March 4, 2024 12:00 pm
Metropolis Initiative Seminar Series
Event details:
Monday, March 4, 2024
Location: WHIGH 101 Oakes Lounge
Time: Lunch – 12:00; Lecture – 12:30 to 1:30 pm
Register here (lunch provided)
Speakers:
Gia Jung (Computational Designer, Sidewalk Labs)
Bin Yan (Research Scientist, Sidewalk Labs and Google)
Snoweria Zhang (Designer, Artist, and Mathematician, Delve at Google)
More about the talk: Sidewalk Labs is a company that builds technology solutions for cities and real estate decision makers with a focus on creating a more sustainable and equitable built environment. Delve is a computational design platform that helps private and public sectors determine the highest and best use of a site across financial, quality of life, sustainability and regulatory factors – in minutes, using AI and generative design. Delve is now integrated with Google Earth to empower users in real estate and clean energy sectors to make sustainable decisions – for buildings, neighborhoods and cities.
In this talk, the speakers will discuss how our platforms and research empower communities with computational insights derived from data, simulations, carbon estimation, and building energy modeling. All the speakers from Sidewalk Labs are researchers and computational designers and scientists in Architecture, with previous academic research and teaching experiences.
Speaker Bios:
Gia Jung is a computational designer at Sidewalk Labs. Previously, she served as Irving Innovation Fellow and Research Associate at the Department of Architecture, Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD). Her research area is in design technology, human-computer interaction, and computational design with the focus on AI application in design. Past academic teaching includes designing curriculum for Design Discovery Virtual and learning platforms in computational design within GSD’s Innovation Task Force. Her research focused on AI application in Architecture at Laboratory for Design Technologies. She has graduated with M. Arch I from Harvard GSD with Digital Design Award. As a designer and graduate researcher at Harvard, she has worked on architectural and urban design and research projects across Europe, America, and Asia. Outside academia, she has worked in the design and technology sector at Fortune 500 companies and start-ups, researching and developing computational design software platforms for sustainable urban communities.
Bin Yan is currently serving as a Research Scientist at Sidewalk Labs and Google. Prior to Sidewalk Labs, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University. Her research includes developing a web platform for smart building applications and energy management. Her focus area includes Energy Modeling, HVAC System Optimization, Machine Learning, and Data Visualization.
Snoweria Zhang is a designer, artist, and mathematician. She currently works on Delve, a generative urban design platform, at Google. Previously, she has worked at Sidewalk Labs, Kohn Pedersen Fox’s Urban Interface team, and the MIT Senseable City Lab. Her work spans architecture, urbanism, computation, and technology. Snoweria has written about the intersection of data and urban issues, and her design was recently featured on the cover of Nature. Snoweria received her M.Arch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and B.A. from Harvard in Mathematics. She has taught and been a guest critic at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cooper Union, Columbia University, Ohio State University, and the Boston Architectural College. She also draws a web comic called Lonesome Whales.
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