I have a story to share with you it is a
story of our relationship with the urban
form in our cities I was born in a
country in which uniform buildings were
built all across 22 million square
kilometers this country was called the
Soviet Union my father who is a
brilliant scientist in the late eighties
early nineties started working with
Italy and traveling to como lake and so
he would bring pictures like this and
you know as a child looking at them it
seemed to me that living in such a place
is just unreal it’s like a fairy tale it
happened that then if he is later we
moved to France for my father’s work and
I started in ruse and then you know I
had a chance to study in Paris as well
and and learn Italian in Rome and after
that I think till now I visit visit
around 300 cities and worked with about
50 of them for different international
institutions and I realized one critical
and actually frightening thing the only
heritage cities have this character and
uplift and inspire us by the way they
built what about the cities of today
why not the cities we build now is this
how we want our cities to look like you
know in the world we have 4.2 billion
people living in cities and by 2050 we
are going to be 6.7 billion people so
don’t be 4.2 plus billion people have
the right to live in an inspiring
environment rather than this environment
or maybe this how can we possibly
connect to these buildings you know I
used to live in that place called the
San Luis Island which is just behind the
notre-dame Cathedral in Paris and you
know when you go that night and human
steps have faded the way and you just
hear these walls
telling you ancient stories and you know
the hand-carved the riverbanks which
also has centuries and the gargoyles and
statues on the top of Notre Dame that
look you know through the horizon and
you get such an attachment to the place
that even today whenever I visit Paris I
visit them like my friends they are part
of me now
you know today we take it for granted
that cities become more and more uniform
and look alike and we think this is the
only way to go and we think this is
because we have globalization and
because there is population pressure and
because we don’t have time to build
otherwise and this is precisely this
belief I would like to question today
with you
we need the uniqueness of the urban form
we need it as much as we need shelter
water basic services and we need it
because uniqueness determines our
internal well-being now when we take
care of our physical needs we take care
of our body but when we take care about
our immaterial needs we actually take
care of our inner selves and we let our
inner selves flourish so today when we
walk in a city we actually don’t walk in
the city we walk through the city we
walk to a destination we don’t dwell
into the place and why so and this is
precisely most often because the way our
cities are built they are not designed
for us to connect with them so let me
show you that by actually not creating a
connecting unique environment we are not
meeting any of the needs at all in today
context and I’ll demonstrate it by
focusing on three major points which are
climate resilience economic
competitiveness and in addition to this
physical and mental well-being so I want
you to meet this man philip old hermit
theropod hermit is the bangkok citizen
and until a few months back he lived in
a community called maha controlled
community which which dates back to 1800
so for generations people used to live
in wooden houses and cherish them so the
government has decided to evict these
people and how do you think they reacted
did they
let it happen know what they did they
fought for 24 long years against this
eviction would we do this you know if we
lived in some kind of high-rise you know
badly maintained and we were offered a
better apartment some way I don’t think
we would fight for that the reason why
they fought for their community is
because they had a unique public real
that they didn’t want to let go and even
in fact even after they were evicted few
months back they created an online
community to just give his memories
alive so much their attachment was
strong Winston Churchill said we shape
our buildings and afterwards our
buildings shape us this is exactly true
the environment we live in shapes us
internally and you know consequences on
building uniform are much bigger than
what we sink first of all building
uniform compromises climate resilience
let’s look at the Asian context for a
moment Asia is the most vulnerable
continent to climate change
six out of ten most climate change
affected nations are located on the
continent seven of out of 25 stitches
most exposed to see sea level rise are
located in the Philippines alone and 410
million Asian urban dwellers are at risk
of coastal floods by 2025 it’s just in a
few years from now so why is this
happening the reason why this is
happening is because precisely we don’t
take care of uniqueness
what does uniqueness mean uniqueness
first of all means dwell in the local
context build in line with the local
context this is how you bill in line
with the local context you take care of
natural ecosystems of resources that you
have is this how we build in Asia let’s
look at Jakarta Jakarta is a city of
about 11 million people the city is
