University in England is a very old
college with very old buildings one
building in particular was very very
special it was a very old building it
was 150 years old and its roof was made
of full long beams of oak beautiful oak
tree trunks
now 150 years later those beams were
beginning to rot and fall apart so the
faculty came together to consult about a
solution they inquired about the cost of
these beams and they found out that even
one beam would cost over a hundred
thousand pounds
now that’s university they don’t have
that kind of budget one of the younger
member on the faculty said before you
take any drastic measures let me do some
research two weeks later she comes back
and she says I’m very glad we took the
time to do the research because we have
found out that the architect who built
this very building a hundred and fifty
years ago planted a group of oak trees
specifically for that purpose ladies and
gentlemen this is sustainable design
designing sustainably is not new it’s a
very very old concept and it’s really
just about facilitating processes even
150 years into the future when we talk
about facilitating processes into the
future I want to highlight three
concepts we work with three dynamics the
first one is the intelligence of users
then come the honesty of behavior and
the third one is the quality of time now
how do we harness the intelligence of
users how do we do that in the 1970s in
the world of business robert Greenleaf
spoke about the concept of servant
leadership
he said that good servants good leaders
must first become good servants now what
Greenleaf is talking about here is this
concept of mature leadership a
leadership that is not a dictatorship
but a service let me illustrate imagine
I’m standing here at point a with a
group of bricks now I need to get these
bricks to point B there without leaving
my spot I may just think of throwing the
bricks very good job done now I’m still
at point a but this time instead of a
group of bricks I had a collection of
birds I need to get these birds to pour
be there without leaving my spot if I
throw them that’s not gonna work they’re
gonna fly in all their own directions
but I may think of throwing food and the
birds will follow this is an example of
leadership by pull not push a leadership
that’s not a dictating but a
facilitating method now what is
facilitation I’m sure you’ve heard that
term a number of times
let’s flesh out the notion of
facilitation for a little bit I always
do that by sharing one of my favorite
stories this story is about an architect
who was asked to design a university
campus on a site that if you look at it
from above it looks a little bit like
that so she designs the different
departments and she built them on site
but contrary to the expectation of the
staff and students she doesn’t design
any routes any pathways to walk instead
she plants the whole site with grass now
after the first semester paths appear in
the grass on their own she then comes
back and she then paves these pathways
just as they emerged and she noticed two
things the first is these pathways
appeared in places she wouldn’t have
predicted and none of them were straight
now this is a story that’s a very good
illustration of three qualities of
facilitation in a way there are three
provocative design guidelines the first
quality of facilitating is creating
things that are incomplete
the architect didn’t finish the design
she didn’t say this is where the path
should be it’s now finished completed
and then I go instead she left the
design incomplete and that was the very
invitation for the staff and students to
give their input
she also planted the site with grass not
asphalt and that’s the second quality of
facilitation which is creating things
impermanent grass took on the input of
time it was a recorder of input and that
was very very important for this notion
of facilitation the third quality of
facilitation is designing things that
are imperfect
remember the paths were in unusual
locations and none of them were straight
that means we’re talking here about the
aesthetic quality a human aesthetic this
is where we celebrate textures and
smells and imperfections and the
humanity of even inanimate things so we
could say that facilitating is really
just creating contexts that are
incomplete impermanent
and imperfect now this brings us back to
gathering the intelligence of users one
way to gather the intelligence fuser is
then to foster the interactions of these
users to facilitate these interactions
now when we talk about the honesty of
behavior it is very important to be able
to harness that honesty from behavior
I’ll give you another example I myself
I’m an architect and I’m trained to deal
with form I’m not interested in form I’m
much more interested in flow and how
things move how people move around the
space how they use it how they interact
with it what parts of it they use what
they don’t use if you look at this
example it’s not what is built but
actually what is not built that people
are using the value is in what is not
there it’s not about the context but
about the behavior that the context
encourages and this is not to say that
the context is not important on the
contrary the context is as important as
the quality of the relationship and the
quality of the interactions it fosters
remember it that way it’s not what
something does it’s not what something
is it is indeed what it does it’s not
what it is in itself it’s the
interactions it fosters from there so to
gather and harness the honesty of
behavior we need to move away from
conversation and much more into
observation of flows that brings us to
utilizing the quality of time how do we
utilize the quality of time if you
remember the Oxford story i just opened
with you realize very quickly that
sustainability is about time it’s about
what we call the fourth dimension the
