clc lecture landscapes of the future

CLC LECTURE

Landscapes of the Future 7 September 2017

In a lecture filled with pictures and movies, Roosegaarde talks about his innovative vision and

interactive projects such as Dune, a public interactive landscape that enhances the social interactions

of pedestrians, and Windlicht, a light display connecting windmill blade with lines of light to showcase

the beauty of green energy. Through discussing these projects, he will be exploring the social role of

design in our urban world.

Lecture Segment

Brian 00:00:16

Ladies and gentlemen, when you think of the Renaissance period, you

think of the lines between art, architecture, and engineering being

blurred like a Dutch Impressionist painting. Today, it gives me great

pleasure to be the host and emcee, and to introduce Daan shortly. My

name is Brian, I’m from the Centre for Liveable Cities [CLC].

Daan Roosegaarde is Founder of Studio Roosegaarde and also a World

City Summit Young Leader. Daan is an innovator, a creative thinker and

a maker of social designs which explore the relation between people,

technology and space. Some of his notable projects are the renowned

Smart Highway and [the] Smog-free Project. Of course, he will oblige us

00:01:48

and give us a demonstration of the rest of his projects later. In addition,

he is a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum and he was

named Artist of the Year 2016 in The Netherlands.

Today’s format will be a lecture started off with a presentation by Daan,

followed by a Q&A [question and answer] session with the audience.

This Q& A panel session will be moderated by Mr Adib Jalal, Co-Founder

and Director of Shophouse and Company.

Daan Roosegaarde 00:02:26

Hello Singapore – good to see so many people from….fellow colleagues

from iLight Festival, Singapore Design Week, CLC of course, thanks so

much for the invitation. I think what we have in common is a love—is a

desire for the landscape, the city, the place that we inhabit. And I think

we all realize in this room that it’s way more than just the sum of walls,

doors and windows. It’s our identity, our culture and I’m a guy who fell

in love with places before I fell in love with girls. I remember very

vividly…that’s a true story. When I was 16 I fell in love with Antwerp—a

big city in Belgium—a harbour city. So, I have this beautiful connection

with space. And what is interesting [is that] we’re going to talk about the

future, what is the future of the city, the future of [a] Smart City? What

is a Smart City, what is ‘Smart’? What is a place that is good for people?

And this is not only future, it’s also history.

The Dutch—I’m Dutch, that’s why I have to talk a bit about the Dutch—

it’s all Planet Earth, but still, it’s quite interesting. They have this very,

very rich tradition with the landscape, that the famous Dutch masters’

1617 paintings were obsessed with the light—the Dutch light, the

clouds. They made literally thousands, maybe ten thousands of these

paintings; obsessed with the different colours, trying different

techniques, borrowing technologies and materials from each other in

order to understand [and] capture the magic of that landscape.

And of course, this fascination for the future and the landscape has

always been around us. Frank Lloyd Wright—I love this sketch so much.

A lot of people know his projects of the houses—not so many people

00:04:09 00:05:03

know his thinking of Utopia—the flying saucers, how landscape and

architecture gets merged into one. Or here, Superstudio, Archigram, [a]

radical group of architects in the sixties, seventies, which made drawings

about walking cities, like spiders. And actually, some of them got the

ability to build it much, much later. Or here, more in the science fiction

movies – that’s a sort of Bladerunner, more darkish cities; also futurism,

technology, and of course…yeah. This is a really good site because on

one hand it looks unreal? Like a Disney World, [but] on the other hand

it’s very, very real and I’ve been very fascinated that you’ve somehow

used vision—bold vision—with technology, with creative thinking, to

create places which are good for people.

Smart Cities: Beyond just Technology

So when we talk about Smart cities, a lot focus is always about [sic on]

technology, which is understandable. But then again, all the examples

that we just saw, are decisions which were made twenty, twenty-five

years ago also in [sic not only in] Singapore, but also in The Netherlands.

So what is the future? That’s the question for today.

And I think this is not just about the sensor technology and the virtual

reality et cetera—it goes beyond that. It goes beyond the notion of

creativity and the notion of making places which are good for people

[with] clean air, clean water, clean energy. And I’ll show you some

examples that we have realised, I’ll show you some examples that we’re

going to realize, which are a bit secret, so we cannot do social [media

sharing]…yes? And then we [can] open up the room to have a sort of

open dialogue.

So this is my home, The Netherlands. As you may know, we live below

sea level. So without technology, without creative thinking, we would all

die. We would die a horrible death. But because of these beauties, the

Afsluitdijk, the famous thirty-two kilometre dam built by hand in 1932,

we survived. And so here is the sea, and here is Amsterdam. (Laughs) So

literally. And I like it so much. It’s not just technology and infrastructure.

00:06:26

When I tell my Asian friends [that in] The Netherlands we live below the

sea level, they say, “Are you crazy? Do you know how dangerous that is;

how much time, money, love and energy that costs?” No, no, no, no, no.

It’s okay. We’ve been doing it for over a thousand years. You know, we

didn’t move to Germany. We could have done that—like, come on,

we’re not going to fight water, we’re just going to move. No, no, no,

[but] we stayed. And we used innovation to create our own habitat. That

is the connection which I think we have with Singapore. You create[d]

your own habitat, and you struggle[d] and you try [sic tried] to find new

harmony.

But sometimes, we forget. Therefore, we make [sic made] Waterlicht,

this is a combination of LEDs [light-emitting diodes] and lenses, showing

how high the water level would be, if it would stop—if there would be

no good government, if we do not [continue to] invest in new ideas. And

we show this in public spaces all around the world. This is Museum

Square in Amsterdam, one of the largest squares in The Netherlands.

Some people got a bit scared and they left because they experienced

the floods in 1953, [but] others were mesmerized: can we make floating

cities, which float on the water, or can we generate electricity from the

change in tides? So it was a really great way to show, hey guys and girls,

we live in a world which is changing, and we shouldn’t be afraid but we

can be curious and communicate in how to become future-proof.

Or here—Dune, in old pedestrian tunnels which are a bit scary—a lot of

people didn’t like to go there. This is in Rotterdam, and the city came to

us, and said, “Can you make it again a place of wonder, of that people

somehow feel more connected with their city, not just feel [like a] tax

payer, but feel [like a] citizen?” So we made Dune, thousands of fibers,

which react to the sounds and motion of people walking by. (Sounds

from video presentation). So here, the landscape becomes intuitive—

it’s connected to what you are doing, sometimes following you as you

walk by; sometimes connecting different people; sometimes going with

the crazy…and all these people, there was no manual, there was nobody

00:09:01

telling them what to do but it became intuitive. Although filled with

microchip sensors, layers of code, it became personal. That was our

ambition and our goal. And it’s a bit scary sometimes…that’s all there.

