ega-talks

[ega-talks]

Mette Margrethe Elf, Fighting indifference with architecture

Mette Margrethe Elf is the ”Head of Collective Impact” at Realdania, a member-based philanthropic organisation that initiate projects that address the structural challenges facing the built environment and society.

FILMED IN COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future

Fighting indifference with architecture

Real Dania is a member based organization that works philanthropically. We constantly examine how the physical framework in planning or in architecture can somehow increase the livability among the people who are there.

We also deal with social challenges and social questions. Just like this theme about the inclusive and integrated city also touches. One way we start out is to ask: What is the problem that we will try to solve in a certain project or in a certain context?

I will give you an example, which is also our point of view when it comes to the integrated city. Within this question we often try to work with the meeting. We focus on the people who have their everyday in a certain place. Either in a building or in the community around a certain building with all kind of functions. How can the framework in such a place be as supportive as possible? We think of the target group and the people who are working there. If there is something that is relevant in the context, how can one facilitate that? Or work though the physical means such as a meeting point, meeting points or neighbor-ship?

Right now we focus quite a lot on neighborhoods and neighborship. Becasue our analysis is that as our cities, especially the big cities grow, they seem to make more division than communities. Things become more and more expensive and we become more and more separated from one another.

An example on a project is a place called ”Kofoeds Skole”. It’s an old institution in Denmark and it has a big location in Copenhagen with people who have a long history track of the use of drugs, alcohol and homelessness. They are very vulnerable people. At ”Kofoeds Skole” witch is a school and a place where you can be during the day. You have all kinds of things you can do. You can do sports. You can repair different kind of things. You can produce artistic things. You can repair different technical things, or repair bicycles etc.

We have worked with this place. It has been a little bit like an institution, where if you weren’t a part of the place, then you didn’t have any reason to go in there. People would never meet each other here unless they spend every day here.

This is a big project that we have just finished together with another big foundation. Where we opened up this institution towards the neighborhood. That meant that we had the facades to change from bricks into glass. That we re imagined and changed meeting rooms into shops. Social-economic shops. With the products of the things that were actually produced in the school, as well as all kind of new products. There was a clear signal that here you are welcome. You can come and and look at the things. Here you can even have your things repaired or leave clothes for reuse. The project also involved developing a cafe. Where the people that spend their every day at this school can be part of making the coffee, and take care of the customers. It was a project that had the purpose of opening up.

What is important for us while doing a project like that, is to have an understanding from the perception of the neighbors. To involve the neighbors as well. Because as Copenhagen has develop into a very expensive city to live in, it makes the neighboring area into a quite expensive place to live in. This can sometimes give people a feeling of unsecured, when we talk of people who are vulnerable and the meeting that that creates.

The way we try to work with it, is by involvement from the beginning. Because we want opens up a school and also invite the surroundings to be half of the project. What we experience doing this is that the fear can be turned into engagement and projects that you do together. When it goes both ways, then it is an example of inclusiveness and how to integrate different functions and places with different people living there, very close to each other.

How can you work with creating relations? Which is from a social point of view important to do. Because if you are vulnerable, a quick thing that happens is that you’ll get isolated. How can we through the physical places and their functions try to open up and connect these separated lives that never interact. This interaction could create a lot of value. It’s not just people who are vulnerable who can have a big joy of showing themselves from some more positive sides. Even though you have different challenges, we can all show that we interact. Also the other way around. People who have all kind of resources. They can have a more meaningful every day having this very local neighbor.

We believe in trying to open up with respect of the life and the functions. To consider that we have to take care of and be aware of the specific contexts. Here we have to give spots of privacy, but also work with with the process or the physical problem. Creating both the private room as well as the more common and public spaces. We try to facilitate this. In a way that that breaks this problem of just passing each other in indifference. It’s a good thing that we try to do things together. Not or every day, but just so it feels natural and there’s the right frame frame for it.

[ega-talks]

Lene Jensby Lange, Re-imagining knowledge and learning

Lene is the founder of Autens, specialising in 21st Century Learning and Learning Spaces

FILMED IN ROSKILDE, DENMARK, 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future

Re-imagining knowledge

Today’s world is very different in many ways, than it was when I grew up. In many ways it’s similar. It’s still people connecting, but today we have the option of connecting with so many more people and it’s a globally connected world. That really changes everything.

The whole foundation for how we can work with knowledge and how we also should work with knowledge. I think the core of of knowledge environments is that today knowledge is not something static.

It’s dynamic. It’s constructed in whatever you’re working on. You need to always try and update your knowledge. You co-create things together. Today good knowledge environments are really good social environments.

They have different components. You have the social. Like the face-to-face component. You also have a virtual or a tech component.

Just looking at our own practice, knowledge is not what we acquired during school. It is also what we acquired during school and during our studies. But it’s also keeping up-to-date all the time. When we have challenges that we are solving. Projects we’re doing is always connecting with knowledge environment around the world and locally. It’s a lot of connecting and that’s why today knowledge is very social.

Knowledge in itself, it’s not the piece of specific knowledge you know. It is being able to combine. Being able to update it. Being able to find new stuff And put it all together. This basically changes the way we think about learning in in schools.

Growing up. If you look at a very young child, knowledge is also still trying to make sense of the whole world. Of course that’s social too.

In school we want kids to acquire all sort of deeper understandings and also basic knowledge about how things work. In order for them to do so and to be successful later in life and contribute.

Learning is such an important part of of the knowledge I need today. If I’m not a good learner I will not get the necessary knowledge. So it’s also about learning to learn. We need to work very differently in our schools and universities. The world is so connected today.

That is also a big component in our work. It is working with how we can transform learning environments, to support the growth of: The development of the mind Thinking The knowledge Everything we want kids to acquire during school.

To make them aware of what they could do themselves with knowledge. That’s a lot more interesting than knowledge itself. It is what what are you able to do with knowledge?

Basically when we look at learning environments in schools, that is a type of knowledge environments. There’s a huge change going on. Away from the traditional classroom that everybody knows across the world. They are not constructed in order for as many people as possible to learn as much as possible. That’s not what the traditional classroom does.

We’re trying to change that here in Denmark and globally. We see a lot of change going on. We start to see environments where we look a lot more on different functions. Where do you collaborate? Where do you interact with other people? Where do you experiment and gain insight through experimentation? Through the application of different types of knowledge. What new knowledge would you learn from that? How can you incorporate different skills and competences in that?

We see schools with different zones. Areas where you pitch. Areas where you collaborate. Areas where your able to withdraw and just immerse yourself in something you’re looking at. It could be reading. It could be experimenting. It could be drawing. It could be a lot of things.

We need those quiet areas. We need those social areas. We need the coming together, The community areas and the sharing areas. We need innovation areas. We need a lot of things in our environments that actually supports our development of knowledge.

This sort of shared discovery of new insights. It’s not just a school thing. It’s also what you do in offices. Every now and then we look at an office and we redesign an office space.

It’s basically the same thing. Who do you need to connect with? In order to really solve the challenges that you have. The projects that you’re doing. How can we have an innovative component? How can we have environments that would nudge innovation? Nudge sharing and make things very visible, so that you know what’s going on and really make the whole space sort of a visual image of a combined community brain.

It is basically supporting a lot of different functions. More than the usual classroom or the usual office space. Where one size fits all. Here we’re trying to change the ”language” or the narrative of the environments, so that everybody has a lot of choice and can use the environment that’s suited for the specific purpose and challenge, that they’re working on at any given time.

So it’s choice, variety and flexibility in that sense. It’s visual environments. It’s surfaces for sharing.

There are also components that really helps to underpin well-being in the environment. So that people naturally connect and feel more open-minded.

It’s important to think about the atmosphere in the spaces. What kind of feelings it brings out in people? How it really supports the sense of community, well-being, belonging. That you’re able as a person to contribute and feel comfortable and at home in that space.

So it’s not only functional but it also has that sort of emotional component to it. Where we see warm environments. Lots of nature. Which really has such a calming effect on all of us. It just feels good.

It’s that combination of different functions and choice and options. A lot of possibilities with an atmosphere where you feel comfortable and at home were you are able to contribute your best. In a social environment.

Democratizing knowledge

One thing that’s really important to us as we work in education and learning, is equity.

That everybody is able to access our shared world. That they are able to create a life for themselves that is a value to them and to their communities.