time dimension now sustainability has at
least I believe three qualities the
first one is the physical quality this
is where most of the global discourse on
sustainability is nowadays we talk about
the physical quality of the materials
and the systems that we use here and now
sustainability has a second quality and
that’s the quality of resilience this is
where we’re talking about creating
sustainable system systems that can
adapt that are assimilative of the
changes imposed on them this is a
responsive quality of sustainability the
last quality of sustainability which is
even more mature than that is a quality
of anticipatory sustainability needs to
be anticipating of the
changes in the long-term future this is
not a responsive quality but actually a
proactive quality and this is where when
we want to design something that is
sustainable we need to in built into the
system the ability to adapt itself by
itself so when we talk about
sustainability it’s really about
fostering interactions along the
time-dimension and really thinking 150
years into the future what is going to
happen and how do we empower the system
to be able to deal with those changes
now if you look at those dynamics I talk
a lot about interactions here is the one
thing to take home with you today
besides the bar of chocolates that you
have on your seats do not design
interactions if you design interactions
it falls back into the leadership model
of a dictator instead we need to
facilitate interactions and the only way
to do that is to design the context for
interactions do not design interactions
instead design the context for
interactions the question is how how do
we create context that foster
interactions now this question is not an
easy one and this is the question that
drives my work myself but also my team a
few years ago I found that acha acha is
an architecture and urban design studio
based in Amsterdam and the main question
we work with is exactly that how do we
create contexts that foster interactions
our work at akka is driven by a very
simple vision a very simple philosophy
we call architecting interaction and if
you see the emphasis here is not on the
architecture but actually on the
interactions now interactions are
important because we believe that there
are the seeds of innovation this is
where everything starts and when
interactions are the seeds of innovation
this is where you can look at different
contexts different situations and say
which ones need to foster interactions
we’ve looked at that and I can tell you
every space but also every context every
situation every product every service
you’re busy with needs to foster
interactions the only difference is
there are different interactions and to
creating contexts that foster
interactions is the essence of the
vision of architecting interact
now that’s a vision that’s the
philosophy now we need to make it
reality we need to be able to implement
it and this is where we start looking at
the process now the process of
architecture are widely known and used
actually it doesn’t work at least not
for us when we aim to foster
interactions the deliverable goes beyond
the physical I’ll explain what I mean
who remembers this formula we’re in high
school I hope a few more people remember
this formula great now very simply put
this is equal and square roots eaten is
the energy M the mass and C the speed of
light now I took the very artistic
freedom to translate that into
architecture and what happens is you
realize that mass becomes the built mass
the bricks and mortar this is what we’re
talking about floors walls and ceilings
the actual form the speed of light is
the velocity the movement of people in
the space this is their interactions and
what comes from that is this emerging
quality of a space when the focus is
beyond the physical mass there is a
fundamental difference between focusing
on delivering the space as a fixed
static mass or focusing on what that
space can deliver the energy that can
come through that and this is valid for
any product or service or activity you
are busy with physical or digital there
is a fundamental difference between
focusing on em on your product or
service as a static entity or focusing
on what that product or service can
deliver beyond itself and this is where
we want to be we want to be able to move
from quantitative to qualitative
approaches what I said about the
architectural process is we’ve tried it
and it actually doesn’t deliver the
results were looking for to be able to
deliver the eda it is energy and
emerging quality we had to go beyond
designing spaces as a static fixed mass
so what we did is we had to invent and
come up with our own custom unique
process what’s essential to know about
this process is that it’s an
intrinsically collaborative process and
it’s based on the communal creation of
knowledge I’ll explain the process is
four phases three of these phases happen
before people can move into the space
and start using it now I’m gonna say
space you think product sir
this program whatever you’re busy with
it will still work what I will do here
is explain very briefly the principle of
these phases what you notice is that the
last phase can only happen after people
start using that space created the first
phase is what we call appreciate and
this phase is about rounding the P for
the different people the different
groups of people concerned by this
project and extracting from them their
insight and creating from there an
aligned
understanding from that understanding we
go into phase 2 which we call the kernel
and this phase is about creating a
certain vision a shared vision based on
that understanding that we created in
the first phase now this vision is now
ready to be implemented this is where we
go into the third phase which is called
the kickstart and this is where we use
