Department of Architecture Lecture
University of Hong Kong (HKU)
Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
26/09/2024
Carlo Ratti 0 loves cities and the built environment. Ranked as one of the top ten most-cited scholars in urban planning and one of the leading designers in America, he focuses on intelligent systems and the convergence between the natural and artificial worlds. Recently nominated curator of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, he aims to foster a public conversation 1 on our urban habitat, starting from his work at the intersection between academic research 2, innovative design 3, and start-up entrepreneurship 4.
Public conversation
Carlo’s opinions on cities, technology, and the future are contributing to a global conversation. Follow his hottest takes across the pages of his books, opinion essays, interviews, and social media.
(1.1) Latest OP–EDs
(1.2) Latest Books
Atlas of the Senseable City
Read it Now
The City of Tomorrow: Sensors, Networks, Hackers, and the Future of Urban Life
Read it Now
Open Source Architecture
Read it Now
Decoding the City: Urbanism in the Age of Big Data
Read it Now
Architettura Open Source
Read it Now
Senseable City Guide
Read it Now(1.4) Social Media
Inside the Post Office Pod at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, @field.states and @verso___studio present Production Potential — a prototype for transforming vacant offices into compact, clean manufacturing hubs.
Amid rising vacancy and disrupted supply chains, the project imagines a future where making returns to the city center.
📍Giardini della Biennale
Part of Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. curated by Carlo Ratti
📷 Ewan Photography / Field States
#architecture #cities #urbanism #design #futureofwork #reuse #installation #biennalearchitettura2025 #venicebiennale #publicspace #fieldstates #versostudio
Open
What forms might work take when it returns to the outdoors?
At @labiennale’s 19th International Architecture Exhibition, CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati presents Post Office Pod: a modular, open-air workspace system designed in collaboration with participants Richard Florida, Anna Maria Scaravella, Marialena Nikolopoulou, Rohan Silva, and Recchi Engineering.
Set within the Giardini, the pods are solar-powered, shaded, and wrapped in greenery — offering quiet spaces for meetings, calls, or moments of pause.
After Venice, they will travel across Italy through @posteitaliane’s Polis Project, transforming 7,000 post offices into platforms for local connection and care.
📍Giardini della Biennale
📷 Antonio Guiotto
#PostOfficePod #CRA #BiennaleArchitettura2025 #PosteItaliane #PolisProject #ArchitectureAndLandscape #FutureOfWork #ModularDesign #WorkOutdoors
Open
Senseable City Amsterdam and @ams_institute are representing at Amsterdam Innovation Day!
Stop by Marineterrein today between 2:00-5:00, say hello 👋 and celebrate 750 years of Amsterdam 🇳🇱
#futurefest #amsterdam #innovation
Open
May’s Esquire Italia landed on newsstands with Carlo Ratti on the cover. @sonolacristina caught up with him right before the opening week of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, a project that has positioned itself to redefine how we inhabit tomorrow’s world.
For @labiennale, Ratti launched the curatorial process with a public call for ideas from around the world—thousands of students and professionals responded. In the end, he selected over 750 participants, convinced that “the debate must expand to include voices furthest from pure architecture.”
That’s why this edition, titled “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective”, features not just architects but cosmologists, humanoid builders, chefs, and scientists. “We’re seeing this in universities, too: alongside technical disciplines, collaborations with the social sciences are gaining ground.” Many of today’s changes, Ratti believes, “have a behavioral component that must be understood and anticipated.”
The built environment accounts for 40% of global carbon emissions and 40% of raw material consumption. “So while in the 1990s the focus was on mitigation,” Ratti says, “the 2025 Biennale is about adaptation.”
Can architects be agents of change? “I call them mutagenic agents—a strong term, perhaps,” Ratti remarks. “But emphasizing transformative architecture is a way to spark debate: many lament that Biennales feature more contemporary art and politics than buildings. My aim is to cross those boundaries, using every tool we have to envision a different future.”