[Aside] Yeah, that’s fine, that’s fine.

And what was fascinating was, this was [in] 2008, this was my first public

artwork. We had no experience in outdoor space and as you may know,

that’s completely different than in the museum, in the white cube. So

new things happened as well. [In] 2007, 2008, wedding couples started

to pop up to have their photos taken—that was really beautiful. So they

thought that was a good place to go there and they started to send us

these photos. It’s their moment. Dune reacts to what they’re doing—

true love.

Or here, the Van Gogh path. Sometimes it starts with a question,

sometimes we ask ourselves a question, sometimes other people ask us

questions. You know Van Gogh—the famous Dutch painter—the Van

Gogh Foundation wanted to celebrate its hundred and twenty-fifth

anniversary and so they came to me and asked, “Can you make a space,

a place in The Netherlands where he feels alive again?” So we started to

work with these…you know these glow-in-the-dark little stars which you

had on the ceiling when you were a boy or girl? Yes? Yes? Yes?

Yeah…okay, thank you. My god, you’re silent. (Laughs) They charge up

in the daytime and they glow at night—so that is actually twenty-five-

year-old technology. So we went back to the lab making it more durable,

more light-emitting, removing the poisonous radium which is usually in

it and making something that charges [in the] daytime via the sun and

glows at night, [for] up to eight hours.

And you can go there, every night, for free—no ticket needed. People

experience the poetry of cycling through the starry night. It’s about

safety, green energy. Van Gogh literally walked and lived here in 1883,

so it’s also about appreciating heritage, but at the same time making a

statement about [the] future. So if you’re ever in The Netherlands you

00:11:17

can come by, have a walk through the starry night. These projects, it’s

also interesting [to witness] the interaction with clients, with the city,

with the Commissioner. One of the reasons why they okay’ed this

project was not just because it was beautiful and unique in the world—

and it became very famous because we worked together with the

experts—but also [because of the] business and economy, [which are]

also very important if you want to make new ideas come true. So one of

the reasons, one of the arguments why in the beginning we got the

project was [that for] this project, you can only see it at? [Pauses to wait

for answer] At night! Exactly.

So they had some tourists coming there, but the problem was they

didn’t stay. They just took a photo at daytime and left. And then the

people of the city made a calculation like, what if the tourists, which

were already going in that area suddenly would book a hotel or

restaurant, like a dinner, to see this at night? How many [sic much]

income would it have for local entrepreneurs, and they were like, “Oh,

that’s pretty interesting!” (Laughs). So what I’m trying to tell you [is that]

you need to be poetic, but you also need to be practical in order to push

innovation, in order to get the investments, in order to get the support

to make these kinds of dreams come true.

And right now, we’re making different versions—also actually, it would

be great to sort of explore how we can promote cycling in a place like

Singapore. But maybe we should continue that conversation later. And

we applied it to highways as well. So, this is to improve roads [to

become] also charging at daytime, glowing at night, [thus] increasing

safety. I think it’s really weird that when we talk about mobility, and we

talk about innovation, everyone is always focused on the car, eh? It can

be sexy, and glamourous and [have] billions of research and

development, no problem. But somehow [for] the roads, the

infrastructure is being pushed aside. It should be cheap, maintenance-

free or almost nobody cares. I think that’s wrong. I think roads are an

interface of innovation, of expression, of information, of safety—and

00:13:28

this kind of Smart Highways projects are sort of the beginning of

exploring that new world.

So I’m saying we… because of course it’s not just me. Sometimes I wish

I had a 3D printer that plugged into my neurons [so] that everything I

think automatically pops up. But sometimes I don’t, because it’s great

to be surrounded by people who can do certain things way better than

you and I could ever do, in order to get excellence.

So this is Rotterdam, an old harbour city, in which the city the mayor

said it’s problematic, it’s abandoned, we’re going to activate it, we’re

going to restore it and make it an innovation hub. And the city—the

Council, the Mayor— they called us. We want you to come back to

Rotterdam, we want to kickstart the redevelopment. You’re a pioneer,

so we want to give you a space. So we were standing with the mayor

and the Council here, in the roof, in the top part here… And in the

beginning they were thinking of giving us this building, but it was a bit

dark and you know, like a bit…… I’m like, “Hmm, I’m not sure you know?”

Like I don’t think we’re going to do that.

But while we were standing and debating, I saw this baby. This beauty.

And it was really bizarre, ladies and gentlemen, it was like a nice girl in a

discotheque, it sort of gave a wink at me, you know? You know what I

mean? It’s sort of like, bling! [Onomatopoeic] I was like, “Hey, what’s

that? What’s that beauty?” And they were like, “No, no, no, no, Daan.

This is an old building, we’re going to demolish it. It was abandoned for

twenty-two years, forget it.” But we were like, (clicks his tongue) “Let’s

have a look.”

And this is one year later. (Laughs) So we saved it from demolishment.

The city and us worked together to renovate it, an old glass factory built

in 1937 was completely destructed, cleaned up, so this is the dream

factory. The studio – where the group of engineers, architects,

designers, project managers are working together to make these

00:15:28

landscapes come true. So it’s so important to have a place where you

can experiment, where you can learn, where you can make a mistake

you know? Where you can show, where you can prove, step by step, of

creating reality.

And it’s really funny, if you had told me eight years ago that I would have

this group of thirty two people, and I would [say] “No, no, no, no, no, I

want to do it alone!” So it’s great that that sort of…a company shapes

you, you make things, but the making also makes you; and it allows you

to experiment and make the ideas that you have in your brain come

true. So a lot of prototypes, a lot of models, a lot of engineering—we do

everything, from idea, to engineering to installation et cetera. Yeah, a

lot of sketching.

And what is interesting when we think about smart cities and creativity,

and [the] future, I think it’s not only art and imagination or a nice-to-

have. I think it’s a new economy. So [the] World Economic Forum as you

mentioned in the introduction is there, is one of them, I think one of the

best think-tanks in Geneva, made a top research: what are the top ten

skills you and I need to become successful? And look at this: it’s really

interesting. It’s not about having a lot of money, or being really good at

technology. Now look at this, this is important according to a lot of smart

people in 2020: creativity, critical thinking, problem solving. All the

things that a robot or a computer is really bad at.

And that’s really interesting also for Singapore, in which you are having

a perfectly controlled environment and the technology and the

intelligence is there. So it might be that a lot of jobs will disappear. The

taxi driver, the garbage collector, the water management—we have

robots for that, great, and they should be there. But therefore, our

human skills, our desire to create, our desire to interact, our desire for

beauty, will become more important in the world. So I think we will live

in a world, because of technology, where creativity, creative-thinking, is

our true capital, because it’s something that computers are really bad

00:17:40

at. So think about that. You will not go to a museum, or public space or

Marina Bay just to enjoy or tourism…. no, no, no, no, you will go there

to trigger qualities in your brain which will make you more happy [sic

happier], more successful, more different than [sic from] the rest of the

world. That is the, world which I believe we’re going to live in. And also,

we learn from nature.

