[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
laughs sell down sit still be quiet
no talking this is a talk about joy how
many of you in your educational
experience have that kind of
introduction to help inspire you to the
joy of your learning as she mentioned
I’ve spent over four decades designing
helping people create educational
environments more importantly than that
I’ve had the opportunity to go across
this country around the world and see
learning environments and the action in
its place and one of the things I was
highly trained in is to be very
observant this is a talk about joy but a
lot of what I see is not joyful the
number one thing if you survey
high-school students about what they
think about school is boredom that’s a
shame so I’ve been working on a diagram
that attempts to look at all the
attributes that we’re trying to get into
a person to make them whole happy joyful
so a school is about number one
education information how do we learn
those things
creativity something that’s sadly
lacking how’s the civic and ethics and
the character of people do you get along
with well with one another we grade that
in kindergarten but not much after that
your physical health and your emotional
health and together note the small hand
in the middle if put in the right
balance they should be able to help
create joy but when I look at schools
and most importantly when I look at
students in schools I don’t see enough
joy so the real question is what is joy
the point of this is that there is joy
in every one of us now I cheated on that
one there was some tickling involved we
forced the joy out of them but I assure
you that every morning or virtually
every morning that child wakes up happy
energetic ready to take on life in all
his forms and it says he’s a sponge for
learning laughter is one of his coolest
things he just learned to stand up by
the way he is my grandson and his
ancestral roots come from Europe Asia
Africa and a small island 400 miles off
the coast of South America so
globalization has already happened it’s
in my grandson what kind of future does
he deserve and what are we doing about
it so the point of all this is how do we
create a world with a little bit more
joy in it so in my work living here in
Charles Ville I think the most
empowering statement ever written in
English is we hold these truths to be
self-evident that all nascent beings are
created equal and endowed by their
creator with certain unalienable rights
that among these are life liberty and
the pursuit of happiness
now there’s one word in there that’s
really strange particularly at the time
it was written we’re getting away from
the tyranny of of kings and oversight
our liberty but what is the strange word
in there and it’s not the one I changed
I did that to be more inclusive in our
politically correct time it’s the last
one the pursuit of happiness now since
then you’ve already heard from cat we
had a constitution a Bill of Rights and
they protected our right to free speech
our right to assembly even our right to
bear arms but somewhere we lost that
word happiness that might be the key to
the future so I’ve been working on this
diagram and for those of you that are
not visually oriented I’m better with
pictures than words
the knowledge pieced in the information
piece we’ve been working on that for a
long time pretty much since the history
in the beginning of humankind knowledge
has been the basis of power if you could
figure out the solar system and when the
next moon would come up when the rains
might come the seasons might change you
had tremendous power over your tribe
your group of people you could take that
knowledge and make yourself king over
time we’ve protected that knowledge from
humankind because it represented power
I had knowledge I don’t want you to have
that but over time it slowly leaks out
so we have the Catholic Church trying to
prevent people from understanding
business against their religious beliefs
of how the universe is created but
Galileo Copernicus figure out hold it
earth isn’t in the center it’s the Sun
they didn’t like that didn’t go well for
them when they had the knowledge leaked
out but we’ve continued on this basis of
trying to understand morons leak down
it’s leaked out and now knowledge is
doubling every 13 months there’s more
information in 13 months than there was
before that so I know we have a bunch of
students out there if you’re the
smartest ninth grader in the history of
humankind and you start in a ninth grade
and you’ve great teachers great
facilities all the technology needs and
you learn everything there is to know
when you start high school by the time
you get to be a senior you will have
accomplished this you will know three
times less than when you started
what an accomplishment for us all but
yet that is what the basis of school and
education and the system’s we have set
up for our students to do is to learn
more and more knowledge it’s a fool’s
game you can’t do it anymore so why do
we focus so much on that when we can’t
do it and we have things like Who Wants
to Be a Millionaire
jeopardy your SAT scores deciding who
gets into what college it’s all based on
your amount of knowledge however since
the invention of the cell phone any one
of us can win jeopardy if you give us
about 7 seconds on a cell phone
and yet we haven’t figured out what that
difference in that time
so we need to take a slight move back
into history so we have different ages
which we label it’s a lot easier label
them after the fact but we won’t go too
far back in time Dark Ages kind of
depressing let’s just start with the
Industrial Age big strong stuff
Pittsburgh we’re making more steel than
anybody in the world we’re building
bridges locomotives for conquering the
entire world we can do anything that
works for a while until it didn’t and
then we came to the Machine Age oh boy
toasters refrigerators vacuum cleaners
washing machines and that went along
fine for a while
by the way Pittsburgh stopped making
