Norman Foster on the corona pandemic and the InnHub innovation campus in La Punt, Switzerland

i would suggest that the pandemic is not going to change anything the future of humanity is not two meters apart if we learn from history there have been pandemics in the past this is not new and there's a return to normality of course there will be a transition period that transition period i suggest will look as though everything has changed but really nothing will have changed the difference will be that all the trends which are apparent now will accelerate so everything will happen faster i would suggest that when you see it you realize that this building could not happen without the engineer is it different in the sense that it doesn't have a pitch roof yes is it controversial is it raising questions is it raising discussion yes and if it wasn't doing that it wouldn't be doing its job there's been traditionally a thirst for experimentation and this is an experiment already we are looking for healthier buildings for a healthier lifestyle that will move more quickly and in that sense the hub will be more relevant than ever so it doesn't call it into question quite the reverse it will encourage its use it will accelerate um because people will still come together the lifestyle of the opportunity to have all this and to be able to engage face to face but also digitally remotely to connect that i think that lifestyle will be accelerated by this pandemic so have your work in the last few weeks and months be has it been different from the time before have you worked differently in any other way with people i think no i was working with screens before i was working manually in an analog way drawing as well as on a screen of course that has accelerated so i've had more of both and less of moving around from one place to another but that will come back have have your teams in your offices around the world uh gone to to working at home and have has their work changed fundamentally i wouldn't say it's changed fundamentally i think what we've discovered is by a lot of ingenuity by improvisation we've discovered that we can be very productive engaging across continents on screens the need for face-to-face interaction is absolutely critical i think you have a flywheel effect so the projects that we're working on remotely with video conferencing those are projects which already have a life and they're developing they're expanding but a new project where you're starting that there is no substitute for the round table the different disciplines the creative process we are you know we're social animals we can't help it so i think we've explored and pushed the boundaries of being able to interact creatively digitally but to repeat myself that doesn't take away the core need for people to come together face to face we you and i we could be doing this digitally remotely on a screen we're not we're here we're on the ground the sun's shining um we're interacting uh and i think that that that has become more precious as a result of this so a lot of the things that we've taken for granted now become luxuries i think that we will have a greater sense of value we will really value that human interaction in the same way that we value the people that perhaps we've taken for granted the health workers those who serve us i mean those who make our lives civilized literally civilization you said we are social animals and besides the formal meetings with a certain time frame a schedule a room where you meet there are these informal meetings you have in offices in universities or museums that talk at the coffee maker or the the chat at the water cooler where sometimes good ideas can can come out i would go further i would say that we are now already designing buildings which deliberately encourage the interaction the chance meeting creativity happens much more scientifically in the social spaces in the cafes in the child's meeting in a corridor far more than in the formal laboratory and that's not just me as an architect talking i'm telling you about how uh nobel prize-winning scientists will will instruct me as an architect to try and create the environment for innovation for medical breakthroughs and that is as creative as a painter or sculpture so creativity is not just in the artistic domain it's everywhere so do these social spaces like the cafeterias or the hallways where you meet people this becomes more important this brings us to the hub because the hub is also a meeting place between the locals and the visitors so you're talking about a new kind of visitor i suggest that one of the wider implications of the pandemic has been about supply chains and chains and questioning perhaps the whole local global so just maybe we will have a greater appreciation of the country of the place that we take for granted and not be so desperate to go somewhere else and in the same way perhaps we'll become more appreciative of a local produce rather than something which is imported so i think there's another dimension to the hub maybe the farmer who sells his produce or the local butcher so so maybe we then become much more balanced we appreciate some things which are global but we have a greater appreciation of the local do you expect the effects of this pandemic into our workspace into our way we work together to last or will they go away and just be a note in history i think it's a transition period i think we'll all be more cautious so we'll be keeping a distance the density will be lower that will also be reflected in the fact that some people will spend more time and continue to work at home but still come in for those things which are critical that we have a face-to-face uh encounter and then gradually it will return to a normality and historians will note that in the great arc of history it really didn't change anything i mean if i think to london i use a bathroom so there's a sanitation system i go on the thames embankment and there's a noble thoroughfare i don't think that was a result of cholera in the middle of the 19th century it was but it would have happened inevitably but many people work in offices where dozens or hundreds of people work in one room unlimited space will that change it will seem to change because perhaps not everybody will be doing everything in one place so there'll be the opportunity for a richer lifestyle where you divide your time where you might spend time at home and just coming where you might stagger your uh your work-life cycle but again the hub is that encourages that tendency because it offers an alternative lifestyle of course there are all kinds of things which you can't do away from the workplace if i think about you know our own studios around the world you can't make models remotely the physicality of a model needs a workshop will single offices when one person in isolated from any possible infection come up again i i really do not think the the infection is going to move you to a small single office as opposed to a group if i think about a project for example apple in cupertino that years ago working with with steve jobs certain tasks a programmer needs a monastic-like space but other groups work as teams they need eye contact so a dealer's flaw that's not going to change it's line of sight it's proximity it's quick decision making interaction between individuals that's not going to change many people have seen now how working from home works many companies have seen that working from homeworks and can be quite effectively will that change the demand for office space will that diminish it may i don't think it will change the very nature of it it might change the extent of it i think that it also may encourage more social spaces but already those projects which are pushing the edges pushing the boundaries i mean if i think about projects for say mike bloomberg the late steve jobs comcast that they are ahead of the game in a way so they're pushing the boundaries and those workplaces are heavily social and again in a way the hub is that in microcosm it is about communality it is about blurring the edges between lifestyle the pleasure of having access to greenery to nature the appreciation of nature will be enhanced and those workplaces which already bring nature into the workplace those will be more desirable so but again all of those tendencies we're aware now the the the pandemic will will hasten that and and so those who've uh demonstrated the ability to be able to work at home