Real Estate Innovation Lab – Real Estate Innovation by the numbers
Real Estate Innovation Lab to promote the future of urban development by showing investors how it can work.
The Real Estate Innovation Lab (REIL) is a research lab for innovation in the built environment that links design, innovation, and economic impact. As unique innovation space for the real estate community, the lab’s primary objective is to create an intellectual community of multi-disciplinary researchers for developing academic work on innovation that impacts the development of the built environment. 21st-century innovation for the built environment is linked to the development of digital platforms, products,and processes. Development, design, planning and media are reshaping the built environment through innovative technologies. Much of the innovation that is transforming cities and the built environment is in fact, starting with MIT through its entrepreneurial legacy in design, planning, media, and art. However, there is a need within the real estate community to keep track of, understand, synergize with, and even assist this revolution. This is the underlying role of the REIL within the real estate community: to identify innovative products, processes, and technologies that enable better growth for the built environment.
“Thirty years ago, green buildings were a cutting-edge concept. Today they are the standard, not only due to their environmental benefits but because there is evidence that justifies the economic investment,” says Andrea Chegut, research scientist, and director of the new lab. “Our goal will be to understand what is happening at the frontier of the built environment today, to produce statistical and empirical evidence of approaches that work, and to translate these innovations into widespread use.”
“This new lab creates a dynamic environment for scholars to conduct research that will weave together the many disciplines within the School of Architecture and Planning that contribute to the development of innovative products, spaces, and communities,” says Albert Saiz, director of the CRE and the Daniel Rose Associate Professor of Urban Economics and Real Estate. “When you link these scholars and practitioners together, you start to see the full landscape of the frontier. We believe this is the first academic lab to bring these disciplines together with this ambition.”
Industry and corporate collaborations — from real estate development and construction to big data and architecture — are important to the researchers, says Geltner, because they are the stakeholders who develop cities and communities. Accompanying the launch of the new lab is the announcement of its founding industry partner, JLL, the leading professional services firm specializing in real estate.
JLL is engaging with REIL to develop an open-innovation strategy to disseminate academic research to the urban technology community. “JLL and the MIT Center for Real Estate have a shared mission — and a passion — for innovation and real estate,” said Ben Breslau, JLL’s managing director of research. “As an industry partner, we look forward to engaging with the brilliant minds at MIT to support research that will create a better future.”
National Mortgage Professional Magazine
