WEBVTT 00:00:13.715 --> 00:00:15.321 I can say we have to become 00:00:15.321 --> 00:00:17.683 more than just designers 00:00:17.683 --> 00:00:20.244 of the two dimensional facades 00:00:20.244 --> 00:00:21.881 or three dimensional architectural objects. 00:00:21.881 --> 00:00:23.618 We have to become 00:00:23.618 --> 00:00:27.630 designers of ecosystems, systems of both 00:00:27.630 --> 00:00:30.402 ecology and economy that channel 00:00:30.402 --> 00:00:31.787 not only the flow of people 00:00:31.787 --> 00:00:32.847 throughout cities and buildings, 00:00:32.847 --> 00:00:34.631 but also the flow of resources 00:00:34.631 --> 00:00:37.514 like heat, energy, waste and water 00:00:37.514 --> 00:00:41.346 into this sort of perpetual motion engines, 00:00:41.346 --> 00:00:44.116 which is sort of stop seeing our presence, 00:00:44.116 --> 00:00:45.899 the human presence, on the planet earth 00:00:45.899 --> 00:00:48.881 as a sort of detrimental to our eco-system, 00:00:48.881 --> 00:00:52.040 but actually tries to sort of integrate and incorporate 00:00:52.040 --> 00:00:54.614 our consumption patterns and our leftovers 00:00:54.614 --> 00:00:57.468 into our natural environment. 00:00:57.468 --> 00:01:01.630 The reason for this sort of expanded role of the architect 00:01:01.630 --> 00:01:06.347 is because of the atmosphere you capture in this image. 00:01:06.347 --> 00:01:09.032 It was taken at the COP 15, 00:01:09.032 --> 00:01:10.764 the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, 00:01:10.764 --> 00:01:12.232 in Copenhagen, a year and a half ago, 00:01:12.232 --> 00:01:16.144 and as you can see, you know, Sarkozy and Brown 00:01:16.144 --> 00:01:20.432 and Merkel and even Obama, it wasn't exactly a party. 00:01:20.432 --> 00:01:21.813 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:01:21.813 --> 00:01:25.117 It was like a -- it was a complete failure. 00:01:25.117 --> 00:01:27.110 Essentially none of the goals 00:01:27.110 --> 00:01:29.549 that had been established for the meeting were met, 00:01:29.549 --> 00:01:31.952 and the generals of discussion about sustainability 00:01:31.952 --> 00:01:35.587 was sort of drowning in this general misconception 00:01:35.587 --> 00:01:38.753 that sustainability is a question of how much 00:01:38.753 --> 00:01:42.503 of our existing quality of life are we prepared to sacrifice 00:01:42.503 --> 00:01:45.833 in order to afford becoming sustainable. 00:01:45.833 --> 00:01:47.961 Almost like this sort of protestant idea 00:01:47.961 --> 00:01:49.517 that it has to hurt to do good. 00:01:49.517 --> 00:01:53.302 But sustainability can't be like 00:01:53.302 --> 00:01:55.650 some kind of moral sacrifice 00:01:55.650 --> 00:01:59.222 or political dilemma or even like a philanthropical cause, 00:01:59.222 --> 00:02:01.621 it has to be a design challenge. 00:02:01.621 --> 00:02:05.267 So, when we were sort of recently asked to do 00:02:05.267 --> 00:02:08.312 the Danish pavillion for the Shanghai World Expo 00:02:08.312 --> 00:02:10.778 that was focusing on sustainable cities 00:02:10.778 --> 00:02:13.524 we tried to ask ourselves if there was another sustainability 00:02:13.524 --> 00:02:15.941 than this sort of sad depressing one. 00:02:15.941 --> 00:02:18.484 We tried to ask ourselves if we could find examples 00:02:18.484 --> 00:02:21.021 where sustainable cities and buildings 00:02:21.021 --> 00:02:23.689 actually increased life quality. 00:02:23.689 --> 00:02:25.889 So we decided to make the pavillion 00:02:25.889 --> 00:02:27.694 as a sort of a condensation of how 00:02:27.694 --> 00:02:30.125 Danish cities through their sustainable design 00:02:30.125 --> 00:02:32.608 actually increase life quality. 