[Applause]
[Music]
have you ever considered what a sidewalk
a street corner
a tiny park or even a bus stop can do
for you well today I’d like to share
with you a series of experiments that
try to save the planet one tiny public
space at a time why has this become
important today with all that scientists
know about the environmental crisis
today including all the new technologies
and all of the improvements to our
existing technologies the rate of
environmental damage is still increasing
across the planet so for example the
technology in our cars is getting more
and more fuel-efficient yet our fuel
consumption keeps increasing rather than
decreasing this is paradoxical but it’s
not new more than a hundred and fifty
years ago this man William Stanley
Jevons discovered that gains in energy
efficiency ultimately lead to gains in
urgent energy consumption so you would
expect that the wider you build our
highways the less we have traffic but
it’s the exact opposite the wider we
build our highways the more we
experience traffic congestion and the
exact same thing is happening with the
way we use energy in our homes since
1990 in Canada energy efficiency
improved by 45% in the residential
sector yet energy consumption increased
by 7% technology is doing amazing work
yet our energy consumption goes up
this is a very strange paradox that
points to very counterproductive
behaviors so technology cannot be the
only way we go ahead and solve our
environmental crisis our behaviors are
one of the many factors and our
environmental problems you may ask why
do we feel so passive we see this all
the time we’re bombarded on a daily
basis with all this information about
the catastrophic effects of climate
change yet how many of us in here know
what a kilogram of co2 is or does and
does that kind of information help
change our individual actions like
taking the bus instead of the car or
taking the stairs instead of the
elevator so if these expert messages are
alien to us if they don’t inspire us
what is all around us and has the power
to influence our behavior individually
and collectively directly and every
single day that’s our public spaces how
could we draw upon the power of even the
most banal of our public spaces in our
cities to be able to mobilize collective
environmental actions okay what does
that mean so let’s imagine for a moment
that we’re walking in our own
neighborhoods and that we’re able to
encounter these crazy installations
reminding us of what we can do on a
daily basis to better protect our
environment this is not a fantasy I’m
going to present you two examples before
I talk about my initiative that either
raise awareness with public spaces or
directly engage citizens and the reason
why I chose these two examples is
because they show the different kinds of
ways we can use public spaces awareness
is all about knowing and and making
people know about a topic but engagement
is doing so we’ll start with the first
example which is an example in Amsterdam
there was a you know everybody likes
Amsterdam
but even Amsterdam has some unsafe areas
so the community got together and they
decided to make one of these unsafe
areas safer by using lighting but they
didn’t want to introduce heavy
infrastructure they wanted an
environmental solution and so they
worked with scholars and professionals
for to design this kinetic stick that
collects energy through human activity
and when you hook it on the tree the
entire layer area lights up making this
once unsaved or marginalized space into
a beautiful and even welcoming area and
this was done by people just walking and
running together on a daily basis so it
impacted an entire community and was
good for the environment
and their health so let’s go to another
example this was in Paris 2015 this was
also an example that used public space
but this time to raise awareness the
other example but then they used they
use public space in this case in a
rather shocking way and I’ll explain
this was one of the very important
events on climate change the UN climate
change conference in 2015 so there was
tons of experts there all kinds of
experts there and yet the most moving
experience there was not all the talk of
climate change and all the data that was
being exchanged the most moving event
there was rather these chunks of ice
cubes the artist salah/prayer Eliason
used real chunks of melting Greenland
glaciers these twelve pieces as you see
arranged in a circle like a clock a
reminder that time is of the essence
does anybody see any frightening data
here just chunks of ice sitting right in
front of the Pantheon people watched
this ice melt this was a very powerful
experience these chunks of ice
represented one tenth of the ice that
melts in a Greenland summer but not for
summer
not per month not even per day per
second so this event touched thousands
of people causing an international
dialogue on the melting IceCaps in
Greenland this was a powerful experience
yet
we were just witnesses watching this ice
melt where do we go from there
apart from feeling really worried about
our future so we have seen two examples
here so far both using public spaces but
in very different ways on the one hand
we have one that raises awareness the
ice watch and on the second we have one
that is directly engaging its citizens
