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I am an architect.

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And this picture shows the city
that I come from,

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Beijing, China.

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And old Beijing is like
a very beautiful garden,

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you can see a lot of nature.

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When I was a kid,

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I learned to swim in this lake

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and I climbed mountains
every day after school.

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But after getting older,

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we built more and more modern buildings.

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And they all look the same.

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They all look like matchboxes.

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Why are modern buildings
and cities full of these boxy shapes?

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In this photo,
you actually see two cities.

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The one on the left is New York,

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and the one on the right
is Tianjin, a Chinese city

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that's being constructed.

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And they have very similar skylines.

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Maybe they also follow the same principle.

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You know, competing for density,

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competing for more space,

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competing for efficiency.

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Therefore, modern architecture

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becomes a symbol of capital and power.

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Chinese cities are building a lot,

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they're also, you know,

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not only competing
for this space and height,

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they're also learning a lot
from North American urban strategies

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[and] also repeat a lot from city to city.

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So here, we call it
1,000 cities with one face.

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So as an architect in China,

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I have to ask myself,
what can I do about it?

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One day, I was walking on a street,

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I saw people selling fish.

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And they put the fish
in this cubic fish tank.

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So I was asking the same question,

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why a cubic space for fish?

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Do they like cubic space?

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(Laughter)

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Obviously not.

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So maybe the cubic space,
cubic architecture,

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is cheaper, is easier to make.

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So, I did this small research,

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I put a camera and I tried
to observe how fish behave

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in this cubic space.

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And then I found
they probably weren't happy.

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The cubic space wasn't
the perfect home for them,

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so I decided to design
a new fish tank for them.

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I think it should be more organic,

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it should be a more fluid space inside.

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More complex interiors.

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I think they should feel happier
living in this space,

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but I wouldn't know
because they don't talk to me.

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(Laughter)

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But one year after,

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we got this opportunity
to design this real building for humans.

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This is actually a pair of towers

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that we built in Mississauga,
a city outside Toronto.

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And people call this
Marilyn Monroe Towers --

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(Laughter)

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because of its curvature.

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And the idea was to build a tower,

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high-rise, residential tower,
but not a box.

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It's more inspired by nature,

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with the sunshine and wind dynamics.

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After we finished
designing the first tower,

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they told us, you know,

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"You don't have to design the second one,

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you just repeat the same design,

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and we pay you twice."

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But I said, "You cannot have
two Marilyn Monroes standing there."

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And nature never repeats itself,

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so now we have two buildings
that can dance together.

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So I have this question for myself.

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You know, why, in the modern city,

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we often think architecture
is a machine, is a box?

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So here, I want to see how
people looked at nature in the past.

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By looking into this Chinese
traditional painting,

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I found that they often mixed

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the nature and the artificial, man-made,
in a very dramatic way,

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so they create this emotional scenery.

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So in the modern city, my question is:

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Is there a way that we don't separate
buildings and nature,

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but combine them?

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So there's another project
that we built in China.

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It's a quite large residential complex.

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And it's located in a very
beautiful nature setting.

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To be honest, the first time
when I visited the site,

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it was too beautiful.

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And I almost decided to reject the project

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because you feel as a criminal
to do anything there.

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I don't want to become a criminal.

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But my second thought was,

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if I didn't do it,

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they would just put, you know,
standard urban towers there, anyway.

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And that would be a pity.

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So I decided I had to give it a try.

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So the way we did that was

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we took the contour lines
from the existing mountains,

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and we took those lines
and then translated them into a building.

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So those towers are actually
taking the shapes

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and geometries from the nature.

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So each building has a different shape,

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a different size, different height.

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And they become
the extension of the nature

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[where] they're situated.

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And you know,

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people think we use computer sometimes

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to design this kind of architecture,

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but I actually use a lot of hand sketch,

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because I like the randomness
in the hand sketch.

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And they can carry sort of emotions

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that cannot be made by computers.