steel they didn’t notice that for a
while now we’re in the information age
most people will tell you that’s where
we are we’re in the knowledge-based
economy that’s what we’re trying to
train our students for the jobs of the
21st century a 21st century education
going on what if we’ve already moved on
what if we haven’t realized like
Pittsburgh that steel wasn’t the thing
anymore what if we’ve already beyond the
Information Age there’s a lot of stuff
going on that would indicate that that
might be the case there was a we’ve had
you probably remember when computers
tried to be people in chess they’d be
just in poker now just recently go as a
Chinese game with more complexity than
chess a whole lot more possibilities and
moves intuitions an artificial
intelligence machine spent three months
playing itself to learn the game and
beat the best masters that have ever
have every time the best master in the
world quit after 27 moves he gave up I
can’t do that anymore so maybe we’re in
a different time so the question is what
the heck does this have to do about
architecture my partners have been
wondering about that meat for me a long
time if you read the New York Times
Sunday section you’d probably conclude
nothing but it turns out that the places
that we do things are in are incredibly
important to us there are a lot of
quotes on it but I like Winston
Churchill’s which essentially says we
spend a few moments thinking about and
what kinds of things and shapes where
we’re going to build
we’re gonna build and then we spend our
rest of our lives being shaped by that
the happiest place in the world it
builds itself is Disneyland Disneyworld
what’s the secret to that place people
love it they go there they spend a lot
of time is it because it has the best
rollercoasters the best food the number
one thing you do in Disney World is wait
on line you meet really bad expensive
food you’re tired and exhausted at the
end of the day but people go time after
time what is the six secret success of
Disney World it’s the environment they
have created the image of a perfect
place there are no weeds there are no
trash this is that simple they’ve
created a place that the space situation
you’re in is almost perfect people love
it when you’re feeling worn out you go
we’re on vacation you go to your happy
spot you go to the beach why can’t we
have that everywhere and that’s the
power of architecture so my specialty as
I said is looking at learning
environments what if we thought a little
bit more deeply about the spaces and
places that we’re creating to educate
our children what if we were a little
bit more insightful about how we did
that what if they’re a little bit more
respectful of the environment of the
people that are in it
so back to the diagram against the space
we’re in is the number two factor of the
memories that are created so if I say
she mentioned third grade high school
where you immediately have a picture of
that I say Thanksgiving dinner the first
thing that comes to your mind is the
places that you did that that’s what’s
creating your essence your different
definition of yourself but what if we
were a little bit more careful about how
we did that what might that look like
this looks largely like my fourth grade
classroom command control order sit
still shut up it’s perfect if you’re
trying to raise the next generation of
people to work in factories
but what if it looked more like this the
possibilities of what’s available the
students to do what they want to do when
they want to do is learn what they want
to learn how they want to learn what if
the students can operate that school
what if the microphone worked so this is
a NetZero school Discovery Elementary
School in Arlington Virginia it’s
actually net positive in its first year
it made all of the electricity that it
needed for the year and it’s the only
thing it uses electricity so no fossil
fuels no pollution no anything but the
students get to experiment and operate
it with it in its first year it made
enough for itself plus seven big houses
in Northern Virginia this year the
students are engaged and working on it
to see how much more it can do what if
we really focused on creativity and we
had a broad definition of it it’s not
music and art it is music and art but
it’s so much more than that and it’s not
music one period a day on a Tuesday what
if you could play your cello your violin
whenever you wanted in the school for as
long as you wanted all of the brain
science indicates we have to spend many
hours at something before we master it
what if that was available to students
instead of regulating their time what if
we allowed them to do the things they’re
most passionate about what if creativity
was embedded in everything they do and
it wasn’t a 50-minute art period that
you had to clean up that you could work
on projects that had real substance to
it what if you could do it outside
whenever you wanted to golden thing
about the outside it does all kinds of
things for a happiness and our health
what about our civics these pieces are
in bad shape right now in our ethics and
we play well with one another once again
space and the places we shape form those
things how can you have places for
people to interact in the moment when
they’re working doing what they’re going
about and make it places that are fun to
be this is a picture of a storm water
detention pond every one of those rings
is a 25 50 hundred year flood but it’s a
place the children can interact with
each other well if there are little
places in a school that people can get
together a widened window sill just a
little place for us girls to sit and
chat about what we’re doing
what if we did it as we got a little bit
older we had Pleasant places to talk
they change the environment why don’t we
have places where we can get together
and interact about all the difficult
issues that are available anytime
anywhere in this places that were
raising our children what about our
physical health they should be active
all the time if you watch an NFL game
