WEBVTT 00:00:00.884 --> 00:00:04.053 When we use the word "architect" or "designer," 00:00:04.053 --> 00:00:06.852 what we usually mean is a professional, 00:00:06.852 --> 00:00:09.324 someone who gets paid, 00:00:09.324 --> 00:00:12.247 and we tend to assume that it's those professionals 00:00:12.247 --> 00:00:14.228 who are going to be the ones to help us solve 00:00:14.228 --> 00:00:16.788 the really big, systemic design challenges that we face 00:00:16.788 --> 00:00:20.633 like climate change, urbanization and social inequality. 00:00:20.633 --> 00:00:23.717 That's our kind of working presumption. 00:00:23.717 --> 00:00:26.724 And I think it's wrong, actually. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:26.724 --> 00:00:29.972 In 2008, I was just about to graduate from architecture school 00:00:29.972 --> 00:00:32.645 after several years, and go out and get a job, 00:00:32.645 --> 00:00:35.570 and this happened. 00:00:35.570 --> 00:00:37.820 The economy ran out of jobs. 00:00:37.820 --> 00:00:40.275 And a couple of things struck me about this. 00:00:40.275 --> 00:00:44.005 One, don't listen to career advisers. 00:00:44.005 --> 00:00:48.661 And two, actually this is a fascinating paradox for architecture, 00:00:48.661 --> 00:00:52.931 which is that, as a society, we've never needed design thinking more, 00:00:52.931 --> 00:00:56.889 and yet architecture was literally becoming unemployed. 00:00:56.889 --> 00:01:00.440 It strikes me that we talk very deeply about design, 00:01:00.440 --> 00:01:02.556 but actually there's an economics behind architecture 00:01:02.556 --> 00:01:05.024 that we don't talk about, and I think we need to. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:05.024 --> 00:01:08.655 And a good place to start is your own paycheck. 00:01:08.655 --> 00:01:11.097 So, as a bottom-of-the-rung architecture graduate, 00:01:11.097 --> 00:01:14.073 I might expect to earn about 24,000 pounds. 00:01:14.073 --> 00:01:17.689 That's about 36,000, 37,000 dollars. 00:01:17.689 --> 00:01:19.394 Now in terms of the whole world's population, 00:01:19.394 --> 00:01:24.276 that already puts me in the top 1.95 richest people, 00:01:24.276 --> 00:01:28.036 which raises the question of, who is it I'm working for? 00:01:28.036 --> 00:01:30.747 The uncomfortable fact is that 00:01:30.747 --> 00:01:33.631 actually almost everything that we call architecture today 00:01:33.631 --> 00:01:35.923 is actually the business of designing 00:01:35.923 --> 00:01:38.848 for about the richest one percent of the world's population, 00:01:38.848 --> 00:01:41.077 and it always has been. 00:01:41.077 --> 00:01:42.824 The reason why we forgot that 00:01:42.824 --> 00:01:44.927 is because the times in history when architecture 00:01:44.927 --> 00:01:47.852 did the most to transform society were those times 00:01:47.852 --> 00:01:50.509 when, actually, the one percent would build 00:01:50.509 --> 00:01:53.544 on behalf of the 99 percent, for various different reasons, 00:01:53.544 --> 00:01:56.159 whether that was through philanthropy in the 19th century, 00:01:56.159 --> 00:01:58.429 communism in the early 20th, 00:01:58.429 --> 00:02:01.467 the welfare state, and most recently, of course, 00:02:01.467 --> 00:02:05.083 through this inflated real estate bubble. 00:02:05.083 --> 00:02:08.391 And all of those booms, in their own various ways, 00:02:08.391 --> 00:02:10.310 have now kicked the bucket, 00:02:10.310 --> 00:02:12.596 and we're back in this situation 00:02:12.596 --> 00:02:17.512 where the smartest designers and architects in the world 00:02:17.512 --> 00:02:21.292 are only really able to work for one percent of the population. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:21.292 --> 00:02:23.402 Now it's not just that that's bad for democracy, 00:02:23.402 --> 00:02:25.241 though I think it probably is, 00:02:25.241 --> 00:02:28.337 it's actually not a very clever business strategy, actually. 00:02:28.337 --> 00:02:31.196 I think the challenge facing the next generation of architects 00:02:31.196 --> 00:02:33.238 is, how are we going to turn our client 00:02:33.238 --> 00:02:36.859 from the one percent to the 100 percent? 