senseable city rio.

Mission

Develop new knowledge, methods, and tools that increase understanding of Rio's physical, digital, natural, and social environments.

The MIT Senseable City Lab, in collaboration with the Secretary of Science and Technology of the City of Rio de Janeiro, is launching the Senseable City Rio (SCR). This is the first Lab of its kind in South America and will serve as a testbed for urban projects implementing technologies such as visual artificial intelligence to study informal settlements—e.g. the Favelas in Rio—and to offer solutions that improve the community’s life.

Visual AI

MIT Senseable City has been at the forefront of developing AI models based on urban imagery, leveraging the power of computer vision, laser scanning, and remote sensing.

Big Data Analytics

Evidence-based policy is gaining traction globally. We believe that policy decisions should be informed by empirical data from each community, which would lead to data-driven solutions.

Sensing Platforms

Data can also be generated by deploying sensors with specific intent. Embedding technology into the urban environment can yield robust and fine-grained data to reveal humanity’s fingerprint.

Mapping Informality

Rio de Janeiro is one of the most vibrant cities in the world; but like every metropolis, it faces many urban challenges. One of them is access to housing for hundreds of thousands of people who live in informal settlements, called favelas. Based on an original idea by Washington Fajardo during the Favelas 4D project, the focus of Senseable City Rio will be to use technology to map some of Rio’s favelas providing tools to their communities and city planners.

Data Clouds

How could we mathematically describe the 3D morphology of favelas and their evolution over time?

Brisa+

What are the minimum spatial interventions to improve air circulation in favelas and increase resilience to natural disasters?

Carioca Blocks

How could we turn laser-scanning point clouds into blockchains to promote land tenure in the digital era?

Favela’s Flora

How to improve greenery in favelas to counter extreme heat events and improve thermal comfort?

Favelas DNA

How could we use explainable artificial intelligence to identify and predict the formation of favelas?

Flash in the Dark

Could we predict building vacancy over the years based on energy consumption data?

Events

2025/09
2025/05
2025
2025/01
2024/08
2021/04

People

Meet Our Team

MIT Senseable City Lab

Carlo Ratti Director

Fábio Duarte Principal Research Scientist

Martina Mazzarello Global Labs Lead

​​Washington Fajardo Research Advisor



Current Researchers

Theo Hermann, Chang Liu, Stefania Dimitrov, Clara Ayres De Medeiro, Stella Zimburg, Lucas Gobatti, Peng Luo, Julia Mantovani Silotto



Past Researchers

Xinwei Zhuang, Ruixian Ma, Isabel Waitz, Victor Dominguez

Prefeitura da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro - Secretaria Municipal de Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação

Tatiana Roque

Paula Camargo

Bernardo Figueiredo de Castro Ainbinder


Other Collaborators

Felipe Mandarino Coordenador Técnico de Informações da Cidade · Instituto Municipal Pereira Passos - Prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro and Research advisor at Senseable City Rio

Luiz Carlos Teixeira Coelho Filho Professor at Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro and Research advisor at Senseable City Rio


Technical Collaborators

Instituto Municipal de Urbanismo Pereira Passos

Sondotecnica

Join

We have several open positions in our newly-opened Senseable City Rio, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We encourage applications from minorities and other under-represented groups. Apply today and join us in our mission of making cities more diverse and inclusive.


For detailed information and all open positions, please visit senseable.mit.edu



APPLY HERE ➔