it’s not about whether they’re kneeling
or not they’ll advertise it every child
should get 50 minutes of exercise a day
they should they should get more than
that they actually should get exercise
every 50 minutes as you sit here in this
audience for 15 minutes your brain is
slowly slowly turning itself off we have
to do a lot of things to try get you
energized so you don’t do that but if
children just go up two flights of
stairs between classes their brains are
rejuvenated food this is criminal how we
feed children in school the only way we
feed children and schools that like that
are the military prisons children and
animals were getting ready to slaughter
why don’t we make food the fundamental
human activity of learning and sharing
the food a happy occasion where the
students are involved they learn how
about their food and what goes into it
playing outside is a very simple thing
to do yet it’s recess it’s a privilege
in school and playing in nature it turns
out to be critical so how do you
transition from your physical health to
your mental health you have a picture of
Einstein in his bathing suit so
certainly he was smart a lot of
intelligence a lot of creativity good
civic quality maybe not so much on the
physical health but emotionally he
understood the importance of those
things and how do we do that so we have
places of joy this is a slide to get
from the second floor to the first floor
and the principal loves this question
when did the kids get to do that she
answers it whenever they want to having
places in schools where you can sit and
become not all of us are extroverts or
introverts how do you have time for
reflection learning requires a downtime
to process things in between lessons we
don’t do that very well we’re scheduling
our children’s activity after another so
thought about this this is expensive how
are we going to change all these things
how are we gonna have that for everybody
we have all this infrastructure what is
a perfect learning environment look like
we couldn’t possibly afford that they’re
learning they’re creative if they’re
getting along real well with each other
this physical exercise and they are
happy
so I mentioned this is a talk about joy
let’s talk about ages information is
doubling every 13 months what’s next
one of the beauties about being an
architect is you start with a blank
sheet of paper that’s the business I’m
in is figuring out all the possibilities
there
the only thing preventing us from all
the possibilities is what we can think
of what we can conceive so since the
history of mankind we have more and more
knowledge we’ve pretty much got that
what does this point in time allow us to
do maybe just maybe it allows us to pick
what the next age is so instead of
worrying about how fast the amount of
information is doubling what if we were
concerned about how fast the amount of
joy in the world was doubling what if we
had the power to decide what the next
age could be I think it should be the
age of joy thank you
you
[Music]
[Applause]
laughs sell down sit still be quiet
no talking this is a talk about joy how
many of you in your educational
experience have that kind of
introduction to help inspire you to the
joy of your learning as she mentioned
I’ve spent over four decades designing
helping people create educational
environments more importantly than that
I’ve had the opportunity to go across
this country around the world and see
learning environments and the action in
its place and one of the things I was
highly trained in is to be very
observant this is a talk about joy but a
lot of what I see is not joyful the
number one thing if you survey
high-school students about what they
think about school is boredom that’s a
shame so I’ve been working on a diagram
that attempts to look at all the
attributes that we’re trying to get into
a person to make them whole happy joyful
so a school is about number one
education information how do we learn
those things
creativity something that’s sadly
lacking how’s the civic and ethics and
the character of people do you get along
with well with one another we grade that
in kindergarten but not much after that
your physical health and your emotional
health and together note the small hand
in the middle if put in the right
balance they should be able to help
create joy but when I look at schools
and most importantly when I look at
students in schools I don’t see enough
joy so the real question is what is joy
the point of this is that there is joy
in every one of us now I cheated on that
one there was some tickling involved we
forced the joy out of them but I assure
you that every morning or virtually
every morning that child wakes up happy
energetic ready to take on life in all
his forms and it says he’s a sponge for
learning laughter is one of his coolest
things he just learned to stand up by
the way he is my grandson and his
ancestral roots come from Europe Asia
Africa and a small island 400 miles off
the coast of South America so
globalization has already happened it’s
in my grandson what kind of future does
he deserve and what are we doing about
it so the point of all this is how do we
create a world with a little bit more
joy in it so in my work living here in
Charles Ville I think the most
empowering statement ever written in
English is we hold these truths to be
self-evident that all nascent beings are
created equal and endowed by their
creator with certain unalienable rights
that among these are life liberty and
the pursuit of happiness
now there’s one word in there that’s
really strange particularly at the time
it was written we’re getting away from
the tyranny of of kings and oversight
our liberty but what is the strange word
in there and it’s not the one I changed
I did that to be more inclusive in our
politically correct time it’s the last
one the pursuit of happiness now since
then you’ve already heard from cat we
had a constitution a Bill of Rights and
they protected our right to free speech
our right to assembly even our right to