It’s very important that knowledge is sort of democratized. You go back hundreds of years ago and knowledge was confined to a very few people in society. We have been democratizing. There’s been a good development of democratizing knowledge. Today knowledge is almost accessible to anybody who has a smartphone. That’s actually very beautiful.

There’s also a lot of fake knowledge out there. So how we can we enable every person to access knowledge, to understand how they learn. To find out that learning is for everybody.

It’s not just something like saying: ”School didn’t work for me” School should work for everybody! It’s about making schools very human centered. Having lots of different challenge that you ”broadcast” onto the reality.

So this is why we talk about the learning environments where we want to create choice and options for people. Because we learn in different ways. We have different preferences. Different interests and passions.

So it needs to be very flexible adaptable environments, with lots of choice where you’re able to make good decisions about your life and your education. So that it can be motivating for you. Because we have too many young people who who opt out of education. We don’t feel motivated or engaged and that’s such a loss for them and for our societies in general.

This is very important to me. A very important part in our work with knowledge environments is to to open up the world of learning and growth and development for every person.

[ega-talks]

Laure Bordet Durieu, Planning with nature

Laure Bordet Durieu is a multi local french landscape architect graduated from Lullier in Geneva Switzerland. She grew up in New Caledonia in the Pacific and is living and working on Martinique in the French West Indies.

FILMED IN MALMÖ, SWEDEN 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future

Planning with nature

My experience includes walkable and bikable coastal planning. The coastal line is a landscape with salt, water and winds. I work with it by watching it a lot. The site always has the answer. If you watch a beach for an example, you’ll see how the sand moves with the waves. What size of rocks can be moved by the sea and how the movement and formation of the sand is impacted in relation to what you put in the sand.

If you want to keep trees on the beach, you’ll need to make the sand move into the right kinds of formations, this can be done with very simple measurements and it’s interesting to see how nature in this way is ”creating itself” Putting benches through the ground for an example can catch the sand as it is coming back with the large swell waves towards the sea. This collected sand can in turn protect a planted tree.

I think we have forgotten a way of planning where we respect nature and the given conditions. I think we have to be humble and use material and plants from the site. Because they preserve and strengthen the identity of the site. So, does the volumetric relations of a place and the way of living there. This together is the identity of the ”terroir” and the place.

In my projects I try to use the plants from the site. Some are endemic (unique to the site), some are autochthonous (indigenous plants) and some have come from other places, but they can all support salt and wind. This makes them more sustainable because you don’t have to water them, you don’t have to cut them and you don’t have to fight against them. They support every condition on the site.

When we plan a part of a town or area, then we plan a piece of landscape. A good answer of how to plan is to be humble. We don’t need to change the landscape just because it’s possible. I think we just have to manage it. To make it invisible 10 years after our intervention.

In the French west indies, the climate is hot and everything is growing very fast. The following thing after planning is then the maintenance. Here you are often forced to work with nature, because you don’t want to fight nature.

I also care for pieces of coastal landscapes where mangrove are being respected and protected. I want to give the young generation understanding of coastal forests.

So, I am now making a mangrove rehabilitation together with children. With a simple idea that I proposed: - One tree with one child - One tree per day - For 3,5 years

Making everyone feel involved.

[ega-talks]

Carl Heath, The internet of things in learning environments

Carl Heath is senior researcher at RISE Interactive in Gothenburg Sweden. Focusing on research and development projects regarding ICT and learning and learning perspectives.

FILMED IN GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future

The internet of things in learning environments 

We have been in physical environments to understand and share knowledge all throughout human history basically. Since we invented fire we have sat down in a space and we have communicated knowledge between each other. Over time these spaces have become more and more facilitated and be more specifically designed to do different things.

When it comes to sharing spaces for knowledge it could be anything from a school to a conference environment. What we’ve seen over the past 10-20 years is the emergence of a new kind of layer going on top of our physical space. That is the processes of digitization, where individuals and organizations have started to utilize technologies in the context of knowledge.

So obviously, the whole of the internet has meant we negotiate knowledge differently in groups and in society at large. That also changes how we actually use a physical space.

From the very simple things, like desk design. When we had big stationary computers, desks were a common safety to support that. Now obviously they are looking very different.

What’s happening now as technology evolves over time is that we start to see new emerging practices, where we need to renegotiate our idea of what the physical space is, in the context of digitization.

So what I mean by that is that for example when it comes to knowledge and understanding knowledge one thing that digitization implies is that data becomes all the more important. Actually knowing what goes on in a given process becomes valuable as an output and that goes for knowledge spaces as well.

So for example if we take an educational environment or a conference environment or a boardroom environment. The decision-making that goes on in those places or the test that is made. That’s crucial core business for those specific practices. Then obviously knowing more about how that process is, in that physical space becomes more important.

What we see now is the emergence of being able to use, for example the revolutionary approaches in ”Internet of Things”. To see how we can better understand what goes on in a place through data gathering and raising the level or the frequency of our data accumulation.

For example, we all know that if somebody writes a tests or if we are sitting in a boardroom environment and somebody outside of the room starts drilling with a big drill. With a lot of noise. That will seriously implicate our possibilities to actually learn or communicate anything in that room.That also goes for a very low intermittent sound, that I might not be aware of but that actually hinders me and my cognition in that particular moment.

For example the road outside of the window might suddenly have raised noise levels at a particular moment in time. What would happen if we actually start to understand that in a room and we can get feedback from the room. That tells us about our physical affordances in real time. For a teacher that might mean that you wouldn’t have the test when there’s a raised noise level on the street outside. For the board room environment you might change the color of the light to support a different kind of conversation.

There’s all these kinds of things that are starting to emerge. Where the sort of layer of digitization going over the physical space starts to shift what we actually do and how we do things in that space. That is a very exciting shift. There’s these physical spaces and we take them so much for granted.

Re-framing how we do things, can sometimes be a bit tricky and hard. Placing ourselves in this new position of understanding and looking. What does it mean when a person coming into a room has technology that changes the affordances of that room? What does it mean when an organization builds a system in a building that changes how we actually work in that space? What does it mean when we build the spaces? What does this mean, when it comes to data and data-sharing in a space?

Who should understand what goes on in the space? Is the energy levels only relevant for the people working in the building or should the actual user in the building have some kind of other knowledge brought out from that data?

How do we secure data in buildings? That becomes a really big tricky question. So there’s all these kinds of things happening, when we suddenly perceive data being a part of the ecosystem of learning and knowledge creation in a room. That journey we’ve just started on. There’s a lot to be understood and explored in the future to come.

[ega-talks]

Marcus Horning , A city for our senses compliments digital knowledge

Marcus Horning is the director of City Planning of the city of Lund, Sweden. A city famous for it’s top 100 ranked university with 42,000 students.

FILMED IN MALMÖ, SWEDEN 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.

A city for our senses compliments digital knowledge

I think we’re looking into a quite interesting future. Regarding knowledge and how we perceive knowledge. Where the importance of the physical space will increase even more than today.

I’m thinking a lot about the new generation growing up. It’s the first global, digital and networked generation that is growing up. Where knowledge is not only something that you can find in books or read about. You can use your global networking, when you solve a problem in a video game. Or when you solve a mathematics problem. Or a relationship problem.

It’s just as easy having friends in Mexico City, as it is going to the neighbor knocking on the door and see if they want to play. You can play now 24/7 with your global friends.

We can see how the new generations uses the city and the space is a bit differently than we did. I really don’t have that much knowledge about it. So, if there’s anyone out there having any study looking at the new generation. How they use the city. That would be quite interesting!

But in a totally non-academic observation. They use physical spaces less than we do. When we were younger we explored the city. Because we didn’t know where people were. So, we had to explore. To see and explore the spaces we didn’t knew existed.

Today they hang around in different locations but together in the digital world. If we then try to see what that means in the in the physical environment. Then we need to figure out, what does the physical world have as a unique selling point? Compared to the digital.

I read a few weeks ago an article from “The Institute for the Future” Where they looked at 2030. To see and what skills would be highly regarded and what skills would be not as valuable.

They were talking a lot about the emotional intelligence. I think that’s there’s something in there that’s interesting. To be kind of going back to the real basics of human beings. In regards to our nature. Where our senses will probably be even more valuable.

Because if you look at the smell and the textures and our inner emotions. That will be hard, at least in the future 20 years. How that will be solved in the digital world. So that would be probably quite unique for the physical world.

I therefore think that the physical spaces and how we design our cities. Will be quite interesting. That the qualities of the room. Where you can use your senses.

