What architecture can do for you | Alice Kimm | TEDxFulbrightSantaMonica

hi everyone when I was 17 I traveled to Europe for the first time that trip was full of so many wonderful moments but one stands out in Rome I walked into the Pantheon and the power of that space and its light changed something inside me and I knew instinctively then that space really has the power to transform people 30 years later I was in Beijing as an architect and I went to check out the bird's nest Olympic Stadium I had only 20 minutes so I ran up the first flight of steps I could find and I burst inside near the top and once again I was overwhelmed the strength of that incredible steel structure and the space of the then empty stadium laid out in front of me made me me feel like I could be an Olympian just for a second and that really made me realize again that architecture has that power to inspire now those buildings are civic monuments they were commissioned by governments to symbolize the strength of entire peoples but what I know what I've learned is that architectures potential actually lies everywhere so it's in between each of you and the space between you and me it's on the stage it's in this room it's in this building it's in the streets outside and it expands out into the city of Santa Monica and way beyond the great architects from Santa Monica Charles and Ray Eames captured this notion perfectly in their 1977 film powers of 10 this film is used by mathematicians to teach kids about scale we architects use our special understanding of scale and our understanding of the relationship between all things to design spaces of all types and sizes now I think that a lot of you are probably still wondering though what does any of this have to do with me well what is architecture to me simply put architecture is the design spaces that all of us inhabit those spaces of course are are our physical but sometimes today their virtual like the space between me and the person that I'm texting on the other side of the world our kids today are living in an age where science and technology are making it possible to cross physical boundaries and to connect with others in ways that we could never imagine just a short time ago so architecture is also space that helps us to communicate and when those spaces either ancient or today's are life changing like the Pantheon and the bird's nest were for me then our interactions with each other and by extension our lives become so much more meaningful and creative now some of you might actually have spaces that do this for you already in which case you're lucky because it doesn't happen often it's rare and sometimes it just happens by accident but lots of times this power of great architecture is achieved by architects through special skill sets that are rooted in the idea of a spaces performance so take the Pantheon again a building that's thousands of years old its power lies in those perfect proportions and the design of that grand oculus through which the light streams down now when I was 17 I didn't know this I just felt something but now I know that the underlying magic of that space is the performance of those two things carefully and intelligently designed proportion and light working together and that this building remains today after so many years the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world that's a miraculous structural feat that also underlies those great proportions and that sublime light so some architect or architects they knew what they were doing they knew what they were aspiring to they were aspiring to something magnificent and the people who commissioned it they may not have known what they would get I'll bet they didn't but they knew that they had to ask for it but architecture has always had really basic responsibilities and today those those responsibilities have taken on a lot more urgency why because there are a lot of scary things going on in the world unstable governments poverty overpopulation an environmental decay these things are never far from our minds how could they be we're bombarded by their effects day in and day out and there's serious speculation about whether humanity can even survive this millennium so what are we supposed to do are we supposed to run away there's nowhere to run there's nowhere to hide so we architects we do our best to deliver spaces for you that are healthy cost-effective and resource efficient that's the definition of sustainability and we do this to help conserve our planet and our innate drive toward stability which right now is so incredibly threatened but doesn't it stand to reason that if Humanity is the cause of most of these problems and we most certainly are that we can use tools that are specific to us perhaps to may be reverse some of the damage or at least slow it down architecture is one of those tools so in fact there's a lot of amazing work being performed by architects everywhere today one dramatic example is Masdar city a brand-new NetZero city right outside of abu dhabi being built and this means that it aspires to create new energy and not use more than that which is remarkable other architects are looking to emulate high-performance structures found in nature so you might see building structures that resemble spider webs or building facades that open and close like pine cones depending on the temperature outside now this isn't because spider webs and pine cones are pretty though they are pretty they're very very pretty it's because the beauty of their forms is tie to a performance-oriented survival instinct that has stood them so well throughout the many ages so we architects we're trying to learn from these elements of nature to design buildings that will help humanity survive longer better and stronger but architecture is everywhere I believe it is so Masdar City is not the common reality the common reality is people like us living and working in economically constructed environments because I don't know about you but I think that I do live on a budget so in my and my husband John Friedman's practice we believe that projects of any type size and budget do have potential for major impact just up the street right here in Santa Monica a friend of ours