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"Freeze" is an English word

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that means: stay still, don't move.

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This word is dear to me,
because it is linked to awakening.

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In fact, I want to speak of awakening
as something necessary

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to shake our inertia, our inaction away.

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And it is important to move right now

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because an unexpected,
risky future awaits us.

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Movement is fundamental

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to reconsider these risks
in a positive way.

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Sure, I talk about it
from my point of view.

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As an architect, I have to understand

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what my role is within this change,

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how I can intervene,

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and above all the importance
of architects and architecture

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within this context.

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The context we are talking about
is climate change.

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A change that entails,

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not just a new, different scenario,

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but rather an ever changing one,

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second by second,

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over the next hundreds,
maybe thousands of years.

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What about architecture?

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Every time I talk about this topic,
the question becomes,

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Yes, this is a political issue

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that's up to decision makers,

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probably corporate CEOs,

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industrial policies and the economy.

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As you can see on this graph,
the reality is not exactly like that.

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Architects play a fundamental role.

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If we talk about CO2,

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we see that probably, indeed certainly,

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CO2 emissions are largely
caused by buildings.

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If we also consider the transport system

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and combine the two together,

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considering how the city shape
affects the transport system,

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we will see that the city itself
is the main cause of CO2 emissions.

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The role of the architect
is therefore important, if not pivotal.

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In fact, we also know

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what ingredients are needed

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to meet this need.

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Research helps us

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so we know that these cities
are more resilient,

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they can adapt to this change more easily,

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and this change comes
with extreme climate changes.

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So cities need to adapt
to these extreme climate changes.

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The second aspect is compactness.

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We have to expect increasingly
dense and compact cities

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because the availability of resources
is increasingly limited;

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it's up to the productive land.

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The larger the size of the city,

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the greater the availability
of productive land.

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This leads me to conclude,
aware as I am of the population growth,

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if we don't want to get

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to what the Portsmouth research centre
calls the "impossible equation",

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we will have to consider a new element,

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which is the key element
for awakening, and it's creativity.

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That's why we talk about radical Concept,

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we talk about vision,

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the ability to see the world
with different eyes.

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This doesn't actually mean
we just talk about the future

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and no longer have to look at the past.

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Before the industrial revolution,
we are aware of that,

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some of these models
had already been applied.

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Venice is clearly a radical city,
a visionary city,

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but we could also look to other models

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such as Shibam, in Yemen,

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a city that on every profile

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meets our climate needs
in the desert area.

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An ultra-compact city
that withstands the hot desert winds.

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It has this white upper surface
with high albedo

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that allows a drastic reduction
in the Heat Island Effect,

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something that is often talked about

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as if it was a problem
ancestors weren't aware of.

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Of course,

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even this idea of being visionary
is not new per se.

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We know there was a historical period

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when vision has been decisive,

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and it has been decisive

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precisely for that kind of ability
to see the world in a radical way

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that came from the world
of architecture, or art.

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I'm referring to the Renaissance.

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What does the Renaissance have to do
with today's climate crisis?

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Because the crisis of the 14th century

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had characteristics
that closely match the current one:

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a reduction in resources,

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a population that was no longer able
to access these resources,

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climate change in the opposite direction,

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i.e. a mini ice age.

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And last but not least,

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the problem related to the fact
that a disease, the black death,

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was somehow the reason

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why society as a whole

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took a different shape,

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somehow upholstering
economies and societies.

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This is important because, obviously,

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the reference to the first two factors
is quite immediate,

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but the reference to health
is just as important,

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while not self-evident.

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We know that climate change
will be a major cause of disease

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in the next twenty years.

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People like Leonardo, a visionary,

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people who are able to see the world

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with new, different eyes,

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without the mental frames
that affected us all,

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is fundamental.

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How can we nurture today

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a creative ability
that leads us to awaken?

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I have my personal idea.

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It comes from the fact,
I am also an educator.

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This can be done through education,

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thanks to the fact
that young people and students

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are not conditioned like us dinosaurs

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by a worldview

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that is somehow determined
by the last centuries of history.

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So our job is precisely
to try and ignite in them

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the ability to be creative, inventive,
even radical and extreme.

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Here we see a series of works

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done by students and collaborators
of my Media Hub research centre

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who are, as well as students,
also real researchers.

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This is Liam Stumbles in this example.

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He figured out a city
that is revolutionised

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by the idea of eliminating
car traffic altogether,

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and reusing the stuff
our highways are made of

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to rebuild a new urban fabric.

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Here we see the example
of the city of Auckland

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and the consequences for this city:

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spaces originally intended for motorways

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become parks and structures

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that can be used
by the whole city population.

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We see that the system
tries to take advantage

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of state-of-the-art technologies,
such as the use of drones,

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and the so-called swarm behavior,

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the ability of drones to move in swarms.

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And we see that the possibility

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of changing the performance of the city

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gets critical in this line of thought.

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Another example is to use botany
as an unrban revolution tool;

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the ecological systems that arise
from plants' genetic modification.

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Or to draw a city,
as in the case of Naim Mukif,

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assuming that the city must be drawn

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not only on human flows,

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on those that are the movements
of people and their needs,

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but also on that of bees -

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just today it has been declared

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that bees are the planet's
most important animals.