In smelling.

The sounds.

The textures.

Just looking people in their eyes.

That would be the unique attribute. Compared to the digital spaces. Therefore, I think that, what we work with quite hard with today, to create a tempo. An atmosphere. An inclusive city and spaces. We were on the right track!

I think we need to squeeze it up a little bit more. We still have the functionality of the city quite high in our in our agendas. Where the traffic system and other functional ways of approaching the cities, is still quite dominating.

That’s quite opposite to create a city where the senses can be explored.

I would like to see:

A greener City.

A more sitable City.

A walkable City.

These will be even more important, for the future cities to be competitive. To be attractive. Because if you can learn mostly anything at home or in a digital university. Why should you visit a space or a place? Then it needs to have some unique attributes. Compared to the other ones.

If you choose from a city where the senses will be able to get you that treat, compared to other ones that is more functionalistic. I would say the cities including our senses will be even more interesting.

That relates to the universities and the schools. What role they play in the city planning? They need to be an integrated and inclusive part of the city to be able to absorb the positive attributes of the city.

[ega-talks]

Balder Onarheim, Environments enabling everyone’s creativity

Balder Onarheim is an Associate Professor in creativity at the Technical University of Denmark. He holds a Master’s degree in Industrial Design from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design and a PHD on “Creativity under Constraints” from Copenhagen Business School. His research is focused on creativity training and teaching creativity. His professional background is from engineering design, medical equipment design, and innovation strategy consulting FILMED IN COPENHAGEN, DENMARK 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.

Environments enabling everyone’s creativity

The most important thing to me, in terms of knowledge. Is realizing that every human, no matter which role you have. Needs to be creative. I think making sure to train every single person who are working with a project. To enable their creativity.

I’m not talking about like the visual aesthetics creativity, but the problem-solving aspect of creativity. This very fundamental ability we have to create new things.

So the reason why I am drinking cup coffee or wearing t-shirt, is because we have so many thousands of years of creativity behind us. The challenging thing to me is, how can we build environments to enable that type of thinking.

I think unfortunately there’s very little knowledge about how our physical environment can support creative thinking. It’s a lot of myths and a lot of tradition. So we have a tradition for colorful rooms with a lot of different and unusual furniture. That is suppose to be a creative space. But there is no real evidence backing up that that’s good.

I definitely think that our physical environment will change. It’s really hard to protect how it will change. Because we don’t really know what is needed to make it good creative environment.

I think there will definitely be increased focus on enabling creativity in buildings. I’m convinced. This whole idea that, this is our creative room and this is your office. That will break up somehow. That’s a task I am really looking forward to see someone solve well.

In creative theory we talk about divergence and convergence. So the process of opening up or closing down. A lot of studies supports that when you open up. So when you work divergently. You should actually do it individually. So you should never try to do a group brainstorm, that’s ridiculous from a cognitive perspective. There’s no reason why two or more people should try to brainstorm or open up together. Because the second you say something, you already shared my way of thinking.

But vice versa, we know that in our conversion processes you need the opposite. You need to be a group. You need to have a lot of different points of view to make sure that your filtering of ideas is better.

So when we facilitate creative processes, we always shift back and forth. So it’s individual work. We are all the way down to three minutes individual. Then five minutes in group. Three minutes individual and then five minutes in groups. That’s the shortest periods we work with.

This is another thing that definitely has a physical manifestation. So when we do workshops like that. We have our own workstations. Where we can do our individual work and then very close by, we have the group context. So you more or less just turn around. You bring what you want to show to the group context and then you go back to your individual work.

This is a very interesting thing. That you don’t want people to be together talking all the time. Because that’s counter productive for creativity. This is another physical aspects of creativity.

Another interesting thing when we talk about the creative work environment. Is the social aspect. I think that you can design the best physical space possible. But if you cannot control how it’s being used or who are actually there, then it might not work. This place where we are now for an example ”Repubikken” It is by far the best co-working space I’ve ever been to. I’ve been working in a lot of different ones globally. I’ve been here for one year now. The main reason is the community management team.

It’s quite simple. The community managers here they know everyone a little bit and they speak to you. So if I go out for a coffee afterwards. Evelina, one of them, might come up to me and say: Did you meet this other guy? Because he’s currently working on a project that has this small overlap of yours. I don’t have to make sure to speak with everyone, because I know that the community managers they speak with me once in a while and they speak with everyone else. They see those opportunities.

So if we scale from the physical environments. To the thought environments. I think the most interesting thing to me right now, is human skills versus AI. Because there’s no doubt that AI is already capable of and will be capable of doing even more human jobs, in a very near future. The question is of course. What will humans be doing when AI is doing most of the jobs we do right now?

In my point of view, that’s creativity. What humans will have to be better and better at. Is doing what the computers cannot. We have all these things we know that AI won’t be able to do. Still there are very few forces in society that push creativity as an agenda. That’s to me very paradoxical.

What we’ve been looking more and more at is how to facilitate creativity in remote work. What we see more and more is that people are not working in the same location. They meet rarely.We have people here in Copenhagen. That we see very rarely. They are calling into Copenhagen.

What we have been looking at is how we can facilitate creative processes, where you actually collaborate with someone in the same way that you would, if you and I would to design something right here.

One of the things, that I think we will see, very soon. Is a merger of physical architecture and virtual reality. So I go to the door I might put on some gear. I open the door and then I enter another office somewhere else in the world and they will say ”Hey Balder!” when I enter.

I think this merger of a physical world and a virtual world, when it comes to work environment. It’s going to be super exciting, to see how that can be done.

[ega-talks]

Niels van Deuren, The globalized mobile student

Niels van Deuren is the founder of HousingAnywhere.com a global platform which helps students studying abroad to rent places to stay in more than 60 countries and 300 cities.

FILMED IN ROTTERDAM, HOLLAND 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.

The globalized mobile student

When I went abroad in 2009. I studied in Singapore. I had to find an accommodation there in Singapore. In the hotel industry it is already very common that you can just go online and book something and you go.

Then I discovered that in the student housing it was not at all that case. I went looking for a room and it was very hard. Therefore I decided to set up my own platform, where people can just search for a room, book it and go abroad. Since 2009 I have been doing that, to support the mobile student.

What you see is that internationalization becomes more and more widespread in the universities. It is not only because it is fun, because I had an amazing time in Singapore.

It is also simply because the world economy goes really into the global direction. You see it in the businesses, every business operates internationally. You see it in the NGOs. NGOs are international. The art scene is very international. Everywhere where you go things gets more and more international.

It starts now at university. In the future it will go from kindergarten, to schools, to universities, to workplaces, to lifelong learning and everything is really involved in being international.

In a knowledge environment, international people will be attracted by that. In a knowledge environment I see a hub and I see a city where international people like to go to.

You will see that dutch cities will not become only for dutch people and American cities will not only be for Americans. Cities, especially big cities will be for international people. Not specifically for refugees or so, but just for people that like to live and work abroad. Those cities will become hubs.

People like to live in the city center witch is not possible, because there is a limited capacity in the city center. What I see is that people will also move to the suburbs of big cities. Suburbs will become mini-hubs in the big hub.

Suburbs will function as a hub but also universities, workplaces, airports, museum districts, bar areas. All those mini-hubs will be connected to each other. Transport is going to be very important to support knowledge environments that are attracted by international people.

What I also see is that those hubs should also facilitate a good combination between working, learning, leisure and transport. Especially the metro is very popular among international workers.

In conclusion where I see where future knowledge environments will go. I think knowledge environments should have an international mindset to attract the international worker.

Because international workers that is what you will see more and more. Now you see it at the universities.In the future internationalization will already start at kindergarten and we should prepare our cities for that.

[ega-talks]

Frida Brismar Pålsson, We need environments for learning

Frida Brismar Pålsson is the founder of the consultancy and studio Paradis Produktion. She is devoted to the field of learning and architecture and has developed ways of understanding physical learning environments through the lenses of pedagogy, psychology and philosophy.

FILMED IN STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.

What is the future of learning environments? Today’s concept of talking about future learning environments is often that we know nothing about what professions we will need in the future. So let’s just be open and have anything.

I don’t agree!

Let’s not to even talk about what kind of professions we will need in the future. Let’s talk about what learning looks like!

Actually the process of learning, the cognition and perception of learning, hasn’t really changed since the beginning of mankind. We worked the same way. We need the same kind of relation, activities and setting for that.