00:02:32.608 --> 00:02:35.513 We can see the pavillion as a sort of loop of a Danish street 00:02:35.513 --> 00:02:38.805 complete with the blue bicycle lanes of Copenhagen, 00:02:38.805 --> 00:02:40.937 because in Copenhagen 37% 00:02:40.937 --> 00:02:43.119 of the Copenhageners commute by bike, 00:02:43.119 --> 00:02:45.764 so people visiting could actually feel how cool it is 00:02:45.764 --> 00:02:47.531 to ride a bike through the city instead of sitting 00:02:47.531 --> 00:02:52.444 in a traffic jam or looking endlessly for a parking spot. 00:02:52.444 --> 00:02:55.864 Also in Copenhagen, our harbour water 00:02:55.864 --> 00:02:57.913 has become so clean that you can swim in it, 00:02:57.913 --> 00:03:00.381 so that you don't have to, like, take the bus for hours 00:03:00.381 --> 00:03:02.034 to go to the Hamptons, 00:03:02.034 --> 00:03:05.049 you can actually jump in the port. 00:03:05.049 --> 00:03:07.212 So at the heart of the pavillion 00:03:07.212 --> 00:03:09.097 we allow the visitors to experience on their own body 00:03:09.097 --> 00:03:14.686 how clean, if not how cold, the Danish harbour water is. 00:03:14.686 --> 00:03:17.379 And in the middle of this sort of harbour bath 00:03:17.379 --> 00:03:20.880 we decided to place the little mermaid of Denmark, 00:03:20.880 --> 00:03:24.848 not a copy of the mermaid, we actually moved her to China. 00:03:24.848 --> 00:03:28.320 We had to wrestle her out of the hand of the Danish 00:03:28.320 --> 00:03:30.994 equivalent of the tea party, who was trying to 00:03:30.994 --> 00:03:33.881 pass a law specifically against moving the mermaid, 00:03:33.881 --> 00:03:38.109 we had to get her through Chinese customs. 00:03:38.109 --> 00:03:40.438 (Laughter) 00:03:40.438 --> 00:03:42.122 And there she is! 00:03:42.122 --> 00:03:47.414 In her absence we invited the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei 00:03:47.414 --> 00:03:51.135 to sort of install an installation. 00:03:51.135 --> 00:03:54.172 He installed a Chinese surveillance camera. 00:03:54.172 --> 00:03:56.265 It's the same Chinese surveillance camera 00:03:56.265 --> 00:03:59.469 the Chinese State has installed in front of his house. 00:03:59.469 --> 00:04:01.954 This one, however, was part of an installation 00:04:01.954 --> 00:04:04.258 he called "The mermaid exchange". 00:04:04.258 --> 00:04:06.048 It was transmitting a live image 00:04:06.048 --> 00:04:07.782 to a giant flat screen 00:04:07.782 --> 00:04:10.597 so that the Copenhagen tourists that went in vain 00:04:10.597 --> 00:04:16.834 would sort of see that she was alright. 00:04:16.834 --> 00:04:17.974 But sort of more importantly, 00:04:17.974 --> 00:04:19.794 for the six months of the duration of the Expo 00:04:19.794 --> 00:04:22.398 it became like this sort of, the only sort of 00:04:22.398 --> 00:04:27.218 TV feed from China to the rest of the world, 00:04:27.218 --> 00:04:30.765 trasmitting a sort of uncensored live footage, 00:04:30.765 --> 00:04:32.889 almost turning Copenhagen 00:04:32.889 --> 00:04:36.634 into this sort of global speakers' corner for China. 00:04:36.634 --> 00:04:41.079 Sadly, Ai Weiwei has now been sort of silenced, 00:04:41.079 --> 00:04:43.058 like this critical voice of China 00:04:43.058 --> 00:04:45.440 has actually been captured by the government, 00:04:45.440 --> 00:04:48.578 and has been missing for the last six weeks. 00:04:48.578 --> 00:04:50.808 But sort of back in the pavillion, we can say like, 00:04:50.808 --> 00:04:52.369 to just sum it up, what we wanted to 00:04:52.369 --> 00:04:56.552 try to do, was to show how, essentially, 00:04:56.552 --> 00:04:59.014 sustainable life can be more fun than normal life. 00:04:59.014 --> 00:05:00.536 And as a sort of litmus test, 00:05:00.536 --> 00:05:02.865 this is the first image we've pubblished 00:05:02.865 --> 00:05:05.915 of the Danish pavillion. 00:05:05.915 --> 00:05:08.212 You notice the red rectangle. 00:05:08.212 --> 00:05:10.398 This is the first image or one of the first images 00:05:10.398 --> 00:05:12.323 pubblished of Iron man 2, 00:05:12.323 --> 00:05:16.330 showing Tony Stark's Mad Science Expo, 00:05:16.330 --> 00:05:19.333 and if you sort of compare the two rectangles. 00:05:19.333 --> 00:05:21.035 This is Hollywood and this Shanghai, 00:05:21.035 --> 00:05:24.097 so first of all like this is, this is big business 00:05:24.097 --> 00:05:27.365 it's America, the land of litigation, we should 00:05:27.365 --> 00:05:30.098 we should sue them and get rich. 00:05:30.098 --> 00:05:31.203 But then we thought 00:05:31.203 --> 00:05:33.585 that sort of Coco Chanel said that copying 00:05:33.585 --> 00:05:36.184 is the highest form of compliment, and you know, 00:05:36.184 --> 00:05:38.848 if Hollywood starts using our sustainable architecture 00:05:38.848 --> 00:05:40.765 to portrait science fiction, it could be a sign 00:05:40.765 --> 00:05:45.380 that we are moving towards hedonistic sustainability. 