covered by 97 percent by concrete and
asphalt what does this mean this is the
city where monsoon would happen every
year is in any country of Southeast Asia
where does the water go the way we built
it we really compromise people safety in
these places let’s look at India now
twenty-one indian major cities and when
I say major I mean daily I’m in
Hyderabad I’m in Chennai I’m going to
run out of groundwater by 2020 so we are
not talking about you know some remote
future maybe in 50 years it is tomorrow
it isn’t one and a half years we are
running into this catastrophe is today
and we are running at them precisely
because of the way we build these cities
Bangalore and Chennai have lost 80 and
90 percent of their water bodies
respectively over the last 40 years at
the moment they both face severe floods
and water shortages another important
point face this uniform cities are
becoming uncompetitive okay
Singapore in 2016 has received sixteen
point four million tourists versus
Indian the same year fourteen point five
so we are basically talking about a
small nation of 5.7 million people
versus the second-most populated nation
of 1.3 billion people what is the reason
so Singapore since the ages has placed
the concept of identity at the core of
its urban development any development
plan has to first consider how it will
enhance the identity of Singapore it is
extremely strict and it’s given its
roots another point regarding
competitiveness
you know when organization started that
was the time of Industrial Revolution so
people would move to cities because they
were jobs and factories and obviously if
you want to work in a factory you’d
rather live nearby is this the case
today today is the era of digital
revolution and over 50% of global jobs
are in services what does this mean I
can work from anywhere
do I need to live in some ugly concrete
city I don’t so it means that if a city
wants to attract qualified individuals
it actually needs to offer quality of
life and so the important point building
uniforms severely affects our physical
and mental health
as for the whu-oh 23% of deaths in 2012
we’re due to physical environment
you know all these nice things we see
when we go out of this auditorium which
are air pollution heavy traffic noise
pollution badly built houses all this
affects us tremendously what about our
mental health it’s a college it : alert
conducted a very interesting
psychological experiment what he did he
put sensors on people and then he asked
them to walk along a uniform you know
kind of boring building and then he has
to do them the same walking in front of
a historical or they created an
interesting building so what he noticed
in this experience is that when people
were walking near a boring building the
stress level dramatically went up which
was measured by coaches all it does
affect us it is a reality
and finally the argument of social
justice you know we often talk about
affordable housing now and we all agree
that yes every human being has right to
shelter into housing no matter what you
think what the income is but we don’t
seem to acknowledge that everyone and
dependently from the income also needs a
certain well-being and certain
inspiration that people have
psychological needs as well not only
physical needs so look at this at the at
your right look at this resettlement
affordable housing colony versus the
nice posh areas of South Delhi why don’t
you offer these people at least a little
bit of greenery of public spaces a
little bit of variety in buildings we
don’t think they deserve it or what so
we have this three major challenges but
we have a tremendous opportunity in
front of us you know why because sixty
percent of the infrastructure we are
going to see in 2030 is yet to be built
this means these ten years are critical
years which are going to determine how I
see our cities are going to look like
two decades so how can we solve some of
these issues with bringing in more
uniqueness there are three ways of doing
that first you need to build in line
with the local context look at the city
of Samaria and at the city of Manila
siem reap has adapted to the law
context you know that there is going to
be monsoon there going to be heavy
precipitation so they build houses on
stilts and they put a small boat nearby
so they are not affected by heavy rains
now look at Manila and you know this
standardized houses you could find
anywhere across the world and they are
suffering because they haven’t taken
enough the context into consideration so
fine we may say these are you know this
is small scale but in Asian cities we
have such a high population load how do
we deal with that well believe me most
populated Asian cities actually a number
of them deal with these issues
dramatically well Hong Kong has about
seventy percent of its territory covered
by greenery this is an example of Tokyo
where they intentionally keep green
spaces and not so much of high-rise
because they the earthquake prone many
other examples and actually you know
what
sixty percent of Asian urban dwellers
live in small to medium sized cities do
we really need this concrete high-rises
this is a school to create to go
small-scale to do interesting things for
example let’s get inspired a little bit
from our heritage if you go to Shimla
