International design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati has revealed new Paint technology applied with drone formations for urban façades. This new technology is a portable system to create urban graffiti in new format and layout. Carlo Ratti Associati plans to present the first two installations for fall 2017 in Berlin, Germany and Turin, Italy.

Named Paint by Drone, the new mechanism offers portable technological solution that employs drone formations to draw on urban facades. The project aims to turn any blank vertical surface into a space for both participatory artistic expression and the visualization of urban data. 

In its initial implementation, the project proposes to use the facades of construction sites as giant canvases. Paint by Drone employs a set of one-meter wide UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), each of them equipped with sensors and carrying a spray paint tank. Each drone paints with CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key) as in most traditional printing processes.

A central management system regulates the drones’ operations in real-time, from image painting to flight, using an advanced monitoring system that precisely tracks the UAV’s position, detecting multiple devices simultaneously. 

Furthermore, a protective net placed on the scaffolding’s’ cover allows the drones to move into a safe space. Drones can draw content submitted digitally, via an app. The artistic input can come from either crowdsourced platforms or from a curator orchestrating the contributions of several people.

"Our cities are filled with blank vertical surfaces, either permanent or temporary. Scaffold sheeting, for instance, has great potential, but in fact it is mostly used in bland ways – left empty or employed for advertising," says Professor Carlo Ratti, founder of Carlo Ratti Associati studio and Director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 

"With Paint by Drone we would like to unleash the potential of ‘phygital graffiti’. Any façade can become a space where to showcase, new forms of open-source, collaborative art or to visualize the heartbeat of a metropolis through real time data."

Paint by Drone represents a next step in Carlo Ratti Associati’s research on both vertical drawing and open-source design, which includes projects such as OSARC (Open Source Architecture) at the 2012 Istanbul Design Biennial and the Vertical Plotter system featured at Milan Expo 2015’s Future Food District, which entered the Guinness World Record as the world’s largest plotted image. 

The new concept pushes the previous boundaries of time and space, having the potential to be installed in just a few hours in a city and paint on any surface.

"Paint by Drone will premiere in Berlin, Germany, and Turin, Italy, in late 2017. In both cities, it will enable large-scale collaborative graffiti projects. Either an artist will do an initial drawing on the canvas that can be colored in by users, with each person picking their favorite ‘spot’ of the canvas that the drone will paint, via mobile app. Or people can use the mobile app to draw their own designs, imagining what would be seen once the building under the scaffolding is finished," stated Carlo Ratti Associati.

"This project encapsulates our vision of the city as an emergent system", comments Antonio Atripaldi, project leader at Carlo Ratti Associati: "With Paint by Drone, the contributes of different people generate a result in which the final drawing is more than the sum of its parts".

In Berlin and in Turin, the project will give life to an exciting and dynamic canvas, highlighting both cities’ thriving art scene and openness to dynamic innovations.

Carlo Ratti Associati is a design and innovation office, based in Turin, Italy, with branches in Boston, Massachusetts, and London, England. Drawing on Carlo Ratti’s research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the office is currently involved in many projects across the globe. Embracing every scale of intervention - from furniture to urban planning - the work of the practice focuses on innovation in the built environment.

Carlo Ratti Associati recently completed Future Food District thematic area at Milan World Expo 2015 and is working on the redesign of the Agnelli Foundation HQ in Turin, the master plan for the requalification of the Patrick Henry military village for IBA Heidelberg, the Pankhasari retreat in India’s Darjeeling, and the concept for a human-powered ‘Navigating Gym’ in Paris.

Project facts

Project name: Paint by Drone 

Concept: Carlo Ratti Associati 

Team: Carlo Ratti, Saverio Panata, Antonio Atripaldi, Monika Löve, Andrea Galli, Gary di Silvio, Gianluca Zimbardi

All images © Carlo Ratti Associati

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