Video Narration 00:18:04

The amount of cement required is extraordinary. For three days, they

kept pouring, until ten tonnes of cement had disappeared down the

tubes.


So this is a brilliant scientist from Brazil who dedicated his whole life to

discover the world….


After a month, they begin the excavation. Led by Professor Luis Forgi.


He discovered the world of ants. And they put concrete in an abandoned

anthill in Brazil to discover. They were curious.


It takes weeks to uncover the secret megalopolis of the ants.


And this is what they discovered, have a look [while] thinking about

smart cities and things like that.


With the help of mechanical diggers, the scientists removed tonnes of

earth. At last, they begin to see the structure of the city-state. There are

subterranean highways connecting the main chambers. And off the

main routes, are side roads. The paths branch, and lead to many fungus

gardens and rubbish pits. The tunnels are designed to ensure good

ventilation and provide the shortest transport routes.


Okay, basically he’s saying they have air-conditioning without electricity.

Wow, that’s really smart.


Everything looks like it has been designed by an architect, a single mind.

But of course, that isn’t true. This colossal and complex city was created

by the collective will of the ant colony. The super organism.


Also interesting eh? There’s no boss; there’s no CEO, there’s no director.

No, it’s a network, it’s a community.


The structure covers 50 square metres, and goes eight metres into the

earth. In its construction, the colony moved 40 tonnes of soil. Billions of

ant-loads of soil was brought to the surface. Each load weighed four

times as much as the worker. And in human terms was carried a

kilometre to the surface. It is the equivalent of building the Great Wall

of China—it is truly a wonder of the world.


So they discovered this sort of perfect geometry of efficiency, of

logistics, of clean unpolluted air. So if you Google “BBC Ant Hill

Concrete”, you will see a two and a half hour documentary…


[overlapping] And ant hills don’t have to be big to be successful.


This guy is really great. For two and a half hours, go home and watch it

tonight. Really. Yeah, it’s really humbling, because you know, I don’t

know how you experience this, but when I look at this, this is already

there right? This is not Mars or the future. It’s already there. And what I

realize—because I think I’ve watched this movie more than a thousand

times for sure—what fascinates me so much, [is that] we, humans are

brutal beings. We are! You know? If I look at myself, the amount of

energy I need to cool down, air-conditioning, or the amount of waste I

produce, or the amount of fuel I need to go from A to B—we are brutal

beings. And somehow these creatures, these beautiful creatures found

a way of harmony. There’s no traffic jam in an ant hill. There is no traffic

jam in an anthill! Why do we have traffic jams? It’s really weird!

Everybody wants the same and we achieve the opposite. So somehow,

and what I’m trying to say… “Nature”, and that’s also for me the new

Singapore. Of course, trees and greens is important and we should do

that. But there’s a next level of biotechnology, of biomimicry—we’ll get

to that later a bit. There’s so many patterns and principles that we can

learn from to make a city which is truly in harmony, which is balanced.

This is a secret project. These are children…


“You see yours? Turn around and look at yours!”


…who encounter their shadow for the first time.


(Child cries). [Adult voices] “Calm down.” “It’s your shadow.”

[Child] “No, no, no, no!”


Now it’s gone. (Laughs)


“That’s your shadow. See? That’s just your shadow.” (Child squeals in

background.)

Daan Roosegaarde 00:23:24 00:24:00

With your permission I’m just going to two hours movies of this, yeah?

(Laughs) But this is incredibly fascinating. We have a footprint—that’s

how it’s called—we have an impact on planet Earth, on the city we live

in. And I love it so much because our shadow, if it’s either in a physical

or more virtual way, connects us with planet Earth. We’re not single

objects floating in space, we are connected with the world around us,

whether we like it or not, as this movie shows. And somehow this is very

mysterious and very mythical as well. So we’re sort of exploring, we’re

working with light but then we play with shadow as well.

Playing with Light and Shadows: Public Spaces These are smart coatings, pavements…so we brought the sunlight—

please do not put this one on Twitter by the way, my client will kill me—

and it leaves an imprint and then three, two, one….it disappears again.

So because you blocked the UV, it changes in colour—like an

object…four, three, two, one, zero…double zero…yes, thank you. Three,

two, one, zero….

So, it’s sort of a way of like, Facebook Square? You leave an imprint

behind. Three, two…slowly…So this is something I’m exploring now, of

how can we sort of leave messages behind? Instant, but also temporary.

Can we make public spaces where people are there—present,

communicate and then continue again? How can we move away from

the computer screens? We’re looking, we’re feeding computer screens

the whole day. We’re sort of focused on the screen. What happens

when technology jumps out of that screen? How can we make places

00:25:19

00:27:13

where people feel more connected, more included in that way….in a

social way. Fascinating.

And it starts of course with the notion: Why? Or how? Holy-moly, huh?

This is from my room three years ago, in Beijing. Left, is a good day; right,

is a bad day. So Wednesday was on the left image and this is on Monday,

the following Monday, when the whole city was covered in smog—I

couldn’t even see the other side of the street. And I mean, I love China,

I’ve worked there [for] many years and [I] got to understand it step by

step. But at the same time this was a very, very sad image. You know we

live five to six years shorter, you know you have children which have lung

cancer when they are eight years old. So being in Beijing or in Delhi or in

Medellin is the same like [sic as] seventeen cigarettes per day that you

inhale—without the pleasure of the nicotine. At least if we would get

something back then you know, it’s sort of like a good handshake deal,

but this is crazy!

So when we talk about smart cities, it’s not for me, only about efficiency

and traffic jams. Of course [those] also, but it’s also about making places

which are good for people. And right now, we have to—not Singapore,

but other cities—have become machines that are killing us, that are

damaging us. Not good. So yes, governments all around the world are

declaring their war on smog, investing in green technology, electrical

cars, more bicycles [in the] long-term, which in the end is the final

solution. But as you may notice by now, I’m not the most patient guy in

the room here, so I wanted to make something within today. And in a

weird but beautiful way, at this moment, looking at my room, I became

inspired by Beijing smog. Yes? Why not? We can be inspired by ants, we

can be inspired by smog.

Direction: Bringing Clean Air

So going back to my youth when I was a boy, when you have a plastic

balloon and you polish it with your hands, when you’re like at these

boring children’s parties that you had to go to. It becomes, when you

00:27:25

polish it, it becomes what? Static, exactly. Static electrified, it attracts

your hair. And I have always had this as a memory in my brain, being the

son of a math teacher, it’s a gift from planet Earth, it’s pure nature! Pure

science in a way. So what if we would [sic could] use that principle to

build the largest smog vacuum cleaner in the world, which sucks up

polluted air in the skies, cleans it, and then releases its clean air.