00:02:36.859 --> 00:02:40.433 And I want to offer three slightly counterintuitive ideas 00:02:40.433 --> 00:02:42.275 for how it might be done. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:42.275 --> 00:02:45.657 The first is, I think we need to question this idea 00:02:45.657 --> 00:02:47.948 that architecture is about making buildings. 00:02:47.948 --> 00:02:50.692 Actually, a building is about the most expensive solution 00:02:50.692 --> 00:02:53.708 you can think of to almost any given problem. 00:02:53.708 --> 00:02:56.236 And fundamentally, design should be much, much more interested 00:02:56.236 --> 00:02:58.968 in solving problems and creating new conditions. 00:02:58.968 --> 00:03:00.490 So here's a story. 00:03:00.490 --> 00:03:02.088 The office was working with a school, 00:03:02.088 --> 00:03:04.514 and they had an old Victorian school building. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:04.514 --> 00:03:07.245 And they said to the architects, "Look, 00:03:07.245 --> 00:03:09.198 our corridors are an absolute nightmare. 00:03:09.198 --> 00:03:11.564 They're far too small. They get congested between classes. 00:03:11.564 --> 00:03:13.947 There's bullying. We can't control them. 00:03:13.947 --> 00:03:16.789 So what we want you to do is re-plan our entire building, 00:03:16.789 --> 00:03:18.979 and we know it's going to cost several million pounds, 00:03:18.979 --> 00:03:20.890 but we're reconciled to the fact." NOTE Paragraph 00:03:20.890 --> 00:03:23.596 And the team thought about this, and they went away, 00:03:23.596 --> 00:03:25.613 and they said, "Actually, don't do that. 00:03:25.613 --> 00:03:28.393 Instead, get rid of the school bell. 00:03:28.393 --> 00:03:31.222 And instead of having one school bell that goes off once, 00:03:31.222 --> 00:03:33.480 have several smaller school bells that go off 00:03:33.480 --> 00:03:35.728 in different places and different times, 00:03:35.728 --> 00:03:37.976 distribute the traffic through the corridors." 00:03:37.976 --> 00:03:39.393 It solves the same problem, 00:03:39.393 --> 00:03:42.201 but instead of spending several million pounds, 00:03:42.201 --> 00:03:44.344 you spend several hundred pounds. 00:03:44.344 --> 00:03:47.144 Now, it looks like you're doing yourself out of a job, 00:03:47.144 --> 00:03:49.705 but you're not. You're actually making yourself more useful. 00:03:49.705 --> 00:03:51.178 Architects are actually really, really good 00:03:51.178 --> 00:03:53.520 at this kind of resourceful, strategic thinking. 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:55.482 And the problem is that, like a lot of design professions, 00:03:55.482 --> 00:03:57.665 we got fixated on the idea of providing 00:03:57.665 --> 00:03:59.946 a particular kind of consumer product, 00:03:59.946 --> 00:04:02.416 and I don't think that needs to be the case anymore. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:02.416 --> 00:04:06.617 The second idea worth questioning is this 20th-century thing 00:04:06.617 --> 00:04:09.878 that mass architecture is about big -- 00:04:09.878 --> 00:04:12.472 big buildings and big finance. 00:04:12.472 --> 00:04:14.561 Actually, we've got ourselves locked into this 00:04:14.561 --> 00:04:16.968 Industrial Era mindset which says that 00:04:16.968 --> 00:04:20.454 the only people who can make cities are large organizations 00:04:20.454 --> 00:04:22.972 or corporations who build on our behalf, 00:04:22.972 --> 00:04:24.780 procuring whole neighborhoods 00:04:24.780 --> 00:04:28.213 in single, monolithic projects, and of course, 00:04:28.213 --> 00:04:30.432 form follows finance. 00:04:30.432 --> 00:04:33.456 So what you end up with are single, monolithic neighborhoods 00:04:33.456 --> 00:04:37.144 based on this kind of one-size-fits-all model. 00:04:37.144 --> 00:04:39.657 And a lot of people can't even afford them. 00:04:39.657 --> 00:04:42.624 But what if, actually, it's possible now for cities 00:04:42.624 --> 00:04:45.394 to be made not just by the few with a lot 00:04:45.394 --> 00:04:48.582 but also by the many with a bit? 00:04:48.582 --> 00:04:49.876 And when they do, they bring with them 00:04:49.876 --> 00:04:53.215 a completely different set of values about the place that they want to live. 00:04:53.215 --> 00:04:55.319 And it raises really interesting questions about, 00:04:55.319 --> 00:04:58.602 how will we plan cities? How will finance development? 