they will spend more time doing that but that tendency was already there so it will be it will be hastened working from home brings effects to the home how will our homes change if people more and more work at home again i think that the the more desirable home is almost like the more desirable workplace and the edges get blurred so ideally you want your home to offer you the two extremes of communality where you come together as a as a family as a group but also the individuals have a degree of privacy and that is not necessarily about the amount of space it's about the quality of space it's about acoustic privacy it's also about having a view so it's how you maximize the use of space let's now focus more on the inhab here in close by to samaras in la punt one of the core ideas is to offer workspace meeting rooms gathering people from around the world also gathering the locals together with the people who come here explicitly for working into the inhub did the last weeks and months and the pandemic change any of the ideas of the inhab did you did it influence the project yet it's almost been like an audit in other words if this seemed like a great idea before the pandemic given the pandemic wow i mean what a push we all appreciate the outdoors nature the contact with nature the healthy lifestyle so the development of the design has been on the one hand more transparent more open to the community more embracing of the community so much more interacting locally and at the same time is also creating kind of inner sanctums and then the idea that if you've got experts from around the world on a subject which is of great public interest then maybe the equivalent of the kind of village square in the heart of this building could be the opportunity for a debate because that community and the wider region has these incredible individuals experts in their field who've come together and who share their their knowledge so um so again i think it has made us more aware more sensitive to the opportunities that the hub offers so you don't see a risk or a danger of people refraining from from coming together physically of not wanting to come together physically anymore the reverse that is humanity the future is not two meter distance between you and i that may be in transition and in transition because of the lower density and because of the open air spaces and the interaction with nature even if that was the future this as a project is still more valid yeah how would you personally describe the typical user of the inhub what kind of character is that uh it's somebody who would who's got a great sense of curiosity uh um has an appreciation and understanding and enjoys the outdoors wants to engage locally but also has his or her private world is hard-working it's probably almost certainly about future issues it's inevitably it's going to touch on those issues which concern all of us climate change global warming um it's good it's going to heighten our sense of awareness of the issues which are critical to all of us wherever we are how important would you say will the contact to the local people be to the users of the inhub i think for me that's one of the really exciting aspects of the project the fact that it is local and global it's the best of those two two worlds and it's a rebalancing of that so the local becomes more important and the global becomes more important it's a it's a new look it's a new balance i think of globalization i think that's one of the i wouldn't say the lasting effects i think that again that reappraisal was going to happen because we've seen the way in which globalization has raised living standards generally but has also disadvantaged rural communities industrial communities it's created rust belts so i think that that rebalancing was inevitable but without question this pandemic has hastened that how would you describe the gain for the local people of this exchange with the users of the inhub this region is is interesting i mean for me the traditional architecture and a lot of the traditional values are embedded in this in this region and the architecture is very special it's an age before cheap power and electricity it's a demonstration of how in a wonderfully civilized way you can create a warm environment in a you know what at times is climatically very hostile so in that sense there's a very strong traditional thread at the same time it has celebrated technology if you look at the way the railway systems have penetrated here you look at the great hotels which brought you know in quite a remote location extraordinarily sophisticated you know elevators electricity plumbing and so it's it's always been those those two worlds and there's been traditionally a thirst for experimentation and this is an experiment um you know how do you in the ultimately sustainable way regenerate a community which is uh which is numerically in decline but again there's a paradox here i was first told about the number of young people who were leaving the the village and yet my first encounter with the new politicians are the youngest in the community so so there's a very interesting contradiction there the people who are most concerned who are at the forefront politically are the youngest um that's not to say that also they're leavened out with older wiser inevitably more mature politicians so i think this as a project cuts across age cuts across uh professions um i think it's it's very much about a forward-looking vision for the for the future and in that sense it is a communal building um it is it's it also comes out of this extraordinary democratic process um so the the the you know if if this happens it will be hap it will happen because the community wants it it will also happen because one or two individuals had a had a vision and interestingly that vision started with the norman foster foundation in madrid when one of the two entrepreneurs behind the project saw the foundation saw the way in which different disciplines how young graduates could come from across the world engage with mentors top experts in the field to address issues which for future civic leaders climate change global uh warming and and saw the way that those boundaries were dissolved in a foundation which was about anticipating the future that was really the the the generator of the of the project so you know when i was approached about this project i mean for me it was you know was my perfect project it was about the future you have described the project as cutting across different things it also cuts across designs and and styles of architecture and it is controversially discussed how would you describe your project as you designed it as part of this old village i'd say that it couldn't have happened without the local culture i mean when i presented it in the town hall i talked openly about the inspirations i talked about the painter special i talked about the landscape talked about the indigenous architecture and how one could could learn from that in the quest to create spaces which are about creativity about regeneration about rediscovery so something that would hopeless you know hopefully be uh be timeless in it in its architecture a building that would attract visitors and would be inspirational as an example to other communities what do you say to people who criticize the architecture your design with these roundish forms and the very special shape of the of the roof people who say it should look more like the old engine house i would suggest that when you see it you realize that this building could not happen without the engineer is it different in the sense that it doesn't have a pitch roof yes are there certain buildings in the communities here the church which traditionally doesn't have that pitch roof shape has a much more sculptural rounded shape is where people came together because it had a civic significance yes um is it controversial is it raising questions is it raising discussion yes and if it wasn't doing that it wouldn't be doing its job thank you very much for sharing your time and your ideas with us lord norma foster thank you you

Channel: InnHub

Views: 7,760

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: architecture, covid-19, pandemic, innovation, norman foster, InnHub, La Punt, St. Moritz, Switzerland, workplace, meeting, christian gartmann, interview, engadin, campus

Id: vjrSFWkcaEI

Length: 24min 22sec (1462 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 05 2020