bear arms but somewhere we lost that
word happiness that might be the key to
the future so I’ve been working on this
diagram and for those of you that are
not visually oriented I’m better with
pictures than words
the knowledge pieced in the information
piece we’ve been working on that for a
long time pretty much since the history
in the beginning of humankind knowledge
has been the basis of power if you could
figure out the solar system and when the
next moon would come up when the rains
might come the seasons might change you
had tremendous power over your tribe
your group of people you could take that
knowledge and make yourself king over
time we’ve protected that knowledge from
humankind because it represented power
I had knowledge I don’t want you to have
that but over time it slowly leaks out
so we have the Catholic Church trying to
prevent people from understanding
business against their religious beliefs
of how the universe is created but
Galileo Copernicus figure out hold it
earth isn’t in the center it’s the Sun
they didn’t like that didn’t go well for
them when they had the knowledge leaked
out but we’ve continued on this basis of
trying to understand morons leak down
it’s leaked out and now knowledge is
doubling every 13 months there’s more
information in 13 months than there was
before that so I know we have a bunch of
students out there if you’re the
smartest ninth grader in the history of
humankind and you start in a ninth grade
and you’ve great teachers great
facilities all the technology needs and
you learn everything there is to know
when you start high school by the time
you get to be a senior you will have
accomplished this you will know three
times less than when you started
what an accomplishment for us all but
yet that is what the basis of school and
education and the system’s we have set
up for our students to do is to learn
more and more knowledge it’s a fool’s
game you can’t do it anymore so why do
we focus so much on that when we can’t
do it and we have things like Who Wants
to Be a Millionaire
jeopardy your SAT scores deciding who
gets into what college it’s all based on
your amount of knowledge however since
the invention of the cell phone any one
of us can win jeopardy if you give us
about 7 seconds on a cell phone
and yet we haven’t figured out what that
difference in that time
so we need to take a slight move back
into history so we have different ages
which we label it’s a lot easier label
them after the fact but we won’t go too
far back in time Dark Ages kind of
depressing let’s just start with the
Industrial Age big strong stuff
Pittsburgh we’re making more steel than
anybody in the world we’re building
bridges locomotives for conquering the
entire world we can do anything that
works for a while until it didn’t and
then we came to the Machine Age oh boy
toasters refrigerators vacuum cleaners
washing machines and that went along
fine for a while
by the way Pittsburgh stopped making
steel they didn’t notice that for a
while now we’re in the information age
most people will tell you that’s where
we are we’re in the knowledge-based
economy that’s what we’re trying to
train our students for the jobs of the
21st century a 21st century education
going on what if we’ve already moved on
what if we haven’t realized like
Pittsburgh that steel wasn’t the thing
anymore what if we’ve already beyond the
Information Age there’s a lot of stuff
going on that would indicate that that
might be the case there was a we’ve had
you probably remember when computers
tried to be people in chess they’d be
just in poker now just recently go as a
Chinese game with more complexity than
chess a whole lot more possibilities and
moves intuitions an artificial
intelligence machine spent three months
playing itself to learn the game and
beat the best masters that have ever
have every time the best master in the
world quit after 27 moves he gave up I
can’t do that anymore so maybe we’re in
a different time so the question is what
the heck does this have to do about
architecture my partners have been
wondering about that meat for me a long
time if you read the New York Times
Sunday section you’d probably conclude
nothing but it turns out that the places
that we do things are in are incredibly
important to us there are a lot of
quotes on it but I like Winston
Churchill’s which essentially says we
spend a few moments thinking about and
what kinds of things and shapes where
we’re going to build
we’re gonna build and then we spend our
rest of our lives being shaped by that
the happiest place in the world it
builds itself is Disneyland Disneyworld
what’s the secret to that place people
love it they go there they spend a lot
of time is it because it has the best
rollercoasters the best food the number
one thing you do in Disney World is wait
on line you meet really bad expensive
food you’re tired and exhausted at the
end of the day but people go time after
time what is the six secret success of
Disney World it’s the environment they
have created the image of a perfect
place there are no weeds there are no
trash this is that simple they’ve
created a place that the space situation
you’re in is almost perfect people love
it when you’re feeling worn out you go
we’re on vacation you go to your happy
spot you go to the beach why can’t we
have that everywhere and that’s the
power of architecture so my specialty as
I said is looking at learning
environments what if we thought a little
bit more deeply about the spaces and
places that we’re creating to educate
our children what if we were a little
bit more insightful about how we did
that what if they’re a little bit more
respectful of the environment of the
people that are in it
so back to the diagram against the space
we’re in is the number two factor of the
memories that are created so if I say
she mentioned third grade high school
where you immediately have a picture of
that I say Thanksgiving dinner the first
thing that comes to your mind is the
places that you did that that’s what’s
