Carlo Ratti

Carlo Ratti is a scientist, designer, and public intellectual working on the future of cities and the built environment. He teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, where he directs the Senseable City Lab, and is Distinguished Professor of Urban Studies at the Politecnico di Milano. He is also a founding partner of the international architecture and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and has established several tech start-ups in the United States and Europe. His work aims to develop hybridized systems between the natural and artificial world, as part of a wider quest to bridge the “smart city” with the imperatives of environmental sustainability, and thereby advance the science of urban design. Ratti has co-authored over 750 scientific publications, including the recent “Atlas of the Senseable City” (Yale University Press, with Antoine Picon, 2023), and developed applied research projects in collaboration with companies and local/national governments across five continents. With the objective of fostering feedback loops on urban innovations, he has written op-eds for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Scientific American, Financial Times, Le Monde, and Sueddeutsche Zeitung. He has consulted international bodies from the European Union to the Queensland Government and is currently serving as Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization. He was a curator of the BMW Guggenheim Pavilion in Berlin, the chief curator at the 8th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture in Shenzhen, and a creative mediator at the European Nomadic Biennale Manifesta 14 Prishtina. With CRA architecture office, he has developed experimental office towers, visionary pavilions, and master plans in cities across the world, advancing the integration between architecture, nature, and digital technologies. His work has been exhibited worldwide at venues including New York City's MoMA, the Venice Biennale, the Science Museum in London, Expo 2015 Milan, and Expo 2020 Dubai. His focus on many scales of innovation– from products to buildings to cities – has led CRA to become the only design firm in the world to feature on TIME’s “Best Inventions of the Year” list three different times (2007, 2014, 2019). Bloomberg dubbed him the “Sensory City Philosopher.” He has appeared as one of “50 people who will change the world” according to Wired. Fast Company hailed him as one of the “Most Influential Designers in America,” and Blueprint Magazine listed him as one of its “People Who Will Change the World of Design.”