Architecture of a Changing World: Bloomberg Green

Whole world is changing every day. It changes a little faster. Some changes are too small to see others too big to handle. Sometimes change feels slow so slow. Other times it happens all at once. We can't keep up for our climate change means many things between too small to see. And too big to handle. Verizon whole world gifts. The clock is ticking. This is Bloomberg Green. The British Museum the Gherkin Hearst Tower Norman Foster is responsible for some of the most recognizable buildings around the world. But architecture is about more than just wood steel and concrete. It's about the way that we use space and we interact with our environment and for foster sustainability and energy efficient techniques are built into this process. So from Bloomberg's European headquarters in London one of the world's most sustainable office buildings which Norman Foster designed. I spoke to the veteran British architect about where it all began. From the birth of the present practice which goes back to the 1960s and arguably the emergence of the Green Movement although it wasn't called the Green Movement at that time. But you had writers you had philosophers across many disciplines probably coincident with the with journeys into space and viewing the planet Earth or Spaceship Earth as Buckminster Fuller coined it. Joel Weber. What about the industry now. How do architects now evolve to make sure that they are putting green at the very core of their buildings and designs. Buildings are important obviously but it's not just buildings. And a holistic approach is the infrastructure. It's the transport between the buildings. Think of the infrastructure as the urban glue which binds the buildings together the highways the bridges the ports the boulevards the piazzas the bigger picture. That is really the identity of the of the city beyond the architecture of an individual building. If you think holistically then you have to break down the barriers between different disciplines and responsibilities. Think of those who take care of the energy in a system in a city and those who take care of the waste if you're thinking holistically should be converting the waste into energy. In a move towards a more circular economy. Has building sustainably ever. Has it ever been a burden. I would argue to the contrary that that architecture is it is really very much about constraints and turning constraints to advantage. And in that sense I'd say that it was an incentive. It was a stimulant. It was. It was inspirational. When you're thinking about the future I know you just don't think about buildings. You think about cities and communities. But buildings can be self powered at the same time. I think of the Texas grid that recently shut down. How do you do both. How do you make buildings and themselves sustainable and self-reliant. But at the same time still being communal. I think the example of Texas and the grid is very pertinent and I think it is long overdue to question the nature of the big grid in so many other fields. Communication. You look at the development information technology we have moved away from big centralized systems. We no longer have telephone exchanges with thousands of people in wires going across the countryside. It's autonomous and the same possibilities exist in terms of energy. There have been huge advances in nuclear and the potential for miniature ISE nuclear reactors which can be the size of a container 20 feet long which can power an entire Manhattan city block or a community of more than 20000. So being independent of the big grid which is hugely wasteful. What about retrofitting buildings sustainably. Is that a solution and should that be a policy. I think there is a powerful incentive to recycle a building to create new buildings with an eye to the future. In that sense as an architect you design today with an awareness of the past for the needs of the present but for a future which is unknown. So buildings which can adapt over time are obviously more sustainable. To recycle a building is better than demolishing it and starting again. But you will always have new buildings. You will always have buildings which either by virtue of their historic significance play a continuing role. They have a symbolic role and therefore there is an onus to extend their life. I could give you examples of buildings like the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Tower which because it rethought the very nature of a tall building it took the central core traditionally of the heart of the. Of the floors broke that down moved it to the edge. So the floors were unbroken front to back. You could see from one side to the other. That bank was able to incorporate a dealer's floor unheard of in the bank headquarters. When you think of buildings and even in your sense infrastructure so much of the material is notoriously difficult to decarbonise. You think of steel you think of concrete. These are very problematic. What kind of materials have you been working with that are just a bit more sustainable. Well obviously wood is more sustainable. The building that we're exchanging now the building that I am in is a totally wooden building. But again it's difficult to generalize. If you take steel steel which has come out of a clean grid is very different in terms of its carbon content from steel which has come out of a dirty grid powered by fossil fuels. For example. Coming up we speak to the pioneers of Europe's new beau house. Plus Japan's earthquake proof skyscrapers. How it's using A.I. in traditional techniques to future proof its cities. This is Bloomberg Real Yield. I'm Annmarie Horden and this is Bloomberg rain from heatwaves to hurricanes extreme weather events have increased dramatically over the last 20 years and it's bound to only get worse. More than 7000 extreme events were recorded between 2000 and 2019 totaling one in three trillion dollars and economic damage. So we looked into how one of the most exposed countries is using