How Architecture can Revive Identity, Community and Purpose | Louis Smith | TEDxBeaconStreet

it can be said that church choirs street gangs and sports teams survive and thrive because they give their members and supporters the same three things identity community and purpose now I believe this because it relates to Maslow's hierarchy of needs the esteem belonging and self-actualization are the top three of Maslow's hierarchy identity is a long unrecognized aspect of architecture but let's start with purpose and we'll hit on community really lightly and then after that we're going to spend most of our time on identity now purpose for the individual is their choice of where they want their life to go and what they want to do that's fairly simple but purpose for a community is a little bit different it's about creating a richer broader deeper experience of life together it is about having cultural experiences that enrich you and make you more of a person and perhaps even further your journey along in your personal purpose now community is simply any group of people who come together around a certain issue something some commonality they have it can be where they live what they do their political leanings the important thing about community from this perspective is that communities are malleable people come and they go they change they form different alignments but what is it what is it that has identity relate to architecture and sustainability well for that I got to tell you where I come from I grew up in the old North End of Detroit my parents moved into the neighborhood because it was a good neighborhood working-class people mostly white and Jewish my family was among the african-american dispersal that caused Detroit's white flight to the suburbs I remember after the 1967 riots riding around in the family van and watching building burn as I grew older the vacant lots and the burn buildings became more and more common the places I used to go the breakfast cafe the barber shop the candy store the movie theater even some fine homes and apartment buildings gradually disappeared it's a shame it's just a shame but that disappearance was really my first lesson in sustainability you see it wasn't a problem of the building's not being well built they were finally built buildings in fact included in that area were mansions for the Dodge family yes that Dodge family and other capitalists of the 20s and 30s but it failed it failed because the identity of the community failed the identity had been a working-class community free of african-americans african-americans move in that identity is broken people move out the community fails but wait it continued to fail because when the African Americans moved in the economic base was undermined it's called redlining they couldn't get money to do the things that need to be done to sustain a community well there is an answer for that and the answer is that we need to be sustainable and we need to broaden that definition of sustainability so wait wait wait wait what is sustainability in our society sustainability is contextual over here we have organizational sustainability over there we have industrial sustainability product sustainability and in architectural sustainability we have an evolving definition back in the 70s when I was studying architecture initially the concern of the day was the Arab oil embargo or multiple Arab oil embargos and the price of fuel was skyrocketing and everybody was concerned with energy conservation as we went along through the 90s the definition broadened and we took insight sustainability stormwater management access to transit and other things on the block scale and larger in the urban environment and then all the other things that are listed on the screen gradually got included in the definition of sustainability and although it's last it's really consistent throughout is economic sustainability if you can't pay for it it can't stay now to those things I want to add one more I want to add cultural identity now wait wait wait wait don't be narrow I'm not talking about ethnicity if you are building a building for firefighters firefighters have a culture it's not the same as the culture for nurses so what makes this identity on September 7th of this year there was an earthquake in Oaxaca Mexico that was over 8 points on the Richter scale many historic and traditional buildings collapsed the Mexican architect claudinha de Eva's when interviewed by Public Radio internationals the world stated that she was shocked by the loss of these buildings because it constituted a loss of identity she said many things constitute identity it's not just language clothing and food it's also the built environment the urban surroundings I'm sure she said it in Spanish so what makes a building culturally relevant what gives it this identity now Architects have a tendency to design things for other architects they have a tendency to consider themselves great artists and many of them are and they create works of art that are twisty steel or towering glass or whatever it is as a testament to their ability as a visual artist some architects take the other approach of saying I want this building to be a testament to my technological skill I am going to program this computer to design a facade and it'll have 10,000 little holes and precisely placed locations and everything will be beautiful I want to suggest to you that what architects should do is that they should design a building that reflects the identity of the community they should design a building that means something it's about culture this is my nomination as the most culturally relevant building in the US in the last 40 years this is the Vietnam veterans memorial on the Capitol Mall in Washington DC it was designed by Milan an asian-american I believe she was a student at the time and it has become a symbol an icon of our national grief but why can we not have buildings that express more than grief why can't we express joy celebration other emotions this is my nomination for the second most culturally relevant building this building sits on the shore of Lake Michigan it was designed by a Latino but actually a Spaniard and his name is Santiago Calatrava and this building has a roof that is designed to open and close and they do this four times a day the roof emulates the spread of a Gold's wings on the seashore which as it's on the shore of Lake Michigan there's actually gulls in the picture if you look really hard the building is so evocative that they had to publish the schedule for opening and closing on the internet they made this image of the building part of the city of Milwaukee's City logo well that's great for Milwaukee and that's great for Washington but but what's the way that we can get to having buildings with meaning in our communities well the first thing we have to do is that all of us especially architects but all of us must learn to see culture it's starting with our own now you probably say well you know of course I see my own culture and most people think that until they get in contact with another culture and they find out oh I never realized that the way I do this doesn't have to be that way the second thing we have to do is you have to take all the the relevant cultural groups that this building is supposed to represent and have them participate from the design through the construction so that the building is not just some building somebody did it's their building the third thing we have to do and all of us need to do this is that we have to stop and learn and look at the culture of the people it's being billed for we have to learn to see their culture culture is very in very basic ways it can be as simple as what's a good color or good colors and how do you put them together what's important about anything is it more important that a building Express privacy or community is it more important that a building express story or silence or is it more important that it it conformed to a style like modernism or Victorianism is it important that it express a technological miracle if you will there is something about a living culture that resists being crushed down to a set of rules that one can program into an AI and turn out meaningful buildings and the problem with that is that real culture is alive real culture grows it evolves so whether you live work in play whatever building that is ask yourself these three questions does this building take my past into account honor my ancestors does this building take my present into account does it have my spirit now in my perspective on life does it take my future into account does it contain my aspirations and where I want to go if you have a building that cannot you cannot answer yes to at least one of those things then will you love that building is there is there going to be a reason for that building to stand if there is it doesn't matter how well-built technically a building is if there is no love for it that building will fall so let's finish up with a little refresher on Detroit all of these things that I've said should be part of sustainability are in fact necessary you have to go beyond the technological you have to include the social the economic and the cultural and it's only when you do that that you create enough value that that building can stand for the ages now Detroit is on its way back its resurgent and many cities across the country have had the same experience from the disinvestment to the resurgence new economic basis new people even refugees coming in making a difference Detroit is on the way to forging a new identity a sustainable identity one that includes identity community and purpose thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 18,177

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Design, Architecture, Community, Identity, Purpose

Id: LWepXTUb2W0

Length: 13min 55sec (835 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 25 2018