asked us to design him a house that was small sustainable and serene he didn't know where this demand would get him but he knew that he had to trust us to deliver something great and the result is a home whose soul whose power lies in the relationship of indoor and outdoor space which then work in hand with the technologies that are invisible but make this house very very energy-efficient and like it's a pantheon we introduced light from above into the houses major living space to give it that mysterious quality that makes it special further east in pasadena we worked with some of the world's leading sustainability engineers at Caltech these are some of the people who are inventing super-thin photovoltaic panels for instance and we created a working environment for them from which they could also educate the world about what it is that they're doing and how urgent it is so we wrapped the core of the building in these images of the changing earth it's a very simple strategy every day these people walk in and out of their building and they walk next to these walls and they remind themselves that they have to deliver on what they're doing for the sake of all of us but the environment is also an inspiring one and it's made that again by the quality of natural light the materials that are used which include rapidly renewable and recycled cork and bamboo for instance but most of all the feeling of being connected to a community outside through the use of glass and the opening up of views to the trees just outside everyone in this building feels that they're part of the larger world and that this building also houses a skilfully engineered array of boxes really that help it to be very energy efficient is very important if you remember that buildings use up more than 30% of the Earth's energy stores it's quite ridiculous actually now across the academic quad some of the premier aerospace engineers work in this building whose identity is inspired by the principle of flow an idea that all life cells and matter move through the boundless regions of the infinite through space so when you walk into the space of this Lobby and this ceiling is lit and glowing you feel the flow that's driving that work that's going on inside but architecture can establish identity and make connections between people in so many different ways so in Mexico we created an interior public plaza for a large book fair to honor the city of Los Angeles a city whose friendship is greatly cherished by Mexico so we brought la spirit to life by using the technologies that make this city what it is people the 1 million visitors they didn't have to read a lot of fine text the architecture gave them the story so the balloons that are hanging in the space which you'll see in a second were specially engineered and they were inspired by the aerospace industry that was born and brought up in Los Angeles and they not only formed lights for the space but their backdrops for independent films that were commissioned especially for this event so this extremely immersive environment was all about la culture the technologies that bring it to life and the relationships the emotional connections between Mexicans and Angelenos that was a really fun one and now we're almost into construction on a cultural monument in Koreatown here in LA it's a permanent gateway that will symbolize the unity and friendship between these two places that are on opposite sides of the globe now you can probably tell by my name that I'm korean-american but having lived and worked in LA for over 25 years I belong to this city so this project means a lot to me I think the form of the structure will give rise to many different associations for the people who experience it but it's really this programmable LED array on top that will be the vehicle to transmit countless images messages and communications between the two cultures but also out to the rest of the world so each of these projects has a sphere of influence that reverberates outward and connects with every other architectural sphere of influence out there and together collectively this is how I think architecture can change the world for better but now we have to accelerate this process of connectivity we have to work together to reach for that performance that's necessary for humanity's survival as well as the power that's necessary for humanity's spirit to thrive because I think that every single one of you probably understands yes we need energy and we need health just to live and to breathe but don't we need creativity inspiration and beauty to give our lives meaning and happiness architecture is one of the things that can bring some of this into balance and that balance was what I felt at the Pantheon so many years ago so in 2008 I was back in Rome in front of the Pantheon with two of my kids they were very young and all they cared about was gelato so I was also with my dad thank goodness he's also an architect he's always been an inspiration and just as we did when I was 17 we walked back in together and once more the space of the Pantheon it just took our breath away so I will ask you demand the best that you can from your environments just as you choose what food to put in your bodies you choose what spaces your bodies and habit and you transmit that to your children your students everyone you come into contact with every single day and that's how you each of you advances the possibility for great architecture everywhere I know that we architects aren't idealistic and therefore aggravating Bunch but we're also cynical and we're realistic and that's a good thing because we accept the condition that we find our world in today and we choose to work with it so we will continue to aspire to bring you transcendent and emotional experience to every single one of you in ways that you cannot even imagine that's why we're architects that's why I'm an architect we can deliver this if you take the time to ask us to thank you very much you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 42,160

Rating: 4.9363184 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Design, Architecture

Id: 3dCd2onzB6k

Length: 14min 44sec (884 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 04 2015