On Friday 11th, MaCT students had their final session of Future Mobility and Urban Design seminar. In this hands-on course, students examined the close relationship and fields of opportunity between mobility and urban design.

They were asked to deign a context driven innovation concept for a new intelligent traffic management and urban planning for the Union Square area, in Somerville, Boston.

The Boston metropolitan area is the fastest-growing economic region in the USA after Silicon Valley. It possesses global research hubs such as MIT and Harvard University, as well as the highest density of biotech companies in North America. In the heart of this is Somerville, once an important rail transport junction, now a prospering suburb of Boston.

The city is a model for many others in North America. Around 60 million Americans live in cities of similar size to Somerville. In addition, the city has a very young population, which belongs to the pioneers of digitalization a networking. A traffic-oriented development with exciting potential (e.g. the extension of Boston’s T-Line) and high affinity to the integration of technology render the area a perfect test laboratory for the future of urban mobility.

In the last day of the course, students had the opportunity to present their projects directly to Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone, from the city of Somerville. The jury that evaluated the proposals from the three teams of students, was composed by Mayor Curtatone, Lisa Füting from Audi AG, Christian Gärtner and Kathrin DiPaola from Urban standards GmbH/Stylepark AG.

The best team received as award a visit to Audi Factory, in Munich and presented the Project after the public lecture of Joseph a. Curtatone and Christian Gärtner, in IAAC auditorium.