traditional techniques to disaster proof they're building. Brown give a shit. Thirty two million people here in Tokyo brace themselves for the worst eight point nine magnitude. Now we know that's a big number was the fifth largest earthquake in history. But the real damage comes from the ferocious tsunami that was unleashed. Japan is located in the Pacific earthquake belt. This means the country is struck by some of the strongest earthquakes and tsunamis in the world. But learning from painful experience. Japan has built one of the world's best natural disaster response systems which includes regular disaster preparedness drills and early warning alerts. Japanese engineers and architects have also pushed the boundaries of technology and design to create resilient disaster proof buildings. This is Tokyo psychiatry at 634 meters. It's the world's tallest tower designed for broadcasting an observation. The base of psychiatry occupies a relatively small part of land that isn't ideal for such a tall structure and the design answers to a certain kinds of unknown. Air Force One that I cause was enough. There does seem symbol autonomous to the more hesitant about QVC O'Connor. She and his colleagues decide to steel trust tower. So instead of fighting against the wind it can simply pass through the gaps between the trusses. What do I know. We need to know. It is how you still do. You don't not know. There was another section of hold up there. I. What's going to get them there. No no no no. They also did what I mean those study that. Oh I don't know. I don't see why you would think that. There are no athletic funnel. There must be there. And you know you're going to. To stabilize the tower. The team used a traditional Japanese design coach Jimbo Shearer that dates back over a thousand years. This is the flexible central pillar of a Japanese pagoda which stabilizes the tiered wooden structure during an earthquake or typhoon in a similar way to a tree trunk supporting its branches for sky tree. The team designed a 375 metre tall concrete core column connected to the towers steel outer frame by a series of flexible oil dampers. Devices that control unwanted vibrations. The swaying of the core column. An outer frame in opposite directions. Reduce the vibration of the entire tower by up to 50 percent during an earthquake and 30 percent during strong winds. When Skytrain was designed in the late 2000s architects and engineers flew weather balloons to collect data on wind speeds and build models which they tested in a wind tunnel. But for some building designs this expensive and time consuming process has been replaced by faster and cheaper software powered by artificial intelligence. After a decade of research architectural engineering company Technica has developed a typhoon simulation software called Casa Middlebury. My Uncle Stuart and I got in this game next month. I thought about that then when I was ironing scales and notes. I don't care Sandra. Keep it from me. I've been going on not making the Brad Stone NASDAQ at. I'm not taking RTS ISE. Yes I think we'll know that because it had gone up but I knew pretty far from it. I know this may be. I don't have them on occasion. ISE in. I stop it. I'll ever see. Has anyone any proof that the one on business is actually so annoying. My side make it go up on a parachute. I'll say again that I'm not good at all. It's all caught up in insider just so far by whom this is so difficult. I'm thankful he got this. He'll me online items for a three kilometer square urban area. It usually takes three months to build a model conductor wind tunnel tests and get the results. But with Tom Keene software the entire process can happen in just two or three days and its engineers are trying to reduce that down to half a day. It's RTS go up for those who can't physically or negative gearing up for the must see. Japanese architects are also experimenting with unconventional building materials the high rises skyscrapers are usually built from concrete or steel because they're strong and cost effective. That building from wood is more environmentally friendly. My idea is going to construct a 13 storey wooden steel hybrid office building in Tokyo should be a district to make the building earthquake proof. Designers came up with a hybrid lattice structure that will support the walls and create an more user friendly experience multimodal animal puzzle model. To be honest with you I just took an envelope look as I did. Looked at the look. It isn't all bad and a mock gazelle. You sometimes see your sort of Oh God my type who uses nano tape causing NIKKEI said he also does. That's what they are doing. I thought it was almost nuns. Animal Michael Barr noted that none of their fish are sorted today. Was that a scrub knights to though appear to state the only. He's only adding more stuff for the unopposed title. It's called The Me. You are gonna know someone who does this. Yeah Heidi I know. I mean cause they said ISE had it. Did it. This schmuck the unknown London killed the gods dishing out the one that I didn't know. They got us no knock on you did it. So took out to you in the morning. She'll tell you how many NIKKEI I must. These designs and technologies have helped high rise buildings to withstand typhoons and earthquakes and now many low rise buildings in Japan are starting to adopt them as well. Some vulnerability still exist like older buildings constructed. The full regulations were tightened in 1981 with natural disasters becoming more and more frequent. These innovative designs and technologies could be key to protecting the economy and lives both in Japan and around the world. Coming up the new beau house. Europe is pledging billions in its green renewal. But as everyone on the same page Norman Foster tells us why he's still designing airports. This is program. I'm Annmarie Horden and this is Bloomberg Green Germany's bough house movement in the early 20th century was immortalized by mass produced simplicity. It was grounded in the idea of comprehensive artwork incorporating all aspects of art design and construction. And now that Europe is looking to build back better along sustainable lines. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants a new movement built with the same philosophy. Every movement has its own look and feel. We need to give our systemic change its own distinct aesthetics to match style with sustainability. And this is why we will set up a new European house a coal creation space where architects artists students engineers designers work together to make that happen. It's not every day that political leaders usher a new aesthetic movements but in the EU's 2020 State of the Union address. That's exactly what European Commission President Ursula Fund line intended. The announcement of the new European powerhouse came as part of a 750 billion euro EU recovery fund intended to help the bloc's economy and aim for a more sustainable future. Taking its name from the early 20th century design movement the European Commission stressed the interdisciplinary nature of this new European powerhouse. There is an emphasis on this idea of thinking across the typical disciplinary boundaries because what you really need is a whole range of new holistic solutions. By staying only within one vertical you may not be able to address the kind of holistic thinking and the kind of synergistic solutions that will necessarily be part of addressing the climate crisis within the moment. The original Bellows movement worked across mediums to transform arts into industry. Now as 40 percent of our carbon emissions come from the built environment the new European powerhouse hopes to put the utility and sustainability front and centre. The old European bathhouse was basically looking at the built environment as a total work of art and saying that what we need to address is this big problem of how do we want to live in our cities. And I think in that sense it is incredibly relevant now. We have a new challenge. The European powerhouse movement is intended to be a bridge a bridge between on one hand the world of science and technology and on the other hand the world of arts and culture. In the fall of 2021 the European Commission is calling for at least five project proposals to bring to life the concepts of the new European powerhouse. And with it they hope a green architectural revolution. This is not a movement yet. It started the initiative with a timeline for the next few years. But if this is to become a movement and I certainly personally hope that this would become a movement it will need a different mindset. That's a long term effort. And that would require changes in legislation changes in practices. Last year we opened the cleanest waste to energy power plants in the world. That is so clean that today you can claim its facades like climbing wall and you can ski alpine down the roof park. Clean technology is not only the right thing to do. It will also create a much greater quality of life. On the other hand making it more desirable to actually address the challenges we are facing. The goal of the new European powerhouse movement is that climate consciousness permeates every aspect of design. The problem is not everyone agrees in the direction of travel. In December Norman Foster pulled out of architects declare for his continued work with airports. The group says that architects cannot just carry on with business as usual. But Norman Foster says it's more important to be part of the conversation. Mobility air travel is not going to go away. The reality is we're a mobile society mobile in terms of movement information goods. And that's been a trend over the history of civilization and air travel. In relative terms when you compare it with agriculture is not a huge element in that overall picture. And the need for those buildings the infrastructure which services the aircraft those need to be as sustainable as possible. We know also that cheap air travel is not a right in terms of its carbon footprint. We can through taxes adjust that. Also most importantly we can create aviation fuel which is fossil free and we could do that with clean nuclear energy. You can convert seawater into aviation fuel. The American Navy has already done it. The technology exists. Also we know that there is a lot of exploration into hydrogen power into electric power. What we need is to address those issues not to run away. Ostrich like and bury our heads in the sand and make good noises. We need we need positive action to reduce carbon footprints. Lord Foster about twelve years ago you were talking about sustainability and buildings and you said that the world we need to get to almost absolute desperation before everyone got their act together. And then you said the question then would be if we had run out of time 12 years on. Do you think the world has become more aware. Are we awake now to the real challenges of climate change. I think you have to be an optimist. And obviously time is running out. But I think that there are positive signs. I mean the fact that for example we have John Kerry in the American administration who is a passionate advocate for sustainability and moves against climate change. It's really a collective will to address that with the realization that we could not only in the process of addressing that raise the standard of living for one in seven the moment who don't have have access to electrical power clean water modern sanitation. And if bold measures are not taken that will be by 2050 one in three of humanity. So there is a moral imperative to provide more energy more power and abundance of power. Those societies which have more power have greater life expectancy lower infant mortality greater freedom political freedom academic freedom freedom. So so there is no powerful reasons to go in that direction. That does it for this week. I'm Annmarie Horden and this is remember green.

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Length: 24min 6sec (1446 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021