so the difference is that awareness is a
first step and a very necessary
condition for engagement but engagement
is what gets things done we all know we
need to exercise right that’s awareness
but actually exercising that’s
engagement and this is exactly what our
team at Concordia University aim to
accomplish and improve regarding climate
change issues so we have two goals one
based on awareness and one based on
engagement awareness for us is all about
moving the conversation of climate
change out of the university which it
sometimes has a tendency to stay locked
in and moving it right into the
community so that we can share that kind
of information to everybody in the
community
that’s number one that’s awareness and
that’s a first step our second step is
engagement and how do we want to do this
we want to be able to awaken in some way
environmental behavior in all of us so
that we are empowered to act more
environmentally so you may be wondering
how do we do this so we’ve we’ve devised
three principles of which we set aside
for ourselves to be able to achieve
these two goals awareness and engagement
first the citizens are our enablers what
that means is every single installation
that we work on because we all
to work on public space installations
like our two previous examples every
single one of them is directly related
to a community priority so we work with
the community we understand the
priorities and our public space
installations are focused on that second
public spaces for us are key because
they are the points of junction between
academic knowledge and community action
so this is the point of interaction
where everything happens for us and
third design challenges are our method
to generate tons of unconventional and
crazy ideas and the reason why they’re
interesting for us is because we can
mobilize people from all over the world
especially with you know with social
media it’s very easy and this is what
we’ve been doing with our design
challenges because our initiative is
based on the island of Montreal and
because we wanted this to be a long-term
project where we use public space
installations as a way to communicate to
come to our communities different issues
about climate change we wanted to use
the longest urban corridor possible in
the city of Montreal as our organizing
principle for all of our public space
installations and so we’ve selected
Sherbrooke Street because it’s 31
kilometers it runs east and west and so
what this allows us to do is it allows
us to build an urban narrative of a kind
of environmental awakening an
environmental awakening path this is our
idea and our goal is to really exhibit
31 kilometers which is shurberg Street
of concrete and stimulating ways to
mobilize environmental actions so you
walk along Shore Brook Street and you’re
able to see different kinds of
installations depending on the community
and and the installations like I said
before are directly related to community
priorities just to give you an example
of some of the design challenges that we
have organized this is our these are
some images from our last one just and
our last design challenge what we did is
we called for ideas that would inspire
citizens to use the bus
all year round and that’s kind of tough
in Montreal because we have very extreme
weathers by using the small space
surrounding the bus stop itself that
space that nobody ever looks at that
it’s always ignored we all hate taking
the bus right mostly because we wait and
wait and wait and do nothing right but
what if these tiny neglected spaces that
are everywhere in the city and that
nobody ever looks at could help us and
inspire us to change in some way while
we wait for the bus we received about a
hundred ideas for more than 20 countries
25 of them only from China and so I’ll
just give you an idea of some of the
ideas that we that we received some of
them adopted the subject in a very
playful manner some of them were quite
interactive
in the way that they wanted people to
come and use the bus because that was
the goal others were informative about
different questions about climate change
in different consumption patterns in a
very very direct way while others were
informative and playful at the same time
we received many many different ideas so
our initiative is really at the
intersection between knowledge and
action where each one of our design
challenges like you saw before is all
about rethinking the power of even the
most banal of our public spaces and more
importantly is a way for us to relearn
what public spaces were always meant to
be which are places of dialogue and
places of change so just take a moment
now that you’re in your own neighborhood
and that you can imagine that in one of
the street corners there’s an herb
garden and another one of the street
corners there’s a children’s chutes and
ladders game that teaches you
environmental actions etc etc these
types of things are easy these types of
things can be done by people like by us
by you you can initiate you can be the
one that plants the seed you can be the
one that paints the floor with the games
and then
your community and your neighbors come
and join in so let’s take back our
planet and save our planet one public
space at a time thank you
you
[Music]