00:05:45.380 --> 00:05:48.182 So another idea we've been working on 00:05:48.182 --> 00:05:49.947 to try to build this idea of how 00:05:49.947 --> 00:05:53.160 artificial design can actually be most of, 00:05:53.160 --> 00:05:56.998 be environmentally aware but also increase life quality. 00:05:56.998 --> 00:05:59.813 We started a project we called "The Mountain", in Copenhagen 00:05:59.813 --> 00:06:01.945 It's essentially a combination 00:06:01.945 --> 00:06:05.738 of a big parking building and an apartment building, 00:06:05.738 --> 00:06:07.838 but the parking creates a man-made mountain 00:06:07.838 --> 00:06:11.350 that lifts all the apartments up in the sun and the view, 00:06:11.350 --> 00:06:13.654 creating this sort of houses with gardens, 00:06:13.654 --> 00:06:16.730 but in the middle of the Danish city. 00:06:16.730 --> 00:06:18.504 We called this idea architectural alchemy, 00:06:18.504 --> 00:06:20.473 because it's this idea that by mixing 00:06:20.473 --> 00:06:22.902 traditional ingredients, like parkings and apartments, 00:06:22.902 --> 00:06:25.627 you can actually create if not gold, 00:06:25.627 --> 00:06:28.431 then at least added value. 00:06:28.431 --> 00:06:30.658 We took this idea one step further 00:06:30.658 --> 00:06:32.847 in a project in Copenhagen, 00:06:32.847 --> 00:06:36.082 where sort of by mixing shops and offices, 00:06:36.082 --> 00:06:39.046 town houses and apartments, putting them in a 00:06:39.046 --> 00:06:41.708 stak where they occupy their favourite position 00:06:41.708 --> 00:06:44.286 distorting the block to sort of maximise 00:06:44.286 --> 00:06:47.492 views for the apartments and access to sunlight, 00:06:47.492 --> 00:06:50.535 we created this building we call "The 8 House", 00:06:50.535 --> 00:06:52.780 named after its shape. 00:06:52.780 --> 00:06:54.974 And this sort of approach 00:06:54.974 --> 00:06:58.015 doesn't only allow us to optimize the individual position 00:06:58.015 --> 00:07:00.900 of the different parts of the program, 00:07:00.900 --> 00:07:03.630 like leaving shops and offices on the street, 00:07:03.630 --> 00:07:05.331 lifting the town houses with gardens 00:07:05.331 --> 00:07:10.596 up into the sunshine, but it also sort of allows 00:07:10.596 --> 00:07:13.420 public life, which is traditionally 00:07:13.420 --> 00:07:15.380 restricted to occurring on street level, 00:07:15.380 --> 00:07:18.162 to actually invade the three dimensional space 00:07:18.162 --> 00:07:20.768 of the urban block, so that the 8 House in Copenhagen 00:07:20.768 --> 00:07:23.641 is not, you know, a two dimensional facade design 00:07:23.641 --> 00:07:24.756 or even a three dimensional 00:07:24.756 --> 00:07:27.246 architectural object, it's a sort of three dimensional 00:07:27.246 --> 00:07:31.347 urban condition that allows, public life 00:07:31.347 --> 00:07:34.682 the possibility for spontaneous social encounters, 00:07:34.682 --> 00:07:37.996 to actually invade the normally private space 00:07:37.996 --> 00:07:39.365 of the urban block and reach 00:07:39.365 --> 00:07:43.614 the penthouse of the city. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:43.614 --> 00:07:47.109 So this building is at the edge 00:07:47.109 --> 00:07:50.457 of Copenhagen, basically at the city limits, 00:07:50.457 --> 00:07:54.100 so you have this clash of life forms. 00:07:54.100 --> 00:07:58.196 The last idea in the 8 House, it is essentially 00:07:58.196 --> 00:07:59.698 like a private developer project, 00:07:59.698 --> 00:08:01.987 built for private apartments and town houses, 00:08:01.987 --> 00:08:04.711 but somehow it has this sort of generosity 00:08:04.711 --> 00:08:07.827 towards the city that it invites public life into it. 00:08:07.827 --> 00:08:10.271 This sort of idea of public participation, 00:08:10.271 --> 00:08:12.668 we took one step further in a project 00:08:12.668 --> 00:08:15.106 we did for the new city hall in Tallin. 