Brilliant designs to fit more people in every city | Kent Larson | TEDxBoston
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0:09 - 0:11Good morning.
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0:11 - 0:15I thought I would start
with a very brief history of cities. -
0:16 - 0:21Settlements typically began
with people clustered around a well, -
0:21 - 0:25and the size of that settlement
was roughly the distance you could walk -
0:25 - 0:27with a pot of water on your head.
-
0:28 - 0:32In fact, if you fly
over Germany, for example, -
0:32 - 0:35and you look down and you see
these hundreds of little villages, -
0:36 - 0:37they're all about a mile apart.
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0:37 - 0:40You needed easy access to the fields.
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0:41 - 0:44And for hundreds, even thousands of years,
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0:45 - 0:47the home was really the center of life.
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0:47 - 0:50Life was very small for most people.
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0:50 - 0:56It was a center of entertainment,
of energy production, of work, -
0:56 - 0:57a center of health care.
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0:57 - 1:01That's where babies were born
and people died. -
1:01 - 1:07Then, with industrialization,
everything started to become centralized. -
1:07 - 1:11You had dirty factories that were moved
to the outskirts of cities. -
1:11 - 1:16Production was centralized
in assembly plants. -
1:16 - 1:20You had centralized energy production.
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1:21 - 1:23Learning took place in schools.
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1:23 - 1:25Health care took place in hospitals.
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1:28 - 1:30And then you had networks that developed.
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1:30 - 1:32You had water, sewer networks
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1:32 - 1:36that allowed for this
kind of unchecked expansion. -
1:36 - 1:40You had separated functions, increasingly.
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1:40 - 1:42You had rail networks
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1:42 - 1:44that connected residential,
industrial, commercial areas. -
1:44 - 1:46You had auto networks.
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1:46 - 1:50In fact, the model was really,
give everybody a car, -
1:50 - 1:52build roads to everything,
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1:52 - 1:54and give people a place to park
when they get there. -
1:54 - 1:56It was not a very functional model.
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1:56 - 1:59And we still live in that world,
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1:59 - 2:01and this is what we end up with.
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2:01 - 2:03So you have the sprawl of LA,
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2:03 - 2:05the sprawl of Mexico City.
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2:05 - 2:09You have these unbelievable
new cities in China, -
2:09 - 2:11which you might call tower sprawl.
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2:11 - 2:13They're all building cities
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2:13 - 2:16on the model that we invented
in the '50s and '60s, -
2:16 - 2:19which is really obsolete, I would argue,
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2:19 - 2:21and there are hundreds
and hundreds of new cities -
2:21 - 2:23that are being planned all over the world.
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2:25 - 2:30In China alone, 300 million people,
some say 400 million people, -
2:30 - 2:32will move to the city
over the next 15 years. -
2:32 - 2:35That means building the equivalent
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2:35 - 2:37of the entire built infrastructure
of the US in 15 years. -
2:37 - 2:39Imagine that.
-
2:39 - 2:43And we should all care about this
whether you live in cities or not. -
2:43 - 2:47Cities will account for 90 percent
of the population growth, -
2:47 - 2:5280 percent of the global CO2,
75 percent of energy use, -
2:53 - 2:56but at the same time
it's where people want to be, -
2:56 - 2:57increasingly.
-
2:58 - 3:02As Danielle said, more than half the people
now in the world live in cities, -
3:02 - 3:04and that will just continue to escalate.
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3:04 - 3:08Cities are places of celebration,
personal expression. -
3:08 - 3:11You have the flash mobs
of pillow fights that -- -
3:11 - 3:13I've been to a couple. They're quite fun.
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3:14 - 3:15You have --
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3:15 - 3:16(Laughter)
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3:16 - 3:19Cities are where most
of the wealth is created, -
3:19 - 3:23and particularly in the developing world,
it's where women find opportunities. -
3:23 - 3:26That's a lot of the reason
why cities are growing very quickly. -
3:26 - 3:29Now there's some trends
that will impact cities. -
3:29 - 3:32First of all, work is becoming
distributed and mobile. -
3:32 - 3:35The office building is basically obsolete
for doing private work. -
3:35 - 3:40The home, once again,
because of distributed computation -- -
3:40 - 3:42Communication is becoming
a center of life, -
3:42 - 3:46so it's a center of production
and learning and shopping and health care -
3:46 - 3:49and all of these things
that we used to think of -
3:49 - 3:52as taking place outside of the home.
