Matthew Claudel

Designer/Researcher/Writer, Cambridge

Matthew Claudel is a designer, researcher and writer focused on the opportunities and challenges of civic innovation. Matthew has been published widely in the fields of architecture, scientometrics, technology, and art, and co-authored two books: Open Source Architecture and The City of Tomorrow. Matthew has given talks at Google and TEDxCambridge, taught at MIT and the Politecnico di Torino e Milano, lectured at the Harvard Business school, and was featured in the BBC Future series. He was a World Economic Forum ‘Global Shaper’ and a protagonist of Hans Ulrich Obrist’s 89plus global community of artists. He serves on the jury for Canada’s federal Smart City Challenge, and is a strategic advisor to Future Cities Canada and the McConnell Foundation’s “Cities for People” initiative. In 2018, Matthew won a Public Policy fellowship from the Rappaport Foundation, through which he worked with the Boston Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, where he developed a program, called Beta Blocks, for experimenting with civic technology. At MIT, Matthew co-founded designX, a new initiative in the MIT School of Architecture + Planning that accelerates student ventures in design-innovation for the built environment, and he remains on the leadership team as the Head of Civic Innovation. He is currently affiliated with the MIT Department of Urban Studies & Planning for his PhD, and continues to work on Beta Blocks with a multi-sectoral project team. Matthew studied architecture at Yale University, where he received the Sudler Prize, the highest award for creative arts.

Twitter: @matthewclaudel
Example Lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqegKXo7wno