• Calendar of Events
• May 12, 2008
  MIT Coop
• Nov 28, 2007
  Harvard Coop
• Nov 13, 2007
  Crawford Doyle Booksellers
• Jul 30, 2007
  System Dynamics Conf.
• Jul 26, 2007
  Channel Tunnel Anniversary
• Jun 14, 2007
  Conférence 2100
• Apr 26, 2007
  System Dynamics Society
• Apr 24, 2007
  Signet Society
• Apr 23, 2007
  Worcester Polytechnic
• Mar 06, 2007
  Harvard Club of Boston
• Dec 03, 2006
  Purrington House

Kathleen Lusk Brooke speaking to the audience at Purrington House

A reception and debut presentation for Building The World: An Encyclopedia of the Great Engineering Projects in History, was held on this sunny Sunday afternoon at historic Purrington House in Mattapoisett. Many Harvard and MIT academics at the reception took advantage of this festive launch party and book-signing event, which quickly became a pleasurable gathering of distinguished friends. The discussion was lively as the book's authors and the audience talked about how macro-engineering has reshaped the planet and might lead the way to its future.

The authors, Frank P. Davidson and Kathleen Lusk Brooke, co-led the talk from twin chairs in the alcove of the 1874 parlor of the Second Empire Victorian conference center that is home to the Center for the Study of Success. The landmark mansion was recently featured on HGTV's “If Walls Could Talk” because of its long and interesting history. Indeed, Purrington House has been the inspiration for four books over the past decade, and it is home to scholars in residence from Argentina, England, France, Japan, Pakistan, and Thailand. In 1996, Davidson and Lusk Brooke held a conference at Purrington House that featured scientists from around the world to discuss the future of macroengineering; they presented their findings at the Boston conference of the World Future Society. It was not all work - during a break, Dr. Norio Yamamoto of Japan's Global Infrastructure Fund led a bicycling expedition to scenic Ned's Point Lighthouse to gaze out over Buzzards Bay toward Martha's Vineyard.

More recently, the faculty of the School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation at Roger Williams University, headed by Dean Stephen White, convened at Purrington House to launch their vision of the future. Conferences like these added some information and topics that were eventually included in the writing of Building the World.

Lusk Brooke, a Fulbright scholar and Harvard PhD, is the Founder and Managing Director of the Center for the Study of Success. Davidson, who in 1957 co-founded The Channel Tunnel Study Group and is now retired Director of the MIT Macroengineering Research Group, collaborated in the research and writing of Building the World, an encyclopedia that covers 41 of the world's great macro-engineering feats, dating from Solomon's Temple in Israel to the recent “Big Dig” multi-tunnel project in Boston.