Carlo Ratti
Landscape, Urbanism Design / Cambridge, MAMarch 4, 2013, 7pm – Anchorage Museum
March 5, 2013, 6pm – Fairbanks – The Blue Loon
March 6, 2013, 5pm – Juneau – The Gold Town Nickelodeon
Carlo F. Ratti is an Italian architect and engineer practicing in Torino, Italy. He is Associate Professor of Practice and Senior Fulbright Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he directs the MIT SENSEable City Labratory.
The Lab studies the built environment of cities – from street grids to plumbing and garbage systems – using new kinds of sensors and hand-held electronics that have transformed the way we can describe and understand cities.
Other projects flip this equation – using data gathered from sensors to actually create dazzling new environments. The Digital Water Pavilion at the 2008 World Expo in Zaragoza, for instance, reacts to visitors by parting a stream of water to let them visit, and was considered by Time Magazine as one of the “Best Inventions of the Year”. A proposal for the 2012 Olympics in London turned a pavilion building into a ‘Cloud’ of blinking interactive art.
Ratti was a keynote speaker at the 2008 Metropolis Congress in Sydney October 2008, addressing world mayors and industry leaders on “connecting cities.” Later that year, Esquire Magazine included him on it’s Best and Brightest list. He presented at TED in 2011.
