CARLO RATTI: From smart to Senseable

Architect, engineer, and visionary Carlo Ratti is working to reshape the fabric and form of our cities. As both the founding partner of CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, with offices in Turin, New York City, and London, and the director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, a research group exploring the way we live in cities, Ratti explores how data and emerging technologies can transform urban spaces and the way we live in them. Drawing together the complexities of our built, technological, and social worlds, Ratti reimagines cities as ecosystems that are as dynamic and interconnected as those who inhabit them.

As the curator of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, Ratti is bringing his bold, data-driven vision for the future of cities to a global stage. His curation highlights architecture’s central role in the built environment while recognizing its interdependence with a wide range of fields, including art, engineering, biology, sociology, politics, and ecology. Grounded in real-world innovation, Ratti’s approach explores the myriad ways urban spaces can help us tackle the challenges of today and tomorrow.

hube: It is natural for humans to have an emotional perception of reality. Beauty and functionality in architecture often become contradictory. Is this the main problem for architecture?

Carlo Ratti: Vitruvius, the Roman architect and engineer from the first century BC, introduced the Vitruvian triad, which explains architectural quality as a wholeness formed by three essential elements: firmitas (firmness), utilitas (commodity), and venustas (beauty or delight). Oscar Niemeyer built on this idea, noting that architecture involves a tension towards beauty, surprise, and the unexpected.

I fear we are not losing beauty itself, but rather our sense of the unexpected. In a globalised world, the challenge is not just about making buildings functional but also about avoiding uniformity. Cities are starting to look and feel the same, which is precisely what French philosopher Paul Ricoeur once warned against: a certain “McDonaldisation” of the world, where a global architectural language erases regional identity and cultural diversity. In the late 20th century, Kenneth Frampton’s “Critical Regionalism” emerged. as a compelling perspective against this, advocating for designs that reflect the peculiarities of local culture. However, it has struggled to remain relevant in the 21st century, where a small cadre of jet-setting designers seems to hold sway.

A possible approach for rekindling the unexpected could be framed through what Antoine Picon, Alex Haw, and Matthew Claudel have called “Network Specifism”. Today’s architecture is shaped by global networks of people, ideas, and technology. These net-works are constantly shifting and influencing our design processes. While respecting local specificity is essential, we cannot ignore the interconnectedness of the modern world.

Unlike Critical Regionalism, Network Specifism suggests that architectural production is shaped not only by location but also by the networked community. This approach makes the local a fluid concept, reflecting both its immediate context and global influences.

h: Increased access to information and new algorithms presents enormous opportunities; they both shape and create our needs. Could this change social ethics?

CR: As my friend Deyan Sudjic highlighted in response to our 2019 Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture curatorial statement, cities have always been places where people could be anonymous, free to reinvent themselves. But with digital tech, the idea of privacy is fading. The same algorithms that help us navigate daily life are also reshaping what we desire, sometimes before we even know it. Sudjic warns of a “return to the village,” i.e. where everyone knows your business. In the past, cities protected us from that, but now it’s as if we’re back in that village, except this time it’s powered by algorithms that can track, predict… and nudge us.

So, the challenge isn’t just about how we use technology, but how we adapt our ethics to this new world. If we allow tech to shape our needs without reflection, we risk losing autonomy. Our ethics need to evolve and they need to be based on increasing transparency. Access to information and algorithms will change social ethics, but how it changes depends on how we respond and what values we choose to protect.

h: The well-being of individuals and society is the main criterion for the development of urban agglomerations. Will this idea remain central in the future?

CR: Of course. I’ll defer here to Shakespeare: “What is the city but the people?” And if cities forget that… well, they’ll be like theatres with no actors. All the clever tech and natural de- signs in the world won’t mean much without people to experience and shape them.

h: The idea of combining the natural and artificial worlds could become a key focus in the coming decades. What mistakes should we avoid along the way?

CR: We were starting to touch on this point a bit earlier. We can’t forget about the human element. Lately, architecture seems to be divided into three camps, especially in academia: those focused on natural solutions, those on technological ones, and those centred on the collective, participatory approach. But each is as important as the other. To get good technological solutions, you need to understand people; to get good human solutions, you need to understand nature… and it all connects. It’s something I’ve learned through my own work: one solution inevitably relies on the others. Neglecting any part of that balance is the real mistake to avoid.

I’m optimistic that the Biennale Architettura 2025 will serve as a forum for dialogue among these fields. I’m seeing an encour- aging uptick in interactions between different camps, and I genuinely hope the event captures this shift.

h: In the future, will social distancing be an important trend? Will cities remain a significant part of our social structure in 100 or 200 years?

CR: The future of cities, if history is any guide, will likely follow a familiar pattern—one shaped by what is called Zipf’s law. This principle has held true for millennia; there’s a stable mathematical ratio between the sizes of large and small cities, and that distribution remains remarkably consistent. So, while the exact nature of urban life may evolve, the hierarchy of cities—from metropolises to smaller towns—has been remarkably stable and does not seem to go anywhere.

Now, social distancing and the virtualisation of our lives, triggered by the pandemic, might make us wonder whether the importance of physical spaces is diminishing. But if anything, the pandemic has reminded us how deeply we crave real, physical interaction. We missed the streets, the cafés, the unfiltered, messy encounters that happen when you step out your front door. Sure, we’ve learned how to Zoom and chat through screens, but it’s becoming clearer that we’re losing something fundamental in that shift.

Take, for example, our research at MIT. Even before COVID-19, we noticed that digital networks, while convenient, are making our social ties more fragile. Sociologist Mark Granovetter talked about this decades ago— how we’re good at strengthening our “strong ties” with close friends, but we often neglect those weaker, more casual connections. It’s those loose, unpredictable interactions that spark new ideas, that broaden our horizons. In this sense, physical spaces (cities, offices, public squares) serve as an antidote to the algorithm-driven echo chambers of the digital world. They bring us into contact with people we wouldn’t otherwise meet.

So, if you ask me, I believe that cities will remain the backbone of our social structure for the foreseeable future, and as for architecture, its role will be to create more of those serendipitous places where we can come together, filter-free!