This week’s interview is with Gilad Rosenzweig, the executive director of DesignX – the venture accelerator of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, that we introduced to you in last week’s article “How Startup Accelerator DesignX Turns Architecture Students into Entrepreneurs”.

There has always been something of a gap between architectural education and practice. This is no secret for the architectural community and we have heard it in our interview series Archipreneur Insights over and over: both employers and students feel that architecture schools do not adequately prepare students for professional life.

The School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) at MIT is breaking this pattern with their newly launched entrepreneurship accelerator DesignX. It helps architecture students become archipreneurs while still at school by providing a platform for developing business models, pitching and funding projects.

Continue reading to learn how this program can help students make the critical leap from project to startup.

Enjoy the interview!

You are the Executive Director of the new MIT DesignX Accelerator. Could you tell us about the idea of DesignX, its focus and future goals?

DesignX is an accelerator for student-founded ventures in various fields of design and the built environment. It is a launching ground for new technology and platforms that improve the comfort, accessibility, and efficiency of buildings, places, and cities. Our goal is to be a nexus of technology, design, and planning.

How can students join DesignX?

Graduate and post-graduate students in the School of Architecture and Planning apply for our yearly cohort in the autumn semester. Students from other departments across MIT, as well as faculty, researchers, alum, and even unaffiliated members can join student-led teams.

Do you think that there’s a knowledge gap in architecture education? What do you think are the main weaknesses of the current educational model in architecture?

Architectural education often lacks two important components: business skills and openness to an entrepreneurial inventiveness that is not focused on singular design. Having said that, there are many programs, including ours here at MIT, that do support exploration into building technology and environmental systems.

How do you think architectural training helps students to create business ideas and found companies? What specific/transferable skills have proved the most useful?

Architecture students are always iterating, instructed to think outside the box and use their design skills to solve problems. These are in fact the core elements of a business startup!

The proliferation of “design thinking” tools and methodologies developed out of schools of architecture, industrial and graphic design. We just need to re-direct these inherent skills of designers toward the creation of new business and companies that can scale.

Do you have any advice for Archipreneurs who are interested in starting their own business?

Identify opportunities that are emerging and problems that need to be solved for which design can be part of the solution. Your expertise in understanding space, emotion, and the environment can be used to create innovative solutions.

How do you see the future of the architectural profession? In which areas (outside of traditional practice) can you see major opportunities for up and coming architects?

Architecture will always be central to the growth of cities, housing of people and celebration of life. However, the profession needs to be cognizant that the power of emerging technologies can disrupt the profession. Machine learning and AI will soon be employed for design decisions and production. Architects have the best experience and position to design the future of the profession itself. Architects will need to be creators of technology and the writers of code, not just the users.

About Gilad Rosenzweig

Gilad Rosenzweig is an architect and urban planner with two decades of experience in community development, urban tech, and the design of things big and small.

He is the executive director of DesignX – the venture accelerator of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. DesignX launches new startups creating innovation in design, cities, and the built environment.

Prior to DesignX, Gilad founded Smarter in the City, a non-profit accelerator for high tech start-ups in Roxbury, an inner-city neighborhood of Boston. Smarter in the City supports entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities, connecting new startups to the tech sector and helping spur economic development in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

Gilad has worked on urban design and planning projects across the country, including district and master plans in Memphis, Reno, and across the greater Boston area. As an architect, he designed residential and commercial projects in Canada, Israel and the UK.

Gilad is a graduate of MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London.

The post Closing the Gap in Architecture Education – Interview with DesignX Accelerator appeared first on Archipreneur.

One of the main reasons why architects lack business skills is the fact that most architecture schools overlook the business side of architecture. Young graduates compete for jobs that often sharpen their design skills, but do little to prepare them for running their own practices. Once they strike out on their own, architects are often forced to learn through costly mistakes and built their business skills while struggling to make ends meet.

