Living Architecture

Carlo Ratti

Carlo Ratti is an Italian architect, engineer, inventor, educator and activist. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he directs the MIT Senseable City Lab, a research group that explores how new technologies are changing the way we understand, design and ultimately live in cities. Ratti is also a founding partner of the international design and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati.

SLEEK

Könnten Sie erläutern, was „lebendige Architektur“für Sie bedeutet? Ist es ein Motor, eine Art Leitlinie oder eine Perspektive?

CARLO RATTI

Für mich ist lebendige Architektur eine Brücke. Sie verbindet zwei Bereiche – die künstliche und die natürliche Welt –, die viel zu lange voneinander getrennt wurden. Es gibt zwei Möglichkeiten, wie diese Brücke gestaltet werden kann. Erstens ermöglicht Big Data, Dinge wie Gebäude „lebendig“werden zu lassen und unserer gebauten Umwelt die Dynamik und Reaktionsfähigkeit natürlicher Ökosysteme zu verleihen. Gleichzeitig gibt es eine explosionsartige Zunahme der Einbindung natürlicher Organismen in gebaute Strukturen. Grüne Wände sind da nur der Anfang; wir können ganze Wolkenkratzer in vertikale Farmen verwandeln oder zum Beispiel Orangenschalen als Baumaterialien verwenden. Wenn Architekten es sich zur Gewohnheit machen, die Brücke vom Natürlichen zum Künstlichen zu schlagen und dabei sowohl nach Inspiration als auch nach lebendigen Ressourcen suchen, können wir die Welt verändern.

S Ihre Projekte entstehen in einem multidisziplinären Umfeld. Die Präsenz sozialwissenschaftlicher Disziplinen ist besonders interessant. Warum beziehen Sie diese mit ein?

CR William Shakespeare fragte: „Was ist eine Stadt, wenn nicht die Menschen?“Die Sozialwissenschaften stellen für mich das Tor zu besserem Design dar, weil sie uns helfen, die Menschen zu verstehen, für die unsere Arbeit eigentlich gedacht ist. Es geht darum, alles in unserem Werkzeugkasten zu nutzen, um gebaute Umgebungen zu schaffen, die mit dem sozialen Umfeld harmonieren. Wir können nicht nur akademische Theorien als Grundlage für unsere Projekte nutzen, sondern auch Big Data, um diese Theorien auf den Prüfstand zu stellen. Wir bauen nicht nur für die Nutzer, wir lernen auch von ihnen. Dieser Prozess ist sogar noch effektiver, wenn man Top-down-Analysen mit direktem Input von den Bürgern kombiniert. So können wir Rückkopplungsschleifen von Intervention und Iteration schaffen und unsere Arbeit ständig verbessern.

one type of transportation to the next, and the city would be more accessible to explore than ever before. The city of bricks is 10,000 years old; the city of bits has only just entered the scene. As time goes on, the two are going to truly fuse with one another.

S You are always drawn to reshaping physical space. Where does that come from?

CR It comes from my belief that the spaces determine the shape of our social lives. We are increasingly living and working on the internet, but physical spaces have a key characteristic that digital ones do not: inevitability. In streets, subways and public spaces, everyone is bound to see everyone else – friends, strangers, all the diversity of the city. On the internet, you can filter away all but the narrowest of inputs. This is one of the hidden consequences of remote work.

When we replace offices with Zoom rooms, we keep our close friends but lose a wide network of professional acquaintances – the sociologist Mark Granovetter calls them “weak ties” – who are the most likely to expose us to new ideas. If we are going into the office less, we could offset the loss of facetime by redesigning our physical spaces – offices, co-working spaces, cafés and more – to maximise serendipitous encounters and weak-tie formation.

S Let’s talk about World Expo 2030. What was your original motive to get involved in this project?

CR World’s fairs, when they were first created 175 years ago, were mostly excuses for nationalistic showboating by the European colonial powers. This Old-World order is long gone, and the Internet and cheap global travel mean that Expos are no longer unique vehicles for disseminating ideas. We have no lack of venues to share and glare. So, when I got involved with the Expo Rome team, I saw a chance to not only bring the Expo to my country but also to reinvent the Expo for our century.

My design studio participated in the writing of Rome’s masterplan alongside the architect Italo Rota and the urbanist Ricky Burdett, and we wanted to give Expos a new purpose: as testbeds for architectural experimentation that would otherwise be too difficult or risky to explore in the existing built environment.

S From the outside, I feel it is a bold, ambitious approach to use a temporary event to reinvent a neglected, run-down urban structure. Would you briefly describe the basic idea here?

CR The masterplan is bent around the circular economy, transforming an event known for its temporary excess into a sustainable, permanent investment in the community. After the exhibition ends, every pavilion will be reused for new purposes. Throughout the fairground, we are building hundreds of tree-shaped solar harvesting structures across the Expo site. Together, they will make up the largest publicly accessible urban solar farm in the world. Beyond making the event fully energy self-sufficient, this energy infrastructure will serve the surrounding area of Tor Vergata, one of Rome’s poorer neighbourhoods, for years to come.

S And why is it worthwhile to rethink existing, non-functioning quarters of a city in such a way that they participate in the long term?

CR Cities are great because they are more than the sum of their parts. Segregation has the opposite effect, undercutting the benefits of human agglomeration, hindering overall economic development and compounding the injustices faced by marginalised communities. We need to incorporate every neighbourhood into the larger city, giving them access to city services and the opportunity to participate in the broader socioeconomic life of the place. In the

years to come, as the vast majority of urban growth takes place in shanty towns outside cities in the Global South, devising the right strategies for neighbourhood reintegration will be more important than ever.

S Architecture in the future is...?

CR One of the deciding factors in the great fork in the road identified by Buckminster Fuller: “utopia or oblivion?” Architects must decide whether to dwell on aesthetic matters or vigorously confront the design challenges of climate change, human migrations and new technologies. We must decide whether to be lapdogs of powerful clients or vigorous activists for social and environmental justice. To refine pristine penthouses for the rich or to innovate new, high-quality housing for migrants and refugees. Architecture touches the future like nothing else; it is the future. The things we build today are the vessels that our descendants will inhabit tomorrow.

S You leave your mark because...?

CR I have contributed to making “smart” cities “senseable” – both in terms of “capable of sensing” environmental stimuli and “appealing to common sense.” Digital technology might make new headway every day but gains in our capabilities mean nothing if we cannot harness our new powers on behalf of everyone. ●