Carlo Ratti
Says More…
This week in Say More, PS talks with Carlo Ratti, Director of the Senseable City Lab at MIT and Co-Founder of the international design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati.
Project Syndicate: In 2018, you wrote that, with the help of technology and bold thinking, city planners could reverse decades of reckless growth by returning nature to the built environment. The draft text released after the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow mentions the “critical importance of nature-based solutions.” As governments invest more in such solutions – Canada, for example, announced that one-fifth of its total climate finance would go toward supporting nature-based solutions – to what technologies and concepts should they be looking?
Carlo Ratti: I think that nature-based solutions will be critical to the fight against climate change, contributing in far more ways than we usually envision. People often think about nature-based solutions as an effort to “turn back the clock” on environmental destruction, by protecting natural ecosystems or restoring them to a pristine state. But hybrid approaches – at the convergence of the natural and human-made worlds – also hold a lot of promise.
Consider our Hot Heart project, which recently won the Helsinki Energy Challenge. Hot Heart uses seawater heat pumps to convert primarily carbon-free electrical energy into heat. Large reservoirs are filled with water and heated by renewable sources, with the thermal energy then being stored, to be withdrawn when needed. The result is essentially giant, aquatic batteries. By providing carbon-free heating to the people of Helsinki, Hot Heart is helping the city to reach its ambitious net-zero carbon goals.
We are also planning to cultivate tropical forests atop the basins, nurturing them with the residual heat. This new natural-artificial biome will offer critical new insights into how to create sustainable solutions, while serving as a powerful reminder that the quest for sustainability is more than a struggle to stave off disaster; it offers novel and beautiful opportunities for everyone to be engaged.
PS: Last year, you highlighted the importance of “weak ties” – the casual acquaintances we make in the office or when we purchase our morning coffee. For that reason, you argued, we might be better off reimagining offices than eschewing them altogether, perhaps transforming traditional floor plans into “more open, dynamic spaces, which encourage the so-called cafeteria effect.” How could designers avoid the pitfalls of the deeply flawed “open office” plans that companies embraced a few years ago?
CR: First, let me elaborate on the concept of weak ties. Initially described by sociologist Mark Granovetter back in the 1970s, weak ties are connections with people who are not part of our inner circle of friends, who are more likely to think like us. The people with whom we form weak ties act as bridges to other communities, introducing us to new ideas and challenging our preconceptions.
Our research on the MIT campus shows that since the first COVID lockdowns, when work and study became largely remote, weak ties have suffered significantly. This suggests that, despite advanced online communication tools, shared physical spaces such as offices still have a very important role to play in supporting the well-being of our social networks.
And yet, we are unlikely to return to the “old normal,” with most people working exclusively in offices. That is the arrangement for which the infamous “open office” was designed.
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In the post-pandemic era, remote work is likely to remain an integral part of many jobs as companies move toward hybrid models. That demands a redesign of the office that recognizes that when people do commute to work, interaction will be their primary objective. Far from the open-office format, we imagine a variety of spaces, which support different functions at different times and promote as much human interaction as possible.
PS: Yet a large share of workers may not return to the office at all. You and Richard Florida have praised the shift toward more “human-centric” cities. How can urban design complement the effort to encourage the formation of weak ties? What are some examples of “extraordinary innovations” in pedestrianization, affordable housing, or dynamic zoning that have emerged from the pandemic?
CR: The pandemic forced cities to make drastic changes that would normally have taken years in a matter of weeks or months. In this sense, the crisis facilitated what the economist Joseph Schumpeter famously called “creative destruction” in urban design. One change I find particularly positive is the rise of outdoor bar and restaurant terraces in spaces that were formerly reserved for curbside parking. Reclaiming our streets from automobile hegemony can lead us toward more sociable cities.
I am also optimistic about efforts to reimagine museums and cultural infrastructure. Last year, we unveiled MEET, a center for digital culture in Milan designed to maximize chance encounters – or the formation of “weak ties” – among visitors. The center invites visitors to experience technology – from immersive projection rooms to research labs – together, thereby showing how digital technologies can provide the basis for extraordinary, collective experiences in the real world.
PS: In recent months, you have been examining examples of urban innovation in a number of cities worldwide, including Brasília, Helsinki, Melbourne, and Singapore. Is there an urban-planning concept in some city you are exploring that is not yet “camera-ready” but deserves attention?
