Ramon Gras Aloma

Ramon Gras is a researcher and designer of cities and infrastructures from Barcelona, ​​working on the urban innovation space. Ramon’s research at Harvard focuses on analyzing how city form typologies and different types of networks of talent and industries impact urban performance. The city science methodology based on complexity science and network theory developed by Aretian enables informing the alignment of urban design with economic activation strategies, using the science of complexity and urban planning techniques based on network theory. The main objective of Ramon’s research is to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning models to support the criteria of civil engineering, architecture and urban design helping to trigger the latent economic forces of society, allowing thus the generation of distributed prosperity. Along with Jeremy Burke, co-founder of Aretian, Ramon Gras published the very first Atlas of Innovation Districts in 2019.

Ramon is a graduate of the inaugural cohort of Harvard’s newest design engineering program, where he developed research around urban design criteria for innovation districts working in synergy with logistics hubs. At Harvard, Ramon developed an urban design plan for the redevelopment of the port of Tallinn, Estonia, as well as urban studies for the Boston Seaport Innovation District. Prior to developing his joint thesis with Jeremy Burke at Harvard, Ramon worked at Ferrovial’s London innovation office, where he led cutting edge design and technology projects at the London Heathrow Airport Expansion Project and the London Underground. Prior to his experience in London, Ramon’s thesis at MIT addressed the problem of consolidation in air freight transport by designing an advanced Business Intelligence platform.

Ramon’s urban design and transportation modeling projects at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology included the de-elevation of the McGrath Freeway and urban renewal along the Green Line extension in Somerville, urban design criteria for develop the future expansion of the MIT campus in Kendall Square, and address the transportation needs of the Boston Seaport Innovation District. He expanded his education at MIT after working as a designer in large infrastructure projects involving architectural design (a project by Richard Rogers), town planning, urban transportation studies, bridge design, marine infrastructure and high speed rail systems. Ramon’s early research at BarcelonaTech focused on bridge design, high performance materials and nanotechnology applications for structural engineering. Ramon wants to strengthen innovation around cities, technology and infrastructure, designing creative and rigorous interdisciplinary solutions to meet the big and complex challenges facing the cities of the future.