This is how it started. Very banal, very simple. And you start to meet with

with the experts who have been working on it for many, many years

indoor[s], and one year later we built it, the largest one outdoor[s]. So it

sucks up thirty thousand cubic meters per hour, cleans it on a nano-level

at a PM2.5 [particulate matter] to PM10 and then releases clean air, so

we have parks which are twenty to seventy percent more clean than the

rest of the city. First one [was] in Rotterdam, and then it went travelling.

Different versions in China. This is at the World Economic Forum in

Dalian, also a polluted city.

The locals are calling it lovingly the Clean Air Temple, which is a nice

compliment. And it’s a great way to sort of say, we’re going to create

pockets of…one tower will not solve the whole city problem, that’s clear,

but we start locally. Local solutions, so that people can enjoy clean air

and activate how can we make a city smog-free. So it’s a local solution

and at the same time, it’s an activator to make a whole city smog-free.

Science is really important—this is the scientific result from Technical

University of Eindhoven which validates how and how big the scale of it

is. So it’s continuously an interaction with experts to promote this dream

of clean air. I can talk for two hours about this project, but it’s great,

because what’s funny when you do innovation, some people in the

beginning are a bit like, “Are you sure it’s possible or it’s allowed?” And

you know the feedback we got now from China Central Government? Li

Keqiang, and…they came to us during Dalian, and they said, “That’s a

good idea. Why didn’t you do it before?” And we were like, “Well, hmm,

okay, we should have met three years ago.”

00:29:49

00:31:43

But so, this is also where the role of [the] government is really important,

that they are open to new ideas. Netherlands is really good in that, I

think Singapore as well—to try, to learn, to be open to experiment, step

by step. The government is usually top-down and we are more bottom-

up, but you meet in the middle to create impact. But also we learn. This

is Beijing smog. Look at this. So this is in our lungs right now. Even in

Singapore—yes I know you’re pretty clean—but even in Singapore if you

live here, you get like five to four cigarettes per day of stuff in your body.

So even if you say you don’t smoke, in a way you do. Yes? Not good. So

we have buckets of this stuff standing in our studio. And on a Monday

morning we were like, we should do something with this. Waste should

not exist. Waste for one should be food for the other, like circular.

Forty-two percent of this stuff, we realized, is carbon. And what happens

when you put carbon under a lot of pressure? You get…yes, diamonds,

very good! So we compressed it for thirty minutes and making [sic made]

smog-free rings, and by sharing a ring you donate a thousand cubic

meters of clean air to the city where the tower is in. And what was great

about this project….so we put this online [as] a Kickstarter campaign. So

the finance we made with the jewellery helped to realize the first tower.

It’s economy, yes? Not just poetry, it’s economy. These are photos of

wedding couples where he proposed to her with a smog-free ring. Not

actors, huh? Real couple. This is like the ring you don’t want to lose—it’s

your wedding ring. So he proposed to her as a symbol of hope, of love,

of beauty and she said yes. These are photos we are getting on a

Monday morning 8am in our Inbox. This is a good day for us.

Process: Education & Feeling Connected

So the fact that it’s not just about technology. It’s about, that somehow

people feel connected. And step by step, learning, improving. So

important. Prince Charles has the cufflinks. We put a little microphone

in it so we know all the state secrets (laughter in audience). Camera’s

off, huh? Yeah, good. Okay. And we do workshops with students. So

important! [With] education, new ideas pop up. This is what we’re

00:32:13

working on now: smog-free bicycles, which suck up polluted air, clean it,

and release the clean air, like a sort of mini-tower. So you can cycle and

not be polluted; to celebrate the bicycle, to fight against the car.

Singapore is also in the struggle. You can cycle, but you can also get

killed, eh? So you need to give it space. You need to give it space! What?

Am I saying something…am I insulting somebody here? I hope not.

That’s not my goal.

But …so right now, what was great was this is an idea. We dropped the

artist’s impression in the media and it was sort of like “Let’s see what

happens.” We didn’t have a client, we dropped the idea. There was no

media campaign, there was no prototype. We just dropped it. And we

were like okay, if everybody hates it or doesn’t like it, we stop—but let’s

see what happens. Within four weeks, Ofo, bam! I was sitting in….true

story. I was sitting with him on the stage in the World Economic Forum,

live. Forty-two countries livestreams, a thousand people, all these

journalists. So we were chatting about mobility and somewhere, the

CEO of Ofo said to me, “Daan, we know your work and we appreciate it.

We know the smog-free bike. We would like to work together with you

to make it happen.” And you know, and he puts out his hand. (Laughs).

And so I looked at my people backstage, like, “Er, did I miss a meeting or

like a memo?” But he proposed [it] sort of on-stage. So of course I shook

his hands, and right now we’re working very hard to launch the first

prototype [at the] end of this year, and then upscale—two million, three

million…so the idea of smog-free project is to make a package deal:

smog-free tower, smog-free bicycles, then we go to a government, a

mayor, and say we can help you to reduce pollution [by] ten to fourteen

percent within the coming year and a half, please sign here. And what is

interesting [is that] it’s always about new connections new

collaborations.

You know, everything already exists, you just have to connect it in a new

way. So the dyke, I’m going to speed it up a bit, the dyke, what we’ve

00:34:13

been talking about. What you should know, dykes in The Netherlands

are as holy as cows are in India. Or like…what’s in Singapore, the holy

grail? What? Say something. Money? What, no. Food? No…light shows

at Marina Bay. Okay…no? I’m getting to know Singapore. Anyway, so

dykes are holy. Normally you cannot touch them. But after eighty-five

years, it is in need of renovation because of the rising sea level. And

again, I already mentioned the importance of this dyke to live. It’s also a

beautiful place. Look at this, it’s sort of a zen line in the river [which was]

built by hand in 1932. It’s like “My god!” You know. We met one of the

people who built it. He’s very old. His hands are like twice my size. So it’s

like wow! It was hard work. And you have here, [Cornelis] Lely [b. 1854

– d. 1929], he was the engineer who came up with the idea many years

ago. People said, “You’re crazy, you cannot do it.” He was fighting [for]

it for twenty-two years and then somewhere, somehow, he got the

chance to become a Minister. And within the first week that he was

Minister, he was like, we’re going to build this one. (Laughs). It’s a true

story. So he’s here in a bronze sculpture.