-
3:52 - 3:55And increasingly,
everything that people buy, -
3:56 - 3:57every consumer product,
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3:57 - 4:00in one way or another,
can be personalized. -
4:01 - 4:04And that's a very important
trend to think about. -
4:04 - 4:06So this is my image
of the city of the future. -
4:07 - 4:10(Laughter)
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4:10 - 4:12In that it's a place for people, you know.
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4:12 - 4:15Maybe not the way people dress, but --
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4:15 - 4:16You know, the question now is,
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4:16 - 4:20how can we have all the good things
that we identify with cities -
4:20 - 4:21without all the bad things?
-
4:22 - 4:23This is Bangalore.
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4:24 - 4:29It took me a couple of hours
to get a few miles in Bangalore last year. -
4:29 - 4:31So with cities, you also have
congestion and pollution -
4:31 - 4:34and disease and all these negative things.
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4:34 - 4:36How can we have the good stuff
without the bad? -
4:37 - 4:39So we went back and started looking
at the great cities -
4:39 - 4:42that evolved before the cars.
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4:42 - 4:46Paris was a series of these
little villages that came together, -
4:46 - 4:48and you still see that structure today.
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4:48 - 4:51The 20 arrondissements of Paris
are these little neighborhoods. -
4:51 - 4:56Most of what people need in life
can be within a five- or 10-minute walk. -
4:56 - 5:00And if you look at the data,
when you have that kind of a structure, -
5:00 - 5:02you get a very even distribution
-
5:02 - 5:05of the shops and the physicians
and the pharmacies -
5:05 - 5:07and the cafes in Paris.
-
5:07 - 5:10And then you look at cities
that evolved after the automobile, -
5:10 - 5:12and it's not that kind of a pattern.
-
5:12 - 5:15There's very little
that's within a five-minute walk -
5:15 - 5:17of most areas of places like Pittsburgh.
-
5:17 - 5:18Not to pick on Pittsburgh,
-
5:18 - 5:23but most American cities
really have evolved this way. -
5:23 - 5:25So we said, well,
let's look at new cities, -
5:25 - 5:29and we're involved in a couple
of new city projects in China. -
5:29 - 5:32So we said, let's start
with that neighborhood cell. -
5:32 - 5:34We think of it as a compact urban cell.
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5:34 - 5:37So provide most of what most people want
within that 20-minute walk. -
5:37 - 5:41This can also be
a resilient electrical microgrid, -
5:41 - 5:44community heating, power,
communication networks, etc. -
5:44 - 5:46can be concentrated there.
-
5:46 - 5:49Stewart Brand would put
a micronuclear reactor -
5:49 - 5:51right in the center, probably.
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5:51 - 5:53And he might be right.
-
5:53 - 5:57And then we can form,
in effect, a mesh network. -
5:57 - 6:01It's something of an Internet
typology pattern, -
6:02 - 6:04so you can have a series
of these neighborhoods. -
6:04 - 6:06You can dial up the density --
-
6:06 - 6:09about 20,000 people per cell,
if it's Cambridge. -
6:09 - 6:12Go up to 50,000 if it's Manhattan density.
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6:12 - 6:14You connect everything with mass transit
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6:14 - 6:18and you provide most of what most people
need within that neighborhood. -
6:18 - 6:21You can begin to develop
a whole typology of streetscapes -
6:22 - 6:26and the vehicles that can go on them.
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6:26 - 6:29I won't go through all of them.
I'll just show one. -
6:29 - 6:33This is Boulder. It's a great example
of kind of a mobility parkway, -
6:33 - 6:35a superhighway for joggers and bicyclists,
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6:36 - 6:38where you can go from one end
of the city to the other -
6:38 - 6:40without crossing the street,
-
6:42 - 6:45and they also have bike-sharing,
which I'll get into in a minute. -
6:45 - 6:48This is even a more interesting solution
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6:48 - 6:49in Seoul, Korea.
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6:49 - 6:52They took the elevated highway,
they got rid of it, -
6:52 - 6:55they reclaimed the street,
the river down below, -
6:55 - 6:57below the street,
-
6:57 - 6:59and you can go from one end
of Seoul to the other -
6:59 - 7:03without crossing a pathway for cars.
-
7:03 - 7:07The High Line in Manhattan
is very similar. -
7:08 - 7:12You have these rapidly emerging
bike lanes all over the world. -
7:12 - 7:14I lived in Manhattan for 15 years.
