Maptionnaire
Aretian is a Harvard-based urban design and analytics research firm that uses cutting-edge methodology to understand and improve urban and economic development through the intelligent and insightful use of data. Its work enables city planners and political leaders to avoid the pitfalls of bad urban design while harnessing the creativity and productivity of cities. Aretian has built a new scientific theory of cities that brings together innovative techniques in the fields of data analytics, complexity science and network theory-driven machine learning to produce high-resolution digital models of cities. These models enable Aretian to study cities more closely and accurately than ever before, developing fresh insights to share with the people who plan, design, build, develop and manage the metropolises of tomorrow.
The company was founded by Harvard alumni Jeremy Burke and Ramon Gras in 2018. The Aretian team now consists of Harvard affiliates from various schools within the university, including the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), the Graduate School of Design (GSD), Harvard Business School (HBS) and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (HKS).
This diversity allows Aretian to take a uniquely interdisciplinary approach to the challenge of making cities more liveable, resilient, prosperous and equitable. The company can bring together insights and expertise from a wide range of disciplines, including complexity science, network theory-driven machine learning, mathematical modelling, architecture, urban design and public policy. This is predicated on the understanding that cities are complicated social structures that require the insight of a wide network of specialists ranging from engineering and data science to architecture and anthropology.
“Aretian has built a new scientific theory of cities that brings together innovative techniques in the fields of data analytics, complexity science and network theory-driven machine learning to produce high-resolution digital models of cities”
The team of experts at Aretian has collectively constructed innovative ways of gathering data to improve urban design and economic development. This data is subjected to rigorous analysis and intricate modelling to derive exceptional insights, which can then help clients to make smarter decisions. It uses a robust interpretative framework to analyse data, allowing clients to understand how challenges and potential solutions operate within complex systems, given issues of scale, the interplay of networks and the development of a system over time.
Aretian can support clients in a number of areas, each of which relates to city analytics and urban design. This expertise encompasses demographics and social vulnerability, economic development, civil infrastructure, mobility, logistics and supply chains. The company also possesses capabilities in architecture and real estate, agriculture and food risk, business intelligence platforms, and sustainability and climate risk.
With city analytics and urban design, Aretian is able to develop intricate system modelling to capture and comprehend the increasingly intricate reality of urban living. Aretian makes use of evaluative metrics for understanding the trade-offs, benefits and drawbacks of different urban design configurations, which it can then apply to strategic interventions in the urban environment, with a view to improving the quality of life for residents as well as the operations of businesses, infrastructure systems and government entities. The company has scoring systems to support the development of smart design criteria and can create sophisticated mobility and logistics systems to provide efficient, affordable options such as car sharing and cargo management.