the methodology of learning by doing to
be able to turn that vision into reality
this is where a development construction
demolition implementation all of this
happens traditionally at the end of this
phase is where the building is so called
finished completed people move in and
the architects are never to be seen
again
like good criminals that never go back
to the scene of the crime of course what
I’m showing here is that we have a
fourth phase a last phase and that’s the
one I want to emphasize the most this
phase is called adapt and in this phase
it’s only based on observing how people
are using the different features of the
space how they’re moving around it what
flows they’re describing in it that we
can bring the last refinements and fine
tuning to what we’ve created this is how
we create a sustainable space in the
sense of it can sustain itself over the
long future and this is where we can
create a living space now the backbone
of this process is what we call
community consultation and this is where
we need to extract the insights not the
opinion but the insights of the
different groups of people concerned by
the project and this is because we
simply believe that the users are the
experts in how they use a space we
engage people in this process not to
find out what they want the space to be
but to uncover collectively what this
space needs to be and if you translate
that to your own activities and your own
processes and your own products and
services you will see what difference it
will make we’ve applied this vision and
this process to an array of
projects I will only show you a few
highlights of them here tonight and this
is to describe the different scales and
locations and instructions they were
created in this is the national library
in qatar the qatar foundation
headquarters this is a co-working space
in amsterdam you have a university and
school in dubai a very different school
in mongolia much smaller we’ve also
worked on local schools in in holland
then we have also applied this to this
is for example a toy museum in amsterdam
this is a very urban project that’s a
collaboration with shell in mozambique
and then another collaboration with the
ministry of infrastructure in in holland
and this is simply to show that this
vision and this process are applicable
to any service or product you’re busy
with and for us it doesn’t only mean
building a new space or building from
scratch it’s also very applicable to
inhabiting an existing space this is
where we talk of renovation and reuse of
existing spaces especially in Europe but
the third possibility of this which is
one of the most unique aspects of this
approach is really when we’re talking
about optimizing the same space the
current space people only go to
architects when they need to inhabit an
existing space and or move to a new
space or build it from scratch but
that’s not always what is needed and no
architect will tell you that of course
but the point is sometimes the best
solution you can do is optimize your
current space you are already in and
this is where you’re looking at the last
phase of the process in any case before
you figure out what is the best
situation to do for every project it is
very crucial to go through the first
phase of appreciation and create this
alignment not only to find the right
answers but indeed to ask the right
questions now when you look at this
process the phase of adapting which is
our last phase actually creates a
renewed understanding a renewed
appreciation which means of course that
the space the process is not a linear
process but a circular process there are
three qualities that are important to
know about this process the first one is
the process is designed as an open
process without the collaboration of the
different users and other experts the
process cannot
move forward the process in itself is
incomplete the process is changing
because it takes all the in different
inputs and all the different insights
that are coming to it and all the
different moments in time which means at
any given moment in time this process is
impermanent and the profit feeds on
insights and insights come from the
different group of people concerned by
the project which means the process
actually remains imperfect remember you
don’t design interactions you design the
context for interactions and that might
sound like a slight but actually very
important shift in conclusion
architecting interaction is really
larger than architecture and urban
design I use them for architecture and
urban design those are our fields I
invite you to use them for whatever
field and activity you are engaging in
because remember every context needs to
foster interactions we’re only talking
about different interactions and
interactions to varying degrees how we
do that we do that by gathering the
intelligence of users harnessing the
honesty of behavior and utilizing the
quality of time and this is done with a
very important concept in mind the
concept of do not fall back into
designing interactions instead
facilitate interactions and we do that
by creating the context and making those
contexts fruitful enough for interaction
to emergent how do we do that we do that
in the array of different approaches in
the world of architecture we’ll talk
about new build spaces but we talk about
inhabiting in existing spaces optimizing
current spaces or simply aligning and
appreciating the situation before we do
anything else in any case when we do
that a question remain how can we create
contexts that foster interactions and
the answer is very very simple we do
that by creating incomplete impermanent
and imperfect context through a process
that is in itself incomplete impermanent
and imperfect and that’s because after
all all our actions our interactions
thank you very much
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