this is a cold climate and Israel in
winters and it’s also an earthquake
prone zone so how did people build you
have the ground floor which is very
solid thick walls to keep the
temperature inside and also to resist to
potential earthquake and then the first
flow is very light so in case the
earthquake is strong it’s going to
produce less possible damages and the
sloping roof in case of snores building
unique is building in organized
complexity so here you know often we
tend to fall into one of the two
extremes when we want to improve our
cities either we say we should regulate
everything everything should be written
and everything should be controlled or
we just leave the things to develop the
way they’re going and leave the market
forces and whoever do whatever they want
we need the middle ground and that this
is a picture of the neighborhood of
Orchard Street in Singapore Singapore
provides directly a guidelines to each
neighborhood on what is the identity of
the neighborhood and how to preserve
in case of auto Street this is a vibrant
commercial and tourist area so the
guidelines say that your building should
be in line with other buildings should
look good in comparison your roof scape
should be in line with the streetscape
so you can’t build just a new roof it
needs to be aesthetic you need to
provide large pedestrian areas and semi
covered public areas so it is an
interactive facade not a closed facade
and very importantly it says if you
believe your project is unique but it
doesn’t comply with our guidelines
please share it with us we’ll look at it
so there are basic guidelines which are
strictly and four and then you have
freedom to create this is what creates
uniqueness you know let us disconnect
from this intellectual talk for three
minutes
and let us project ourselves you know
forgetting what we see outside maybe in
how would it be if all cities were
unique and what about if every city you
visit for any purpose you know the city
you live in the city you go to to see
relatives the city you go to for work
everything has this unique element
wouldn’t it be just this reading
experience of life wouldn’t it be like
to be on holidays for 365 days a year
and then there is experience of beauty
beauty is one of the strongest
experiences that we can have in life and
no wonder that major artists created and
fairies created and Rome created in
Kyoto created in Hawaii on those cities
that provide us this inspiration that
uplift us that open our opportunities so
can you do anything about the way we are
going now should we wait for governments
to do something at some point in time or
can we
today take maybe some small actions so
there are a few I’d like to share with
you so first of all what we need to do
we need to acknowledge that the
emotional connect with the urban built
environment is important Christopher
Alexander is one of the most renowned
architects and
scientists who actually stated for
decades that the right to beauty and
uniqueness in cities is our birthright
he has many followers all across the
world you know and then small practical
actions many of us have if I were
balcony right so what about just putting
a few plants a small lantern so that
when people walk on the street they see
something different if a few people do
it in a stream the street is going to be
transformed all together and then if you
are an owner of a house you know you can
repaint your house if you’re building a
house you can you can discuss with the
architects on how can you adopt your
building to the local context to the
best and then a few small neighborhood
level actions now greening so greening
can never go wrong I mean how can a tree
be ugly you know so this is the city
where I was born called the kajam
corridor which is a typical Soviet City
of the 50s if you look at the buildings
they’re just concrete boxes but then
look with a bit of painting and with
this wonderful green surrounding it
actually looks pretty amazing it has
recently become regionally protected
cultural natural heritage to that extent
yeah and then you know you can create on
facades for example volunteers from van
Bao
NGO in Madurai they just decided to
clean and repaint walls of a kind of
neglected neighborhood and not only they
did that but it had actually a
tremendous spillover effect because the
Commission of Madurai has noticed that
and he has taken these actions in many
other neighbor creative pavements so no
pavement we don’t pay attention much to
but very often I see historical cities
spoiled because you have pretty
interesting you know old buildings and
then you just spill over cement and it
completely kills the character on the
opposite maybe the buildings are not so
fancy but just put a little bit of
variety why do we always want to just
put cement and it’s going to uplift the
city and then finally motivate people
the Indian Railways recently created the
beautification contest for cities to
beautify train stations and so much
creativity came out of it so we just
need to acknowledge that yes
we do have this need to live in an
inspiring beautiful and unique
surrounding and voice it out I also have
many ideas for policymakers businesses
urban practitioners on how we can put it
in place I’ll be happy to share it in –
TED talk
thank you [Applause]