The full interview by Cristina D’Antonio continues in the cover story of Esquire Italia No. 41
Credits
Editor in Chief: Giovanni Audiffredi @audiffredi
Fashion Director & Style: Nik Piras @nikpiras
Text: Cristina D’Antonio @sonolacristina
Photo: Federico Ciamei @federicociamei
Grooming: Matthew Tuozzoli @tuozzoli
Style Assistants: Diego Serna @diegosernah, Bilal Mourchid @bilalmourchid
Production: Sabrina Bearzotti @sabrinabearzotti
Location: Palacio de los Duques Gran Meliá, Madrid @palacioduquesgm
Fashion: Zegna @zegna
Art Direction: Tomo Tomo @tomotomo.studio
#esquireitalia
Open
Meet AquaPraça: a floating cultural plaza for a planet`s water levels 🌊
CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and Höweler + Yoon unveil a buoyant public space that adapts to rising sea levels — anchoring COP30 in Belém, Brazil. Rooted in principles of equilibrium and designed as a civic platform, AquaPraça invites visitors to meet the sea at eye level, transforming architecture into a living forum for climate dialogue.
Unveiled at #BiennaleArchitettura2025, the platform will travel across the Atlantic to become a lasting cultural landmark in the Amazon.
📍 Venice → Belém
📆 September 2025 → November 2025
A collaboration with Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Ministry of Environment and Energy Security, CIHEAM Bari, Connect4Climate, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
#CRA @labiennale @ciheam_bari @connect4climate @bloombergdotorg @howeleryoonarchitecture @italymfa #HowelerYoon #AquaPraça #COP30 #ClimateAction #FloatingArchitecture #PublicSpace #DesignForChange #Belém #VeniceBiennale #ArchitectureAndClimate #CollectiveDesign
Open
How can a building evolve alongside the people who inhabit it?
With the City of Naples, we’re reimagining Le Vele — the iconic modernist complex by Franz Di Salvo — through a collective process of memory, design, and AI.
Stories become spaces. Voices become visions.
At the Biennale Architettura 2025, a suspended model of Vela Celeste presents AI-generated futures born from community input — a dialogue between memory and transformation.
Not demolition. Not nostalgia. But design in progress.
@crassociati @manfredi_official @labiennale #GENS #IntelliGens #LeVele #VelaCeleste #Napoli #BiennaleArchitettura #ParticipatoryDesign #FranzDiSalvo #UrbanRegeneration
@agnese_bedini @dsl__studio
Open
Academic research
How can we use new tools to uncover our cities’ hidden secrets? Our team at the MIT Senseable City Lab is publishing new findings all the time. Read on for some of our latest discoveries…
(2.1) Latest papers
Sustainable Cities and Society
Scientific Reports
npj Urban Sustainability
Scientific Reports
Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
Martin Beech (ed.) Geoengineering and Climate Change: Methods, Risks, and Governance (Scrivener), and Governance (Scrivener), Martin Beech (ed.) Geoengineering and Climate Change: Methods, Risks
(2.2) Teaching roles
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2007-present
Professor of the Practice of Urban Technologies
MIT International Science andTechnology Initiatives (MISTI) 2009-present
Director
Politecnico di Milano 2022-present
Distinguished Professor
TTUP Tashkent 2023-present
Honorary Professor
University of Cambridge 2017-2019
Visiting Research Fellow
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology 2017-2019
Visiting Professor
Cambridge, United States
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Innovative design
A pavilion with walls of water. A skyscraper covered in plants. A renewable energy battery that doubles as a sauna. Carlo’s design firm, CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, is designing the city of tomorrow and bringing the natural and artificial worlds together.
Start–up entrepreneurship
Carlo believes that innovation has to make it into the real world – and we have created an ecosystem of startups. We have received more than 500 million dollars to fund multiple projects internationally, in the field of micro-mobility, leisure, and construction.
