Archinect - News

Carlo Ratti presents theme and title for 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale

2024-05-07T14:38:00-04:00

Curator Carlo Ratti has announced the title and theme for next year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. The 19th International Architectural Exhibition will advance under the banner Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., a portmanteau title representing different forms of intelligence supported by four pillars: Transdisciplinarity, Living Lab, Space For Ideas, and Circularity Protocol.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and director of Carlo Ratti Associati says he wishes for curators of individual National Pavillions to consider his prompt “One place, one solution,” which asks for an attempt at coherence between theirs and the International Exhibition. He added: “Showcasing how local ingenuity can address our time’s existential challenge that can only be tackled in a cooperative manner, reflecting a multiplicity of approaches. If every country brings one success to the table, together we can assemble a global kit for adapting to the future.”

“The 19th Internat...

Webuild and Carlo Ratti propose replacement for Baltimore’s collapsed Key Bridge following tragedy

2024-05-03T15:28:00-04:00

Today, the Webuild group advanced a proposal designed in collaboration with architect and MIT professor Carlo Ratti and French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux for a new bridge in Baltimore that would replace the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.

The design, which was released ahead of next week’s preliminary reconstruction forum called by the Maryland Transportation Authority, calls for a cable suspension span totaling 2,300 feet with a 213-foot clearance and offering wider lanes and increased vessel navigation safety, structural maintenance monitoring technology, smart traffic management, and enhanced connection to the Harbor area.

Webuild had already famously contributed to the rapid reconstruction of Renzo Piano’s Morandi bridge replacement in Genoa, Italy, after the deadly 2018 collapse that killed 43 people. The company is also expecting to begin constructing what will become the world's longest suspension bridge over the Strait of Messina by the end of the year.

Render...

Coldefy and Carlo Ratti Associati unveil France’s pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka behind curtain facade

2024-01-12T14:46:00-05:00

A team comprising Coldefy and Carlo Ratti Associati has unveiled their design for France’s national pavilion at World Expo Osaka 2025.

Titled ‘Theatrum Naturae,’ meaning ‘Theatre of Nature,’ the pavilion is inspired by France’s natural landscapes, with a “looping narrative path” that suggests “new entanglements between humans and other forms of life in our cities.”

Image credit: Coldefy and Carlo Ratti Associati

The pavilion features a single pathway that guides visitors through three experiences: Ascent, Discovery of Nature, and Return to the Ground. The experience begins with a staircase that winds to form an observation balcony. The staircase weaves in and out of the pavilion’s porous curtain facade, offering views of the building’s interior before culminating at a heavily vegetated terrace.

Image credit: Coldefy and Carlo Ratti Associati

“The French Pavilion invites visitors to enter the theater of life,” said Coldefy founding partner Thomas Coldefy about the scheme. “Both actors...

Carlo Ratti will curate the 2025 Venice Biennale Architecture exhibition

2023-12-21T13:16:00-05:00

Carlo Ratti has been named as Director of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2025 La Biennale di Venezia by the fair’s Board of Directors and at the recommendation of current and future Presidents Roberto Cicutto and Pietrangelo Buttafuoco.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and director of Carlo Ratti Associati follows Lesley Lokko’s turn as the 2023 Venice Biennale Architecture curator.

Ratti will lean on past curatorial experiences with the Future Food District pavilion at Expo 2015 Milan; the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow; and the second Porto Design Biennale in 2021 to inform his creative direction for the exhibition. A focus on the growing influence of technology on design and urban planning will most likely follow, culminating in an impressive intellectual output that has seen him write or co-author more than 750 different research publications.

Previewing his direction, Ratti said: “We architects like to ...

Carlo Ratti Associati blends old and new with the theories of Piranesi for its latest Italian design

2023-07-19T18:57:00-04:00

Carlo Ratti Associati has unveiled design details for its latest hospitality sector collaboration with Italo Rota located at the Monferrato UNESCO World Heritage site in Italy.

The studio’s new Roccia project reimagines a hilltop former monastery site in Piedmont into a new residential complex. The project relies on LIDAR scans to enable a new digitally-fabricated timber skin to be inserted amongst the 400-year-old brick ruins. CRA says this element of their design strategy “suggests a new approach for renovating historical buildings" while resolving a “harmony” between the natural and artificial.

Image render courtesy Carlo Ratti Associati

The team describes: "Roccia – the Italian word for “rock” – is a hilltop monastery-turned-farmhouse in the heart of the Piedmontese countryside. The site has been in decay since a fire broke out in the early 20th century. Decades of neglect have further deteriorated the bricks and invited moss, ivy and saplings to set in. Its current conditions ev...