CR: Simple innovations are often overlooked. During the pandemic, there has been much talk about “flattening the curve” of infections – essentially, spreading contagion out over time, in order to avoid overwhelming the capacity of our health-care infrastructure. We can similarly “flatten the curve” of our transportation system without major new investments, simply by changing our behavior. Working flexibly from homes and offices could allow us to stagger our commutes, with some workers reaching the office at 9 a.m. and others at noon. And there goes rush hour – including excess emissions from idling cars and road rage from stressed-out drivers. One of our next “urban reportages” will explore these ideas in more detail.
BY THE WAY . . .
PS: Of course, no two cities are the same, so one-size-fits-all solutions will not work. But one of your goals in highlighting promising urban innovations is to inspire change elsewhere. What urban innovation(s) do you believe can and should be adapted and implemented much more widely? Are there examples of cities that have successfully emulated – or even improved upon – recent urban innovations elsewhere?
CR: I am interested in recent moves by some urban leaders to reimagine the process whereby urban innovation happens. A few years ago, Jean-Louis Missika, Deputy Mayor for Urban Planning in Paris, launched the Reinventer Paris (Reinventing Paris) program. The idea was simple: ask developers, architects, institutions, and ordinary citizens to submit ideas and concrete proposals for transforming empty buildings and vacant lots in the French capital.
This decentralized approach – which contrasted sharply with the traditional, top-down approach to urban planning – was so successful that the entire region emulated it. Now, the C40 coalition of the world’s largest cities is also experimenting with “Reinventing Cities” programs modeled after Missika’s open-call concept. Clearly, there are a lot of good ideas in the world; we just need to listen for them.
PS: Your work at the Senseable City Lab at MIT and your design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati lies at the cutting edge of urban planning. Are there longstanding principles or approaches that are hampering innovation in this sphere?
CR: Cities often follow “best practices” established elsewhere, in order to minimize risk. This is the opposite of innovation. After all, it limits our options for the future to projects that have succeeded in the past. Faced with global crises – especially climate change – more radical approaches are needed. That is why I favor “moonshot” initiatives like the Helsinki Energy Challenge, which solicits disruptive ideas from all over the world.
PS: The United States recently passed a $1 trillion infrastructure investment bill. What principles and priorities should guide policymakers as they plan and implement projects in and around cities?
CR: America’s infrastructure is certainly in need of investment. The system is approaching the end of its design life and needs a comprehensive overhaul. My main suggestion would be to focus on the digital dimension of infrastructure, as well as the physical one. We can increasingly use digital technologies to improve our use of physical assets. In attempting to “flatten the curve” of traffic, for example, digital incentives can help considerably. In short, an ounce of silicon can often replace a ton of asphalt, saving money and boosting sustainability.
PS: Your commentaries often focus as much on storytelling – describing the people, events, and constraints that have shaped the history and experience of a city – as on analysis of data, patterns, and trends. Which cities would you like to visit, or visit again, and what is it about their stories that you find most appealing?
CR: Rio de Janeiro, but not necessarily the areas that tend to attract tourists. Instead, I would head to the favelas, or shantytowns, that line the city’s margins.
We often say that urbanization is happening so fast that the world adds a “new London” every week. Few people, however, realize that these new cities are composed primarily of shantytowns. Indeed, these kinds of informal neighborhoods will house many of the new arrivals to cities in the rapidly urbanizing Global South, and we need better integration and planning strategies.
Ratti recommends
We ask all our Say More contributors to tell our readers about a few books that have impressed them recently. Here are Ratti's picks:
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Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City
by Richard Sennett
Sennett, a sociologist, and I have been teaching a class together at MIT for several years now. Some of his fascinating insights on urban planning are documented in this book, vividly illustrated through examples from different times and places.
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Memoirs of Hadrian
by Marguerite Yourcenar
“To build is to collaborate with earth, to put a human mark upon a landscape, modifying it forever thereby.” Such are the words that Yourcenar puts into the mouth of Roman Emperor Hadrian, in this passionate and philologically sophisticated account of his life.
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The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects
by Lewis Mumford
At a time when the future of cities is clouded by doom and gloom, reacquainting ourselves with this classic survey of the past 10,000 years of urban history, with all its ups and down, is sorely needed. Sometimes a long view can help us see past short-term challenges.
Secure your copy of PS Quarterly: Age of Extremes
The newest issue of our magazine, PS Quarterly: Age of Extremes, is here. To gain digital access to all of the magazine’s content, and receive your print copy, subscribe to PS Premium now.
