Carlo Ratti

Carlo F. Ratti (born 1971 in Turin, Italy) is an Italian architect and engineer who practices in Italy, and teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, where he directs the MIT Senseable City Lab. This 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 turns a pavilion building into a 'Cloud' of blinking interactive art.

Ratti graduated from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy and studied at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, France. He later earned his MPhil and PhD degrees in architecture from the University of Cambridge, UK. In 2000 he moved to MIT as a Fulbright postdoctoral fellow, working with Hiroshi Ishii at the MIT Media Lab. In 2002 Ratti established the design office carlorattiassociati – Walter Nicolino and Carlo Ratti in Torino, Italy. In 2004, Ratti established the MIT Senseable City Lab, an MIT research group that explores the "real-time city" by studying the increasing deployment of sensors and hand-held electronics, and their relationship to the built environment. He has also opened a research center in Singapore as part of an MIT-led initiative on the Future of Urban Mobility.

In June 2007 the Italian Minister of Culture Francesco Rutelli selected Ratti as a member of the Italian Design Council - an advisory board to the Italian government that includes 25 leaders of design in Italy.

Ratti was a keynote speaker at the 2008 Metropolis Congress in Sydney October 2008, addressing world mayors and industry leaders on "connecting cities." In December 2008 he was included in Esquire Magazine's Best and Brightest list and was featured in Seed Magazine's Salon, together with mathematician Steven Strogatz. In January 2009 he presented as a delegate to the World Economic Forum in Davos. In 2011, he presented at TED in Longbeach.

In 2009 Ratti was named Queensland's inaugural Innovator in Residence - a Queensland Government initiative that invites world renowned thinkers to bring their own unique perspective to the issues currently affecting Queenslanders.

In 2011, Ratti is a Lab Team member for the Berlin location of the BMW Guggenheim Lab. He is also a program director at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow.

Famous quotes containing the word carlo:

    If there is anything so romantic as that castle-palace-fortress of Monaco I have not seen it. If there is anything more delicious than the lovely terraces and villas of Monte Carlo I do not wish to see them. There is nothing beyond the semi-tropical vegetation, the projecting promontories into the Mediterranean, the all-embracing sweep of the ocean, the olive groves, and the enchanting climate! One gets tired of the word beautiful.
    M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)