Anyway, so our Minister—our current Minister of Infrastructure said,

“Okay, we’re going to renovate [it], we’re going to upgrade [it], but we

want to enhance the beauty. People take it maybe for granted or maybe

don’t even know about it.” And so what we realized is to not add objects,

not put bronze sculptures there—[but] we want to keep it clean, keep it

naked and keep it pure. So we looked at what was already there but

want to upgrade to the future—poetic, energy neutral. These are the

floodgates which are built in 1932 by the grandfather of Rem Koolhaas,

[unclear name 39:06]. Beautiful buildings, they look like temples, huh?

Look at that. Now they are in a state of maintenance. A lot of concrete

is rotten, it was built by hand so no quality check—problematic. But they

are at the beginning and end of the dyke—interesting. So we got the

finance to renovate, to appreciate this monument. But also we wanted

to make a future statement—these are the blueprints of the original

architect so we looked at them. And we wanted to do something with

light, energy.

00:36:34

Sustainable and Energy-Neutral Prototyping

But there was [sic were] some problems on this dyke. A, there’s no

electricity because it’s a dyke in the middle of nowhere. And B,

everything you do with electricity or cables or wires or LED will die within

two years because of the wind, the salt, the weather, you know, the

storms. So we said, let’s learn from nature. Let’s think about reflection—

we started to work with micro-pearls which have a super high value of

reflecting light, similar like the butterfly wing. So what you see here, this

is not a pigment. The pigment fades, like the pigment of my clothes

fades because of the UV [ultraviolet] light. Butterflies found out a way

on the nano-level, the one thousandth millimeter, to absorb light to

break light, to manipulate light, [and] to get this very vivid colours so it

always stays good, really interesting. It’s sort of like a smart skin in a way.

So we got to work. This is the Minister. (Laughs). We said, “What if we

would use the headlight of the car to make actually the buildings light

emitting as an alternative for street lights?” So these are [the] first

prototypes that we made. We don’t do computer renders or artist’s

impressions, we just start building it. So no cables, no wires, no LED, no

electricity, based on the headlights of the car the buildings become

enlightened. We’re renovating them now, sixty of them – it’s really like

a gateway, an entrance. Bam! So as you walk through, they become

enlightened, linking to the history, to the original blueprint of the

architect, [to the] monument; and at the same time [to] make a

statement, “Look we can have energy-neutral lighting which is, you

know, everywhere.” It’s always there, when people are there. When

there’s no people there, it’s off. When there’s no car, there’s no light.

So the plants and the animals and the birds can stay. And this also in

relation to a programme that the Dutch government has to make all the

highways energy-neutral by 2030. So it’s a great way of, on one hand,

creating an experience, a cinematic entrance and at the same time

making a statement about potential future.

00:38:48

Or here, these are kites. And by the way you’re all invited, opening 16

November, in The Netherlands. I’ll buy you the drinks, not the flight

ticket. Yeah? Fair enough. But it’s permanent, so you can go there

anytime. I can recommend it. It’s a beautiful place. Kites, these are Smart

kites. Interesting. Idea of Wubbo Ockels, one of the first Dutch

Astronauts who had the idea, “What if we could create energy in a new

way?” The problem was that he died two years ago. So his idea never

became a reality. I was watching a documentary about his life, where he

said, “How beautiful would it be, to have on this dyke, new ways of

energy harvesting, new energy harvesting kites.” So we said, “We’re

going to make his dream come true.” So we contacted his widow, the

heritage, and said, “Can we have his research, his theme, his drawings?

We want to make it true.” And they loved it, they said, “Yes! We’re going

to do this!”

So the kite is smart, filled with sensors and technology searching for the

optimal wind. But it’s connected with the ground through cable[s]. And

because the kite always moves, the cable goes up and down; and

because the cable moves up and down, it generates power—because

they’re sort of a dynamo on the ground, it like winds and unwinds, same

like your dynamo on the bicycle that generates light. Yes?

[Sound of video] Prototypes. A lot of prototypes. A lot of failure, a lot of

success. Can you hear the cable? We made the line light-emitting. A lot

of engineering. We thought it would take two weeks, [but it] took us

eight months to make it strong, flexible, light-emitting…a lot of

manufacturing. I have two hundred slides of this but it’s really…you

know, we worked with Corning— this is the glass manufacturer who

does iPhone glass—just to give you an idea of something which looks

simple, but is actually quite complex. Anyway, but in the end you get

this. Dancing lines of lights. And at the same time they produce enough

power—twenty to a hundred kilo-watts—This is enough for two

hundred households per hour. So it becomes…(music from video plays)

this is also still secret by the way. No, I’m really serious. I’m going to be

00:41:08

in a world of trouble. So you get this beautiful sort of zen lines of lights

which at the same time generate power. Look at that. Ah, we were

happy with this one.

[There’s a] camera inside, so you can see it rising here. It’s on the

ground, fifty meters….hundred meters…hundred…it’s like the Wubbo

Ockels said, the inventor is looking from heaven. Hope he likes it. And so

this will be open as well at the dyke. Traveling. And one of my secret

missions here is…[clears throat to change subject abruptly] Yeah, how’s

the weather? Yeah, I’m not just going to say about that.

So nature is great in that way. You know what this is? Algae. Plankton,

light emitting algae. One of the oldest micro-organisms in the world. I’m

a diver. I go diving at night. When you move your hands through the

water, they emit light. Beautiful. So they have luciferin—it’s the same

element that makes a butterfly or jellyfish, sorry, a firefly or a jellyfish

emit light. We teamed up with biological people [and] spent 2.1 million

euro of research and development, to make the most light-emitting

algae in the world. Look at this. So we’re filling up spaces. So as you walk

by they sort of wake up, huh! And they give light. Nobody really knows

why—some scientists say to scare enemies away, some say to

communicate with each other, some say it’s the side effects from

evolution—I don’t really care to be honest, I think it’s fascinating. You

can drink this. This is pure nature. Maybe you [will] get a little bit of

diarrhoea, but still you can…so why can this not be the future of light in

Singapore? You know, why can’t we have little streets or little bubbles

of living light?

This will be launched in…where we have sort of flooding spaces, and as

you walk over or touch them, they become light-emitting. Cool, huh?

And it’s really what these are – this is already millions of years old. But

the quality is to nurture, to grow it, to feed it with a lot of B12 vitamin,

to make it living and living for many, many months, and it grows

00:43:50

exponential[ly]. So it multiples. Fascinating, fascinating way of what we

can learn from nature to improve ourselves.

So to conclude, back to the landscape, I love that so much—that it’s not

just a function, that it’s our habitat, it’s our culture. This is kinderdijk, the

famous windmills built in the 1740. [It is] now [a] cultural heritage,

wedding couples go there to have photos taken, you know, a lot of

tourists go there, very famous. But I can imagine, when you lived in 1740

and you would have…[when] this would have been dropped in your

backyard, there were protests; people were like, “No! We don’t want

this! This is like, ugly and…no, no we don’t want it.” It was…there were

riots because of that. So it’s so fascinating that they are landscape

machines, they keep the level…the water level on [sic at] the right place

—something that started very practical, became poetry. Something that

started pure functional, became an icon.