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7:14 - 7:16I went back a couple of weekends ago,
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7:16 - 7:21took this photograph of these fabulous
new bike lanes that they have installed. -
7:21 - 7:24They're still not to where Copenhagen is,
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7:24 - 7:28where something like 42 percent
of the trips within the city -
7:28 - 7:29are by bicycle.
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7:30 - 7:34It's mostly just because they have
fantastic infrastructure there. -
7:34 - 7:36We actually did exactly
the wrong thing in Boston. -
7:38 - 7:40The Big Dig --
-
7:40 - 7:42(Laughter)
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7:42 - 7:46So we got rid of the highway
but we created a traffic island, -
7:46 - 7:51and it's certainly not a mobility pathway
for anything other than cars. -
7:51 - 7:53Mobility on demand is something
we've been thinking about, -
7:53 - 7:57so we think we need an ecosystem
of these shared-use vehicles -
7:57 - 7:59connected to mass transit.
-
7:59 - 8:02These are some of the vehicles
that we've been working on. -
8:03 - 8:05But shared use is really key.
-
8:05 - 8:08If you share a vehicle, you can have
at least four people use one vehicle, -
8:08 - 8:10as opposed to one.
-
8:10 - 8:15We have Hubway here in Boston,
the Vélib' system in Paris. -
8:17 - 8:21We've been developing,
at the Media Lab, this little city car -
8:21 - 8:24that is optimized
for shared use in cities. -
8:24 - 8:29We got rid of all the useless things
like engines and transmissions. -
8:29 - 8:31We moved everything to the wheels,
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8:31 - 8:32so you have the drive motor,
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8:32 - 8:35the steering motor, the breaking --
all in the wheel. -
8:35 - 8:38That left the chassis unencumbered,
so you can do things like fold, -
8:38 - 8:44so you can fold this little vehicle up
to occupy a tiny little footprint. -
8:44 - 8:47This was a video that was
on European television last week -
8:47 - 8:53showing the Spanish Minister of Industry
driving this little vehicle, -
8:53 - 8:54and when it's folded, it can spin.
-
8:54 - 8:58You don't need reverse.
You don't need parallel parking. -
8:58 - 8:59You just spin and go directly in.
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8:59 - 9:01(Laughter)
-
9:01 - 9:04So we've been working
with a company to commercialize this. -
9:04 - 9:07My PhD student Ryan Chin
presented these early ideas -
9:07 - 9:10two years ago at a TEDx conference.
-
9:10 - 9:12So what's interesting is,
-
9:15 - 9:18then if you begin to add
new things to it, like autonomy, -
9:18 - 9:21you get out of the car,
you park at your destination, -
9:21 - 9:25you pat it on the butt, it goes
and it parks itself, it charges itself, -
9:25 - 9:30and you can get something
like seven times as many vehicles -
9:30 - 9:33in a given area as conventional cars,
-
9:33 - 9:35and we think this is the future.
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9:35 - 9:39Actually, we could do this today.
It's not really a problem. -
9:39 - 9:43We can combine shared use
and folding and autonomy -
9:43 - 9:46and we get something
like 28 times the land utilization -
9:46 - 9:48with that kind of strategy.
-
9:48 - 9:50One of our graduate students then says,
-
9:50 - 9:54well, how does a driverless car
communicate with pedestrians? -
9:54 - 9:56You have nobody to make eye contact with.
-
9:56 - 9:58You don't know
if it's going to run you over. -
9:58 - 10:00So he's developing strategies
-
10:00 - 10:03so the vehicle can communicate
with pedestrians, so -- -
10:03 - 10:04(Laughter)
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10:04 - 10:07So the headlights are eyeballs,
the pupils can dilate, -
10:07 - 10:11we have directional audio,
we can throw sound directly at people. -
10:11 - 10:13What I love about this project
-
10:13 - 10:16is he solved a problem
that doesn't exist yet, so -- -
10:16 - 10:21(Laughter)
-
10:21 - 10:25We also think that we can
democratize access to bike lanes. -
10:25 - 10:29You know, bike lanes are mostly used
by young guys in stretchy pants. So -- -
10:29 - 10:30(Laughter)
-
10:32 - 10:36We think we can develop a vehicle
that operates on bike lanes, -
10:36 - 10:41accessible to elderly and disabled,
women in skirts, businesspeople, -
10:42 - 10:45and address the issues
of energy congestion, mobility, -
10:45 - 10:47aging and obesity simultaneously.