The risk with saying that we don’t know anything about the future of learning environments, is that we open this question for anyone to put their hands on.

It’s really fundamental that the design and the layout of the learning environment, should come and should grow from teachers and professionals in learning. The psychologists and architects that are specialized in this field. Not from business and commercial forces.

What is really important is what happens in between If we look at schools today we have schools for knowledge.

If I put it like this. If we go into a school today and look at the classroom and the furnishing and the layouts. We can see that it’s designed for the first phase of learning. The phase where you are you’re presented to a new phenomenon.

It could be for example you’re going to learn how to bake a cake and you’re introduced to the recipe. It could be your you’re supposed to understand, a new concept like the concept of diaspora. Or the concept of a molecule.

Then you’re presented to that concept. It could be that you’re supposed to learn a dance. Like you were supposed to learn how to dance flamenco and then you were introduced or presented to the steps. Maybe you heard the music before but you never saw the steps.

We had this first phase and how do we design for that? In these three cases you would:

1. Read the recipe. 2. Hear or listen to the concept being presented. 3. Watch the steps in the dance.

Normally we sit and have the phenomenon presented to us by a teacher and that’s how classrooms look.

Then looking at the classroom again. We have the last phase of learning. We have the representation. When students are supposed to be examined. We want to monitor if they really learned, what we just presented to them.

We normally for practical reasons. We have written tests. Then again they sit and they use pen and paper. Just like when they took notes, when they were watching or hearing about the concept.

The design of the room and the layout of the furniture will be the same. The classroom is built up for this first and last phase.

What is actually interesting in schools, is what happens in between. Where are the spaces for the actual transformative and relational active process of learning. That’s what I’m interested in.

I would say that in order to create these conditions, We know a lot about these conditions. We have teachers who are experts in creating these conditions for students. In spite of the design of the classroom. In spite of the design of the school. Although, it should be in alignment with the design of the school.

So the conditions from my point of view. First we have to work with four  different kinds of space.

1. Laboratory space We have to work with laboratory space. In a very wide sense of that word.

It could be a wet space for experiments. In cooking, in chemistry, in biology. We don’t even need to use the traditional subject names. Because we we only need the kind of material and tools for that kind of activity.

2. Interactive space Then we have the interactive space. Where we physically meet with each other. We need an open floor space Because it’s really important that today, when all kids are meeting each other, virtually on the internet. Then we also need to work with this meeting in reality. Using our bodies in interaction with each other.

3. Communicative space Then we have the the third space. Which is also very important. That is a communicative space. Where we meet. Kind of like around the dinner table. That’s because we need to foster and help the students engage in a tolerant conversation with each other.

We need them to engage in the really difficult activity of listening to others. In order to to build up a democratic society.

4. Reflective space Fourth we also need a space for the contemplative situation. Because if we don’t have the wandering about and the reflection of what we just learnt. Then it won’t stick!

We need these four spaces in the school. What we have today is more of a kind of archive of knowledge.

If we look in a broader sense at the society and at the city that the school is situated in. Then there are actually much better places for that. Like monumental libraries, museums and universities. Where we could go and find that a first phase of knowledge. We could go there with our teacher and be presented to something.

Can we afford it? Of course it’s a it’s a question of economical resources. It’s like the idea of building a bridge. The the reason why we build a bridge is because we need cars or people being transported over that bridge.

But then we say: Oh we don’t have the resources to build it wide enough, so we’ll make it really really narrow.

Then we built a bridge, but it doesn’t feel fulfill the goal that we had with a bridge in the first place.

That’s what I’m thinking of when we’re building these very low costs big scale schools. Without all the resources that we need for learning. Then we have a school that doesn’t even fulfill the goal we set up in the first place. So why do we build it?

Safety and encouragement We could talk a lot about the different environmental factors. How do we create rooms that give the sense of safety. But also the sense of encouragement.

Because we need to understand that safety is not about security. We need to allow children’s to take risks. In order to develop and learn. But we need to make the base really comfortable. Make the room feel like it’s built for for the children. In order for them to feel that ”Ok this is a place for me” This is a place where I can take risks, try new things, fail and do again and again.

Let’s think about the bridge. It can’t be too narrow in order to not fail the goals that we set up.

When we go into a project and building a new school. We really have to understand as architects, specialized in school buildings and if we have a reference group of teachers in the in the project, we need to allow them to really inform the builder and the project project managers. To understand the depth of this environment.

That it’s not just walls. It’s it’s all the things that are supposed to happen. That’s a really complex process. That’s why we need to understand it well before starting.

Learning is intrinsic to being Learning is intrinsic to being human. There are many utilitarian ideas of why we should have learning and what’s what’s the use of it?

I think that the most profound answer is that it’s it’s actually intrinsic to being.

If we don’t manifest learning. If we are manifesting archived knowledge. Or archiving knowledge.

Then we’re closing down that that very important human value.

[ega-talks]

Tatjana Joksimović, The trend of socially sustainable urban planning is here

Tatjana Joksimović is the Head of the Urban Planning Unit at The County Administrative Board of Stockholm, Sweden. She is the nominated chair of the Architects Sweden Board. Member and previously chairperson of the Women in Building Association in Sweden. Member of The association of Women Architects in Serbia and The Association of Belgrade Architects in Serbia.

FILMED IN STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.

The trend of socially sustainable urban planning is here

My name is Tatjana Joksimović. I’m an architect urban planner and IT specialist. I work as the head of the urban planning unit. At the Administrative Board of Stockholm.

The integrated and inclusive city became a quite popular term. That we are talking a lot about every day. Practically it is more present in municipal urban planning than before.

I see the trend in the last 10 years. Even though terms like, right to the city, just city or city for all. Have been present for decades.

The focus in practical urban planning has been more in Sweden focused on environmental planning and design. While the social questions, social issues, social inquiries, became more present in last 10 years.

One of the reasons I think, is that the project based, entrepreneur driven urban planning has not that focus or role. To bear the complex public interests such as a social sustainable society.

I can see the the spectrum of the political ambitions and social social sustainability is a political issue. So each municipality, each part of the municipality that has a local governance. Has a local agenda and priorities. So here we see the differences in between the political ambitions and political compromises, on local level

At the same time we have the global goals that are defined in the agenda 2030. We have 12 years to do something about it. We know that even though the goals are global, the solutions are local.

In terms of multidisciplinary knowledge, collaborations and cooperation, we have a large amount of projects. That are actually taking account and address the questions of social responsibility.

That are gathering these questions not only in urban design tools. Also with land policies and other strategic policies and budgeting.

We can see a clear trend in the Stockholm region in past years. Where the multidisciplinary teams are gathered from the beginning in the early stages of planning. Where the budget for the project are a larger for the social analysis and dialogue with communities.

One example is Skärholmen. The development in the southwest part of Stockholm. Where the capital municipality is leaving the comfort zone of the routine work with the detailed urban plan. Challenges the stakeholders and the community. To envision housing for more groups than usual. Collaborate on the co-making. Co-creating the public space. Safety issues, equity issues and so on.

On the other hand, Botkyrka municipality has an interesting experience of working with intercultural perspective in the urban planning.

Huddinge municipality in the southwest of Stockholm, is challenging the children perspective in detail urban plans, regularly. On a regular basis.

And there are more examples. But we’re not there, that each and every project, in each and every municipality, deals clearly and has a focus on social aspects in every plan.

So we have a long way to go.

[ega-talks]

Gil Penalosa, Urgency, vision and action for better communities

In 2017 Gil was listed in Planetizen's Top 100 Most Influential Urbanists. He is the founder and chair of the board of the Canadian non-profit organization 8 80 Cities and the chair of the board of World Urban Parks. He is an international accomplished keynote speaker, facilitator of strategic workshops and advisor to decision makers and community groups. Gil talked about the contemporary challenges of urbanization today and into the future.

FILMED IN MALMÖ, SWEDEN 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.

I think that anybody who cares about people and cares about cities. Right now it’s a magnificent opportunity, but also a huge responsibility.

This morning I’m gonna be at a university. Within the life time of the students at the university. Within their life time we are going to double, the people that lives in cities around the world. Today we have about 3,5 billion people. Within their lifetime we’re gonna go to more than 7 billion people.

That means that half of the homes that will exist within their life time have not been built yet. So this is a magnificent opportunity to do it right.

