Designing the Digital City Part 2: Architects, Planners, and Beer

If designers, planners, and administrators are to succeed in shaping a grand design for the cities of tomorrow, they can’t rely on the same outdated tools and methods their predecessors used. That’s because answering 21st Century threats like population growth, climate change, joblessness, and technological disruption—to name just a few—will require solutions equal in power to the problems they...

Do Well-Designed Cities Make for Better Politics?

PLANT Architects: ROM Roof, Toronto Cognitive scientist Donald A. Norman’s research on excellence in design is a touchstone for understanding today’s wired cities. In his book, “The Design of Everyday Things,” Norman explores the idea that consumer behaviour can be influenced by good design. Alternatively, bad design frustrates users while destroying long-term value. Norman advocates user-centred design to make the...

Greta Shapes the Future of Cities

Why Trees and Forests are a Part of MESH Cities

How can thinking about forests and cities as innately connected improve our world? In massively changing times, forces that affect us all can provide new insights into old problems. The barked project is a response to some of those problems. It is an ongoing experiment in making the invisible connections that shape our world, visible. Let me explain its evolution....

The Turbulent Times of City Chief Digital Officers Reprised

How to change things: Buckminster Fuller (image from ilikearchitecture.net) (Given the controversy generated by Google Sidewalk's Waterfront Toronto project, we're republishing this post as a reminder of the turbulence disruptive change causes) The new Chief Digital Officer position some cities are adding to their management teams is not well understood, but that doesn't mean city leaders should ignore it. Far from it. If...

Sousveillant Cities and Media

Steve Mann, John C. Havens, Geoffrey Cowan, Allissa Richardson, and Robert Ouellette Quote: "Clothing is a building built for a single occupant, an architecture-of-one, and thus cyborg technology is urban design" -- Steve Mann, MIT Architecture, 1992. In a world of Big Data centralization, we also need distributed "Little Data" like blockchain. "Wearables", blockchain, and sousveillance are necessary to prevent fake news and...

HELLO, ROBOT. Design Between Human and Machine: Part 5

  Image: Future Food District, Installation for the World Expo 2015, Milan © Carlo Ratti Associati, photo: Del no Sisto Lignani This series of articles by Carlo Ratti with Daniele Belleri was first published as a catalogue for the Vitra Design Museum's "Hello Robot" exhibition. It is republished here by permission.   PART V – PeRmAnenT ciTieS, TRAnSienT inTeRAcTionS At the beginning of the ubiquitous robotics...

HELLO, ROBOT. Design Between Human and Machine: Part 4

  Image: Brion Cemetery by Carlo Scarpa This series of articles by Carlo Ratti with Daniele Belleri was first published as a catalogue for the Vitra Design Museum's "Hello Robot" exhibition. It is republished here by permission.   PART iV – A cemeTeRY, AFTeR ALL Even assuming that we can solve the hacking issue, will we really end up with a living, tailored architecture that...

HELLO, ROBOT. Design Between Human and Machine: Part 3

  Image: Helium Sensors with Smart City Stack This series of articles by Carlo Ratti with Daniele Belleri was first published as a catalogue for the Vitra Design Museum's "Hello Robot" exhibition. It is republished here by permission.   PART iii – RiSKY RoBoTicS Despite its ability to meet our needs, the idea of a robotic house still prompts some disturbing thoughts. Living within a...

HELLO, ROBOT. Design Between Human and Machine: Part 2

  Image: Carlo Ratti Associati. Digital Water Pavilion for the Zaragoza Expo 2008. © Carlo Ratti Associati, photo: Ramak Fazel This series of articles by Carlo Ratti with Daniele Belleri was first published as a catalogue for the Vitra Design Museum's "Hello Robot" exhibition. It is republished here by permission. PART ii – A RoBoT “FoR LiVing in” The phenomenon that has allowed robots to...

HELLO, ROBOT. Design Between Human and Machine: Part 1

This series of articles by Carlo Ratti with Daniele Belleri was first published as a catalogue for the Vitra Design Museum's "Hello Robot" exhibition. It is republished here by permission. Part 1 - THE UBIQUITOUS ROBOT According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, a robot is “any automatically operated machine that replaces human effort”. For the sake of this essay, however, we will adopt a...