story of our relationship with the urban
form in our cities I was born in a
country in which uniform buildings were
built all across 22 million square
kilometers this country was called the
Soviet Union my father who is a
brilliant scientist in the late eighties
early nineties started working with
Italy and traveling to como lake and so
he would bring pictures like this and
you know as a child looking at them it
seemed to me that living in such a place
is just unreal it’s like a fairy tale it
happened that then if he is later we
moved to France for my father’s work and
I started in ruse and then you know I
had a chance to study in Paris as well
and and learn Italian in Rome and after
that I think till now I visit visit
around 300 cities and worked with about
50 of them for different international
institutions and I realized one critical
and actually frightening thing the only
heritage cities have this character and
uplift and inspire us by the way they
built what about the cities of today
why not the cities we build now is this
how we want our cities to look like you
know in the world we have 4.2 billion
people living in cities and by 2050 we
are going to be 6.7 billion people so
don’t be 4.2 plus billion people have
the right to live in an inspiring
environment rather than this environment
or maybe this how can we possibly
connect to these buildings you know I
used to live in that place called the
San Luis Island which is just behind the
notre-dame Cathedral in Paris and you
know when you go that night and human
steps have faded the way and you just
hear these walls
telling you ancient stories and you know
the hand-carved the riverbanks which
also has centuries and the gargoyles and
statues on the top of Notre Dame that
look you know through the horizon and
you get such an attachment to the place
that even today whenever I visit Paris I
visit them like my friends they are part
of me now
you know today we take it for granted
that cities become more and more uniform
and look alike and we think this is the
only way to go and we think this is
because we have globalization and
because there is population pressure and
because we don’t have time to build
otherwise and this is precisely this
belief I would like to question today
with you
we need the uniqueness of the urban form
we need it as much as we need shelter
water basic services and we need it
because uniqueness determines our
internal well-being now when we take
care of our physical needs we take care
of our body but when we take care about
our immaterial needs we actually take
care of our inner selves and we let our
inner selves flourish so today when we
walk in a city we actually don’t walk in
the city we walk through the city we
walk to a destination we don’t dwell
into the place and why so and this is
precisely most often because the way our
cities are built they are not designed
for us to connect with them so let me
show you that by actually not creating a
connecting unique environment we are not
meeting any of the needs at all in today
context and I’ll demonstrate it by
focusing on three major points which are
climate resilience economic
competitiveness and in addition to this
physical and mental well-being so I want
you to meet this man philip old hermit
theropod hermit is the bangkok citizen
and until a few months back he lived in
a community called maha controlled
community which which dates back to 1800
so for generations people used to live
in wooden houses and cherish them so the
government has decided to evict these
people and how do you think they reacted
did they
let it happen know what they did they
fought for 24 long years against this
eviction would we do this you know if we
lived in some kind of high-rise you know
badly maintained and we were offered a
better apartment some way I don’t think
we would fight for that the reason why
they fought for their community is
because they had a unique public real
that they didn’t want to let go and even
in fact even after they were evicted few
months back they created an online
community to just give his memories
alive so much their attachment was
strong Winston Churchill said we shape
our buildings and afterwards our
buildings shape us this is exactly true
the environment we live in shapes us
internally and you know consequences on
building uniform are much bigger than
what we sink first of all building
uniform compromises climate resilience
let’s look at the Asian context for a
moment Asia is the most vulnerable
continent to climate change
six out of ten most climate change
affected nations are located on the
continent seven of out of 25 stitches
most exposed to see sea level rise are
located in the Philippines alone and 410
million Asian urban dwellers are at risk
of coastal floods by 2025 it’s just in a
few years from now so why is this
happening the reason why this is
happening is because precisely we don’t
take care of uniqueness
what does uniqueness mean uniqueness
first of all means dwell in the local
context build in line with the local
context this is how you bill in line
with the local context you take care of
natural ecosystems of resources that you
have is this how we build in Asia let’s
look at Jakarta Jakarta is a city of
about 11 million people the city is
covered by 97 percent by concrete and
