Over the 2012-13 winter break, TempAgency - Leena Cho, Rychiee Espinosa, Matthew Jull, and Seth McDowell - took over the Insight Lab, making the lab into their own "temp occupancy" of a design studio.

They were working on this year's PS1 design competition, as part of the MoMA Young Architects Program International. TempAgency were 2013 finalists, with their entry "My Hair is at MoMA PS1".

Utilizing the entire lab space from the Research Corner and whiteboard wall to the labs complement of computer workstations and SmartBoard. They even used the outdoor space of the lab for full-scale physical mockups.

The lab was a wonderful mess (you don't even want to see the pictures), producing a significant entry in a significant design competition.

Congratulations to TempAgency for their work.

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Insight Lab Student Fellows for the Spring / Summer 2012 have been selected from a range of submitted proposals. The fellowship RFP sought projects and partnerships that could develop and innovate on applications of advanced technology in the school's research.

Congratulations to the following Fellows:

Seth Brown - Optimizing Fabric Membrane Architecture (with Earl Mark)
"Creating real-time simulations of fabric movement... dictated by contextual and environmental factors such as light, temperature, and humidity."

Paul Hughes - A Geospatial Platform for the Virginia Food Heritage Project (with Tanya Denckla Cobb)
Developing a web-based GIS platform that "will build food heritage knowledge" via community-driven information sharing "to support sustained community engagement ... and to support new heritage food-based economic deve...
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In the Insight Lab, we are designing and building a customized SMART multi-touch video table. This is part of our work in SMART interaction, reconsidering the relationship between digital media, physical space, and design interaction.

With the table, we are challenging the conventional computer interface with one more rooted in traditional group conversation and direct manipulation of visual artifacts, but with the advantages of digital media. The table facilitates group work on large-scale digital graphics, maps, charts, and process models in a manner which returns our mode of interaction back to pen-in-hand drawing and manipulation with conversation around a table, rather than the dissociated and huddled monitor and mouse proxies of the desktop computer interface.

Custom table components were configured and purchased in fall 2009, followed by a spring 2010...
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The Insight Lab is more than just a space. It's also a community of research, interaction, and innovation. The online component of the lab is a place to do just that.

The site hosts projects, images, and blogs by faculty, students, and researchers working in the lab and on the projects that are the core of the space. This web space, or Information Space, is intended to augment the physical space of the lab, extend outward in the research community, provide connection points for partner organizations, and extend the dialog of research and innovation.

Add your work, and become a part of the lab....
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Design interaction used to take place with people sitting around a table, pens in hand, talking and drawing over large drawings on paper. Over the last decade or so, design media have moved into the computer, and for al its benefits, this shift has also changed the way we interact. We huddle in front of small screens - maybe two or three people at best can fit - and we draw with a rock in our hand!

In the Insight Lab, we're experimenting with returning to the old paradigm, but using current digital technology. With SMART Boards ? a technology common in elementary school classrooms - we're combining digital media with the direct draw-on and touch technology that these boards can provide. More than just an electronic whiteboard, students and faculty can bring up digital files and interact with them directly on screen - with their hands - and draw directly on them as a tool...
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