00:04:58.602 --> 00:05:00.263 How will we sell design services? 00:05:00.263 --> 00:05:02.503 What would it mean for democratic societies 00:05:02.503 --> 00:05:04.903 to offer their citizens a right to build? 00:05:04.903 --> 00:05:07.183 And in a way it should be kind of obvious, right, 00:05:07.183 --> 00:05:12.652 that in the 21st century, maybe cities can be developed by citizens. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:12.652 --> 00:05:15.816 And thirdly, we need to remember that, 00:05:15.816 --> 00:05:18.167 from a strictly economic point of view, 00:05:18.167 --> 00:05:23.013 design shares a category with sex and care of the elderly -- 00:05:23.013 --> 00:05:25.609 mostly it's done by amateurs. 00:05:25.609 --> 00:05:27.495 And that's a good thing. 00:05:27.495 --> 00:05:30.965 Most of the work takes place outside of the monetary economy 00:05:30.965 --> 00:05:33.025 in what's called the social economy or the core economy, 00:05:33.025 --> 00:05:35.417 which is people doing it for themselves. 00:05:35.417 --> 00:05:38.665 And the problem is that, up until now, 00:05:38.665 --> 00:05:40.467 it was the monetary economy which had 00:05:40.467 --> 00:05:42.625 all the infrastructure and all the tools. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:42.625 --> 00:05:44.448 So the challenge we face is, how are we going 00:05:44.448 --> 00:05:47.682 to build the tools, the infrastructure and the institutions 00:05:47.682 --> 00:05:49.422 for architecture's social economy? 00:05:49.422 --> 00:05:52.154 And that began with open-source software. 00:05:52.154 --> 00:05:54.522 And over the last few years, it's been moving 00:05:54.522 --> 00:05:57.017 into the physical world with open-source hardware, 00:05:57.017 --> 00:05:58.547 which are freely shared blueprints 00:05:58.547 --> 00:06:02.593 that anyone can download and make for themselves. 00:06:02.593 --> 00:06:05.834 And that's where 3D printing gets really, really interesting. 00:06:05.834 --> 00:06:09.370 Right? When suddenly you had a 3D printer 00:06:09.370 --> 00:06:10.924 that was open-source, the parts for which 00:06:10.924 --> 00:06:13.205 could be made on another 3D printer. 00:06:13.205 --> 00:06:16.266 Or the same idea here, which is for a CNC machine, 00:06:16.266 --> 00:06:20.762 which is like a large printer that can cut sheets of plywood. 00:06:20.762 --> 00:06:23.576 What these technologies are doing is radically 00:06:23.576 --> 00:06:26.657 lowering the thresholds of time and cost and skill. 00:06:26.657 --> 00:06:28.239 They're challenging the idea that 00:06:28.239 --> 00:06:32.065 if you want something to be affordable it's got to be one-size-fits-all. 00:06:32.065 --> 00:06:34.398 And they're distributing massively 00:06:34.398 --> 00:06:37.285 really complex manufacturing capabilities. 00:06:37.285 --> 00:06:41.416 We're moving into this future where the factory is everywhere, 00:06:41.416 --> 00:06:42.611 and increasingly that means 00:06:42.611 --> 00:06:45.898 that the design team is everyone. 00:06:45.898 --> 00:06:48.424 That really is an industrial revolution. 00:06:48.424 --> 00:06:51.640 And when we think that the major ideological conflicts 00:06:51.640 --> 00:06:53.658 that we inherited were all based around this question 00:06:53.658 --> 00:06:55.570 of who should control the means of production, 00:06:55.570 --> 00:06:58.297 and these technologies are coming back with a solution: 00:06:58.297 --> 00:07:02.286 actually, maybe no one. All of us. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:02.286 --> 00:07:04.455 And we were fascinated by 00:07:04.455 --> 00:07:07.062 what that might mean for architecture. 00:07:07.062 --> 00:07:09.584 So about a year and a half ago, 00:07:09.584 --> 00:07:11.480 we started working on a project called WikiHouse, 00:07:11.480 --> 00:07:14.754 and WikiHouse is an open-source construction system. 