Decoding the City

Edited volume on data-driven urbanism together with Senseable City Lab Director Carlo Ratti.

The book focuses on research approach of the Senseable City Lab and includes essays from guest authors including Fabien Girardin, Luis Betttencourt (Santa Fe Institute), Andres Sevtsuk (City Form Lab), Francisca Rojas and a group of authors from the Barabasi Lab.

This edition, edited by Dietmar Offenhuber and Carlo Ratti, shows how Big Data change reality and, hence, the way we deal with the city. It discusses the impact of real-time data on architecture and urban planning, using examples developed in the SENSEable City Lab. They demonstrate how the Lab interprets digital data as material that can be used for the formulation of a different urban future. It also looks at the negative aspects of the city-related data acquisition and control. The authors address issues with which urban planning disciplines will work intensively in the future: questions that not only radically and critically review, but also change fundamentally, the existing tasks and how the professions view their own roles.

The book has been translated into several languages including Chinese, Korean and Farsi, the German version has been published at Bauwelt Fundamente.