With his team at SENSEable City Lab, M.I.T‘s Carlo Ratti makes cool things by sensing the data we create. He pulls from passive data sets — like the calls we make, the garbage we throw away — to create surprising visualizations of city life. And he and his team create dazzling interactive environments from moving water and flying light, powered by simple gestures caught through sensors.
Carlo Ratti is a civil engineer and architect who teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he directs the SENSEable City Laboratory. This lab studies the built environment of cities — from street grids to plumbing and garbage systems — using new kinds of sensors and hand-held electronics that have transformed the way we can describe and understand cities.
Other projects flip this equation — using data gathered from sensors to actually create dazzling new environments. The Digital Water Pavilion, for instance, reacts to visitors by parting a stream of water to let them visit. And a new project for the 2012 Olympics in London turns a pavilion building into a cloud of blinking interactive art.
via Carlo Ratti: Architecture that senses and responds | Video on TED.com.