00:08:15.106 --> 00:08:17.439 We thought that instead of having 00:08:17.439 --> 00:08:19.122 this sort of traditional dicotomy of the 00:08:19.122 --> 00:08:21.361 politicians inside and the public outside, 00:08:21.361 --> 00:08:24.897 we would harbour the city hall above the ground 00:08:24.897 --> 00:08:28.975 allowing the public to invade the ground floor 00:08:28.975 --> 00:08:31.382 in what we called the public service market place, 00:08:31.382 --> 00:08:34.076 where they can interact with the public servants 00:08:34.076 --> 00:08:37.772 and even sort of see the politicians at work. 00:08:37.772 --> 00:08:39.899 We called it the public village, 00:08:39.899 --> 00:08:42.147 because it is essentially like an accumulation of all 00:08:42.147 --> 00:08:43.869 of the different departments that have their own building. 00:08:43.869 --> 00:08:47.162 They sort of merge to form a 00:08:47.162 --> 00:08:50.248 a sort of a single consolidated village. 00:08:50.248 --> 00:08:51.996 In one place we invited the people of Tallin 00:08:51.996 --> 00:08:55.131 to access the roof and enjoy the panorama 00:08:55.131 --> 00:08:57.930 of the surrounding city. 00:08:57.930 --> 00:09:00.345 And finally in the masterplan they wanted 00:09:00.345 --> 00:09:02.221 a tower, because like in Europe 00:09:02.221 --> 00:09:04.833 it's hard to imagine a city hall without a tower. 00:09:04.833 --> 00:09:07.575 So we thought, what are we going to do with the tower? 00:09:07.575 --> 00:09:09.097 We thought, why don't we place 00:09:09.097 --> 00:09:11.149 the city council inside the tower? 00:09:11.149 --> 00:09:14.847 So we created this incredibly generous space for political reflection. 00:09:14.847 --> 00:09:17.137 The ceiling is made as a giant mirror, 00:09:17.137 --> 00:09:19.790 so that when politicians have to make difficult decisions, 00:09:19.790 --> 00:09:21.887 all they have to do is to look up, 00:09:21.887 --> 00:09:24.898 and they get this sort of periscopic overview 00:09:24.898 --> 00:09:28.270 of the city that they are actually messing with. 00:09:28.270 --> 00:09:30.432 (Applause) 00:09:30.432 --> 00:09:32.564 But as a sort of a side effect, 00:09:32.564 --> 00:09:35.555 when the angry citizens gather to demonstrate, 00:09:35.555 --> 00:09:38.986 they get this perfect insight, 00:09:38.986 --> 00:09:41.015 they can see, you know, 00:09:41.015 --> 00:09:42.940 if politicians are missing, if they are sleeping, 00:09:42.940 --> 00:09:45.667 if they are playing Angry Birds. 00:09:45.667 --> 00:09:48.596 So we called it 00:09:48.596 --> 00:09:50.314 the democratic periscope 00:09:50.314 --> 00:09:53.715 that combines political overview with public insight. 00:09:53.715 --> 00:09:55.879 And to our extreme luck the City council 00:09:55.879 --> 00:09:57.834 liked the idea and we are now building 00:09:57.834 --> 00:10:00.769 this sort of architectural relaxation 00:10:00.769 --> 00:10:04.332 of radical political transparency. 00:10:04.332 --> 00:10:08.416 So these three ideas we tried to bring together in 00:10:08.416 --> 00:10:12.598 what is, until now, our biggest 00:10:12.598 --> 00:10:14.625 project, it combines 00:10:14.625 --> 00:10:16.270 this idea of hedonistic sustainability 00:10:16.270 --> 00:10:19.016 with this sort of architectural alchemy and this 00:10:19.016 --> 00:10:21.181 notion of public participation. 00:10:21.181 --> 00:10:23.858 It's located within a masterplan 00:10:23.858 --> 00:10:25.980 we were commissioned by the 10 municipalities 00:10:25.980 --> 00:10:29.024 of Metropolitan Copenhagen, to do a plan 00:10:29.024 --> 00:10:32.348 according to, like along the new train line 00:10:32.348 --> 00:10:34.764 that would connect all the municipalities. 00:10:34.764 --> 00:10:37.290 What we proposed in return to saying 00:10:37.290 --> 00:10:40.767 why just focus on Copenhagen, or even Denmark, 00:10:40.767 --> 00:10:44.349 right on the other side of the Oresund waters 00:10:44.349 --> 00:10:47.830 we have Sweden, southern Sweden. 00:10:47.830 --> 00:10:49.898 It is sort of the most densely populated 00:10:49.898 --> 00:10:51.996 and most economically active region 00:10:51.996 --> 00:10:55.309 in Scandinavia, and by adding a simple 3 mile bridge 00:10:55.309 --> 00:10:57.514 we could actually connect it all 00:10:57.514 --> 00:11:00.200 into a sort of a single bi-national 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:02.730 metropolitan region where no area 00:11:02.730 --> 00:11:05.139 is further away than fourty minutes 00:11:05.139 --> 00:11:07.861 by public transportation. 