The antiquated educational model, still dominant in our schools, also fails to explore different avenues for practicing architecture, and its myopic view of the profession puts architecture students at a disadvantage compared to schools in other professions which are more attuned to modern developments in today’s market economy.

The School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P), one of five schools at MIT, is breaking this pattern with their newly launched entrepreneurship accelerator, DesignX, which will allow students to “make the critical leap from project to startup.” Through a set of classes, mentorship, seed funding, research, and links to the global network of SA+P alumni entrepreneurs, students will get a chance to become entrepreneurs while at school, and develop projects for real-world impact. Running under the adage “learn, launch, and leap,” DesignX will include a four-month, for-credit accelerator workshop through which participants will get a chance to pitch to outside investors and industry partners.

“Many new ideas emerge from classes and studios but are lost after the students graduate,” says Dennis Frenchman, the Class of 1922 Professor of Urban Design and Planning and faculty director of DesignX. “We established DesignX to create a path for students of architecture, planning, media, real estate, and art to take their innovative ideas and turn them into reality.”

Students will choose elective courses in entrepreneurship and innovation and apply to the DesignX program at the end of the fall semester. They can work with mentors who will assist with exploring design concepts, creating a business plan, acquiring and interpreting user feedback, connecting with strategic partners, analyzing target markets and developing prototypes, beta products and services. They will pitch their ideas to committees made up of professionals, entrepreneurs and faculty members who will select students to receive $15,000 in seed funding.

This initial sum will allow young archipreneurs  to develop their projects, business plans and prototypes during the DesignX workshop. The program will conclude with a series of pitches to outside investors and industry leaders with products that target the AEC industry and redefine how users interact with architecture both the physical and digital realms.

“DESx will integrate the initial stages of building a startup into participants’ education, so that students make rapid progress while they are at MIT and are positioned to succeed as they take their first steps toward entrepreneurship,” said Gilad Rosenzweig, the program’s executive director.

According to a recent study of MIT alumni, over 1,200 companies have already emerged from SA+P. The team behind DesignX examines these firms and applies their experiences, failures and successes to the program, giving it an additional element of practicality and rooting the work of its budding entrepreneurs in real-world facts. Before finishing school, selected students will be able to make smart business decisions and learn how to differentiate their enterprises in a competitive market through mentorship, innovation and networking.

MIT has already chosen the first eight startups that will participate in the DesignX accellerator program this spring. At a pitch contest hosted at the institute’s Media Lab in December, 15 startup teams proposed their innovative real estate ideas to the panel of judges who then selected eight teams to get to participate in the coursework and receive $15,000 each in equity-free seed funding:

• Startup named Nesterly aims to connect people with unused real estate assets and extra space with long-term renters at affordable rates in exchange for help around the house.
• Kumej is a transformable floor-seater that enables whose without a conventional workspace to create it on the go, wherever they are.
• Virtual Collaboration Research (VCR) will allow architects and designers to work collaboratively in VR with their AI supported, speech-driven spatial markup tool named Mediate.
• Urban Diagnostics analyses the health of cities by mining city sewers using DNA sequencing and metabolomics.
• Hosta app turns pictures and videos of living spaces into a 3D-model powered home management platform for simplifying the home renovation process.
• Learning Beautiful creates tactile, Montessori-inspired learning materials to teach computer science to young children.
• Bitsence improves cities by tracking human movement and behavior in physical space.
• The eighth startup is Equity, which is modeling a resident-driven development marketplace that matches occupants, designers, builders, and financiers of real-estate developments. It will link housing design with finance and match occupants with development suppliers.

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If you want to learn more about DesignX: We spoke with the program’s executive director, Gilad Rosenzweig, about his thoughts on the gap between architectural education and practice – and his solution. Read it here on Archipreneur Insights.

The post How Startup Accelerator DesignX Turns Architecture Students into Entrepreneurs appeared first on Archipreneur.