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Or we can use cellular stuff of this type,

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we can understand how it expands,
and infer from that

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what the rearrangement tendencies
of these organisms are.

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And we can also understand,
at the same time,

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how we can directly use this material
as a building material.

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In this case we use it as a brise soleil,

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as a possibility to make
the windows more opaque,

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by controlling the development.

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Or an extreme like this,
designed by Joyce Kwan,

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which is the transformation of cities
in a totally organic solution.

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Here we see a project
by Michael Brewster and Bevin Liang,

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focused on the chance

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of including automation
and robotics in the city.

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This technology allows the city
to be resilient,

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meaning that the ability to adapt

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precisely depends on the city's
robotic equipment.

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It's not just about
speculative elaborations,

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it's also about making responsive models,

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as in this case, using an Arduino,

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to these project hypotheses,

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to the last city in this series
that I'd like to show you,

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which is a city in Antarctica
with extreme conditions.

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What we are talking about here

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is the possibility of using

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our planet's extreme climate conditions

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as resources,

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obviously limiting our carbon footprint.

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However, these extreme areas

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generate usable resources.

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Here we see examples

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of this city system, station system

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which are a form
of colonisation of Antarctica.

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We see that, in some way,

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this system is very similar
to that of oil platforms

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but its goal is completely different:

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harness marine movements, for example,

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and recreate a habitat

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that promotes a good relationship
between humans and animals.

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Here we see how a relationship
is somehow created with the oceanic fauna.

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Now the typical question,
when I talk about these things, is:

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What's the cost for transition?

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The question is not a random one,

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because it is seemingly a rhetorical one.

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Many people say, a change
would cost a hell of a lot.

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After all, our society
is based on fossil fuels,

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and maintaining the status quo,
in many people's opinion,

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is certainly a cheaper strategy.

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The answer is no.

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By "No", I mean that transition
is cheaper than the status quo.

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We do not have time to elaborate here,

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but a few images are enough
to understand why that's not the case.

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Here is a state-of-the-art oil platform

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that digs, sucks

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the last drops of blood from our planet,

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from the depths of the ocean

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with irreversible damage to biodiversity.

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The second objection
is about the cities I showed you.

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If you asked, I am convinced
more than half of you

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would hold the point,
these are dystopian visions,

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and many among you
have already said to your neighbour:

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"Oh yes, interesting, maybe - hopefully -
but I'd never want to live there".

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This is interesting,

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because it is probably correct to say
"I would never want to live there".

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But what is dystopia,
if not also a condition

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of unfamiliarity with a certain condition.

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Because our natural condition is this:

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we don't live in country houses
with a backyard.

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We live in this conditions.

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80% of the world's population
already lives like this today,

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and probably much more so in future.

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Either the left or the right one, 50 / 50.

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Are we sure that this condition
is not a dystopian condition,

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or it just so happens,

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our feeling of comfort
with the environment we live in

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is only related to familiarity
with this environment?

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This is a question
I'd rather not to answer.

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You probably already understood

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that those cities I took as examples

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try to say one very precise thing,
that is, to stimulate this discussion.

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It would come handy for me
to show you much more reassuring models.

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I'd wrap up saying that awakening,
in my point of view,

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asks to see the world
from a completely different perspective.

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I was lucky in my life:

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for work and research,
I was able to move to New Zealand

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and this allowed me
to actually see the world

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from as far as possible from my country,

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and from the most
different perspective also.

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From the South Pacific,

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and in particular from a fauna,
from an environmental context

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that's so different from ours,

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even if it is said that 2.000 years ago,
even before the Roman Empire,

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New Zealand looked very much like Italy.

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What particularly strikes me
about New Zealand

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is the biodiversity
and the characteristics of the fauna.

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New Zealand, mind you,

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is a place where humans, Maori,
didn't get until 1200-1300,

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and in 1700 we Westerners
came to colonise it.

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So a natural habitat thrived

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that's extremely different
from our usual one.

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The kakapo, in my opinion,

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is an animal that somewhat
represents this condition.

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Kakapos don't fly,

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despite being large parrots.

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When it has to reproduce

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it chooses one of the dozens of volcanoes
that are found for example in Auckland -

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hundreds, maybe thousands
are all across New Zealand,

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and goes to the top of this hill.

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Once at the top of this hill,
it starts screaming.

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This is his way of attracting his partner,

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who in turn climbs this hill to mate.

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Now, I always think about this condition

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because I come from Tuscany,

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and I imagine a wild boar
climbing up a hill and screaming.

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I don't know how long it would take

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before a hunter goes and takes the dinner,

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hinted at by this signal.

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Another very interesting aspect

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is that at a certain point in his life
the kakapo met humanity,

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And what the kakapo did,

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when he met man for the first time,

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was freezing: he stopped, he got stuck,

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hoping that the hunter
would not detect him,

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hoping to trick him into thinking
the kakapo was actually a tree or a stone.

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Just imagine how successful
this strategy turned out to be,

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and the risks of extinction
the kakapo still faces today.

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And that's my bottom line:
basically, we are the kakapo today,

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And I hope that's a consideration
that you will share with me.

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(Applause)