Rome Future Week 2026 · “Abitare il Futuro”, Smart Cities session · Palazzo Orsini Taverna, Rome · 25 September 2026
“They asked me to cover a car park.” That is how Onda Carioca began, in Rio de Janeiro in 2014, and how I opened my talk on smart cities at Rome Future Week. The canopy cost about 5% of the total investment, design and construction included, and gave the whole CasaShopping complex its identity. Today it is its official symbol.
A city is smart when everyone wins
My thesis is simple: a city is intelligent when three parties win together. Those who invest need a return, clear rules and certain times. Citizens are the real client: the people who live the city. And nature, meaning flora, fauna, water and shade, is not decoration but infrastructure, for today and for whoever lives there tomorrow. The public administration is the director: it does not have to build everything, it has to make sure all three win.
A precious lesson from Toronto
Even Google tried to build the perfect city. What it taught us is that a city cannot be installed. It grows, together with the people who live in it.
Designing for the present
We must know how to plan, but planning is what we do while life goes by. The present is the only moment of real power. So the real future is a winning system that can evolve, because it keeps listening to all its parts. Everything arises from causes and conditions, and everything changes.
Rome already has the tools
Rome received the Smart City Award 2025 at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona. Roma5G brings connectivity to more than 100 squares and transport hubs, and the ROAD district in Ostiense is building a digital twin of the city. The next challenge, and a beautiful one, is to make systems, data and projects talk to each other.
Three ideas for Rome
- Design to evolve. Modular, reversible, adaptable: a project lasts because it can change.
- Public data, one direction. Platforms that talk to each other, open to citizens and investors.
- Every project declares how each party wins. Investors, citizens, nature: three indicators, always.
A smart city is not imposed. It learns, adapts and lasts.