Carlo Ratti's House of Polpa: Edible Architecture from Tomato Cans at Milan Design Week 2026

Italian architect Carlo Ratti has created House of Polpa, an edible structure made from thousands of Mutti Polpa cans, installed beneath the Portico Richini at the University of Milan for Milan Design Week 2026. The 30-meter-long installation, resembling a gingerbread house, will be dismantled at the event's end, with visitors taking the cans home to cook. Ratti argues that food and design share a method of constant evolution through trial and error, referencing Umberto Eco's concept of the 'open work.' He cites projects like Quisimangia, an award-winning canteen by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati with Mutti and the Cerea family, where tomato byproducts become floor finishes. Ratti contrasts this iterative approach with the Modern Movement's ideal of the finished object, invoking Christopher Alexander's 'timeless building' and Bernard Rudofsky's 1964 MoMA exhibition 'Architecture Without Architects.' The installation also includes OLTRE, a kitchen by CRA with Veneta Cucine that adapts to natural surroundings. Ratti's book 'Architettura Open Source Reloaded' (Einaudi, 2025) and his role as curator of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale inform his call for a more collective design process. The steel structure will be recycled, and wood coated with tomato-based Mapei resin reused, minimizing waste.