creating your essence your different
definition of yourself but what if we
were a little bit more careful about how
we did that what might that look like
this looks largely like my fourth grade
classroom command control order sit
still shut up it’s perfect if you’re
trying to raise the next generation of
people to work in factories
but what if it looked more like this the
possibilities of what’s available the
students to do what they want to do when
they want to do is learn what they want
to learn how they want to learn what if
the students can operate that school
what if the microphone worked so this is
a NetZero school Discovery Elementary
School in Arlington Virginia it’s
actually net positive in its first year
it made all of the electricity that it
needed for the year and it’s the only
thing it uses electricity so no fossil
fuels no pollution no anything but the
students get to experiment and operate
it with it in its first year it made
enough for itself plus seven big houses
in Northern Virginia this year the
students are engaged and working on it
to see how much more it can do what if
we really focused on creativity and we
had a broad definition of it it’s not
music and art it is music and art but
it’s so much more than that and it’s not
music one period a day on a Tuesday what
if you could play your cello your violin
whenever you wanted in the school for as
long as you wanted all of the brain
science indicates we have to spend many
hours at something before we master it
what if that was available to students
instead of regulating their time what if
we allowed them to do the things they’re
most passionate about what if creativity
was embedded in everything they do and
it wasn’t a 50-minute art period that
you had to clean up that you could work
on projects that had real substance to
it what if you could do it outside
whenever you wanted to golden thing
about the outside it does all kinds of
things for a happiness and our health
what about our civics these pieces are
in bad shape right now in our ethics and
we play well with one another once again
space and the places we shape form those
things how can you have places for
people to interact in the moment when
they’re working doing what they’re going
about and make it places that are fun to
be this is a picture of a storm water
detention pond every one of those rings
is a 25 50 hundred year flood but it’s a
place the children can interact with
each other well if there are little
places in a school that people can get
together a widened window sill just a
little place for us girls to sit and
chat about what we’re doing
what if we did it as we got a little bit
older we had Pleasant places to talk
they change the environment why don’t we
have places where we can get together
and interact about all the difficult
issues that are available anytime
anywhere in this places that were
raising our children what about our
physical health they should be active
all the time if you watch an NFL game
it’s not about whether they’re kneeling
or not they’ll advertise it every child
should get 50 minutes of exercise a day
they should they should get more than
that they actually should get exercise
every 50 minutes as you sit here in this
audience for 15 minutes your brain is
slowly slowly turning itself off we have
to do a lot of things to try get you
energized so you don’t do that but if
children just go up two flights of
stairs between classes their brains are
rejuvenated food this is criminal how we
feed children in school the only way we
feed children and schools that like that
are the military prisons children and
animals were getting ready to slaughter
why don’t we make food the fundamental
human activity of learning and sharing
the food a happy occasion where the
students are involved they learn how
about their food and what goes into it
playing outside is a very simple thing
to do yet it’s recess it’s a privilege
in school and playing in nature it turns
out to be critical so how do you
transition from your physical health to
your mental health you have a picture of
Einstein in his bathing suit so
certainly he was smart a lot of
intelligence a lot of creativity good
civic quality maybe not so much on the
physical health but emotionally he
understood the importance of those
things and how do we do that so we have
places of joy this is a slide to get
from the second floor to the first floor
and the principal loves this question
when did the kids get to do that she
answers it whenever they want to having
places in schools where you can sit and
become not all of us are extroverts or
introverts how do you have time for
reflection learning requires a downtime
to process things in between lessons we
don’t do that very well we’re scheduling
our children’s activity after another so
thought about this this is expensive how
are we going to change all these things
how are we gonna have that for everybody
we have all this infrastructure what is
a perfect learning environment look like
we couldn’t possibly afford that they’re
learning they’re creative if they’re
getting along real well with each other
this physical exercise and they are
happy
so I mentioned this is a talk about joy
let’s talk about ages information is
doubling every 13 months what’s next
one of the beauties about being an
architect is you start with a blank
sheet of paper that’s the business I’m
in is figuring out all the possibilities
there
the only thing preventing us from all
the possibilities is what we can think
of what we can conceive so since the
history of mankind we have more and more
knowledge we’ve pretty much got that
what does this point in time allow us to
do maybe just maybe it allows us to pick
what the next age is so instead of
worrying about how fast the amount of
information is doubling what if we were
concerned about how fast the amount of
joy in the world was doubling what if we
had the power to decide what the next
age could be I think it should be the
age of joy thank you
you
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