00:07:14.754 --> 00:07:17.552 And the idea is to make it possible for anyone 00:07:17.552 --> 00:07:19.936 to go online, access a freely shared library 00:07:19.936 --> 00:07:24.397 of 3D models which they can download and adapt in, 00:07:24.397 --> 00:07:27.788 at the moment, SketchUp, because it's free, and it's easy to use, 00:07:27.788 --> 00:07:30.347 and almost at the click of a switch 00:07:30.347 --> 00:07:32.831 they can generate a set of cutting files 00:07:32.831 --> 00:07:34.872 which allow them, in effect, 00:07:34.872 --> 00:07:38.060 to print out the parts from a house using a CNC machine 00:07:38.060 --> 00:07:41.271 and a standard sheet material like plywood. 00:07:41.271 --> 00:07:44.391 And the parts are all numbered, 00:07:44.391 --> 00:07:48.568 and basically what you end up with is a really big IKEA kit. 00:07:48.568 --> 00:07:50.839 (Laughter) 00:07:50.839 --> 00:07:53.105 And it goes together without any bolts. 00:07:53.105 --> 00:07:55.295 It uses wedge and peg connections. 00:07:55.295 --> 00:07:57.439 And even the mallets to make it 00:07:57.439 --> 00:07:59.919 can be provided on the cutting sheets as well. 00:07:59.919 --> 00:08:02.456 And a team of about two or three people, 00:08:02.456 --> 00:08:04.495 working together, can build this. 00:08:04.495 --> 00:08:06.975 They don't need any traditional construction skills. 00:08:06.975 --> 00:08:10.126 They don't need a huge array of power tools or anything like that, 00:08:10.126 --> 00:08:12.639 and they can build a small house of about this size 00:08:12.639 --> 00:08:17.403 in about a day. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:17.403 --> 00:08:24.680 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:08:24.706 --> 00:08:27.701 And what you end up with is just the basic chassis of a house 00:08:27.701 --> 00:08:30.160 onto which you can then apply systems like windows 00:08:30.160 --> 00:08:32.218 and cladding and insulation and services 00:08:32.218 --> 00:08:35.267 based on what's cheap and what's available. 00:08:35.267 --> 00:08:37.452 Of course, the house is never finished. 00:08:37.452 --> 00:08:40.333 We're shifting our heads here, so the house is not a finished product. 00:08:40.333 --> 00:08:43.090 With the CNC machine, you can make new parts for it 00:08:43.090 --> 00:08:46.947 over its life or even use it to make the house next door. 00:08:46.947 --> 00:08:50.385 So we can begin to see the seed of a completely open-source, 00:08:50.385 --> 00:08:54.660 citizen-led urban development model, potentially. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:54.660 --> 00:08:58.210 And we and others have built a few prototypes around the world now, 00:08:58.210 --> 00:09:00.331 and some really interesting lessons here. 00:09:00.331 --> 00:09:02.658 One of them is that it's always incredibly sociable. 00:09:02.658 --> 00:09:07.356 People get confused between construction work and having fun. 00:09:07.356 --> 00:09:10.015 But the principles of openness go right down 00:09:10.015 --> 00:09:12.821 into the really mundane, physical details. 00:09:12.821 --> 00:09:15.824 Like, never designing a piece that can't be lifted up. 00:09:15.824 --> 00:09:17.123 Or, when you're designing a piece, 00:09:17.123 --> 00:09:20.003 make sure you either can't put it in the wrong way round, 00:09:20.003 --> 00:09:22.956 or, if you do, it doesn't matter, because it's symmetrical. 00:09:22.956 --> 00:09:26.998 Probably the principal which runs deepest with us 00:09:26.998 --> 00:09:29.953 is the principal set out by Linus Torvalds, 00:09:29.953 --> 00:09:32.678 the open-source pioneer, 00:09:32.678 --> 00:09:35.967 which was that idea of, "Be lazy like a fox." 00:09:35.967 --> 00:09:37.676 Don't reinvent the wheel every time. 00:09:37.676 --> 00:09:41.469 Take what already works, and adapt it for your own needs. 00:09:41.469 --> 00:09:44.052 Contrary to almost everything that you might get taught 00:09:44.052 --> 00:09:48.149 at an architecture school, copying is good. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:48.149 --> 00:09:50.150 Which is appropriate, because actually, 00:09:50.150 --> 00:09:51.930 this approach is not innovative. 00:09:51.930 --> 00:09:53.539 It's actually how we built buildings 00:09:53.539 --> 00:09:56.035 for hundreds of years before the Industrial Revolution 00:09:56.035 --> 00:09:58.462 in these sorts of community barn-raisings. 