Carlo Ratti

As your boss transitions to the next point in his speech, the Flyfire pixels behind him transfigure into a new, three-dimensional table that slowly shows the movement of the sales trend line. In the background, you hear the peaceful cascading of the office walls, which are made of running water. Certainly this description of work stems from a futuristic, fantasy world. Yet according to Carlo Ratti, these design technologies already exist. Ratti's TED Talk discussed three main new technologies, all revolving around the idea of intelligent city design. He spoke about the ability of society to track the exact path hundreds of discarded objects, the creation of buildings with water “pixels” serving as walls, and the invention of Flyfire pixels. Though many of these new products seem more fun and less practical, they may be the first step in a chain of extremely beneficial developments.

Ratti gave the example in his speech of an experiment involving several hundred ordinary trash items whose journeys across America were carefully recorded. As people saw exactly where there trash landed, they began to realize that their waste did not just disappear after the trash truck picked it up. Ratti believes that spreading this knowledge of the course of waste could greatly assist in the "green" movement to reduce human impact on the environment. However, the idea of seeing the full effect of our actions could be applied far beyond the purpose of minimizing trash. Imagine the whole world and all of its inhabitants, each with an individual profile, mapped out on one giant, virtual social connector. If all people had access to this social map, they could post their actions and feelings on it. After a while, people would begin to see connections between the actions of some and the feelings of others. If this social map were capable of drawing lines between the people who directly affected each other (in the same way lines were drawn between the different cities the pieces of trash traveled to), people could see the full extent of all of their actions. For example, if Sue had a momentary loss of patience and yelled at Kera for spilling her coffee, then Kera cancelled her date with Tom because she was so flustered with work and had been driven over the top by Sue's comment, and then Tom neglected to call his mom that night because he was so worried about Kera's reasons for cancelling, and so on, wouldn't Sue had thought twice about yelling at Kera if she had realized the chain reaction her words would trigger? If you were able to examine how every action of yours affected the lives of others, wouldn't you take greater care with your actions? Connecting the world and making people aware of the full effects of every move they make could lead to a much more careful and caring population.

The next topic Ratti moved into involved the design of buildings. His buildings, however, were extremely unique; instead of using cement, stone, or brick for the walls, he used water. Essentially, Ratti applied the ability of computer pixels to produce images, to water (using the droplets as pixels), and now has a pavilion built, complete with water walls that spell out words, form shapes, and part to let people jump through. For me, this building causes internal controversy. On the one hand, the structure is better than most because it involves running water, which is relaxing, and incorporates play into work. According to Daniel Pink, both of these attributes will lead to better results from workers inside the building and improve mental health. On the other hand, this building seems hardly practical. It seems as though a sheet of water would do little to protect people inside from the elements. Unless the water droplets are chemically different from ordinary H20, they would cause trouble in any weather other than mild sunshine. A large wind gust would spatter people inside with water, low temperatures would freeze the walls, high temperatures would evaporate the walls, and precipitation on any angle would slice right through the walls. The building can also be lowered into the ground (the only solid parts of it are the roof and the posts holding it up, which evidently collapse). This would be handy in large and landlocked cities, where buildings and entertainment venues compete for land. With this technology, though, the building could ideally be up for daytime use and lowered at night to allow more space for activities. Erecting and lowering the building daily would be a hassle, though, because it would require the building to be empty after use each day. Essentially, a collapsible building with water walls is practical only for certain uses. A train or bus station, which does not need to be multiple stories tall, is not filled with hundreds of desks and machines, and does not necessarily need to shelter inhabitants from the weather, would be a smart use of this technology. An office building would be impractical. Most people can't concentrate on their work with hundreds of kids jumping in and out of their work building and playing with the walls.

Ratti expanded upon the idea of interactive buildings by addressing interactive technology in general, and how it could be applied to all architecture. My major concern with this is the effect it will have on human interactions. If inanimate objects are suddenly able to provide us with most of the entertainment we need, will friendly interactions be necessary? Family likely will always be necessary, because (at least for now) no technology can replace the empathy, love, and understanding of parents and siblings. If people never have to leave their house for entertainment, though, will there still be a need for friends? Already, as television, video games, and interactive toys become more entertaining and responsive, kids spend less time outside with other human beings and more time cooped up in their rooms. Society will need to exercise caution to ensure that walls and screens do not replace the company of real humans.

Finally, Ratti addressed the topic of Flyfire. Flyfire is a group of orbs which all have small wings on top of them that enable them to fly around like helicopters. These orbs have been programmed together to form moving, two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes. Flyfire could obviously help add to presentations by making them more visual and engaging, but Ratti discussed and even more complex use for them. In an experiment, the movements of a professional dancer were captured on a computer and made into a video of moving pixels. Ratti said that the movement of these computer pixels could be programmed into the Flyfire “pixels,” thereby creating a life-size replication of the dancer, capable of performing the recorded dance. Honestly, this possibility frightens me. Ratti seems to be describing a way science has found to re-create humans. While these "pixel people" are extremely limited in the human functions they can carry out, and have no capacity to think, they could easily replace several jobs. Like robots, they could be programmed to carry out the basic, recordable and repeatable, tasks of humans. The simple, step-by step processes Mr. Pink claims will be lost to outsourcing may instead by lost to flying orbs. Moreover, jobs that Pink believed were safe, such as performing, involve repeating the same movements over and over, and could thus be replaced by the orb robots. Ratti is combining our dimension with the two-dimensional world of computers and pixels, creating pseudo-humans that could very quickly cost hundreds of humans their jobs.

The far-reaching architectural concepts Ratti describes bring with them much awe and wonder. They are but another example of how mankind has managed to achieve the impossible in all aspects of civilization, and how every step we take inevitably leads to many more.


More about Carlo Ratti: http://www.ted.com/speakers/carlo_ratti.html


Ratti's TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/carlo_ratti_architecture_that_senses_and_responds.html

Other Ideas of Ratti's:   http://bigthink.com/carloratti

Digital Tour of Water Pavilion Features:

Video of the Actual Water Pavilion: