SENSEABLE CITIES The increasing deployment of sensors and hand-held electronics in recent years is allowing a new approach to the study of the built environment. The way we describe and understand cities is being radically transformed - alongside the tools we use to design them and impact on their physical structure. The contribution from Prof Carlo Ratti will address these issues from a critical point of view through projects by the Senseable City Laboratory, a research initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the design office Carlo Ratti Associati.

CARLO RATTI is an architect, engineer, and professor at MIT, where he directs the Senseable City Laboratory, and is founding partner of the international design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati. A leading voice in the debate on new technologies’ impact on urban life, his work has been exhibited in several venues worldwide, including the Venice Biennale, New York’s MOMA, London’s Science Museum, and Barcelona’s Design Museum. Two of his projects, the Digital Water Pavilion and the Copenhagen Wheel, were hailed by Time Magazine as ‘Best Inventions of the Year’, and has been included in Wired Magazine’s ‘Smart List: 50 people who will change the world’. He is currently serving as co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization, and as special advisor on Urban Innovation to the European Commission.

RESOURCES A selection of readings related to the lecture, see links below.

• Open Source Architecture

• Architecture that Senses and Responds, TED Talk, 2011

• Human-powered mobility for the future, Carlo Ratti and Assaf Biderman, TED Talk, 2016