But sometimes when we talk about the future of wind energy windmills,

we forget this. So can we use the love of kinderdijk, to the windmills of

today? Therefore we make Windlicht. [Music from video plays]. So [the

idea was] connecting existing windmills with lines of light.

[Voices from video speak in Dutch.] It makes you look different at the

windmills. It’s like jumping volts. So we created…we created a sort of

dance choreography—always different. And what was interesting with

this project is we thought it would be easy. (Laughs) Because it looks

simple, but it’s not because the first time we had like high focus LEDs

and a tracking device, and we were like “Okay, so we track this blade

and we have a line.” It was horrible. It was like Dr. Beber[?]. It was shaky,

because what we didn’t know was when we stand on top of a windmill,

which I can highly recommend by the way, it’s really beautiful—it’s like

being drunk in a storm on the ocean on a ship, and then the blade comes

down, whooom! So you have…it’s floating and the blades, which goes at

280 kilometers per hour, rotates from one hundred centimeter to thirty

centimeter surfaces, so basically you have two floating points.

00:47:19

So the first test we did, we wanted to have this calm, zen type of feeling,

it was like…but, but, but…and when we missed a blade….when we

missed a blade, the line keeps on going. And so, if it keeps on going it

can hit a pilot in the eye, pilot goes down, bad media, yeah. So no, it’s

like, not good, not good. So we went back to the….it was horrible!

Literally, we didn’t sleep for four days. It was [a] nightmare. Every

project failed somewhere, and somehow we always succeeded so layers

and layers of tracking, of software codes—you see the whiz kids here

and in the end, it created this sort of choreography of dance and beauty,

but the complexity created this simplicity. And realizing, to conclude—

and maybe we can open up the room then…and I can have my ring back,

or I can’t have my ring back—is that somehow maybe this is what we

should be doing, [to] realise that in a way, everything already exists.

There’s not a lack of technology in this world. There’s not a lack of

money in this world. There’s a lack of imagination, and of vision. And

what we have to do is create new links between all these elements.

Between the pragmatism and the poetry, between the dream and the

business plan. And I think if we start merging that even more, carried by

knowledge and intelligence, there’s still a whole new world to be

explored. And I’m looking forward to open[ing] the conversation now,

today, but also [in] the coming years, to see how we can work together

to give that kind of tickling and upgrading to a place like Singapore.

Thank you so much.

Panel and Q&A Segment

AUD1 00:49:05

I’m fascinated by the algae walk. And [I] am always looking for

opportunities to use natural systems for our designs. I’m Henry Steed,

by the way, I’m a landscape architect [ICN Design International], so I do

a lot of footpaths and I want some nice glowing, bouncy footpaths. But

my question is how long does the algae actually stay active and alive?

Does it actually die in the end or…


It’s a living organism, that’s why we had to spend so much time on it—

to grow them, to nurture them, to find the right atmosphere in terms of

temperature, in terms of food—because they’re a bit diva. So if you’re

not going to take care of them, they’re like, “Okay we’re going to die.

We’re going to….we’re going to leave you.” And it’s horrible because if

one of them dies… if like ten percent dies, then the rest are like, “Then

we’re also going to die.” So they are really like diva.

First of all, what is important to know is, it’s not [an] animal. It’s like

grass, it’s like one cell, it has no intelligence. So if you cut….I say die but

they….yeah, it’s like cutting the grass, it will grow back. But okay, once

we [have] mastered that skill, then they stay alive for many months and

they grow exponential[ly]. So what we notice now, in the pilots we’re

running, opening in ten weeks, is that actually the longer they live, the

more [they] multiply, [and] the more light-emitting they become.

But yes, there is a certain sensitivity to it. You can control it for [sic to]

ninety-nine percent, which I think for Singapore would be fair enough,

huh? Yeah? It’s fair enough? But you’re right and I think…and we would

love to show you, maybe in The Netherlands or here, why does it move

me so much [is] because when you walk over, it’s alive. It’s not a LED or

a cable. And what I think is, when we look at humankind, so we have

existed for….or human – if you believe in evolution theory, life started

four billion, 4.5 billion years ago. Something like that, you know, like long

time ago, and it was like swamp[s]…and then blop, blop, blop…. and then

00:51:10

died and live and then fish, in particular…and that’s…okay, if you believe

in that.

Scientists, when you talk with space scientists, they calculated that in 4,

4.5 billion years from now, the sun will explode and the earth will be

[makes crackling noise]….everything dies. Yes? That’s really interesting.

So somehow, we’re in the middle. And the microorganisms of four

billion years ago would have never, ever imagined, that it would become

human…or evolution of the human. And in the same way as you and I

would never, ever imagine what we’ll become in hundred, five hundred,

thousand years from now. That’s what somehow, is in them. It’s sort of

history, and also future. We are mutants. We evolve, we grow.

Fascinating.

Mr Adib Jalal 00:52:00

There’s a sense of collective intelligence inside all these creatures, and

plants—a lot of bio-mimicry that you’ve been exploring right? And I

think I just want to tie back to the idea of how the human intelligence,

the human creativity—right, I mean you alluded to that—that will be the

skill that’s going to differentiate us from anything else, from the

machines and everything. Yeah, would you like to share a bit more about

that thought process...about the importance of creativity in approaching

the problems in our city?


Yeah so, again, you can have cities which are machines that kill us, or

you can have cities which are platforms for humans to be efficient, to be

safe, to be energy-friendly. And I’ve always felt that the new innovations

of this world won’t happen on a computer screen, Facebook, Google,

but will be urban innovations—clean air, clean water, clean energy. Now

why can’t a place like Singapore be a sort of hub, a prototype, a living

lab, to attract people from functional but also—how do you say it—for

tourism or entertainment. Because cities will come from all over the

world, to come here, to learn from it. So how can you create a city where

people feel [like a] citizen, not just [a] tax payer? That’s what I hear on

the radio when I’m here: the included [sic inclusive] society and things

like that…So it’s more social-driven than technology-driven—that

should be the focus. You want to feel connected.


Yes, and a lot of your work also talks about these collective experiences

right? People go to public squares and they see, collectively they see the

water levels or they see the wind, right…you make the invisible visible,

in a way. So these collective experiences, do you feel that’s integral to

how people connect back to the city? Like when you see these features

around you, do you feel more connected? Is that the intention of your

work?


