Carlo F. Ratti (born 1971) is an Italian architect and engineer who practices in Torino, Italy, and he is the Associate Professor of Practice and Senior Fulbright Scholar 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, for instance, reacts to visitors by parting a stream of water to let them visit. And a new project for the 2012 Olympics in London turns a pavilion building into a cloud of blinking interactive art. He's opening a research center in Singapore as part of an MIT-led initiative on the Future of Urban Mobility.
Ratti grew up in several European countries, graduating in engineering at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, France, and at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy. 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.
Ratti’s activity in Italy has embraced a number of civic advisory projects, including the Progetto Collegium for the reform of European universities and the Comitato Valdo Fusi for the renewal of a piazza in the center of Torino, Italy. 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 was named as a Lab Team member for the Berlin location of the BMW Guggenheim Lab.[1]