asphalt what does this mean this is the
city where monsoon would happen every
year is in any country of Southeast Asia
where does the water go the way we built
it we really compromise people safety in
these places let’s look at India now
twenty-one indian major cities and when
I say major I mean daily I’m in
Hyderabad I’m in Chennai I’m going to
run out of groundwater by 2020 so we are
not talking about you know some remote
future maybe in 50 years it is tomorrow
it isn’t one and a half years we are
running into this catastrophe is today
and we are running at them precisely
because of the way we build these cities
Bangalore and Chennai have lost 80 and
90 percent of their water bodies
respectively over the last 40 years at
the moment they both face severe floods
and water shortages another important
point face this uniform cities are
becoming uncompetitive okay
Singapore in 2016 has received sixteen
point four million tourists versus
Indian the same year fourteen point five
so we are basically talking about a
small nation of 5.7 million people
versus the second-most populated nation
of 1.3 billion people what is the reason
so Singapore since the ages has placed
the concept of identity at the core of
its urban development any development
plan has to first consider how it will
enhance the identity of Singapore it is
extremely strict and it’s given its
roots another point regarding
competitiveness
you know when organization started that
was the time of Industrial Revolution so
people would move to cities because they
were jobs and factories and obviously if
you want to work in a factory you’d
rather live nearby is this the case
today today is the era of digital
revolution and over 50% of global jobs
are in services what does this mean I
can work from anywhere
do I need to live in some ugly concrete
city I don’t so it means that if a city
wants to attract qualified individuals
it actually needs to offer quality of
life and so the important point building
uniforms severely affects our physical
and mental health
as for the whu-oh 23% of deaths in 2012
we’re due to physical environment
you know all these nice things we see
when we go out of this auditorium which
are air pollution heavy traffic noise
pollution badly built houses all this
affects us tremendously what about our
mental health it’s a college it : alert
conducted a very interesting
psychological experiment what he did he
put sensors on people and then he asked
them to walk along a uniform you know
kind of boring building and then he has
to do them the same walking in front of
a historical or they created an
interesting building so what he noticed
in this experience is that when people
were walking near a boring building the
stress level dramatically went up which
was measured by coaches all it does
affect us it is a reality
and finally the argument of social
justice you know we often talk about
affordable housing now and we all agree
that yes every human being has right to
shelter into housing no matter what you
think what the income is but we don’t
seem to acknowledge that everyone and
dependently from the income also needs a
certain well-being and certain
inspiration that people have
psychological needs as well not only
physical needs so look at this at the at
your right look at this resettlement
affordable housing colony versus the
nice posh areas of South Delhi why don’t
you offer these people at least a little
bit of greenery of public spaces a
little bit of variety in buildings we
don’t think they deserve it or what so
we have this three major challenges but
we have a tremendous opportunity in
front of us you know why because sixty
percent of the infrastructure we are
going to see in 2030 is yet to be built
this means these ten years are critical
years which are going to determine how I
see our cities are going to look like
two decades so how can we solve some of
these issues with bringing in more
uniqueness there are three ways of doing
that first you need to build in line
with the local context look at the city
of Samaria and at the city of Manila
siem reap has adapted to the law
context you know that there is going to
be monsoon there going to be heavy
precipitation so they build houses on
stilts and they put a small boat nearby
so they are not affected by heavy rains
now look at Manila and you know this
standardized houses you could find
anywhere across the world and they are
suffering because they haven’t taken
enough the context into consideration so
fine we may say these are you know this
is small scale but in Asian cities we
have such a high population load how do
we deal with that well believe me most
populated Asian cities actually a number
of them deal with these issues
dramatically well Hong Kong has about
seventy percent of its territory covered
by greenery this is an example of Tokyo
where they intentionally keep green
spaces and not so much of high-rise
because they the earthquake prone many
other examples and actually you know
what
sixty percent of Asian urban dwellers
live in small to medium sized cities do
we really need this concrete high-rises
this is a school to create to go
small-scale to do interesting things for
example let’s get inspired a little bit
from our heritage if you go to Shimla
this is a cold climate and Israel in