Yes, absolutely, I mean, there’s this famous quote of Marshall McLuhan

[b. 1911 – d. 1980] the Canadian author who once said, “On Spacecraft

Earth, there are no passengers, we are all crew.” And that’s very

fascinating. So there is sometimes a tendency to disclaim, “Ah,

government will do it, or my neighbor, my wife, my husband or

whoever…” Activate. Propose. Don’t think in opinions—think in

proposals. And I think that mentality, if you want to be future-proof is

really important and yeah, it’s makes you future-proof. And it’s also

more fun. That’s also very important.

AUD2 00:54:23

My name is Roberto Fabbri and I’m with SIB Consulting, and my question

is this: I’m scared when in the morning or when I read that [for] big cities,

urbanisation is inevitable. That we are going to live in cities of five, six,

ten, twenty millions of inhabitants. And if there is something that we

learnt from technology—we just look at trains, you can connect two

cities one hundred kilometers apart in 15 minutes because they go very

fast. And tomorrow can be done without [drifts off].

First question is: is, really, urbanization inevitable? And are big cities the

solution? First. And the second that goes with it is that, many years ago,

the way in which we lived defined architecture. Now, can architect[s]

define the way in which we live? Because with sprawling…

Can architects design the way in which we live? Because it cannot be left

unattended, in the sense that if left unattended, only developer[s] can

gain from sprawling.


It’s very interesting because……thank you for your question. Because a

lot of global challenges we are in right now—rising sea level, pollution,

energy et cetera, sound pollution…are architectural or city-scale

problems. And so in a way, I look at it is that the mess we’re in on planet

Earth, we’ve created it! It’s man- or woman-made. So in a way it’s bad

design. It’s sort of designed but not consciously [done so]. So the only

thing we can do is either die or and complain. Okay? Or we can say we

have to design our way out of it. We have to engineer our way out of it,

yes?

And I think it’s very weird that within the architectural scene, and urban

planning scene, somehow the current state of architects is not present

in this discussion. I can say this. I think that’s really weird. That’s why I

showed Archigram and Superstudio with walking cities. These were

radicals, metabolism, I have to use academics, statements about the

future. People thought is this real or is it not real, but there was a vision,

there was a push and I miss that in the current debate. And that’s weird

because it gives us space for experiment, of investment, of money, of

trying. So we should have this conversation more. So do I think design

will save us? No. But it can definitely help.


In your opinion, is there is reason why you hypothesise why architects

are not in this conversation?


I have…ptt! [Onomatopoeic] I don’t know man. I have no idea….I don’t

know…


Maybe we’ll find out later when we have a chat with some of them.

AUD2 00:57:20

About mega-cities?


Mega-city? Is that inevitable….


Is that inevitable – is that your question right? Is that an inevitable future

that we all have to live with?


I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t know….I think that….yeah, Rem has

written a lot about it, the growing cities, but I also see fifty, sixty percent

of what I do…what I do, it doesn’t matter where I am. You know, my

home is where the laptop is, so I might very well imagine going back to

the countryside with good [reason] because it has space and it’s more

clean and so I think the virtual world will help us to spread way more.

But at the same time, I don’t want to be trapped in my bubble of

digitalization. So I’m very interested in what happens when the

technology becomes tactile, jumps out of the screen and helps to

improve life. So no, it won’t be inevitable but it will certainly be a trend

where we live in come ten, fifteen years, absolutely, yeah. Okay, please.


Do we have any other questions from the floor?

While they are still mulling in their minds what other questions [they

have], we’ve got two questions, so you can’t leave yet. We need three

questions before anyone can leave. So I’ve got another question.


You make it sound so intrusive…


Yeah, it’s okay. No it’s fine. They can stay…


I’m joking here. You know Dutch, yeah? They’re always a bit direct. You

have to forgive me. You have to forgive me.


So speaking of being Dutch, I think there’s this quote that I read

somewhere, one of your interviews right, you said that because you’re

Dutch, pragmatism and poetry comes together, right? And how about

some of us who are a bit more pragmatic than poetic? How do you feel

that we can….other than, of course, calling you up and getting you to

work on these projects, of course, but what other ways can we like break

out of that and see potential in all of this, in urban infrastructure that you

see, right, and looking beyond the pragmatic roles of all this urban

infrastructure?


I think pragmatism and poetry are intrinsic[ally] related to each other.

And you see that in the windmills, the kinderdijk—it is very, very

functional, but at the same time they are very, very beautiful. So this can

be harmony, or when you look at the sunflower—how it sort of follows

the sun—nature has this beautiful logic and reason and efficiency which

creates beauty. So there’s so much to be explored.

And I think on a personal level [it] is again, are you an observer or a

participant? And the rule that we have in our studio it says, “Okay, if you

don’t agree or you don’t know that’s fine. But I don’t care about

opinions, I care about proposals.” So we have interns coming with you

know, “Hey we have an idea how we can grow [gletchers? 1:05:06].”

We’re like, “Wow, that’s…okay. Okay, let’s spend some time on that.”

So you have to have this interaction….


Of experimentation…


Yeah. And failure. Oh yeah, and failure’s only failure if you don’t learn

from it. That’s going to be interesting in Singapore as well. That…to sort

of try that one out. But it’s very simple—if you don’t invest in new ideas,

you die. I think [it is like] that.

So of course, you need a backbone. I’m an entrepreneur as well—I need

to pay the rent, pay the people, sure, sure, sure. The way we do it in the

studio, we divide it in ‘now’, ‘next’ and ‘new’. So ‘now’ is: I have a

deadline in ten weeks…I have a call from a project manager, missed

three times. I need to get back to them to see how it’s going. Fix it.

The ‘next’ is, what’s happening next year? What are we going to do? And

the ‘new’ is five to ten years [later]. So you need to somehow invest in

all this kind of thinking at the same time. If you only focus on the future

you’ll go broke and you die. But if you’re only focused on today, you

don’t grow and you’re not ready for the change which is coming.

Balance.


For that, some wise words about how we structure, especially how we

balance running a studio while also looking forward right?


Yeah, exactly. Yeah maybe final, I can show you some….shall I show you

the ‘next’? We dim the lights a bit? We dim the lights?


So in between the ‘now’, this is the ‘next’ that we’re going to….


This is the ‘next’. Chris, who is my Head of Design, I love him, but this is

a project he’s like, “Done! Oh pfft! Oh man…” He’s really enthusiastic

but at the same time, he’s like, “Oh man… We’re doing a dyke of thirty-

two kilometers, can we sort of celebrate that?” This is a project that’s a

little bit crazy but also very necessary at the same time.

AUD 3 01:01:49

My name is [Hike?] from [Vomage?] Group. Quick question, it’s

interesting you already said about how you have the now, the next, the

new. And I mean, you show two very different types of projects…you

show a project which is say, windmill lights, which to me it’s cute to have,

it’s more art than anything else and then you have something that’s

cycling in the smog and getting out clean air, so that’s a need to have.

So question here is, how do you prioritise and decide what to work on?