00:11:07.861 --> 00:11:09.764 And it wouldn't just be like an infrastructure 00:11:09.764 --> 00:11:12.080 for public transportation, it would also be 00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:14.444 an infrastructure for waste management, 00:11:14.444 --> 00:11:16.567 for water management, for energy, 00:11:16.567 --> 00:11:18.213 combining a smart grid that combines 00:11:18.213 --> 00:11:20.164 hydro electricity from Sweden 00:11:20.164 --> 00:11:23.587 with wind power from Denmark. 00:11:23.587 --> 00:11:25.782 It connects all of the most prosperous businesses 00:11:25.782 --> 00:11:28.850 in the entire region and by merging it 00:11:28.850 --> 00:11:31.038 and making it sort of a bi-national masterplan. 00:11:31.038 --> 00:11:33.295 We also introduced 00:11:33.295 --> 00:11:37.481 pink in the flag for the first time. (Laughter) 00:11:37.481 --> 00:11:39.547 It has exactly the same size 00:11:39.547 --> 00:11:41.122 as the San Francisco Bay area. 00:11:41.122 --> 00:11:42.474 So it is actually quite likely 00:11:42.474 --> 00:11:44.981 sort of a regional planning size, 00:11:44.981 --> 00:11:46.499 just because of the national boundaries, 00:11:46.499 --> 00:11:49.895 this sort of holistic perspective has never been applied. 00:11:49.895 --> 00:11:51.732 And our idea was to instead of focusing 00:11:51.732 --> 00:11:53.277 on the individual infrastructure, 00:11:53.277 --> 00:11:55.696 to actually merge it all, so that the train line is also 00:11:55.696 --> 00:11:58.973 the first faced densification of the downtown areas. 00:11:58.973 --> 00:12:00.465 The train really stops 00:12:00.465 --> 00:12:02.742 at the heart of the different neighbourhoods. 00:12:02.742 --> 00:12:05.380 And finally, since we are combining 00:12:05.380 --> 00:12:08.051 industry, commerce and residential 00:12:08.051 --> 00:12:09.855 we are proposing that perhaps 00:12:09.855 --> 00:12:11.965 the excess energy from the power production 00:12:11.965 --> 00:12:13.748 of the industry could become 00:12:13.748 --> 00:12:17.480 like a human programme, like thermal baths. 00:12:17.480 --> 00:12:20.246 So this could sound like sort of science fiction 00:12:20.246 --> 00:12:22.747 or the Jetsons, but to take it to 00:12:22.747 --> 00:12:25.617 something really tangible, this is going to be the first 00:12:25.617 --> 00:12:29.282 building that we're completing within the Loop city. 00:12:29.282 --> 00:12:32.530 It's a waste-to-energy plant. 00:12:32.530 --> 00:12:36.683 In Copenhagen we only landfill 4% of our waste -- 00:12:36.683 --> 00:12:39.968 as an example in Chicago it is 85% -- 00:12:39.968 --> 00:12:42.135 42% gets recycled, 00:12:42.135 --> 00:12:50.264 and 54% is essentially used as fuel to create heat and electricity. 00:12:50.264 --> 00:12:53.026 97% of the homes in Copenhagen have district heating, 00:12:53.026 --> 00:12:55.039 so they don't spend any energy on heating 00:12:55.039 --> 00:12:57.814 in a very cold country, they get it all as excess heat 00:12:57.814 --> 00:12:59.976 from the power production. 00:12:59.976 --> 00:13:02.092 And essentially they form this loop 00:13:02.092 --> 00:13:04.545 that people give their trash to the incineration plant 00:13:04.545 --> 00:13:06.963 and they get it back as power. 00:13:06.963 --> 00:13:09.414 So as a thumb rule, three kilos of 00:13:09.414 --> 00:13:12.031 household trash turn into four hours of electricity 00:13:12.031 --> 00:13:15.693 and five hours of heating. And just to give you an idea of 00:13:15.693 --> 00:13:18.818 this resource, one tonne of waste is almost 00:13:18.818 --> 00:13:21.396 two barrels of oil. But essentially 00:13:21.396 --> 00:13:23.372 this is a power plant like any other, 00:13:23.372 --> 00:13:26.083 it's a big, ugly, boxy factory 00:13:26.083 --> 00:13:27.885 that casts shadow on the neighbours 00:13:27.885 --> 00:13:30.498 and blocks the view, so the city wanted, 00:13:30.498 --> 00:13:32.532 since it is located in downtown Copenhagen, 00:13:32.532 --> 00:13:34.767 to somehow try to make it beautiful. 