But if that is going to happen in the next 40 year. We might want to look at what we have done in the last 40 years. Because if what we have done is good, then maybe we just need to do more of the same.

But the reality is that the overwhelming majority of cities that we have built over the last 40 years, are horrible. Are totally oriented on cars, cars, cars and not on people. Are totally segregated. There is no equity. There is no mobility.

We have been very successful for an example in doubling the life expectancy in the last 200 years. Because 200 years ago people were dying of bad water and no sewage and we were able to take care of that.

Now people are dying of life style related issues, heart attacks, respiratory problems, anxiety and depression.

A lot of this is because the community and the cities that we have built are not really environmentally sustainable, not financially sustainable, not good for physical health and not good for mental health. We need to do something radically different in the next 40 years.

This is a good opportunity. I also say a great responsibility because, whatever we do or don’t do is how people are going to live (billions and billions of people) for hundreds of years.

So how are we going to do it?

I think that one of the issues that we should consider most when we valuate cities and look towards the future is how we will treat the most vulnerable people? I find that the most vulnerable people are the children, older adults and the poor.

I created and founded an NGO organization called ”8 80 cities” witch basically has a simple but powerful concept.

What if everything that we did in our cities has to be great for an 80 year and for an 8 year old?

Then the sidewalks, the crosswalks, the parks, the buildings, the school, the library, the restaurants. Everything. If we build this so that it is great for an 80 year old and a 8 year old then it is going to be good for everybody. From a few years to a hundred years. We need to stop building cities as if everyone was 30 year old and athletic.

There are many symptoms, that we are not doing it right. Around the world a person driving a car, kills more than 1 person walking every 2nd minute. 24hours/day. 365 days/year. That is not civilized. That is not having built cities around people.

These are some of the things that we need to do. For an example some people makes jokes of walking and cycling. The reality is that walking and cycling is not a joke. Walking and cycling is the only individual model of mobility for most people.

Walking and cycling is the only individual model of mobility for every child and youth. If you are under 16 years old. In Sweden, France, Kenya, Colombia or Canada or anywhere in the world. Your only individual model of mobility is to walk and to bike.

So having safe and enjoyable walking and cycling facilities should be like a human right. Unless you think that only the people that have the money, the age and a car have the right to mobility.

This are the kind of things we have to change. For an example play. We should have playable cities. We should have playability everywhere. People say ”It’s nice because the children they have fun” Of course they have fun playing, but it is more than that.

Playing is how children learn. Playing is how children develop their muscles and strengths. Their cognitive thinking, the capacity to learn languages and memories. Playing is children developing a sense of belonging. The children learn the capacity to socialize and to make friends. Almost all the things that they will need in life is playing.

So we should have playability in cities everywhere. In the sidewalks, in the parks, in the schools, in the libraries, in the buildings and everywhere. We need more playful cities. And the older adults. I think that the biggest waste of resources that humans have to today is the older adults.

People retire and we cross them out as if they had died. Except that they got 20,30,40 years left. They are healthier, are wealthier, they are more active, they have knowledge and experience.

They could be magnificent members of the society. They could be teaching immigrants the languages, they could be tutoring kids in the school, they could be organizing activities for other older adults in their parks and public spaces. Instead the older adults are being relegated.

Some big concerns that happen is not only physical health. That is what everyone is worried about. Like obesity, because it is very visible and that is a huge problem in the rich countries and even more now in the poor countries.

But mental health is a huge issue. I’m talking about older people. Loneliness.

People are very lonely. They might live in a city of 10 million people, but people are lonely.

We need to organize. For an example, we need to have parks within walking distance for everybody.

Not only for the children to go an play, but also the older adults. To go, walk and socialize. They need to be better managed. We need to organize activities. It’s not only doing a walking park. It is organizing the activites.

”Ok, Monday, Wendsdays, Friday at 10 am we are gonna have a walking group” Walking is the excuse.

The reality is that people are going to want to go because they want to socialize. They want to be with others.

What I find interesting is that we know what needs to be done. These are not technical issues. These are not financial issues. This are political issues. With a big ”P” Everyone needs to Participate.

We need to develop alliances, we need to engage elected officials at the city level and at the national level. We also need to engage the public sector staff. Not just urban planners. Of course we need urban planners, but we also need public health, transportation, environment, parks and recreations and economic development.

It’s like a 3 legged stool. The elected official, the public sector and the third leg are the community. We need the activist, we need the media, the university and the business.

And how do we get these 3 groups working together? We need to develop a sense of urgency. Worldwide. One more sense of urgency that we are going to have 3,5 billion more people living in cities.

Each neighborhood or city, they can have their own sense of urgency. Once you have the sense of urgency. Then you will develop a vision. Have a shared vision of, where is it that you want to go?

A vision with no action doesn’t go anywhere. When you have a vision with no action, then you become frustrated. Because you know what needs to be done, but you don’t do it.

Other cities have no vision, but they have action. They do it, here, here, here. They create like a Frankenstein, because they don’t know where they are going.

If cities are able to develop a shared vision. How do they want to live? They do a lot of action. Then they can transform those cities into vibrant and successful cities. With healthy communities. Where all people are going to live more happily.

[ega-talks]

Jonas Michanek, A digital, cultural and physical creative environment

Jonas Michanek is a serial entrepreneur, writer and speaker in Malmö, Sweden

FILMED IN MALMÖ, SWEDEN 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.

A digital, cultural and physical creative environment

Three or four years ago I worked a lot with Medellín in Colombia. It used to be the world’s most dangerous city and now  when we ended, it actually became known as the world’s most creative city by Wall street journal. Right now I’m trying to set up the first incubator and science Park in Nigeria.

Yes there is a there’s a physical component to future knowledge environments. I think that three components are actually important.

1. It’s how do you create a knowledge atmosphere over the internet? 2. How do you create a culture and community? Around the the place that it was supposed to be the hot spot or the place where all the vibes starts going and so forth. 3. The physical environment itself

1. A digital environment

We are much more on the move. We’re much less dependent on place. Much more working with knowledge structures and knowledge architecture architecture. The most valuable thing today is probably software and you can’t touch that. It’s like all over. Maybe it’s found, but it’s somewhere else. It’s not physical.

Those things are becoming more and more valuable. That’s also the way we work more and more. You as an architect. It is your ideas and abstracts constructions that is the most valuable actually.

It’s interesting now for example when I work with Nigeria and also the same a little bit with Columbia. That the internet is not as good as we’re used to in the Western world. So you can’t use all the tools that you used to. So you have to learn how to communicate internationally, were a lot of the growth happens, with other tools. So these small kind of basic things becomes really important.

2. A community culture

The second part I think is culture. More and more, I think that you can build buildings. But if you don’t have a community manager or an event team or some kind of a soul being put into that physical body, then it won’t work.

The more you can build in ”the community presence” or even put in the budget that you should have people working with this over a long time. I think that would be great.

Events is one way of spreading values and also attracting attention and and making people meet each other in new ways. Under new themes and discussing new things. That makes them inspired and gets  them closer together.

So I think events is a big thing for a community manager. One thing that they had here at ”Media Evolution City” where I work, that I really like is ”Dine with a stranger” You just get invited to a lunch with ten people. You know none of them. It’s not a big thing. Yet pretty easy to to do. It’s great!

I think, you can usually just go into a place and you can feel if it’s working or not. What interests me is actually how do you get the vibe? Part of is definitely physical. A lot of it is also creating the community, the happenings, the events, the meeting places. How you create that, is just as important.

In Nigeria we were doing it outside of the building. You can use the streets as well. You don’t get as much of a concentration, but you get a lot of more marketing. People are starting to understand that. There’s music on on there? On campus? Over there? I’ve never been into that house. What is happening?

3. A physical environment

People haven’t really understood the changes behind how we work. I’m very seldom at my office. I guess that’s more and more common.

That demands a lot more of a flexibility when it comes to building structures. How to pay rent. On the other hand, maybe I’m not so problematic when it comes to discussing price, if I get a flexible deal.  Price is not the most important thing. The flexibility is the most important thing.

The basic things that I think is very crucial for a creative environment. It’s actually the balance between inspir tion and function.

If it becomes too much inspiration, it becomes more like an ”ad-agency cool” But you can’t really work there.  And if you only don’t do cubicles all creativity will die. It’s always some kind of balance between inspiration, even provocation, maybe some kind of history that you can be proud of.