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Architecture and humans and nature
can coexist together

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and are having a good
relationship in this photo.

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Actually this guy in the photo
is one of the architects on our team.

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I think he's been enjoying
the beautiful nature scenery,

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and feeling relieved
that he is not part of the criminals --

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(Laughter)

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in the end.

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Back to the city,

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in Beijing, we were asked
to design these urban towers.

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And I made this model.

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It's an architecture model,

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looks like a minimountain and minivalleys.

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I put this model on my table,
and I watered it every day.

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And years later,
we completed this building.

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And you can see how my hand sketch

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is being translated
into the real building.

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And they look quite similar.

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It looks like a black mountain.

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And this is how this building
is situated in the city.

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It's on the edge of this beautiful park.

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It's different, very different
from the surrounding buildings,

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because other buildings are trying
to build a wall around the nature.

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But what we're trying to do here

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is to make the building itself
as a part of nature,

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so we can extend the nature
from the park into the city.

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So that was the idea.

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A Chinese art critic drew this painting.

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He put our building in this painting.

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Can you see there's a black,
tiny mountain?

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That looks very fit into this painting.

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However, in this reality,

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our design was being challenged

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that it looks so different
from the surroundings.

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And they asked me to modify my design,

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either color or shape,

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to make the building
fit the context better.

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So my question was,

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why it fits this traditional,
you know, natural context,

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better than the reality?

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Maybe there's something wrong
with the reality.

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Something wrong with the context.

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In the very northern part of China,

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we also built this opera house.

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It's an opera house next to the river,

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in the wetland park.

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So we decided to make this building
part of the surrounding landscape

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and merge into the horizon.

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The building literally
looks like a snow mountain.

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And people can walk on the building.

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During the day or when there's no opera,

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people come here, 
they can enjoy the views,

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and they can continue
their journey from the park

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onto the building.

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When they reach the rooftop,

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there's an amphitheater
that's framing the sky,

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where they can sing to the sky.

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Inside the opera,

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we have this lobby
with a lot of natural light,

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and they can also enjoy
this semi-indoor-outdoor space,

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and they can see
the beautiful view around them.

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I've been building several mountains,

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and here I'm trying to show you

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one building that I think
looks like a cloud.

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It's the Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts

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that's being constructed
in the city of Los Angeles.

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It's a museum created by George Lucas,

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the creator of the "Star Wars" movies.

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Why a building that looks like a cloud?

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Because I think, I imagine,
the cloud is mysterious.

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It's nature.

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It's surreal when this natural element
landed in the city.

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And it makes you feel curious about it,

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and you want to explore it.

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So that's how the building
landed on earth.

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By lifting this museum,

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making it float above the ground,

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we can free up a lot of landscape
and space underneath the building.

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And then we can, at the same time,

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create this roof garden above the building

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where you can visit and enjoy the view.

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This museum will be completed
in the year 2022,

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and you're all invited
when it's completed.

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So after building all these
mountains and clouds,

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now we're building these volcanoes

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back in China.

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This is actually a huge sports park

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with four stadiums in it,

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with one football stadium
[with] 40,000 seats in there.

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So it's a very large project.

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And you see from this photo,

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you can hardly tell where there's building
and where there's landscape.

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So the building becomes a landscape.

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Even becomes a land art,

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where people can walk around the building,

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they can climb this building

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as they're wandering in this volcano park.

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And this rendering shows
one of the spaces in those volcanoes.

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This is actually a swimming pool

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with natural light coming from above.

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So, what we're trying to create

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actually is an environment
that blurs the boundary

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in between architecture and nature.

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So architecture is no longer
a functional machine for living.

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It also reflects the nature around us.

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It also reflects our soul and spirit.

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So, as an architect, I don't think

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in the future we should repeat
those soulless matchboxes anymore.

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I think what I'm looking for
is the opportunity

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to create a future

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with harmony in between humans and nature.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)