00:13:34.767 --> 00:13:36.770 It should be a gift to the city, 00:13:36.770 --> 00:13:39.847 said the CEO of the plant. 00:13:39.847 --> 00:13:42.368 So this is not only going to be the biggest building 00:13:42.368 --> 00:13:44.465 in Copenhagen, it is also going to be the tallest, 00:13:44.465 --> 00:13:47.080 it is going to be more than 350 feet tall. 00:13:47.080 --> 00:13:51.048 It's located right in the middle of the historical city, 00:13:51.048 --> 00:13:53.331 you can see just the opera, the royal theatre, 00:13:53.331 --> 00:13:55.857 downtown, and that's where it is going. 00:13:55.857 --> 00:13:57.650 It is right next to the Copenhagen marina. 00:13:57.650 --> 00:13:59.886 And right in front of it there is something called 00:13:59.886 --> 00:14:02.432 the Copenhagen cable track, 00:14:02.432 --> 00:14:04.564 which is a track that pools wakeboarders, 00:14:04.564 --> 00:14:06.859 and water skiers around in this sort of 00:14:06.859 --> 00:14:10.534 perpetual loop of water fun. 00:14:10.534 --> 00:14:13.654 And speaking of skiing, Copenhagen has loved skiing, 00:14:13.654 --> 00:14:16.749 but unfortunately Copenhagen is flat as a pancake, 00:14:16.749 --> 00:14:18.881 we have the snow but we don't have the hills 00:14:18.881 --> 00:14:21.580 so we heavily go for hours on buses 00:14:21.580 --> 00:14:24.299 to the south of Sweden, so we thought, 00:14:24.299 --> 00:14:28.164 you know, if Copenhagen doesn't have mountains, 00:14:28.164 --> 00:14:32.979 at least we have mountains of trash, so why don't we 00:14:32.979 --> 00:14:35.383 transplant one of the Swedish ski slopes 00:14:35.383 --> 00:14:38.532 and put it on the roof of the factory? 00:14:38.532 --> 00:14:41.359 So essentially we know the size of the machines, 00:14:41.359 --> 00:14:44.152 so we created this sort of minimum envelope. 00:14:44.152 --> 00:14:47.662 They wanted to make a visitor centre, 00:14:47.662 --> 00:14:49.140 which essentially is a place 00:14:49.140 --> 00:14:51.100 where school teachers drag the children 00:14:51.100 --> 00:14:54.649 to force them to listen to how trash turns into energy. 00:14:54.649 --> 00:14:57.197 Instead we proposed to install 00:14:57.197 --> 00:14:59.867 an elevator that takes you to the roof, 00:14:59.867 --> 00:15:01.146 where you can choose between 00:15:01.146 --> 00:15:04.764 a green, a blue and black ski slope. 00:15:04.764 --> 00:15:06.449 And because it is man-made, we can make sure 00:15:06.449 --> 00:15:08.541 that it ends up at the foot of the elevator, 00:15:08.541 --> 00:15:12.648 to create this sort of perpetual loop of skiing. 00:15:12.648 --> 00:15:15.859 Miraculously we actually won the competition 00:15:15.859 --> 00:15:17.948 based on this idea. 00:15:17.948 --> 00:15:21.379 (Applause) 00:15:21.379 --> 00:15:24.656 The roof material is a form of artificial carpet 00:15:24.656 --> 00:15:28.180 that all the rainwater that drops on the mountain 00:15:28.180 --> 00:15:31.562 is collected and can be blown out 00:15:31.562 --> 00:15:33.881 in these humidifiers, that in the summer 00:15:33.881 --> 00:15:36.147 can actually create so little friction that, 00:15:36.147 --> 00:15:39.264 with normal skiing equipment you can actually ski, 00:15:39.264 --> 00:15:42.014 creating this sort of nice brasilian 00:15:42.014 --> 00:15:45.681 hybrid of bikini skiing. 00:15:45.681 --> 00:15:47.930 But in the winter we do have 00:15:47.930 --> 00:15:51.982 three to four months of frost and snow. 00:15:51.982 --> 00:15:53.703 So from 2015 00:15:53.703 --> 00:15:55.842 you are going to have to look out 00:15:55.842 --> 00:16:00.438 for the Danish competitors in Alpine skiing! 00:16:00.438 --> 00:16:02.332 You know, originally the competition was 00:16:02.332 --> 00:16:03.846 to make the factory look good, 00:16:03.846 --> 00:16:05.707 so we also had to do a facade. 00:16:05.707 --> 00:16:08.064 We proposed to make it out of these giant planters 00:16:08.064 --> 00:16:13.346 made out of recycled plastics. The excess water 00:16:13.346 --> 00:16:15.681 runs through the facade watering the plants, 00:16:15.681 --> 00:16:17.866 so in the summer we create this sort of 00:16:17.866 --> 00:16:20.274 natural shade that turns the working space 00:16:20.274 --> 00:16:22.715 of the factory into this sort of nice, naturally illuminated 00:16:22.715 --> 00:16:25.391 and naturally ventilated work space. 