But also like traces of innovation that has been going on. When we did service around what people thought would be a creative environment. Something that I didn’t think about myself was, that people loved when you can find like, a whiteboard where there were still notes or prototypes laying around that you can start fiddle with and stuff like that. Yes, that’s some of the reflections I have.

1. How do you find a good Internet solution for knowledge?

2. How do you find a community building part of it?

3. And also the physical part. How do you construct that in the best way?

[ega-talks]

Mikael Colville-Andersen, Livable streets for people

Mikael Colville-Andersen is a Canadian-Danish urban design expert and CEO of Copenhagenize Design Co. He is advising cities and towns around the world regarding bicycle urbanism, re-establishing the bicycle as transport in cities, policy, planning, communications and general urban design. Mikael is also the host of “The Life-Sized City” TV-series about urbanism around the world.

FILMED IN Frederiksberg , DENMARK 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.

Livable streets for people

The idea of a sustainable and resilient city is nothing new. I think it is as old as cities themselves. They have always been resilient. That’s why they are still here. That’s a pretty good indicator, right?

Really we have been resilient. We have been sustainable. Trying to figure out how to package that better. Something that is transferable. Where you can take this great thing that Copenhagen does and put it into Toronto, or that amazing thing that Medline in Colombia does and put that directly into Stockholm.

I like to boil everything down to it’s simplest form and be incredible pragmatic. Just boiling it down to something simple. It makes it easier and more effective. The cities or the clients will have a really quick result.

I just want to do away with this tech based over complication of everything in our lives. We need to look at the streets of our cities. We need to look at the people who live in our cities.  They are the resilient ones. They are the ones that have to struggle with daily challenges.

The people are the ones that can give us the sustainability that we need. So really, if you want to create a resilient city. It is engaging your already resilient citizens, asking them for their ideas, not being so arrogant as we have been for so long. Thinking, the urban planners they can take care of that. The architects they know what to do. It is this elitist approach. Witch doesn’t really match the desires of the desires of the citizens.

I should just be able to walk out on any street in any city of the world and say, yes I belong here.

There is no incredibly arrogant swathe of asphalt. With cars and an intersection and I’m just the guy trying to cross the street and the buildings are out of scale and there are no public space in front of it. I am suppose to look up and say: Ooh! Architecture! And then, where do I sit outside this building?

Everything should be street level. You can have a sky rise city. So it’s not always about architectural scale. For me, everything is about the streets.

The streets for a millennia, has been the most democratic spaces in the history of homo sapiens. They belong to us!

We have had many decades of transport ”dictatorship” Where we have only put our efforts into providing space for more cars. Narrowing our sidewalks. If you look at photos of New York in 1920ies. The sidewalks where massive, because of the volume.

Historically, these democratic spaces. We did everything in the streets. We had small apartments, but we went out into our ”living room”, The streets. We bought and sold our goods. We transported ourselves. We flirted. We gossiped with our neighbors. Our kids played in the streets. Everything happened there. In the public arena.

Now we are different in our cities. We have nice apartments, big or small, doesn’t matter. So we spend a lot of time, in front of Netflix or whatever we do. So we use the streets less. But it is in our urban DNA. To go out onto the streets. Because we are humans. We want to interact. So understanding the psycological urban needs of our citizens is incredibly important.

When they pedestrianized the main through fare through Copenhagen in the 1960ies. Strøget. The worlds largest pedestrian street. The Danes, where allegedly where complaining.

”No, we don’t want that! We are not Italians, we don’t want to walk! That’s what Italians do. They are going for their walks in their piazzas and stuff.”

And then the next day. After they just went ahead and did it anyway. The next day I guess the Danes realized that they were ”Italians”. Or that Italians are ”Danes”. Or that we are just homo sapiens.

We need to get back on the streets. We need to encourage people to use them. We need to make it an enjoyable space.

Just me walking down to my shop. In any neighborhood in the world. I don’t need to enjoy it. I don’t need to go:

OH MY GOOD! THIS IS AMAZING! JUST WALKING TO MY SHOP!

I should have it in my head that: This is enjoyable, oh there is a neighbor. Just looking around doing all the things that we do. That really is the goal. Putting democracy back onto the asphalt. And limiting the destructive capabilities of automobiles.

Making a lot of inroads into more sustainable transport. And more enjoyable, sticky destinations in our neighborhoods.

[ega-talks]

Niki Frantzeskaki , Facilitating sustainable and resilient urban transitions

Niki Frantzeskaki holds a PhD on ‘Dynamics of Sustainability transitions’ from Delft University of Technology and is an Associate Professor on Sustainability Transitions’ Governance at DRIFT, Faculty of Social Sciences at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

FILMED IN ROTTERDAM, HOLLAND, 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.

Resilience vs sustainability

The question that comes again and again, from people working in cities like urban planners and policymakers. Is that very few of them actually can see the difference between sustainability and resilience.

I think most of the times I get questions like. How different is resilience from sustainability?

I start with what is similar. They’re both concepts that require normative future visions for the cities. They already prescribed the way of a good future to live in. ”A sustainable resilient city” that is a very positive image to imagine.

They require transformations to how we are living, working, organizing and practicing. The difference is that resilience, is envisioning that you still have a functioning system, even after a surprise or a dreadful event.

This is the concept of resilience. It takes uncertainty into account in a very specific way. It can be very helpful to already anticipate and take onboard uncertainty even in high magnitude in your planning.

Sustainability is about having the integrative holistic view to take all the elements of life, the economy, the society and the environment into consideration. To not externalize one on the expense of the other. Both concepts work very nicely together.

From a recent project I concluded ”Resilient Europe” with URBACT. We worked together with 11 cities on how to build resilience in local neighborhoods. In very difficult locations.

We chose deprived neighborhoods. They had derelict infrastructure. The social networks were quite disrupted. Not very strong social ties or community ties, and lot of other issues such as abandoned green spaces or unappreciated green spaces.

From working with them, in experimental setups. I have some insights of what can make cities build stronger and resilient neighborhoods

1. Reestablish the connection of people with their own space.

The first insight is about reestablishing the connection of people with their own space. With where they live.

This is beyond the romantic understanding of the sense of place. It is more about the transformative element that space can have.

When people connect to it and they feel that: ”This is my home.” ”This is my location.” ”This is my city.”

Then they appreciate it. They manage it. They re-imagine it. That create, not only a positive social feeling and the social element of it.

It also push and a demand to the policy to have better infrastructure. To have infrastructure designed together with people and for people. That can strengthen the resilience of these locations. Together with the resilience of the cities.

2. How we understand resilience

A second insight is of how we understand resilience. It is not only about recovery. From a shock or a stress or a crisis or an unfortunate event of whatever magnitude.

But also how you can rebuild back your community. Your place. In a way to be thriving place again.

The understanding of what resilience means. Looking at it not as a recovery, but as a transformative concept itself. This is my second insight.

This does not only come from the view of the research, but also from the view of the inhabitants community.

3. Interconnections

A third element and I will summarize with this. Is how we see the interconnections. Interconnections between the people. Interconnection between the different knowledge. Interconnections between the different forms of solution and innovations that we see in the cities and how they can make cities more resilient.

Because it is also about rethinking the market. Rethinking the new local economies and how the local economies can also support the bigger city socio-economic transitions.

It is about how to empowering the people. To take ownership. To take stewardship onboard. How this can also create new economies and markets.

Sometimes we are being a little bit naive by looking on for instance green solutions. On fixing the green space. Making a neighborhood sustainable.

But then not taking the community with us. Taking the community with us, doesn’t only mean, to have empowerment workshops or trainings or walks to the city.

It also is about how they can feel more energetic. Feel more motivated and empowered to actually create their own small local economies and in this way, be part of this transformation of the places to become more resilient.

How do we frame this whole process in a way to be open to questions, to criticisms and to the innovations to be actually co-created?

I think going with predetermined solution, sometimes it might not work.

These deprived neighborhoods that we saw and worked together with. They’re exactly the evidence of of precooked solutions not working. We have neighborhoods in areas and in cities like Bristol and Glasgow. Where the city has done so much. So much work and so much thinking.

Still you see that it is not working. That is not because of bad policy or bad intentions or not going to the people.

But maybe going to the people with a different approach. In a different way. That is what is needed.

We are in a generation shift in the cities. A lot of people who are more on the strategic management level. They are in a different generation. They have a different training. They have been retrained to think about sustainability, because the priority.

