The Car of The Future is a Work in Progress

The Car of The Future is a Work in Progress
Think 'urban design' at MIT, and you visualize buildings like the futuristic Stata Center, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry.

Near that landmark structure on Vassar Street, a brainstorming group of students is collaborating with Gehry and General Motors to design a new 'vehicle architecture,' to, in effect, invent a new 'smart car' for the city and alter its landscape.

'We want to question the basic fundamentals,' said Ryan Chin, an MIT doctoral candidate who is one of nearly two dozen students working on the Smart Cities research project for the school's Media Lab, led by William Mitchell, former deal of MIT's School of Architecture and Planning. 'For us, it's to provocate, to challenge the existing norm.'

One of their radical notions is to look at the car from an urban designer's perspective. Could a car have a sensor to detect a pothole, or be part of a wireless network that would allow drivers to communicate with each other and warn of approaching traffic jams or help to locate parking spaces?

'The city is very interesting to us,' Chin said. 'There are so many challenges for the car in the city.'

Another key question for researchers: Can the car be a good citizen for the city? As Chin notes, the pothole sensor could provide valuable information to city officials by "scanning the lands