RED
ALICANTE
MARBLE
ISSUE
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N°
44
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2025
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A beacon for the world of contemporary international design, curator this year of the Venice Biennale, Carlo Ratti describes his vision of architecture today and tomorrow
by Marta Bernasconi - ph. courtesy by Carlo Ratti Associati
C
arlo Ratti can’t be described in one word – architect, engineer
Architecture Biennale. We take his latest post as a starting point,
and lecturer, urbanist and architectural theoretician, he also
asking him what aspects of design he is concentrating on at the
teaches at Milan Polytechnic and the Massachusetts Institute
moment. “I think we’ve reached a turning point. For decades
of Technology in Boston, where he runs the MIT Senseable City
architecture has been trying to mitigate climate change, focussing
Lab. He is one of the most frequently quoted experts internationally
on reducing emissions, using new materials and increasing efficiency.
in the field of urban planning and this year he curated the Venice
However, the carbon already in the atmosphere has triggered
Delfino Sisto Legnani and Alessandro Saletta from DSL Studio
Carlo Ratti Associati
THINK, UNDERSTAND... THEN BUILD
Right: Carlo Ratti. “My creativity derives from finding myself in different situations like a woodland path, a crowded bus, a walk through a city I don’t know. Movement helps, and so do new places”. Above, the Greenary private residence, designed around a tree inside the structure. According to Carlo Ratti, “A good home can breathe, allows the right amount of light to enter, at the right moment. It frames a panorama and gradually adapts to the lives it hosts”
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Brendan Zhang
Agnese Bedini]
Delfino Sisto Legnani and Alessandro Saletta from DSL Studio
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transformations that we can’t ignore. This year’s Biennale asks how
the natural and the artificial, but in a world that aspires to excellence in
intelligence, artificial or collective, can help us overcome the challenges
terms of technology and performance.
we’re facing. We need new instruments and especially new alliances
“I often think of our work as being like wielding a plough, an attempt to
between disciplines that until now have enjoyed too little interaction. Donna
delve into the ground that separates, or perhaps unites, natural and artificial.
Haraway, this year awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement,
On the one hand we explore how computation can make architecture
writes that we must “stay with the trouble”, without giving in to the
more reactive to its context, while on the other we seek to bring nature
temptation to grasp at immediate solutions. In this sense, adaptation
into built spaces, not as an ornament but as a structural presence. For
is less a response and more an approach – reprogramming the way we
example, in Greenary, our project in the countryside of the Parma region,
inhabit, build, think and design, accepting uncertainty as part of the
in the north of Italy, for Francesco Mutti and his family, a ten-metre-tall
process”. Design by the Carlo Ratti Associati studio is always founded
tree became the heart of domestic life. To me, technology is never an
on critical thought, often focussed on a search for a convergence between
end in itself. The aim is to find an equilibrium, a new ecology where
DSL Studio_ Delfino Sisto Legnani, Melania Delle Grave
Opposite page: top, two interior views of Greenary, a house in the countryside near Parma. Below, a model of AquaPraça, a project under way for a floating piazza designed alongside the American studio Höweler + Yoon and presented at the Architecture Biennale 2025. It covers over itself to the sea level and the number of people on board. It will host exhibitions, debates and performances. This page: the design for Palazzo Mondadori in Segrate. Here, Carlo Ratti Associati has reimagined the spaces to adapt them to new work flexibility without compromising the original spirit of Oscar Niemeyer’s building, an icon of the Modern Movement
DSL Studio_ Delfino Sisto Legnani, Melania Delle Grave
400 square metres and floats, adapting
architecture does not impose but learns to grow together with other
life, but it can invite it”. The studio is attracted by projects that start
systems”. Carlo Ratti also considers the effects that the ubiquitous presence
from what already exists, working on structures that are stratified or
of technology produces on society and social life and how architecture is
charged with meaning, generating fertile creative tension in the team
called on to respond to these changes. He is convinced that exchanges in
of architects, as shown by the installation in Palazzo Mondadori. Carlo
physical space are crucial and the more digital life becomes the greater
Ratti also regards design linked to the sea as rather stimulating, as it is
our need for physical places where unexpected, unmediated meetings
an unpredictable, changeable setting, never remaining still. It offers a
can take place. “It’s what’s always happened in public squares, beneath
constant yet fulfilling challenge. “The AquaPraça floating piazza was
the arcades, on the streets. It’s confirmed by our research, based on an
inspired by this sense of movement. It’s under construction in north-
analysis of data gathered on the MIT campus in Boston. We designed
east Italy, built by Cimolai, a company that specialises in precision steel
interior squares for the Sella Innovation Centre in Turin to encourage
structures. Inside, a ballasting system allows it to rise and fall in response
informal exchanges between start-ups. Architecture can’t force social
to sea conditions and the people present. It’s a living architecture, one 147
Melania Delle Grave, Alessandro Saletta, DSL Studio
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that listens, adapts and occasionally puts to sea”.
Associati studio has configured the spaces as small piazzas. The aim is to
He’s also fascinated by yachts, which he sees as a hybrid form, a
facilitate informal exchanges among startups. In the words of the architect,
cross between architecture and naval engineering. “Houses that
speaking about the importance of social relations, “The space isn’t
move, combining comfort, lightness and adaptability, an interesting
designed to maximise efficiency, but to create interaction and encourage
testbed for rethinking the relationship between constructed space
socialisation. Opportunities for exchange in the physical space are vital”
and exterior environments”. Melania Delle Grave, Alessandro Saletta, DSL Studio
This page, the Sella Innovation Centre, Turin, where the Carlo Ratti
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Finbarr Fallon
Designs by the CRA studio investigate ways of achieving a symbiosis between natural and artificial. As well as Greenary, another example is CapitaSpring, a skyscraper created with BIG in Singapore, where a tropical forest grows in the sky. Carlo Ratti believes technology is not an end in itself, its purpose is
Finbarr Fallon
to achieve an equilibrium, a new ecology where architecture does not impose but learns to grow together with other systems
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