Then the young people that are now just recruited. They’re very interdisciplinary. They really know what sustainability and resilient is. Because of their new training.

So they are more willing to experiment. To try new approaches. They don’t go to the public to consult them. Or to even school them.

They go with more open questions. They are in search continuously of new frame works or new approaches and that is quite encouraging.

That is opening up a completely different way of engaging with the cities. To go less as a regulator and to go more as a facilitator as an enabler.

As a person who is ready to search and find the solution and the innovation together with a person. Together with the community.

[ega-talks]

Gil Kelley, Cities can lead change

Gil Kelley is the General Manager of Planning, Urban Design and Sustainability at City of Vancouver. B.C. Canada. He is an internationally-recognized urban strategist and visionary and have served as chief planner for several West Coast cities in America as well as an independent advisor to cities and governments across the globe.

FILMED IN AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND, 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future

I think that it’s it’s an important moment for cities. It’s a good moment and unique moment, in the history of the world.

In some ways we need to go back and remember that urbanization was a phenomenon that led to a lot of cultural advancement, both in terms of knowledge in the arts but also in terms of technological advancement.

We’ve been through a period where national governments have ascended to be the main unit of governance in the world. But I think now, we need to look to cities to be the leaders and the people really advancing change.

There’s no more critical change right now that needs to be addressed than climate change. Reducing our carbon footprint globally. As many of us know

Cities are leading the way in those kinds of solutions. I think going beyond just the superficial, the moment calls for us to think differently about cities. We’re breaking down all the constituent parts of what it means to be an urban environment and we put them back together again in a new way.

For me a couple of the guiding principles in doing that work are: Health, what does it mean to have a healthy population? Both physically, emotionally and spiritually.

What does it mean to have an earth that can be sustained? Bio-systems that can be sustained. We’re way past the notion that cities are where the hardscape is, we are where all the people are and nature is outside the city and that will be good enough. We know that we have to have a very different conception of what it is to be an urban dweller.

The notion of sustainability, health and long-term economic productivity. Goes to reconceiving the city as a place that has living systems in it.

There’s plenty of green. It has social gathering spaces. Mixes up the uses that we often separate. In the sort of mono-functional districts. An office district, residential district to an entertainment district. We should begin to really break the scale of those down and mix them up all together.

I think some of the technological advances are going to be helping us in that regard. Whether it has to do with the accessibility to all things via the internet.

Whether it has to do with potentially non fuel based autonomous vehicles that can do the short pieces. Investment in newer transport technologies. These kinds of things I think will enable a new kind of city-making, that we’ve been able to have in the past.

As we invent new solutions for deriving energy from clean sources, in fact just reducing the demand for energy in all of our buildings. In our transport system even in our manufacturing systems. I think all those things will be building one upon the other.

We’ll see a big acceleration from what we’ve seen before and the cost of those improvements will come down. The unit cost will come down.

It does mean being open and rethinking the way we live and work. A lot of that is just asking ourselves,

How do we want to live and work? How much do we care about the planet and the survivability of our culture for two three four more generations to come?

Because I think there’s no question that there is a threat, to the next generation from climate change.

Vancouver has done a fairly remarkable job for a city of its size. To really prioritize reducing the carbon footprint of the city.

It’s a moderately sized city, about 650,000 people. Roughly two and a half million in the metro area. It inherited a spectacular physical setting. Mountains, sea, dramatic landscape, pinned in by mountains and by an agricultural land preserve.

So spaces are scares and Vancouver has had to build in and not out. Build up. Along the way turned it’s environmentally ethos into aspects of city building. That are proven to be quite dramatic, in terms of environmental benefits.

We like to call ourselves the greenest city. I think we have tried to borrow lessons from European cities and others. Around everything from district energy to passive house design, robust electrical transport system. Banning certain materials and products etc.

We try to put as many of those best practices together as we’re can. Using the city organization as a corporate entity first to try out all these practices on ourselves and then ultimately encouraging them and require those of the community and the private sector.

[ega-talks]

Piero Pelizzaro , Sustainable cities with the capability to handle crisis

Piero Pelizzaro is the chief Resilience Officer at Milan municipality.

FILMED IN MILAN, SWEDEN, 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.

Sustainability and resilience is for many people one term on the top of the other. In my opinion, it’s a story of an evolution.

For approximately 50 years we have had an ideology of sustainability. Sustainability was designed at a time when the economy was growing linear and the resources were the balancing between the growth of the economy and the use of resources.

But since then we have started to see different shocks and crises happening in the economy as well as in our society. We saw the economy changing from a linear economy to a economy that was going more up and down.

That required at the global scale and even at the city level an upgrade from the sustainability approach into the resilience approach.

Because now, with the timing of the planet boundaries. One of the main response of the cities is to be capable to anticipate as much as possible. To manage in case of crisis.

Crisis in different terms, not only in terms of natural resources. But also in terms of, for an example, cybersecurity and cyber attacks. Crisis such as social crisis due to the lack of affordable housing or due to the high unemployment rate, that has happened over the last few years in the south of Europe. For an example in Italy, Greece and Spain.

Sustainability is much focus on on natural resources. Resilience is broader approach to the city and on the city level.

We don’t need to develop specific solutions to make a city more resilient. We need to augment the capability of the city. To be ready to anticipate or to manage the crisis.

I’m highlighting this point, coming from the sustainability and the climate change background. So I still believe that sustainability is essential for balancing the use of Natural Resources.We need to be more sustainable and reduce the use of resources. We need to make as much as possible of the existing reserves circularly. In order to have a more sustainable economy and  to reduce the risks.

Ten years ago, I worked in Estonia in Tallinn. My director was Johan Rockström, from the Stockholm environment institute. I had no idea of what resilience was at that time.

I got a couple of meeting with Johan. He was based in Stockholm and I got inspired by his perspective that you don’t have to solve problems. You have to manage problems with an integrated approach. Because the risks and crisis will come back

It’s like in life. One day you fine and the day after you have the fever and then you are fine again. Maybe after a couple of years the fevers comes back. We need to be capable to manage this. What is inspiring me is this capability. That you have to solve problems looking more at the process and the capability of coping with problems.

At the same time resilience it’s a concept. A world that is used in different domains. They use it in engineering, material engineering. They use it in biology. They use it in ICT. They use resilience in infrastructure. Urban planners love resilience.

So it’s a common word. Normally every kind of profession has their own words and they try to protect themselves from the other. With resilience they find a common ground. So that makes me inspired. When trying to make my colleagues, but also the community.The private and the public, working together in design in a better future for the city of Milan.

I always remember when my grandfather told me that after the Second World War. All of the communities they got close to each other. To rebuild the country after the world war. That shows the resilience perception that we have. It’s a feeling of resilience when you decide all together. That even if we got the biggest crisis ever in the country. Now it’s time to put together our capacity and move forward.

After a tragedy, everybody say we should start from the beginning. Just delete the past and start from the beginning. I disagree with this. Because in every tragedy there is always a flower. That is capable to survive. That flower is the initial point. This way of thinking is resilience to me.

In the city we have now the capability to start from some of our capabilities. We had in the south part of the city. Until few months ago a big park where people who were drug addicted would come. This become a problem. Also a problem in terms of accessibility of a green park and a green area for us.

Together with an environmental Association the municipality started to clean up. What happened was that due to the lack of presence in the area the nature was growing naturally. They realized that this had become something unbelievable and unique. Because nature was growing on it’s own without any kind of limitation. So we decided to clean up the whole area with our hands and not with Machines. Because we wanted to preserve what is the ”chaos” in the nature.

It is something that it’s also important to understand that sometimes you don’t have to clean or to design a better environment because the nature itself is capable to manage itself. The city is quite the same sometimes. Should we always have a strategy or vision or a grand design? Or should it be a ”chaotic” or a ”chaos” approach in a proper way? That builds the future of the city. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have rules for safety or for health issues etc.

Why should we always define the limits of something? Can we try to make this flow of innovation and capabilities going on their own?

What we can do, is to say how we can enable changing and we think that the city doesn’t have to fix a perfect plan. As an enabler, my role is enabling the changes and the transformation.

[ega-talks]

Swaminathan Ramanathan , A question of the human condition

Swaminathan Ramanathan is visiting researcher at Uppsala universitet, Gotland, Sweden.

FILMED IN MALMÖ, SWEDEN, 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.

