around autonomous vehicles is accompanied by their integration into public transit, leading to new form factors and organizational structures.

The system leverages a suite of fused sensors: computer vision from an IR camera to identify users, load cells to verify seating, wireless device sensors and protocols for detection and payment. On the kiosk, illumination design and a touchscreen offer visual feedback.

Project completed as part of the MIT Senseable City Lab's partnership with Melbourne and the state of Victoria. Prototyping extended to simple CV studies of gesture recognition with a Kinect sensor.

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As easy as it used to be

Tasked with exploring possibilities for autonomous vehicles in Melbourne’s new innovation district, Fishermans Bend, I began with a desire to simplify the process of hailing vehicles. Ride-sharing apps allow access from just about anywhere, but the act of using those apps can be difficult. How might autonomous vehicels help us go back to an age of hand gestures and a well-timed whistle?

Solving a problem on the ground

A site visit to Melbourne, coupled with previous analysis, also revealed an urgent need for improved public transportation. While bus and streetcars lines adequately serve most of the city, Fishermans Bend itself was a conspicious transit desert. How might autonomous vehicles help provide public transit for workers and residents of Fishermans Bend?

While Fishermans Bend is a reclaimed industrial site with wide streets and lots of parking, I observed that much of Melbourne’s urban “livability” stemmed from exciting intersections of public transit, pedestrian sidewalks and dynamic storefronts; these ranged from open plaza configurations to tight lanways. How might automobile-centric transit systems in Fishermans Bend preserve or even inspire these kinds of urban activities?

Putting interaction on the sidewalk

By partially deploying autonomous vehicle technology in sidewalk kiosks, I imagined a future where urban infrastructure could become a human-friendly part of a city’s streetscape. The kiosks themselves contained sensors that would allow anyone to wave and hail a vehicle. Screens on the kiosks themselves could provide more precise information or advanced requests. Kiosks also become opportunities for seating, shading and illumination — combining several urban infrastructure elements into one minimal design.

Because this system exists on the street, it is inherently open to all. A combination of public and private autonomous vehicle fleets could be integrated. An expanded range of kiosk designs allows it to accommodate a range of street conditions in Melbourne, matched to vehicle availability and user demand.

The Alaska Native community of Shishmaref faces the impact of anthropogenic climate change and global warming. The combined effect of permafrost thaw, increased storm surge and coastal erosion have caused continual land loss for a community situated on a slim barrier island along the Bering Strait in Northwest Alaska. Today, Shishmaref is in danger of falling into the sea.

The community, converted to static settlement as part of historic relationship with the US, most recently the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, continues a fishing- and subsistence-based way of life. Access to the sea is paramount. Expanding Shishmaref to the less vulnerable location of West Tin Creek Hills on the mainland, however, will require signifcant captial expenditure to build new housing and infrastructure. Unfortunately, limited funds are available to support the community as it expands.

As part of an interdiscplinary team in Harvard Law School’s Climate Solutions Living Lab — a course that brings together graduate students from across Harvard University — I helped research a proposal for a hybrid wind-diesel microgrid, intended to provide renewable energy for Shishmaref’s future location and needs. The project aims to identify unique sources of funding, including the sale of greenhouse gas emission offsets to unregulated entities, to enable energy independence, sustainability and broad public and social benefits for Shishmaref. 

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Life With the Vacant Lot proposes a new way to plan communities for change and resilience.

New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina suffered an existential crisis: the collision of a precarious environment, degraded infrastructure, social strife, political dysfunction and economic uncertainty. Nothing better symbolizes the cmplexities of this situation than the vacant lot. Years after the storm, as many as an estimated 40,000 vacant lots riddled New Orleans.

Design responses to the vacant lot suffered from being too broad in ambition and too constrained in application. Building resilience into the fabric of a city requires going beyond direct remedies, and understanding the vacant lot as the result of economics, policies and individual decisions as much as natural disaster. A better system should incentivize change — growth, recovery or reduction — in a city before and after disaster, while also respecting the desires of residents and city planners. This kind of system, however, requires new tools to help designers understand the uncertain but probable outcomes of their decisions.