00:16:25.391 --> 00:16:29.287 At night you see the machines working inside the factory. 00:16:29.287 --> 00:16:32.514 So you can say, the initial vision, 00:16:32.514 --> 00:16:34.603 you know of trying to design our cities and buildings 00:16:34.603 --> 00:16:38.106 as ecosystems, is quite close to materializing 00:16:38.106 --> 00:16:40.027 in this project, because not only locally 00:16:40.027 --> 00:16:43.745 there is this reuse of the water, the daylight, 00:16:43.745 --> 00:16:45.681 the natural ventilation, 00:16:45.681 --> 00:16:47.533 but also in a more regional perspective, 00:16:47.533 --> 00:16:49.932 together with Copenhagen and the rest of the loop city 00:16:49.932 --> 00:16:54.070 the plant actually forms an ecosystem. 00:16:54.070 --> 00:16:56.772 As a last thing, they were imagining, 00:16:56.772 --> 00:16:57.847 they wanted some kind of 00:16:57.847 --> 00:16:59.163 building integrated art project, 00:16:59.163 --> 00:17:00.646 and traditionally what you do, 00:17:00.646 --> 00:17:02.980 you hire some light artist to blow coloured lights 00:17:02.980 --> 00:17:05.770 at the building at night. We thought, 00:17:05.770 --> 00:17:09.227 why don't we play with the resources we have? 00:17:09.227 --> 00:17:11.067 This is going to be the cleanest waste-to-energy plant 00:17:11.067 --> 00:17:13.311 in the world, the smoke coming out 00:17:13.311 --> 00:17:16.014 of the chimney is completely non toxic, 00:17:16.014 --> 00:17:19.479 but it still does contain some CO2. 00:17:19.479 --> 00:17:21.731 A lot less than the current plant, but it does contain 00:17:21.731 --> 00:17:23.568 some of it. So we thought, 00:17:23.568 --> 00:17:26.265 why don't we design the mouth of the chimney 00:17:26.265 --> 00:17:30.014 in such a way that it fills gradually with CO2 00:17:30.014 --> 00:17:33.579 and when it contains 100 kilos, it compresses 00:17:33.579 --> 00:17:42.797 and puffs a giant smoke ring? 00:17:42.797 --> 00:17:46.881 So that we can play with it at night! 00:17:46.881 --> 00:17:49.862 But of course, on one end we like it, cause it's 00:17:49.862 --> 00:17:52.514 almost like the ultimate artistic expression 00:17:52.514 --> 00:17:54.124 of hedonistic sustainability, 00:17:54.124 --> 00:17:56.103 you take the symbol of the problem, 00:17:56.103 --> 00:17:57.314 the pollution, the chimney, 00:17:57.314 --> 00:18:00.354 and turn it into something playful. 00:18:00.354 --> 00:18:03.880 But one of the main drivers of behavioural change 00:18:03.880 --> 00:18:07.652 is knowledge, but if people don't know they can't act. 00:18:07.652 --> 00:18:10.182 And when my nephews ask me, you know, 00:18:10.182 --> 00:18:13.250 what's a ton of CO2, I have to say, I don't have a clue! 00:18:13.250 --> 00:18:16.313 In 2015 I can tell them to count 10 smoke rings 00:18:16.313 --> 00:18:18.563 and when they have counted 10 of them, 00:18:18.563 --> 00:18:22.015 we have just emitted one ton of CO2. 00:18:22.015 --> 00:18:24.347 So, we can say the waste-to-energy plant 00:18:24.347 --> 00:18:25.735 in Copenhagen is not only sort of 00:18:25.735 --> 00:18:27.745 economically and ecologically sustainable, 00:18:27.745 --> 00:18:30.054 by turning waste into energy, it's also 00:18:30.054 --> 00:18:32.632 socially sustainable because it turns a power plant 00:18:32.632 --> 00:18:35.051 into a park, and it turns a flat land 00:18:35.051 --> 00:18:39.556 into a man-made mountain for skiing. 00:18:39.556 --> 00:18:41.951 So, as a last thing, you might object that 00:18:41.951 --> 00:18:43.378 this is something that can only happen 00:18:43.378 --> 00:18:50.649 in sunny, semi-socialist, sentimental Scandinavia. 00:18:50.649 --> 00:18:51.947 But just to wrap it up, 00:18:51.947 --> 00:18:55.595 recently we got approached by Durst Fetner Residential, 00:18:55.595 --> 00:18:58.147 of Manhattan, to look at this side 00:18:58.147 --> 00:19:01.010 on the west side water front. 