Carlo Ratti wants to remake New York into a ‘Playground City’

2023-05-15T17:09:00-04:00

Carlo Ratti and Harvard's Economics department chair Edward Glaeser recently detailed their vision of New York as a “Playground City” in an interactive opinion feature for the New York Times. The six-point plan calls for a number of radical solutions — including the widespread (but not windowless) conversion of “deep core” office buildings favored in comments by Mayor Eric Adams — and apparently has parallels to life in 17th- and 18th-century London.

“In a Playground City,” they describe, “mixed-use neighborhoods that tie life, labor and leisure together generate what the New York urbanist Jane Jacobs calls the 'sidewalk ballet,' a productive and playful dynamic in which a diversity of different users come and go at all hours.”

The plan centers on increased social interaction and a revival of street life, fueled by small businesses, green space, and recreation. They say we must “view the city as a for-profit real estate development company wholly owned by a nonprofit poverty-allevi...

Carlo Ratti Associati team creates ‘world’s largest board game’ at Milan Design Week

2023-04-27T10:55:00-04:00

A team comprising Carlo Ratti Associati, Italo Rota, Eni, and Blob Factory Gaming have presented an installation at Milan Design Week which transformed Milan’s Botanical Garden into a 37,000-square-foot interactive game. Titled ‘Walk the Talk,’ the board game saw over 400 energy-harvesting luminescent tiles form multiple pathways and crossroads across the landscape, engaging players in what the team calls “a discourse underlying the future of mobility.”

Image credit: Marco Beck Peccoz

The installation has been structured as a “metaphorical stroll around Milan” featuring the city’s major landmarks. Each of the 400 wooden tiles and 32 types of icons represents either an obstacle or a solution to the game’s theme of urban mobility, from traffic to public transportation and electric car sharing. Working either alone or in groups, players navigate throughout the ‘city’ by finding solutions to challenges such as overcrowded neighborhoods or a lack of pedestrian areas.

Image credit: Marco B...

View images of BIG and Carlo Ratti Associati's newly completed biophilic high-rise, CapitaSpring, in Singapore

2022-09-28T08:00:00-04:00

BIG and Carlo Ratti Associati, in collaboration with local firm RSP Architects Planners & Engineers, have announced the completion of their new CapitaSpring skyscraper in Singapore’s Central Business District.

After the project broke ground in February of 2018, the completed biophilic tower stands tall at 51-stories. The high-rise includes interior sky garden spaces, a rooftop park, Citadines serviced residences, multiple restaurants, premium office spaces, and a hawker center (food court center) that nods to Singapore’s iconic food culture. The project was commissioned by local developer CapitaLand in an effort to "set a new benchmark for the office of the future" in advance of the ultragreen city's 2030 Sustainability Master Plan.

Image: Finbarr Fallon

"As someone with Singaporean heritage, I have been honored and humbled by the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing evolution of architecture in Singapore as a distinct blending between the contemporary and the tropical," shared ...

MIT-designed self-driving Roboats make a splash in Amsterdam’s canals

2021-11-18T13:33:00-05:00

After six years of design and research at MIT, a pair of autonomous boats have been launched into the canals of Amsterdam. Roboat, a research project undertaken by the MIT Senseable City Lab and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute), seeks to encourage a future where autonomous boats could help the city of Amsterdam move part of its road traffic to the water.

Image © MIT / AMS Institute

From November onwards, the two full-scale prototypes will be used for three use cases: passenger transport, logistics (waste collection), and data collection (surveying water infrastructure and monitoring water quality). The boats will operate with complete autonomy through the use of way-point finding, autonomous docking and undocking, and collision avoidance.

Image © MIT / AMS Institute

“Picture being amid the hustle and bustle on the Amsterdam canals,” explains Ynse Deinema, Roboat Project Lead at AMS Institute. “This urban context involves tight space maneu...

Carlo Ratti on Brasília's future

2021-09-02T15:22:00-04:00

Brasília’s design limitations offer a crucial lesson for many other cities. By resisting the temptation to fill every square inch of space on their paper and instead leaving as many blank areas as possible, architects and urban planners can allow people and changing times to co-create a city as spontaneous as life.

Carlo Ratti revealed plans last year for a one-million-square-meter extension of Brasília dubbed BIOTIC. Oscar Niemeyer's UNESCO World Heritage Site has been in disrepair for several decades. The whole text of Ratti's essay can be found here.

World’s first 'farmscraper' unveiled by Carlo Ratti Associati in Shenzhen

2021-08-26T12:43:00-04:00

Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) has unveiled a project dubbed “the world’s first farmscraper,” to be built in Shenzhen, China. The 218-meter-high, 51-story Jian Mu Tower will contain a large-scale farm system with the ability to produce crops to feed 40,000 people per year, as well as offices, a supermarket, and a food court.