-
10:47 - 10:48That's our challenge.
-
10:48 - 10:51This is an early design
for this little three-wheel. -
10:51 - 10:52It's an electronic bike.
-
10:55 - 10:58You have to pedal
to operate it in a bike lane, -
10:58 - 11:01but if you're an older person,
that's a switch. -
11:01 - 11:05If you're a healthy person, you might
have to work really hard to go fast. -
11:05 - 11:07You can dial in 40 calories
going into work -
11:07 - 11:10and 500 going home,
when you can take a shower. -
11:10 - 11:13We hope to have that built this fall.
-
11:15 - 11:18Housing is another area
where we can really improve. -
11:19 - 11:21Mayor Menino in Boston says
-
11:22 - 11:25lack of affordable housing
for young people -
11:25 - 11:28is one of the biggest
problems the city faces. -
11:29 - 11:32Developers say, OK,
we'll build little teeny apartments. -
11:32 - 11:36People say, we don't really want to live
in a little teeny conventional apartment. -
11:37 - 11:41So we're saying, let's build
a standardized chassis, -
11:41 - 11:42much like our car.
-
11:42 - 11:47Let's bring advanced technology
into the apartment, -
11:47 - 11:50technology-enabled infill,
-
11:50 - 11:55give people the tools
within this open-loft chassis -
11:55 - 11:56to go through a process of defining
-
11:56 - 11:59what their needs
and values and activities are, -
11:59 - 12:03and then a matching algorithm
will match a unique assembly -
12:03 - 12:05of integrated infill components,
-
12:05 - 12:10furniture, and cabinetry,
that are personalized to that individual, -
12:10 - 12:12and they give them the tools
-
12:12 - 12:14to go through the process
and to refine it, -
12:14 - 12:16and it's something like working
with an architect, -
12:16 - 12:17where the dialogue starts
-
12:17 - 12:22when you give an alternative
to a person to react to. -
12:23 - 12:28Now, the most interesting
implementation of that for us -
12:28 - 12:30is when you can begin
to have robotic walls, -
12:30 - 12:34so your space can convert
from exercise to a workplace, -
12:34 - 12:36if you run a virtual company.
-
12:36 - 12:37You have guests over,
-
12:37 - 12:41you have two guest rooms
that are developed. -
12:41 - 12:44You have a conventional
one-bedroom arrangement -
12:44 - 12:46when you need it.
-
12:46 - 12:47Maybe that's most of the time.
-
12:47 - 12:48You have a dinner party.
-
12:48 - 12:53The table folds out to fit 16 people
in otherwise a conventional one-bedroom, -
12:53 - 12:55or maybe you want a dance studio.
-
12:55 - 12:58I mean, architects have been thinking
about these ideas for a long time. -
12:58 - 13:00What we need to do now,
-
13:00 - 13:06develop things that can scale
to those 300 million Chinese people -
13:06 - 13:10that would like to live in the city,
and very comfortably. -
13:10 - 13:12We think we can make
a very small apartment -
13:12 - 13:18that functions as if it's twice as big
by utilizing these strategies. -
13:18 - 13:21I don't believe in smart homes.
That's sort of a bogus concept. -
13:21 - 13:24I think you have to build dumb homes
and put smart stuff in it. -
13:25 - 13:27(Laughter)
-
13:27 - 13:33And so we've been working
on a chassis of the wall itself. -
13:33 - 13:34You know, standardized platform
-
13:34 - 13:37with the motors and the battery
when it operates, -
13:37 - 13:42little solenoids that will lock it
in place and get low-voltage power. -
13:42 - 13:43We think this can all be standardized,
-
13:43 - 13:47and then people can personalize the stuff
that goes into that wall, -
13:47 - 13:50and like the car, we can integrate
all kinds of sensing -
13:50 - 13:53to be aware of human activity,
-
13:53 - 13:56so if there's a baby
or a puppy in the way, -
13:56 - 13:57you won't have a problem.
-
13:57 - 13:58(Laughter)
-
14:02 - 14:04So the developers say,
well, this is great. -
14:04 - 14:08OK, so if we have a conventional building,
we have a fixed envelope, -
14:08 - 14:10maybe we can put in 14 units.
-
14:10 - 14:13If they function
as if they're twice as big, -
14:13 - 14:14we can get 28 units in.
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14:14 - 14:16That means twice as much parking, though.
