Carlo Ratti Associati: The Latest Architecture and News

Kengo Kuma and Associates have just been awarded second place in an architecture competition to design the expansion and renovation of the Egyptian Museum in Torino, Italy. It served for many decades as the primary civic space in Turin, with its public areas closed off from the rest of the city. Kengo Kuma’s proposal aims to recreate the public plaza, a city center covered by a thin glass canopy. Founded in 1824 and is the oldest museum for Ancient Egyptian culture, the Egyptian Museum in Torino held a competition earlier this year and received entries by Pininfarina Architecture, Carlo Ratti Associati, and Snøhetta. The winning project by OMA / David Gianotten and Andreas Karavanas will transform the museum into a cultural space, creating one covered courtyard and a series of connected urban rooms within the existing settlement.

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A global city and cosmopolitan hub, Milan is mainly recognized today as a fashion and economic center, widely coveted by visitors from around the world. It is the second most populated city in Italy and hosts some of the major fashion and design-related events in the world. Milan also houses prestigious educational institutions, many of which are renowned for heritage and conservationist specialties.

The latter is quite relevant, seeing as the city's most recognizable tourist attractions are the gothic Duomo di Milano, Santa Maria delle Grazia, or the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, amongst other classical and baroque sites. On the other hand, the city also has some of the boldest and most experimental modern and contemporary buildings that highlight the marriage of the beautifully crafted and often ornamental heritage with the modern, post-modernist, and contemporary monuments that make up Milan's unique style.

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After another successful selection process, with over 150,000 votes cast during the last 3 weeks, the collective intelligence of our community has helped us to highlight and recognize the best recent architecture projects. The 75 finalists, which is already a winners list, are a testament to the innovative and diverse ways in which architecture responds to the challenges of our built environment.

The scale of this award is a reflection of how important architecture is today, as the deepening complexity of our world places increasing pressure and demands upon our built environment. To deal with issues such as the climate crisis, energy scarcity, population density, social inequality, housing shortages, fast-moving urbanization, diminished local identity, and a lack of diversity, architecture needs to open itself. We are happy to see how the question posed by this award has gained global attraction. Voices from outside of the architectural profession stated: “This is what we consider good architecture”, due to its impact and symbolism, as seen on Globo or El País. Architectural recognition goes beyond its usual professional borders, and is able to motivate, rejoice and excite an ever growing number of people who understand the importance of our built environment and its impact on quality of life.

The winners are a concrete example of what society recognizes as good architecture, but also of what it demands from it. We take the responsibility to continue building on the spirit of the award, strengthening the expert’s choice and the contribution that our community makes based on their preferences and selections throughout the year, together with the voice of a wider community.

The ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards is brought to you thanks to Dornbracht, renowned for leading designs for architecture, which can be found internationally in bathrooms and kitchens.

CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, together with architect Italo Rota and urbanist Richard Burdett, unveiled the master plan for Rome’s bid to host the World Expo in 2030. The project proposes a joint effort from every participating country to contribute to a solar farm that could power the exhibition site and help decarbonize the surrounding neighborhoods. The Expo is proposed to take place in Tor Vergata, a vast area in Rome and home to the eponymous university and a densely inhabited residential district. All the pavilions are designed to be fully reusable, as the area is proposed to be transformed into an innovation district after the event in the hope of revitalizing the somewhat neglected neighborhood. The master plan was developed with several partners, including ARUP for sustainability, infrastructure, and costing, LAND for landscape design, and Systematica for mobility strategy.

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CRA - Carlo Ratti Associati and architect Italo Rota have developed a project to transform an 18^th-century hospital complex in Modena, Italy, into a multidisciplinary cultural and innovation hub. The master plan for the new hub, called AGO Modena Fabbriche Culturali, includes an origami-inspired kinetic roof designed in collaboration with artist-engineer Chuck Hoberman. The feature will cover a triangular-shaped plaza in the center of the complex. The restoration plan also aims to create flexibility so that the structure can easily adapt to changing future configurations.

EUROPARC, a pan-European design collective, has been announced as the winners of the international competition to renew the Paul Henri SPAAK Building in Brussels, Belgium. The building housing the Parliament of the European Union has many shortcomings, yet the winners of the competition recognize that demolishing and replacing it might not be a responsible or sustainable solution. The existing building is, therefore, reimagined and adapted better to fit the needs and the identity of the EU. EUROPARC is made up of five architectural studios from five European countries: JDS Architects (DK/BE), Coldefy (FR), CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati (IT), NL Architects (NL), and Ensamble Studio (SP), with the support of engineering companies from UTIL (BE) and Ramboll (DK).