Because there are a lot of big problems in a lot of big places, and there

are a lot of good-to-have’s and art. How do you sort of decide whether

that’s art, or it’s actually a solution?


Personal obsession? (Laughs) Yeah, sorry, I can say, “We did this

marketing research, and we interviewed…” It’s only partly true. I think,

if you want to do this, it’s a struggle. It’s not easy. So you have to fight

for it. There is eighty percent BS [bullshit] to get twenty percent beauty.

Yes? And then you’re doing okay. It’s like, that’s like…that’s a good day.

So, I think the personal curiosity—from a personal level I am really, really

curious how it would feel like, to ride a smog-free bicycle. I want to feel

it, I want to see it, I want to not smell it—the pollution. So, you’re right.

Sometimes it’s more poetic to show the beauty of the windmills, which

I think is also important to social acceptance; and sometimes it’s more

practical. You manoeuvre a bit around that. It depends on the questions

you have, the personal obsession, the client—[the] smog-free project

01:03:29

was a self-commissioned project. We invested our own time, money and

energy. The rings helped to….and now we have mayor of Medellin

[Colombia], Mexico, [Pula (Croatia)/Pola (Italy)?], India government

investing in it. But at the beginning, no. So that’s the whole interaction

you’re having.


So what are we looking at over here?


So what are we looking at? Space junk, really good! So at the moment,

there are twenty-three thousand objects around the size of this floating

in space, caused by us by the way. So broken satellites, it is the smog of

the universe. And it started in 1957 with the launch of…what is

it….Apollo 8? And then, because particles started to break….or they tick,

tick, tick, tick…look at this. (Laughs) Wow! And the idea is ESA [European

Space Agency], this is the European NASA [National Aeronautics and

Space Administration] is calculating that it keeps on growing. More

satellites, more missiles. Look at that junk.

And why is this important? Why should we care? Well, because even if

a small piece, a tiny piece, hits an existing satellite, it goes through the

Kevlar because it has high speed. Satellite goes down, no more

Facebook, no more banking, no more CLC website. Er…er…er…[that’s a]

problem. And the weird part is that nobody knows how to fix it. We met

with a lot of smart people that want to have a clean space programme.

Literally millions of Euros in sort of finding a net or a laser or robot arm—

we don’t know how.

And this is a weird situation we’re in, because can you imagine – you

have planet Earth. Planet Earth, like here, floating in Universe. Universe

is, as far as we know, endless. Everything outside the Earth atmosphere

is out there either to kill us or is completely oblivious to us. Like they

don’t care. That’s not a good place to be in. And somehow, we as human

being[s] found a way to create a layer of junk around it, which is not

going to go away, in such a way that, if collisions are more and

more…and collisions is more part of …de, de, de, they are very afraid that

01:05:56

if things continue like this, we cannot launch missiles anymore, or

satellites because they get damaged because of the waste. So somehow,

we found a way to trap ourselves. How are we going to explain that to

our grandchildren?

So this is something we’re working on now. Can we use the logic of [the]

smog-free project—the technology of positive ionization, the creative

thinking—to clean up space? I don’t have the answer. All we need now

is eight million Euros and a non-cloudy night to do some prototypes. But

this is great…


Eight million Euros, anyone? Like please come up to Daan, and…


And what I like about it, to conclude is…here, I’m an amateur again. I can

say I’m an expert in smog, yes? I can say that. I spent three, four years,

read a lot about that….


[Overlapping] Searching and smart people…


…research, I’m [an] expert, yes? But now, I’m an amateur again. In

space.


Space junk.


I’m talking to scientists. They use words that I don’t even know half of

the time, you know? And I love it. So don’t be afraid to be an amateur,

yes? And to experiment. So I’ll be happy to come back next year, and

give you an update on space waste.


Yeah, the very far-off ‘next’, right? This is the very, very far off ‘next’, but

very urgent problem.


Exactly, but very realistic…it’s our communication. We’re screwed if we

don’t….


It’s almost like a code that I keep hearing you say in every of your

presentation, like how did we even get to this? How did we agree to this

right? Is this a good idea? From smog to junk…


Yeah. Is this a good idea? This is bad design right here.

AUD 4 01:07:27

One thing [that] always baffles me is, what is your source of inspiration?

Or is it just something you’ve read and then you come up with this bright

spark, “Oh! This is something which I could think of and develop further”,

or it’s something [where] you’re talking to people and, “This is a very

relevant issue right now. How do you address it?”


Yeah. It’s a good question. I think [it is] all of them in a way. So

sometimes it starts with a frustration, that you look at smog, you’re like,

“This is crazy! Why are we accepting that?” And sometimes it’s looking

at like the jellyfish or the firefly, I was in Kuala Lumpur sitting outside in

the evening somewhere in the forest on the city side. And the fireflies

came to me. So they were like, tk, tk, tk, tk. And I got my phone. And I

used my flashlight. And I started tk, tk, tk, flashing. Because they use

flashes to communicate. And I started flashing and they started to

communicate with me! You know, they start to flash, so I have no idea,

maybe I insulted them? I don’t speak their language. Maybe there’s a

really cranky firefly outside of Kuala Lumpur, “These Dutch people,

they…” So, but it was one of the most intimate interaction with nature I

have ever had! It [was] sort of, this sort of this notion of intimacy. So it’s

a combination of frustration, of curiosity and also of the desire to ‘make

it’. We’re not just talking or dreaming, we’re building it, we’re learning

from it. And that is the mentality which is necessary. So, don’t be a

consumer, be a maker. Make decisions, make dreams, make new

solutions, and I think in the end, there’s a naïve idea that that will

improve the world around us.


Thank you so much.


Alright, guys. That was fun. See you next time.


Thank you so much, Daan. Can we have a round of applause for Daan,

please? (Applause).

[Transcript ends at 01:09:15]

LECTURE INFORMATION

TITLE

Landscapes of the Future

SPEAKER

Daan Roosegarde

Founder, Studio Roosegarde; A World Cities Summit Young Leader, Philippine’s Base Conversion and

Development Authority (BCDA)

MODERATOR

Adib Jalal

Co-Founder & Director, Shophouse & Co.

DATE

7 September 2017

LOCATION

MND Auditorium

DURATION

1 Hour 9 Minutes 23 Seconds

Note:

Readers of this document should bear in mind that the transcript is a verbatim recording of the

spoken word and reflects the informal, conversational style that may be inherent in the process. The

Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC) is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the text nor the views

expressed therein; these are for the reader to judge.

[ ] are used for insertions, after the interview. The information is not necessarily contained in the

original recording.

All rights in the recording and transcript, including the right to copy, publish, broadcast and perform,

are reserved to the CLC. Permission is required should you wish to use the transcript for any purpose.

clc lecture landscapes of the future

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