00:19:01.010 --> 00:19:04.304 It's quite far away from the nearby parks, 00:19:04.304 --> 00:19:05.747 it's right next to the Helena, a building 00:19:05.747 --> 00:19:08.631 owned by our client, named after his daughter. 00:19:08.631 --> 00:19:11.181 And normally residential in the area 00:19:11.181 --> 00:19:13.263 looks like this, sort of sturdy boxes, we thought: 00:19:13.263 --> 00:19:15.566 why don't we, you know, having spent 10 years of 00:19:15.566 --> 00:19:17.062 my career as an architect trying to escape 00:19:17.062 --> 00:19:19.348 the tiranny of the Copenhagen courtyard 00:19:19.348 --> 00:19:22.062 as a typology, we thought that maybe, in Manhattan 00:19:22.062 --> 00:19:23.687 this idea of creating an urban oasis 00:19:23.687 --> 00:19:26.455 at the heart of the block could be interesting, 00:19:26.455 --> 00:19:28.264 If you like, the Copenhagen courtyard 00:19:28.264 --> 00:19:29.574 is at the architectural scale 00:19:29.574 --> 00:19:31.870 what Central Park is at an urban scale, 00:19:31.870 --> 00:19:33.680 a human habitat surrounded by 00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:36.971 a dense wall of people. 00:19:36.971 --> 00:19:38.318 So we asked ourselves, 00:19:38.318 --> 00:19:39.815 what happens when you combine a skyscraper 00:19:39.815 --> 00:19:41.729 with a courtyard? Essentially, what would a 00:19:41.729 --> 00:19:45.202 courtscraper look like? 00:19:45.202 --> 00:19:47.364 So we first we placed the courtyard next to the Helena, 00:19:47.364 --> 00:19:49.203 we tried to preserve all of its views 00:19:49.203 --> 00:19:51.227 to be a good neighbour, but also because it is 00:19:51.227 --> 00:19:53.926 our client's building. 00:19:53.926 --> 00:19:56.956 And then in the north east corner, to create 00:19:56.956 --> 00:19:59.233 density and views, we lifted it up to 450 feet, 00:19:59.233 --> 00:20:02.763 creating this sort of walked perimeter block 00:20:02.763 --> 00:20:07.052 that has views and sunshine from the west side. 00:20:07.052 --> 00:20:08.241 And what happens is that you can say, traditionally 00:20:08.241 --> 00:20:10.395 perimeter blocks or courtyards 00:20:10.395 --> 00:20:13.412 are secrets kept for the tenants. 00:20:13.412 --> 00:20:14.268 In this case, it really becomes 00:20:14.268 --> 00:20:16.184 the main facade of the building towards the highway, 00:20:16.184 --> 00:20:18.913 almost showing how the rejuvination of the waterfront 00:20:18.913 --> 00:20:22.026 moves into the city fabric itself. 00:20:22.026 --> 00:20:23.663 And the warped geometry also brings daylight 00:20:23.663 --> 00:20:25.984 to the streetscape, and finally 00:20:25.984 --> 00:20:29.114 all of the apartments are rotated towards the view, 00:20:29.114 --> 00:20:32.553 creating this sort of pattern of balconies, 00:20:32.553 --> 00:20:33.981 but also allowing the residents 00:20:33.981 --> 00:20:35.727 to recognise their own apartment, 00:20:35.727 --> 00:20:39.229 almost as a building within the building. 00:20:39.229 --> 00:20:40.880 And of course, people living next to the roof 00:20:40.880 --> 00:20:43.330 have this nice view of the Hudson. 00:20:43.330 --> 00:20:45.014 So, because of the incredible asimmetry, 00:20:45.014 --> 00:20:47.079 the courtyard really goes from 42 inches 00:20:47.079 --> 00:20:49.081 to 400 feet and back down again. 00:20:49.081 --> 00:20:53.082 So this has been sort of passed forward, 00:20:53.082 --> 00:20:54.488 this has been well received, 00:20:54.488 --> 00:20:56.412 and according to plan, and sometimes, 00:20:56.412 --> 00:21:00.014 even in architecture, things happen according to plan. 00:21:00.014 --> 00:21:01.631 We should be breaking ground 00:21:01.631 --> 00:21:04.413 the 1st of September this year. 00:21:04.413 --> 00:21:08.133 (Applause) 00:21:08.133 --> 00:21:10.468 So you are gonna see some of the 00:21:10.468 --> 00:21:12.597 sort of architectural evolution 00:21:12.597 --> 00:21:14.049 we have been conducting in Scandinavia 00:21:14.049 --> 00:21:15.887 is now starting to cross-breed 00:21:15.887 --> 00:21:18.858 with the New York typologies. 00:21:18.858 --> 00:21:20.431 To finish off, this is what it could look like 00:21:20.431 --> 00:21:24.672 driving down the west side highway in four years. 00:22:13.161 --> 00:22:18.502 (Aplause)