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Designed by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group and CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, CapitaSpring is Singapore’s latest addition to its skyline. Recently completed after four years of construction, the 280-meter-tall high-rise oasis, considered among the city’s tallest structures, is a mixed-use high-rise with abundant sky gardens and rooftop park, office space, a serviced residence, a hawker center, restaurants, and public spaces.

The biophilic skyscraper, aligned with “the city’s pioneering vertical urbanism” and Singapore’s reputation as a garden city, is located at the heart of the financial district on the site of a former public car park and a hawker center. Comprising 80,000 plants, translating to a total landscaped area of more than 140% of its site area, the tower puts in place a “new green breathing space in the high-density CBD for the neighboring tenants and passersby”.

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During this year's Milan Design Week, Designboom, Architonic, and ArchDaily which make up DAAily platforms, created a unique, storytelling-programmed space for design and architecture enthusiasts dubbed the DAAily Bar. The space featured curated talk series and gathering spots, along with immersive art installations by renowned designers.

As part of the DAAily Bar Live Talks, ArchDaily's Founder and Editor-in-Chief David Basulto had the chance to talk with Carlo Ratti, director of MIT's Senseable Lab and founder of innovation studio Carlo Ratti Associati about this multidisciplinary approach, the blurred boundaries of the profession and his recent projects.

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Design and innovation office CRA - Carlo Ratti Associati unveils the result of its Urban Vision and Urban Program for Manifesta 14, the European Nomadic Biennial in Prishtina, Kosovo, between July 22 and October 30, 2022. CRA’s project proposes a new methodology for reclaiming public space in the city. It starts with a series of open-ended design interventions to encourage citizen participation and foster feedback loops to create long-term effects on the built environment. During the 20th century, regime changes and political clashes brought considerable turbulence to Kosovo and its cities. As a result, Prishtina currently suffers from a substantial shortage of public space, but a large group of disenfranchised residents is eager to reverse this situation.

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The European design team integrated by architectural firms JDS Architects, Coldefy, Carlo Ratti Associati, NL Architects, and Ensamble Studio has been announced as the winner of the international design competition for the renewal of the Paul-Henri SPAAK Building, the European Parliament plenary building in Brussels, Belgium.

Only a few days left until the annual inauguration of Milan Design Week 2022, one of the biggest international design events which features the Fuorisalone and Salone del Mobile. From the 7th till the 12th of June 2022, the streets of Milan will be hosting an array of architectural interventions and exhibitions curated by local and international designers as part of the Fuorisalone. And at the Fiera Milano | Rho, Salone del Mobile 2022, the awaited furniture and interior design event of the year, will be celebrating its 60th anniversary with themes and projects that reflect on “inclusive” design, fostering "autonomy, comfort, movement, usability, interaction and safety for all".

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In 2021, CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati’s proposal to create sustainable alternatives for urban heating networks was selected as one of four winners of the global Helsinki Energy Challenge. The project entitled Hot Heart proposed “island-like, floating seawater reservoirs to heat the city of Helsinki in a green way”. Using Twinmotion, Epic Games’ real-time visualization platform for the architecture industry to design the intervention, the large scale infrastructural project needed a digital representation tool to possibly put scale into perspective, offer a real immersive experience to engage the client, and exhibit instant changes related to natural factors such as daylight. Come SpaceForm, a data-driven virtual presentation and design tool. Created to facilitate remote cooperation, the technology allows clients or stakeholders to be more immersed in the story of the design.

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CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and Italo Rota Building Office, along with Matteo Gatto and F&M Ingegneria designed the Italian Pavilion at the Expo 2020 Dubai with a focus on reconfigurable architecture and circularity. The architects used orange peel, coffee ground, algae, and sand as construction materials, along with recycled plastic for the façade's ropes and boat hulls for the roof. The architectural design of the pavilion and the materials used create a natural climate mitigation system that substitutes for air conditioning.

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CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati has merged architecture with urban agriculture in the firm's newly-unveiled Jian Mu Tower in Shenzhen, China. The 218-meter high building incorporates a large-scale vertical hydroponic farm across its entire facade, producing vegetation that can feed up to 40,000 people per year. The 51-storey tower will also include housing offices, a supermarket, and a food court with inner gardens for recreation and social gatherings.

CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and Italo Rota have designed the new MAE museum dedicated to carbon fiber. Made of the same material, the museum is designed to showcase its ecological potential. As a material that is central to the future of manufacturing, the project will be built largely out of carbon fiber, both new and recycled, pursuing a circular approach to design.