have you ever considered what a sidewalk
a street corner
a tiny park or even a bus stop can do
for you well today I’d like to share
with you a series of experiments that
try to save the planet one tiny public
space at a time why has this become
important today with all that scientists
know about the environmental crisis
today including all the new technologies
and all of the improvements to our
existing technologies the rate of
environmental damage is still increasing
across the planet so for example the
technology in our cars is getting more
and more fuel-efficient yet our fuel
consumption keeps increasing rather than
decreasing this is paradoxical but it’s
not new more than a hundred and fifty
years ago this man William Stanley
Jevons discovered that gains in energy
efficiency ultimately lead to gains in
urgent energy consumption so you would
expect that the wider you build our
highways the less we have traffic but
it’s the exact opposite the wider we
build our highways the more we
experience traffic congestion and the
exact same thing is happening with the
way we use energy in our homes since
1990 in Canada energy efficiency
improved by 45% in the residential
sector yet energy consumption increased
by 7% technology is doing amazing work
yet our energy consumption goes up
this is a very strange paradox that
points to very counterproductive
behaviors so technology cannot be the
only way we go ahead and solve our
environmental crisis our behaviors are
one of the many factors and our
environmental problems you may ask why
do we feel so passive we see this all
the time we’re bombarded on a daily
basis with all this information about
the catastrophic effects of climate
change yet how many of us in here know
what a kilogram of co2 is or does and
does that kind of information help
change our individual actions like
taking the bus instead of the car or
taking the stairs instead of the
elevator so if these expert messages are
alien to us if they don’t inspire us
what is all around us and has the power
to influence our behavior individually
and collectively directly and every
single day that’s our public spaces how
could we draw upon the power of even the
most banal of our public spaces in our
cities to be able to mobilize collective
environmental actions okay what does
that mean so let’s imagine for a moment
that we’re walking in our own
neighborhoods and that we’re able to
encounter these crazy installations
reminding us of what we can do on a
daily basis to better protect our
environment this is not a fantasy I’m
going to present you two examples before
I talk about my initiative that either
raise awareness with public spaces or
directly engage citizens and the reason
why I chose these two examples is
because they show the different kinds of
ways we can use public spaces awareness
is all about knowing and and making
people know about a topic but engagement
is doing so we’ll start with the first
example which is an example in Amsterdam
there was a you know everybody likes
Amsterdam
but even Amsterdam has some unsafe areas
so the community got together and they
decided to make one of these unsafe
areas safer by using lighting but they
didn’t want to introduce heavy
infrastructure they wanted an
environmental solution and so they
worked with scholars and professionals
for to design this kinetic stick that
collects energy through human activity
and when you hook it on the tree the
entire layer area lights up making this
once unsaved or marginalized space into
a beautiful and even welcoming area and
this was done by people just walking and
running together on a daily basis so it
impacted an entire community and was
good for the environment
and their health so let’s go to another
example this was in Paris 2015 this was
also an example that used public space
but this time to raise awareness the
other example but then they used they
use public space in this case in a
rather shocking way and I’ll explain
this was one of the very important
events on climate change the UN climate
change conference in 2015 so there was
tons of experts there all kinds of
experts there and yet the most moving
experience there was not all the talk of
climate change and all the data that was
being exchanged the most moving event
there was rather these chunks of ice
cubes the artist salah/prayer Eliason
used real chunks of melting Greenland
glaciers these twelve pieces as you see
arranged in a circle like a clock a
reminder that time is of the essence
does anybody see any frightening data
here just chunks of ice sitting right in
front of the Pantheon people watched
this ice melt this was a very powerful
experience these chunks of ice
represented one tenth of the ice that
melts in a Greenland summer but not for
summer
not per month not even per day per
second so this event touched thousands
of people causing an international
dialogue on the melting IceCaps in
Greenland this was a powerful experience
yet
we were just witnesses watching this ice
melt where do we go from there
apart from feeling really worried about
our future so we have seen two examples
here so far both using public spaces but
in very different ways on the one hand
we have one that raises awareness the
ice watch and on the second we have one
that is directly engaging its citizens