00:09:58.462 --> 00:10:00.606 The only difference between traditional 00:10:00.606 --> 00:10:03.014 vernacular architecture and open-source architecture 00:10:03.014 --> 00:10:05.134 might be a web connection, 00:10:05.134 --> 00:10:07.946 but it's a really, really big difference. 00:10:07.946 --> 00:10:09.377 We shared the whole of WikiHouse 00:10:09.377 --> 00:10:11.219 under a Creative Commons license, 00:10:11.219 --> 00:10:12.641 and now what's just beginning to happen 00:10:12.641 --> 00:10:14.623 is that groups around the world are beginning to take it 00:10:14.623 --> 00:10:17.362 and use it and hack it and tinker with it, and it's amazing. 00:10:17.362 --> 00:10:20.327 There's a cool group over in Christchurch in New Zealand 00:10:20.327 --> 00:10:23.462 looking at post-earthquake development housing, 00:10:23.462 --> 00:10:26.710 and thanks to the TED city Prize, 00:10:26.710 --> 00:10:29.449 we're working with an awesome group in one of Rio's favelas 00:10:29.449 --> 00:10:31.938 to set up a kind of community factory 00:10:31.938 --> 00:10:33.852 and micro-university. 00:10:33.852 --> 00:10:35.716 These are very, very small beginnings, 00:10:35.716 --> 00:10:38.591 and actually there's more people in the last week 00:10:38.591 --> 00:10:40.774 who have got in touch and they're not even on this map. 00:10:40.774 --> 00:10:44.514 I hope next time you see it, you won't even be able to see the map. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:44.514 --> 00:10:48.963 We're aware that WikiHouse is a very, very small answer, 00:10:48.963 --> 00:10:52.535 but it's a small answer to a really, really big question, 00:10:52.535 --> 00:10:56.311 which is that globally, right now, the fastest-growing cities 00:10:56.311 --> 00:10:58.542 are not skyscraper cities. 00:10:58.542 --> 00:11:02.638 They're self-made cities in one form or another. 00:11:02.638 --> 00:11:06.262 If we're talking about the 21st-century city, 00:11:06.262 --> 00:11:08.886 these are the guys who are going to be making it. 00:11:08.886 --> 00:11:13.368 You know, like it or not, welcome to the world's biggest design team. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:13.368 --> 00:11:15.494 So if we're serious about problems 00:11:15.494 --> 00:11:19.648 like climate change, urbanization and health, 00:11:19.648 --> 00:11:23.546 actually, our existing development models aren't going to do it. 00:11:23.546 --> 00:11:25.634 As I think Robert Neuwirth said, there isn't a bank 00:11:25.634 --> 00:11:28.411 or a corporation or a government or an NGO 00:11:28.411 --> 00:11:29.797 who's going to be able to do it 00:11:29.797 --> 00:11:33.446 if we treat citizens only as consumers. 00:11:33.446 --> 00:11:37.227 How extraordinary would it be, though, if collectively 00:11:37.227 --> 00:11:39.500 we were to develop solutions not just to the problem 00:11:39.500 --> 00:11:41.914 of structure that we've been working on, 00:11:41.914 --> 00:11:46.634 but to infrastructure problems like solar-powered air conditioning, 00:11:46.634 --> 00:11:49.450 off-grid energy, off-grid sanitation -- 00:11:49.450 --> 00:11:53.379 low-cost, open-source, high-performance solutions 00:11:53.379 --> 00:11:55.319 that anyone can very, very easily make, 00:11:55.319 --> 00:11:57.220 and to put them all into a commons 00:11:57.220 --> 00:12:01.568 where they're owned by everyone and they're accessible by everyone? 00:12:01.568 --> 00:12:05.738 A kind of Wikipedia for stuff? 00:12:05.738 --> 00:12:07.779 And once something's in the commons, 00:12:07.779 --> 00:12:09.135 it will always be there. 00:12:09.135 --> 00:12:12.663 How much would that change the rules? 00:12:12.663 --> 00:12:16.099 And I think the technology's on our side. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:16.099 --> 00:12:19.759 If design's great project in the 20th century 00:12:19.759 --> 00:12:23.520 was the democratization of consumption -- 00:12:23.520 --> 00:12:29.946 that was Henry Ford, Levittown, Coca-Cola, IKEA — 00:12:29.946 --> 00:12:33.568 I think design's great project in the 21st century 00:12:33.568 --> 00:12:36.440 is the democratization of production. 00:12:36.440 --> 00:12:39.120 And when it comes to architecture in cities, 00:12:39.120 --> 00:12:41.192 that really matters. 00:12:41.192 --> 00:12:42.946 Thank you very much. 00:12:42.946 --> 00:12:48.070 (Applause)