winters and it’s also an earthquake
prone zone so how did people build you
have the ground floor which is very
solid thick walls to keep the
temperature inside and also to resist to
potential earthquake and then the first
flow is very light so in case the
earthquake is strong it’s going to
produce less possible damages and the
sloping roof in case of snores building
unique is building in organized
complexity so here you know often we
tend to fall into one of the two
extremes when we want to improve our
cities either we say we should regulate
everything everything should be written
and everything should be controlled or
we just leave the things to develop the
way they’re going and leave the market
forces and whoever do whatever they want
we need the middle ground and that this
is a picture of the neighborhood of
Orchard Street in Singapore Singapore
provides directly a guidelines to each
neighborhood on what is the identity of
the neighborhood and how to preserve
in case of auto Street this is a vibrant
commercial and tourist area so the
guidelines say that your building should
be in line with other buildings should
look good in comparison your roof scape
should be in line with the streetscape
so you can’t build just a new roof it
needs to be aesthetic you need to
provide large pedestrian areas and semi
covered public areas so it is an
interactive facade not a closed facade
and very importantly it says if you
believe your project is unique but it
doesn’t comply with our guidelines
please share it with us we’ll look at it
so there are basic guidelines which are
strictly and four and then you have
freedom to create this is what creates
uniqueness you know let us disconnect
from this intellectual talk for three
minutes
and let us project ourselves you know
forgetting what we see outside maybe in
how would it be if all cities were
unique and what about if every city you
visit for any purpose you know the city
you live in the city you go to to see
relatives the city you go to for work
everything has this unique element
wouldn’t it be just this reading
experience of life wouldn’t it be like
to be on holidays for 365 days a year
and then there is experience of beauty
beauty is one of the strongest
experiences that we can have in life and
no wonder that major artists created and
fairies created and Rome created in
Kyoto created in Hawaii on those cities
that provide us this inspiration that
uplift us that open our opportunities so
can you do anything about the way we are
going now should we wait for governments
to do something at some point in time or
can we
today take maybe some small actions so
there are a few I’d like to share with
you so first of all what we need to do
we need to acknowledge that the
emotional connect with the urban built
environment is important Christopher
Alexander is one of the most renowned
architects and
scientists who actually stated for
decades that the right to beauty and
uniqueness in cities is our birthright
he has many followers all across the
world you know and then small practical
actions many of us have if I were
balcony right so what about just putting
a few plants a small lantern so that
when people walk on the street they see
something different if a few people do
it in a stream the street is going to be
transformed all together and then if you
are an owner of a house you know you can
repaint your house if you’re building a
house you can you can discuss with the
architects on how can you adopt your
building to the local context to the
best and then a few small neighborhood
level actions now greening so greening
can never go wrong I mean how can a tree
be ugly you know so this is the city
where I was born called the kajam
corridor which is a typical Soviet City
of the 50s if you look at the buildings
they’re just concrete boxes but then
look with a bit of painting and with
this wonderful green surrounding it
actually looks pretty amazing it has
recently become regionally protected
cultural natural heritage to that extent
yeah and then you know you can create on
facades for example volunteers from van
Bao
NGO in Madurai they just decided to
clean and repaint walls of a kind of
neglected neighborhood and not only they
did that but it had actually a
tremendous spillover effect because the
Commission of Madurai has noticed that
and he has taken these actions in many
other neighbor creative pavements so no
pavement we don’t pay attention much to
but very often I see historical cities
spoiled because you have pretty
interesting you know old buildings and
then you just spill over cement and it
completely kills the character on the
opposite maybe the buildings are not so
fancy but just put a little bit of
variety why do we always want to just
put cement and it’s going to uplift the
city and then finally motivate people
the Indian Railways recently created the
beautification contest for cities to
beautify train stations and so much
creativity came out of it so we just
need to acknowledge that yes
we do have this need to live in an
inspiring beautiful and unique
surrounding and voice it out I also have
many ideas for policymakers businesses
urban practitioners on how we can put it
in place I’ll be happy to share it in –
TED talk
thank you [Applause]
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