so the difference is that awareness is a
first step and a very necessary
condition for engagement but engagement
is what gets things done we all know we
need to exercise right that’s awareness
but actually exercising that’s
engagement and this is exactly what our
team at Concordia University aim to
accomplish and improve regarding climate
change issues so we have two goals one
based on awareness and one based on
engagement awareness for us is all about
moving the conversation of climate
change out of the university which it
sometimes has a tendency to stay locked
in and moving it right into the
community so that we can share that kind
of information to everybody in the
community
that’s number one that’s awareness and
that’s a first step our second step is
engagement and how do we want to do this
we want to be able to awaken in some way
environmental behavior in all of us so
that we are empowered to act more
environmentally so you may be wondering
how do we do this so we’ve we’ve devised
three principles of which we set aside
for ourselves to be able to achieve
these two goals awareness and engagement
first the citizens are our enablers what
that means is every single installation
that we work on because we all
to work on public space installations
like our two previous examples every
single one of them is directly related
to a community priority so we work with
the community we understand the
priorities and our public space
installations are focused on that second
public spaces for us are key because
they are the points of junction between
academic knowledge and community action
so this is the point of interaction
where everything happens for us and
third design challenges are our method
to generate tons of unconventional and
crazy ideas and the reason why they’re
interesting for us is because we can
mobilize people from all over the world
especially with you know with social
media it’s very easy and this is what
we’ve been doing with our design
challenges because our initiative is
based on the island of Montreal and
because we wanted this to be a long-term
project where we use public space
installations as a way to communicate to
come to our communities different issues
about climate change we wanted to use
the longest urban corridor possible in
the city of Montreal as our organizing
principle for all of our public space
installations and so we’ve selected
Sherbrooke Street because it’s 31
kilometers it runs east and west and so
what this allows us to do is it allows
us to build an urban narrative of a kind
of environmental awakening an
environmental awakening path this is our
idea and our goal is to really exhibit
31 kilometers which is shurberg Street
of concrete and stimulating ways to
mobilize environmental actions so you
walk along Shore Brook Street and you’re
able to see different kinds of
installations depending on the community
and and the installations like I said
before are directly related to community
priorities just to give you an example
of some of the design challenges that we
have organized this is our these are
some images from our last one just and
our last design challenge what we did is
we called for ideas that would inspire
citizens to use the bus
all year round and that’s kind of tough
in Montreal because we have very extreme
weathers by using the small space
surrounding the bus stop itself that
space that nobody ever looks at that
it’s always ignored we all hate taking
the bus right mostly because we wait and
wait and wait and do nothing right but
what if these tiny neglected spaces that
are everywhere in the city and that
nobody ever looks at could help us and
inspire us to change in some way while
we wait for the bus we received about a
hundred ideas for more than 20 countries
25 of them only from China and so I’ll
just give you an idea of some of the
ideas that we that we received some of
them adopted the subject in a very
playful manner some of them were quite
interactive
in the way that they wanted people to
come and use the bus because that was
the goal others were informative about
different questions about climate change
in different consumption patterns in a
very very direct way while others were
informative and playful at the same time
we received many many different ideas so
our initiative is really at the
intersection between knowledge and
action where each one of our design
challenges like you saw before is all
about rethinking the power of even the
most banal of our public spaces and more
importantly is a way for us to relearn
what public spaces were always meant to
be which are places of dialogue and
places of change so just take a moment
now that you’re in your own neighborhood
and that you can imagine that in one of
the street corners there’s an herb
garden and another one of the street
corners there’s a children’s chutes and
ladders game that teaches you
environmental actions etc etc these
types of things are easy these types of
things can be done by people like by us
by you you can initiate you can be the
one that plants the seed you can be the
one that paints the floor with the games
and then
your community and your neighbors come
and join in so let’s take back our
planet and save our planet one public
space at a time thank you
you
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