Collaborative farming

Carlo Ratti Associati designed a prototypical pavilion in Bologna, where people can engage with digitally-augmented farming and grow their own food on-site. 

Carlo Ratti Associati, Area del Futuro (Area of the Future) pavilion, Bologna, 2016
Carlo Ratti Associati designed a prototypical pavilion where people can engage with digitally-augmented farming and grow their own food on-site. The project pairs sustainable agricultural practices with online data collection, paving the way for a new type of collaborative, in-store cultivation system in which anyone can become an organic food producer.
Carlo Ratti Associati, Area del Futuro (Area of the Future) pavilion, Bologna, 2016
Carlo Ratti Associati, Area del Futuro (Area of the Future) pavilion, Bologna, 2016

Visitors will enter the “Area del Futuro” (Area of the Future) and follow an immersive route that leads to a vast indoor hydroponic vegetable garden. Here, anybody can choose to plant seeds in a hydroponic tank, and monitor their growth. In fact, the “Area del Futuro” is designed in such a way as to highlight the whole sequence of the maturation process. The hydroponic tank itself slides fluidly throughout the farm as if on a conveyer belt, exhibiting the many stages of plant growth. 

Carlo Ratti Associati, Area del Futuro (Area of the Future) pavilion, Bologna, 2016
Carlo Ratti Associati, Area del Futuro (Area of the Future) pavilion, Bologna, 2016
By using advanced data visualizations and sensors that measure the plants’ biologic conditions, visitors are connected to the farm digitally and are able to access it remotely. Once a person plants a seed in the hydroponic farm, an Internet-of-Things device will match his or her profile with that of the corresponding plant. Using an app, the visitor can then track the state of the plant’s biologic data, its level of growth, and even share it on social media. When the vegetable is finally ripe, the visitor can collect it from the pavilion to be eaten or given away.

Area del Futuro (Area of the Future), Bologna
Program: pavilion
Design: Carlo Ratti Associati
CRA team: Carlo Ratti, Giovanni de Niederhausern, Andrea Galanti, Chiara Borghi, Valentina Grasso, Emanuele Protti, Andrea Riva, Gary di Silvio, Alberto Bottero
Client: FICO Eataly World
Year: 2016

For a new ecology of living

Ada Bursi’s legacy is transformed into an exam project of the two-year Interior Design specialist program at IED Turin, unfolding a narrative on contemporary living, between ecology, spatial flexibility, and social awareness.

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