CRA’s design was among the finalists for an international competition organized by leading Chinese supermarket chain Wumart, occupying the last available plot of land in Shenzhen’s Central Business District. The name of the Jian Mu Tower is derived from the mythical symbol of the “jian mu tree” which, in ancient Chinese folklore, connects heaven and earth. According to the tradition, heaven is depicted as round, while the earth is square; aspects which are echoed in the building’s form through a rectangular base gradually morphing into a tubular form as it rises.

Jian Mu Tower. Image via CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati

The scheme’s façade consists of a 10,000-square-m...

Carlo Ratti's new carbon fiber museum made out of…carbon fiber

2021-08-05T15:23:00-04:00

Plans for a new museum dedicated to carbon fiber technology are taking shape in the Italian city of Piacenza, showcasing the building material by way of an experiential space that designers Carlo Ratti Architects (CRA) are hoping forms a perfect fit in the country’s prosperous Emilia-Romagna region.

The new MAE Museum––named after the machine manufacturing company headquartered in the city––will be the first-ever museum space dedicated to the material, drawing from the 53-year-old company’s inventory of manufactured objects to create what the architect says is the largest acrylic fiber archive anywhere in the world.

Courtesy Carlo Ratti Associati

The museum is located in a former warehouse space adjacent to MAE’s newest production plant and is recursively comprised of new and recycled versions of the material to which its exhibition spaces are dedicated. CRA worked with the local studio Italo Rota for the museum’s layout and creative direction.

Courtesy Carlo Ratti Associati

A giant ...

Carlo Ratti Associati proposes vertically-stacked tennis court tower

2020-12-04T13:05:00-05:00

Italian design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) unveils their latest concept design, a 300 ft tall (90 meter) tennis tower. In collaboration with Italo Rota, the project was developed for sport and media company RCS Sport. Besides its intent to house eight tennis courts, what makes the design intriguing is its structural design, which CRA shares, "a solution inspired by the outer shell of a spacecraft."

Lightweight stainless-steel sandwich structure, developed by the company Broad Sustainable Building (BSB). Image and text courtesy of CRA. Renders by CRA/Gary di Silvio.

The stacked tennis courts are layered vertically using a lightweight stainless-steel sandwich structure. Its design approach aims to promote safe and efficient deployment practices thanks to its prefabricated construction.

CRA found Carlo Ratti shares in a statement, "This project would not just create a new icon for sports lovers, it also experiments with a new type of public space, extending vertic...

Carlo Ratti Associati complete COVID-19 medical pod prototype

2020-04-21T11:51:00-04:00

Carlo Ratti Associati has completed and installed the first unit of CURA in Turin, Northern Italy. Previously reported on Archinect, we reported on the project, which stands for "Connected Unites for Respiratory Ailments" was spearheaded by Carlo Ratti Associati and Italian architect Italo Rota. The concept utilized shipping containers to develop a modular system of pods for treating COVID-19 patients. Met with confusion, some were uncertain of the feasibility of the proposal, but now the first steps have become a reality.

The plug-in Intensive-Care Pods converted from shipping containers have come to fruition in just four weeks following their initial launch. The speed of the design and production effort come as a result of an international task force that, in addition to designers from Carlo Ratti Associati with Italo Rato, include engineers at Jacobs and health technology company Philips for medical equipment supply.

Initial concept renderings.

With the goal to improve the efficie...

Carlo Ratti and collaborators propose CURA: emergency COVID-19 medical pods inside converted shipping containers

2020-03-30T17:47:00-04:00

In an effort to rapidly boost effective medical response to the devastating COVID-19 outbreak, an international network of architects, engineers, doctors, military experts, and NGOs have developed an open-source solution to convert shipping containers into plug-in Intensive-Care Units. A first prototype is currently being developed in Milan, Italy where the pandemic has hit especially hard.

The project, called CURA (Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments, and also "cure" in Latin), was initiated by Italian architect, engineer, and director of MIT's Senseable City Lab Carlo Ratti with fellow Italian architect Italo Rota.

Image courtesy of CURA/Carlo Ratti Associati.

"CURA is a compact Intensive-Care pod for patients with respiratory infections, hosted in a 20-foot intermodal container with biocontainment (thanks to negative pressure)," explains the project description. "Each unit works autonomously and can be shipped anywhere. Individual pods are connected by an inflatable structure...

Facial recognition takes center stage at Bi-City Biennale in Hong Kong

2019-11-21T18:59:00-05:00

The Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture of Hong Kong and Shenzhen that opens this December is set to become "the first exhibition to use Facial Recognition and Artificial Intelligence on its own premises," according to biennale chief curator Carlo Ratti. The focus is created "in order to prompt a critical reflection on how digital technologies are impacting urban life," a press release from Carlo Ratti Associati explains.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology-based architect aims to "explore the new urban condition of cities that can 'see'" with the exhibition focus, which will inform a linear exhibition space situated within a high-speed railway station in Shenzhen that connects Mainland China with Hong Kong.

Image courtesy of Carlo Ratti Associati

Hong Kong has been gripped by powerful protests in recent months as the public there struggles against attempts by China to imposition of its legal jurisdiction on the island, which is supposed to enjoy administrative and eco...

Carlo Ratti has invented a vertical robotic plotter for your home

2019-09-12T13:30:00-04:00

According to the team's Kickstarter page, Scribit is a write-and-erase robot that allows you to draw any content sourced from the web—and update it in real time.

See the video below for some words from Italian architect Carlo Ratti, the inventor of the new technology:

Carlo Ratti uses drones to set the tone for a technological future in artistic collaboration

2019-08-03T09:57:00-04:00

Architect Carlo Ratti's design studio has utilized drone technology to produce a crowdsourced work of art in Turin, Italy. Measuring in at 46 x 39 feet, the project was developed as part of UFO-Urban Flying Opera, a participatory technology and art project funded by Compagnia di San Paolo.

Created by four UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) working in unison for two straight days, the vertical graffiti has proved to be the result of a fruitful experiment. According to Ratti's firm, this marked the first time a swarm of drones were employed to create a collaborative piece of art.

Crowdsourcing was a foundational building block in the project. The final product was the result of feedback received from over a thousand participants. The public was invited to contribute visual content that conveyed their thoughts, hopes, and ideas regarding what cities should look like.

“The city is an open canvas, where people can inscribe their stories in many ways,” says Ratti.“Such processes have alwa...

Carlo Ratti proposes 2050 vision for Boulevard Périphérique in Paris

2019-06-17T15:13:00-04:00

As part of a recently-opened exhibition envisioning the future of Paris's urban highway system, a team led by Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) has unveiled a dramatic, two-pronged vision for what the city's Boulevard Périphérique might look like in 2050.

Ratti, working with research carried out by the MIT Senseable City Lab he directs, proposes a vision that maintains the boulevard's status as a ring road, albeit one ruled by autonomous public and private transit.

One aspect of the plan, dubbed "Living Laterality” by the designers, envisions removing half of the traffic lanes for the 22-mile ring road in order to provide space for a series of reconfigurable playgrounds and other urban amenities. Renderings for the proposal showcase autonomous bus pods running side-by-side with autonomous vehicle traffic, as well as generous, dedicated shared mobility spaces for urban scooting, bicycling, and walking.

View of the "Living Above" proposal, image courtesy of Carlo Ratti Associati.

“Living...

BIG + Carlo Ratti Associati's 88 Market Street tower in Singapore breaks ground

2018-02-14T19:04:00-05:00

Located on 88 Market Street in Singapore's evolving Central Business District, a 280-meter-tall tower that BIG and Carlo Ratti Associati designed broke ground earlier this week. The team had the winning proposal in a competition organized by real estate company CapitaLand, the project client. The tower is currently slated for a 2021 completion, and will be one of Singapore's tallest buildings.

Image credit: BIG + VMW.

Image credit: BIG

Replacing a former parking complex built in the '80s, the 93,000 m2 tower will contain office and retail space, 299 residential units, and lush tropical greenery at the tower's base, core, and rooftop. Perhaps the tower's most distinctive feature is its exterior facade, which has vertical elements that are “pulled apart” to allow the greenery from inside to peek out, creating a “dynamic interplay of orthogonal lines and lush greenery”, BIG says.

Image credit: BIG

Image credit: BIG.

City Room. Image credit: BIG

Winding garden paths and covered passages will...

Amanda Baillieu weighs in on "Architect-free" Open Source Architecture

2015-04-16T14:20:00-04:00

We are told that the “architecture of tomorrow” needs to be networked, collaborative and inclusive, drawing its inspiration from crowdsourcing, open access and mass customisation. But to do this “architecture must be put into the hands of people themselves” and the architect possibly “guillotined”. [...] This is inflammatory stuff [...].

The Senseable City: an interview with Carlo Ratti

2011-12-05T15:06:00-05:00

Architect, engineer, and director of the SENSEable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Carlo Ratti will focus on (you guessed it) the Senseable City—merging the digital and the physical realms by understanding how we sense and act on our built environment, and how the latter then responds to us.