A lot of people define city in terms of either places or spaces or a collection of infrastructure. Whether it’s our infrastructure or soft infrastructure. But the way I look at a city is that the city is a collection of different human subjectivities.

I think when we look at a city. We to often look at the city as something of an externality. When we look at something as an externality, we don’t see it as part of our ownership and stakeholdership framework. We think that the city is external to us.

If you really think this through and really start questioning it. You see that there is no reason for us to think of the city as an externality or as an external structure.

It is something that is established by our own consciousness. By our own mindfulness. By our thoughtfulness. So it is as much of a of an infrastructural construct. As much as it is a construct, that is of political, social and economic nature. It’s a cultural construct.

It’s an anthropological construct. It is, as an anthropological construct going to be populated by several stories. Several ethnographies. It is in those ethnographies which are located within within different kinds of urban spaces and places, that you define a city as an organism. In some way or the other, you are able to feel the city, just as the city is able to feel you.

When someone asks you, in a very honest manner. ”What do you think about your favorite city?” You don’t talk about the train system or the bus system or or the kind of high-rises that you live in or the kind of large house that you live in.

You don’t even talk about the city in terms of large open spaces. You talk about the city like a warm friend.

So if a Stockholm is a city that is functional and works hard and fast. That is a cultural feeling that you get. If Malmö is an open city and an inclusive city and its friendly for kids. That’s also a cultural morning.

So in some way or the other, in the end of the day. A city becomes a human subjectivity. It is a reflection of the human subjectivity and it also becomes a repository of human subjectivity. In some way or the other it shapes you, just as much as you shape a city.

When you define a city in that manner and you define the city in human terms. It has to be an organism. It has to be organic. The term organism comes from the fact that it is organic. If it is organic then you have to see it as a  living body. If you’re going to see it as a living body. You can’t say that I’m going to develop only the ”arms” and the ”legs”. Just like the human body you have to treat the city in an holistic manner.

It is in holistic that framework, that you have to start looking at urban planning, thinking and urbanism. From the point of view of creating an organic whole. Rather than as a set of different modules.

We could look at planning as something that cannot be defined in a manner that is standalone. You can’t say that I’m going to do traffic planning and not take into account that traffic planning is connected to mobility and mobility is connected to people staying in a particular place and people staying in a particular place is completely dependent on a whole host of factors.

Depending on their purchasing power, depending on how equal or unequal that city is. Depending on what kind of access do you have to the different kinds of city spaces? What kind of opportunity cost you have to pay in order to access this space?

So a city that is extremely unequal will have extremely well developed parts of the city and extremely underdeveloped and undeveloped parts of the city.

When you try and ask an organic hole or an organism or a body. To start interacting with very well-developed parts with underdeveloped parts. You’re going to have a problem. That’s what happens in several cities where inequalities and inequities creates a first-world part at one level and third-world parts in other parts of the city.  

That that’s something that contributes to vulnerabilities. That’s something that contributes to lack of sustainability and resilience. If you reduce those vulnerabilities and if you try and say that vulnerability is essentially about two points.

It is about access and it’s about equity. If you put access and equity together in saying that everything has to have an equitable access. Whether it’s equitable access to energy. Equitable access to spaces. Equitable access to social capital. Equitable access to economic and physical capital.

Then you’re going to increase sustainability and resilience of a city. Because in making everything equitable and accessible, you’re going to create a more inclusive City. And in creating an inclusive City, you’re going to create a community of people who will stand for each other. Who will understand each other’s problems better. Who will have a better communication with each other.

Simply because of the fact, that there is openness. There’s transparency.There’s accountability. Each one is able to interact and engage with each other. There are countless number of spaces and places where people can know their problems. People can come together. People can debate different kinds of issues. That is, in that sense, true urbanism for me.

Today sustainability and resilience are both seen as questions of ecology and environment. I see them not as much as a question of ecology, environment or of nature. As a question of the human condition.

If you reduce the amount of vulnerabilities that a human being has to encounter in an urban space. I think it’s a little bit of a connected ecosystem. Where reduction of vulnerability, leads to a increase in sustainability and increase in residence. In some way of the other.

[ega-talks]

Thomas Sichelkow , The sustainable city adapted to the local context

Thomas Sichelkow is senior is project manager at Climate-KIC in Copenhagen, Denmark. A European knowledge and innovation community, working to accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon economy

FILMED IN COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.

For me there’s two key elements to the sustainable city.

There is people. It’s all about people living together in cities if that doesn’t work then the cities won’t work so you need to be creating good livable cities for people

Secondly you have to create sustainable cities whatever that means in the local context. You can’t say that one solution that will work in Denmark will work in Rio de Janeiro, Budapest, Cape Town etc. You have to find a solution for each local context.

You can then take what works in one city and adapt it to another city and that’s what we do here at Climate-KIC where I work. We are an EU-funded organization to help reach the two degrees of warming.

We’ve said that cities are the key to this. This is where a lot of the activity is happening and a lot of energy use is happening. So how do we then help and go in to make sure that what’s happening in Madrid can become an interesting solution for Cape Town or San Francisco?

How do we get that knowledge spreading quickly because if we just let the markets do this, things will go too slowly. This is where the cities have a very important role, the national governments and the private sector. This is where we go in and help to coordinate. For us a key to sustainable cities is to show off a well-functioning solution and go out and inspire people on a lot of different levels.

It inspires me when we make a difference. When you can see people being happy and people taking ownership of their areas. Going out and wanting to make a difference themselves.

I think some of the best examples are when you find a big energy system. To be honest people don’t care about it, they just want their house to be warm. But when they can go in and find out. What is my role of this? What is the company’s role in this? What is the city role in this? When you see these things happening and you actually see that change happening, much quicker. That is incredibly interesting.

Quite often we see it’s easy to do the technical side of things. The technical solutions are there. We have brilliant architects who can do beautiful houses where people can live. We have urban planners doing beautiful cities with good energy systems.

But it’s when you get to the next levels, asking yourself, how do you implement this? This is where it becomes becomes technical, that’s where I find it very inspirational. To say: Okay we can actually make this work.

If we put these people in the room and set the context right and then help to support them afterwards. Then all of a sudden you will have not only the mayor making a visionary statement, but also the people at the ground level going in and supporting this and getting all the elements working together.

I think that’s critical because without that it just becomes either a vision from the top which is difficult to implement. Or small projects which don’t have an impact.

I think it’s very important to have that balance. Between people having a good city and a sustainable city. Because if you go out and make the perfect sustainable city. It’s not necessarily going to be a success. Or if you make the perfect city for people. It might end up having five degrees of global warming because it’s a terrible city. We need to get that balance right.

Very often we get the question. This is great it works over here, but it’s never going to work in our local context. Why should I be making a difference when it’s not gonna happen? So this is why we focus very often on how it makes an impact locally.

Then we can leave the big climate change discussion and focus on how can we make your local environment better?  So  that you will be getting a better better district or a better neighborhood and at the same time making sure that those climate change and the co2 reduction become elements in that.

Taking point of departure in people’s everyday lives or companies organizations. How do we help improve that? To get the bigger goal.

One of the best examples I think is water. It’s very tangible. It’s very important at the moment. Some cities don’t have enough of it and some have too much. When we see the way a lot of our systems are set up, it’s just plain stupid. That we put everything in pipes and then we mix it with with  sewage water and then we clean that. We spend a lot of energy doing that that. It makes no sense. But there are systems where you can divide these things up. Technically it makes sense. It’s still just pipes in the ground.

What we have worked with is how do you keep the water in an area? Water is an attractive quality. So instead of just saying okay this is a technical thing, that we have to hide away. How do we create lakes and wetlands systems which create value for the local area? If you create an identity and at the same time work with utility companies.

We have to make sure that water is clean enough so that when it goes into the streams it doesn’t pollute. Getting all those technical things working. But when people see the system they still see a beautiful wetland system.

When I presented this for the local area we worked with. Their focus was not on if we could help with water and do the aqua filter levels. They asked if they could kayak up and down the system. Fist I said ”That’s not the point” But after a while we realized that taking a kayak in the water, was important for people. That connection, then meant that people starting focusing on the water quality? Can I go fishing? Can I go swimming in this?

That means that people were focusing on reducing water use and making better solutions. That project worked very well and people still post pictures of that that area out there. Even when they go ice skating on it, in the winter. So it’s was a big success. Changing something technical into something which is a quality for people, without them having to go out and reduce their water use every day or make all sorts of complicated solutions.