-
14:16 - 14:17Parking's really expensive.
-
14:18 - 14:20It's about 70,000 dollars per space
-
14:20 - 14:25to build a conventional parking spot
inside a building. -
14:25 - 14:29So if you can have folding and autonomy,
-
14:29 - 14:32you can do that
in one-seventh of the space. -
14:32 - 14:34That goes down to 10,000 dollars per car,
-
14:34 - 14:35just for the cost of the parking.
-
14:35 - 14:39You add shared use,
and you can even go further. -
14:39 - 14:43We can also integrate
all kinds of advanced technology -
14:43 - 14:44through this process.
-
14:44 - 14:48There's a path to market
for innovative companies -
14:48 - 14:49to bring technology into the home.
-
14:49 - 14:52In this case, a project
we're doing with Siemens. -
14:52 - 14:55We have sensors on all
the furniture, all the infill, -
14:55 - 14:57that understands where people are
and what they're doing. -
14:57 - 14:59Blue light is very efficient,
-
14:59 - 15:03so we have these tunable
24-bit LED lighting fixtures. -
15:03 - 15:07It recognizes where the person is,
what they're doing, -
15:07 - 15:12fills out the light when necessary
to full spectrum white light, -
15:12 - 15:18and saves maybe 30, 40 percent
in energy consumption, we think, -
15:18 - 15:23over even conventional
state-of-the-art lighting systems. -
15:23 - 15:27This just shows you the data
that comes from the sensors -
15:27 - 15:28that are embedded in the furniture.
-
15:28 - 15:31We don't really believe in cameras
to do things in homes. -
15:31 - 15:35We think these little wireless sensors
are more effective. -
15:35 - 15:38We think we can also personalize sunlight.
-
15:38 - 15:40That's sort of the ultimate
personalization in some ways. -
15:40 - 15:43So we've looked at articulating
mirrors of the facade -
15:43 - 15:47that can throw shafts of sunlight
anywhere into the space, -
15:47 - 15:50therefore allowing you
to shade most of the glass -
15:51 - 15:53on a hot day like today.
-
15:53 - 15:55In this case, she picks up her phone,
-
15:55 - 15:59she can map food preparation
at the kitchen island -
16:01 - 16:03to a particular location of sunlight.
-
16:04 - 16:09An algorithm will keep it in that location
as long as she's engaged in that activity. -
16:10 - 16:14This can be combined
with LED lighting as well. -
16:17 - 16:20We think workplaces should be shared.
-
16:20 - 16:22I mean, this is really
the workplace of the future, I think. -
16:22 - 16:24This is Starbucks, you know.
-
16:24 - 16:25Maybe a third --
-
16:26 - 16:28And you see everybody
has their back to the wall -
16:28 - 16:30and they have food and coffee down the way
-
16:30 - 16:33and they're in their own
little personal bubble. -
16:33 - 16:35We need shared spaces
for interaction and collaboration. -
16:35 - 16:38We're not doing a very good job with that.
-
16:38 - 16:42At the Cambridge Innovation Center,
you can have shared desks. -
16:44 - 16:48I've spent a lot of time in Finland
at the design factory of Aalto University, -
16:49 - 16:54where the they have a shared shop
and shared fab lab, shared quiet spaces, -
16:54 - 16:57electronics spaces, recreation places.
-
16:58 - 17:01We think ultimately,
all of this stuff can come together, -
17:02 - 17:06a new model for mobility,
a new model for housing, -
17:07 - 17:09a new model for how we live and work,
-
17:09 - 17:12a path to market
for advanced technologies. -
17:12 - 17:15But in the end, the main thing
we need to focus on are people. -
17:15 - 17:16Cities are all about people.
-
17:16 - 17:18They're places for people.
-
17:18 - 17:21There's no reason
why we can't dramatically improve -
17:21 - 17:23the livability and creativity of cities
-
17:23 - 17:27like they've done in Melbourne
with the laneways -
17:27 - 17:32while at the same time
dramatically reducing CO2 and energy. -
17:32 - 17:35It's a global imperative.
We have to get this right. -
17:35 - 17:36Thank you.
-
17:36 - 17:38(Applause)
- Title:
- Brilliant designs to fit more people in every city | Kent Larson | TEDxBoston
- Description:
-
How can we fit more people into cities without overcrowding? Kent Larson shows off folding cars, quick-change apartments and other innovations that could make the city of the future work a lot like a small village of the past.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 17:41
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