Carlo Ratti & Assaf Biderman on how cities communicate through digital technologies

Carlo Ratti and Assaf Biderman explore the way objects can communicate and tell unexpected stories.

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Director and associate director, respectively, of MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory Carlo Ratti and Assaf Biderman explain how cities are slowly but surely beginning to communicate through digital technologies. Comparing the environment to real-time control machines, the duo give insight into how the digital and the physical merge, giving rise to information on the way people and things move around.

In this talk at Design Indaba Conference they speak about various projects they have undertaken together. Their “Copenhagen Wheel” looks at a new mode of transport that gives real-time information on environmental elements and physical information of cyclists while exercising. The "Digital Water Pavillion" is a building literally made out of water. "LIVE Singapore!", part of the Future Mobility project, looks at creating virtually living, responsive cities using technology.

Imagine a city where you know in real time all that is happening around you...

This integration of technology and real-time data into people's living environments is at the crux of the work that Ratti and Biderman to with the SENSEable City Laboratory.

Watch the Interview with MIT SENSEable City Laboratory