Carlo Ratti Associati

An ambitious new project could provide Helsinki with a sustainable source of heat and double as an attractive place for Fins to escape winter. Hot Heart envisions a series of manmade islands that store thermal energy and offer places for recreation.

Although it's getting more common to see swarms of illuminated drones being used for aerial light shows, simultaneously charging and launching all of those drones can still be tricky. That's where the Flying Drone Blanket is intended to come in.

Carlo Ratti Associati serves a slice of bonkers blue sky architecture with its "Playscraper." Also referred to as the Tennis Tower, the sporty skyscraper would stack eight tennis courts on top of each other to reach a height of 90 m.

We recently reported on a plan to use shipping containers to create ICUs to aid in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. A few weeks later, the conceptual design has been turned into a prototype unit installed in a temporary hospital in Turin, Italy.

We’ve reported on shipping containers being used for lots of different projects, but CURA is an example that could save lives. It involves transforming the metal boxes into easily transportable intensive care units to treat patients with COVID-19.

A new juice kiosk recycles its own orange peels into the cups used by the customers.

​A couple of years ago, design firm Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) unveiled Paint By Drone, a system that utilizes quadcopters to spray-paint artistic graffiti onto outdoor walls. Well, the tech has now been used to create a crowdsourced work of art, applied to a wall by multiple drones simultaneously.

Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) is planning to bring something of the Italian countryside to inner-city Milan with its Vitae project. The eye-catching building will host research facilities, offices and a restaurant, and will be covered in greenery, including a vineyard.

​A couple of years ago, design firm Carlo Ratti Associati showcased a system in which drones were used to draw images on walls. It was very clever, but perhaps not something that could become a commercial product. The company's Scribit wall-drawing robot, however, is intended to be just that.

Italy's Carlo Ratti Associates (CRA) and Danish firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) have collaborated on an interesting new skyscraper currently under construction in Singapore. Rising to 280 m (918 ft) the building will be jam-packed with greenery, and feature trees jutting out of its facade.

Carlo Ratti Associati has taken a novel approach to designing a new factory for Italian tomato firm Mutti. It features a visitor's center with walls made from glass tomato sauce jars – tomatotecture, if you will – as well as a terrace allowing the public to watch the tomatoes being processed.

​Artists and vandals have been attaching spray-paint cans to drones with varying degrees of success for several years now but what if whole swarms of drones could be controlled in a coordinated way to paint colorful designs on the many bare construction facades that fill our cities?