“Nature that Takes Back it Spaces”: when Architecture Teaches how to Trace Roots. A Conversation with Carlo Ratti

Abstract

Today, the definition of the Anthropocene is still very complex. Indeed, it isn't easy to illustrate a concept with many aspects. It is attractive, however, to understand how to interpret the human impact on the environment, and the concrete design of architecture can do so much to this end. In this contribution, I would offer an authentic and sensitive conversation with one of the most concrete architects on the international scene. I like to define Carlo Ratti as a "concrete" architect. Ratti's anthropocentric aspect is not only related to his design projects. His concept of the architectural project strongly represents the future part of the environmental system. How, more and more, the approach to the sensitivity and phenomenology of the present is the central aspect to be understood as a starting point to read future elements. In this regard, an architect creates a warning for the future generations who will inhabit the earth.

Keywords

• experience
• material imagination
• natural elements
• phenomenology
• architecture