Discussing the evolution of the Smart City concept, where technology becomes hybrid with human, cultural and social factors. With the signature of Carlo Ratti.
We better understood who Carlo Ratti is when we listened his talk on the scenarios of the cities of the future, during the key note of ISE 2016: architect and engineer, founder of the Senseable City Lab at MIT in Boston and, of course, of his studio Carlo Ratti Associati; with his organization he develops urban projects at all latitudes of the globe.
Ratti has recently published Urbanity. A journey through 14 cities, a book where, through various cities, he talks about the idea of the city, or rather ideas of cities. In fact, the vision must be broadened to include new elements: technology is obviously among the primary tools, but it is not the only one, and must be linked to the reading of the specific context, the human factor, and historical and social changes. Smart City yes, but with an elastic and open approachi to the mix of technology and ‘human factors’ to intervene in a specific way.
In Milan, for example, a great work is done on the idea of integrating nature and the urban fabric, and on bringing nature into places where it was not previously present: the Vertical Forest (Bosco Vertticale) is the first example, followed by the Forestami project of the Milan Polytechnic with the Falck Foundation and FS Sistemi Urbani, which considers nature as a structural part of urban environments and envisages, after a census and valorisation of existing greenery, the planting of three million trees. Going back to the idea that nature and technology are not conflicting elements but mutually reinforcing.
