#rp15 Speaker Carlo Ratti

Stay on the Scene, like a living machine. An architect and engineer by training, Carlo Ratti practices in Italy and teaches at MIT as head of the Senseable City Lab. We proudly present the visionary for a different smart city at #rp15.

Primarily Carlo and his team are dealing with changes in lifestyle in the cities that have been triggered by the digital transformation. Ratti examines how cities and urban life could develop, the more interactive they become and the more data is being produced.

The visionary has initiated the project "Trash Track", tagging waste with sensors. The aim was to understand where the waste ends up, whether it is disposed properly or not and where the objects 'travel' along – often hundreds of kilometres. With this data the city's waste disposal systems can be adapted. Project "Backtalk" pursues a similar purpose. Obsolete electronic waste, such as computers and cell phones, was equipped with GPS eye sensors and "sparked" how electronic waste is disposed in developing countries illegally. Ideally this should make us aware and rethink how we deal with waste and scrap.

Ratti aims to make cities "senseable": to create a meaningful sense based on data flows for urban life and to derive models that improve city life – especially as even more people are attracted to the cities. According to Le Corbusier’s advanced concept of the house as a “machine for living in”, these future cities could be imagined as inhabitable microchips, or “computers in open air”.

Carlo Ratti will explain how this model works, tell more about his his visions and explain what a "senseable city" exactly is on Thursday (May 7) at 11:15 on re:publica’s stage 1.

MIT Senseable City Lab 
Carlo Ratti Associati