Additionally, he holds positions as Distinguished Professor in the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano[6] and Honorary Professor at TTPU Tashkent.[7]
Ratti was named one of the "50 most influential designers in America" by Fast Company[8] and highlighted in Wired magazine's "Smart List: 50 people who will change the world".[9] Ratti has been featured in Esquire magazine's "Best & Brightest" list[10] and in Thames & Hudson's selection of "60: Innovators Shaping our Creative Future".[11]Blueprint magazine included him as one of the "25 People Who Will Change Architecture and Design",[12]Forbes listed him as one of the "Names You Need To Know".[13] In December 2023, Carlo Ratti was appointed by outgoing president Roberto Cicutto as curator of the 19th Venice Biennale of Architecture, opening in 2025.[14][15]
In a 2011 TED talk in Long Beach Ratti outlined the vision of an "architecture that senses and responds".[20] Digital technologies are becoming networked and atomised, hence changing the interaction between humans and the built environment. It is as if our cities, buildings and objects were starting to "talk back to us".[21] In a discussion with architect Peter Cook as part of the Royal College of Art 2011/2012 Architecture Lecture Series[22] in London, Ratti traced back his vision to Michelangelo's "why don't you speak to me?"[23] and to the Baroque and Art Nouveau periods.
Ratti's work includes The Copenhagen Wheel developed by MIT Senseable City Lab explores how any bicycle could be transformed into a network-connected e-bike by sampling changing a wheel hub. The project Trash Track uses electronic tracking to better understand and optimise flows of waste through cities. He has also opened a research centre in Singapore as part of an MIT-led initiative on the Future of Urban Mobility.[24]
Ratti's work has been seminal in intelligent or smart cities. In an article[25] published in Scientific American together with Anthony M. Townsend, however, Ratti contrasts the prevailing technocratic vision of smart cities – highlighting instead the "human face" of urban technologies and their potential in promoting bottom-up social empowerment.
Architecture and design
Ratti's designs inventively bridge the digital and the physical. The Digital Water Pavilion at the World Expo 2008 in Zaragoza, developed by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati design practice, reacts to visitors by having streams of water part to let them through. Its fluid architecture was considered by Time magazine as one of the "Best Inventions of the Year".[26] In CRA's extension of the Trussardi fashion house in Milan's central in Piazza della Scala, developed with botanist Patrick Blanc, a green vertical canopy is suspended on a crystal box to promote new interactions with people on the inside and the outside.[27] An un-built proposal for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London turns a landmark building into a "Cloud" of blinking interactive art.
Several design projects rely on data visualisation. Real Time Rome, which filled an entire pavilion at the 2006 Venice Biennale of Architecture, explored real-time dynamics of a city mapped through cellphone data. New York Talk Exchange, exhibited at MoMA in New York City as part of the exhibition "Design and the Elastic Mind", moved further to explore global communication flows together with Saskia Sassen. Several projects from the MIT Senseable City Lab were included in Fast Company's "Best Infographics of 2011".[28] A data analysis and visualisation project resulted in an Op-Ed in The New York Times to redesign the map of the United States.[29]
During the 2013 Milan Design Week ("Salone del Mobile"), CRA ventured into product design with a project for Italian furniture manufacturer Cassina, called "Our Universe". At the same venue, another project, called "Makr Shakr", explored The Third Industrial Revolution and its effect on creativity and design through the simple process of making a drink.
Ratti curated the "Future Food District" – one of the themed pavilions at Expo 2015 in Milan. In 2017, CRA was part of the team led by developer Lendlease, which won the international competition to transform the former area of Milan's Expo 2015 into a district focused on science and innovation (MIND-Milan Innovation District).
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Torches
In 2025, CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati designed the official torches for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, titled Essential. The design emphasizes transparency, sustainability, and Italian craftsmanship.[30]
Featuring an open-frame structure that reveals the internal flame mechanism, the torches are constructed from recycled aluminum and a brass alloy, with an iridescent finish achieved through Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD).[31] Two color variants distinguish the events: Shades of Sky for the Olympic Games and Mountains of Light for the Paralympic Games. The grip is made of XL EXTRALIGHT®, a bio-based polymer derived from renewable sources.[32]
Each torch is engineered for reuse and can be refueled up to ten times, reducing the environmental footprint of the torch relay. The torches were unveiled at both the Triennale di Milano and the Italian Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka. One torch will become part of the permanent collection at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.[33]
While a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, Ratti was one of the initiators of Progetto Collegium for the reform of Italian universities, together with philosophers Umberto Eco and Marco Santambrogio. The project led to the foundation of the Collegio di Milano and other institutions in Italy. Ratti has been involved in several civic initiatives, most notably to preserve Italy's industrial architecture heritage.[35]
In 2009, Ratti worked on several civic initiatives in Brisbane, Australia, after being named Queensland's inaugural Innovator in Residence – a Queensland Government initiative that invites world-renowned thinkers to address local issues.[37]
Between 2015 and 2018, he served as Special Adviser on Urban Innovation to the President and Commissioners of the European Commission.[38]
Since 2009, he has been a delegate to the World Economic Forum in Davos and is currently co-chair of the Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization.[39]
Since 2015, he has been a visiting professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in the Department of Architecture, within the Fellowship Program of the TUM Institute for Advanced Study.[40]
Since 2016, he has been a Principal Investigator at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute).[41]
Start-ups founded
Ratti is the founder of several start-ups in the United States and Europe.
Launched in 2014, Makr Shakr is a startup producing robotic bartending systems, whose products have been installed aboard Royal Caribbean cruise ships as well as in malls and hotels in the US, France, the UK, and Italy.[42]
In 2018, Ratti contributed to the launch of Scribit, a company manufacturing a portable, wall-mounted drawing robot. In 2019, Scribit was named among Time magazine's Innovation of the Year.[43]
In a seminal paper[47] in Environment and Planning B, Ratti questions the validity of the urban analysis technique Space Syntax. He has been opening the way in exploring the use of cellphone data to understand urban dynamics, which has now developed into an established field of scientific investigation. In general, the MIT Senseable City Lab works on papers that use network analysis and complexity science to better understand cities.[48] Such aspects were discussed by Ratti in Seed magazine's Salon, together with mathematician Steven Strogatz.[49]
↑ Caterina (9 October 2017). "Michelangelo Buonarroti: 5 things to know". The Art Post Blog. Legend has it that when Michelangelo finished the statue [David or Moses], it seemed so real and alive that he violently hit the knee of the statue with a hammer, shouting 'Why don't you speak to me?'
↑ Trussardi Dehors, a project by Carlo Ratti Associati with Patrick Blanc for Cafe Trussardi "Dehors - Café Trussardi". Archived from the original on 9 March 2013. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
↑ For example: "Eigenplaces: analysing cities using the space-time structure of the mobile phone network" by Jonathan Reades, Francesco Calabrese and Carlo Ratti in Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design (2009; volume 36(5); pages 824 – 836) http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=b34133t
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