If there's any power in design, that's the power of synthesis. The more complex the problem, the more the need for simplicity. So allow me to share three cases where we tried to apply design's power of synthesis.
Ako postoji bilo kakva snaga u dizajnu, onda je to snaga sinteze. Što je kompleksniji problem, više je neophodno jednostavnosti. Stoga mi dozvolite da podelim tri slučaja gde smo pokušali da primenimo snagu sinteze dizajna.
Let's start with the global challenge of urbanization. It's a fact that people are moving towards cities. and even if counterintuitive, it's good news. Evidence shows that people are better off in cities. But there's a problem that I would call the "3S" menace: The scale, speed, and scarcity of means with which we will have to respond to this phenomenon has no precedence in history. For you to have an idea, out of the three billion people living in cities today, one billion are under the line of poverty. By 2030, out of the five billion people that will be living in cities, two billion are going to be under the line of poverty. That means that we will have to build a one million-person city per week with 10,000 dollars per family during the next 15 years. A one million-person city per week with 10,000 dollars per family. If we don't solve this equation, it is not that people will stop coming to cities. They will come anyhow, but they will live in slums, favelas and informal settlements.
Počnimo sa globalnim izazovom urbanizacije. Činjenica je da se ljudi kreću prema gradovima i čak da je kontraintuitivno, to su dobre vesti. Dokazi pokazuju da je ljudima bolje u gradovima. Ali postoji problem koji bih nazvao pretnjom "3S": nivo, brzina i oskudica sredstava kojima ćemo morati da odgovorimo na ovu pojavu, jedinstveni su u istoriji. Da biste imali pojam o ovome, od tri milijarde ljudi koji žive u gradovima danas, jedna milijarda je ispod granice siromaštva. Do 2030, od 5 milijardi ljudi koji će živeti u gradovima, dve milijarde će biti ispod granice siromaštva. To znači da ćemo morati da gradimo jednomilionski grad nedeljno sa 10 000 dolara po porodici tokom narednih 15 godina. Jednomilionski grad nedeljno sa 10 000 dolara po porodici. Ako ne rešimo ovu formulu, ljudi neće prestati da dolaze u gradove. Doći će bilo kako, ali će živeti u straćarama, favelama i neformalnim naseljima.
So what to do? Well, an answer may come from favelas and slums themselves. A clue could be in this question we were asked 10 years ago. We were asked to accommodate 100 families that had been occupying illegally half a hectare in the center of the city of Iquique in the north of Chile using a $10,000 subsidy with which we had to buy the land, provide the infrastructure, and build the houses that, in the best of the cases, would be of around 40 square meters. And by the way, they said, the cost of the land, because it's in the center of the city, is three times more than what social housing can normally afford. Due to the difficulty of the question, we decided to include the families in the process of understanding the constraints, and we started a participatory design process, and testing what was available there in the market. Detached houses, 30 families could be accommodated. Row houses, 60 families. ["100 families"] The only way to accommodate all of them was by building in height, and they threatened us to go on a hunger strike if we even dared to offer this as a solution, because they could not make the tiny apartments expand. So the conclusion with the families — and this is important, not our conclusion — with the families, was that we had a problem. We had to innovate.
I šta mi da radimo? Odgovor može doći iz samih favela i straćara. Nagoveštaj bi mogao biti u ovom pitanju koje nam je postavljeno pre 10 godina. Upitani smo da ugostimo 100 porodica koje su ilegalno zauzimale pola hektara u centru grada Ikike na severu Čilea koristeći subvenciju od 10 000 dolara sa kojom smo morali da platimo zemlju, obezbedimo infrastrukturu, i izgradimo kuće koje bi, u najboljim slučajevima, bile oko 40 kvadratnih metara. I inače, kažu da su troškovi zemljišta, jer je centar grada, tri puta veći nego što društveno stanovanje uglavnom može da priušti. S obzirom na teškoću pitanja, odlučili smo da uključimo porodice u proces shvatanja ograničenja i počeli smo proces učesničkog dizajna i testiranja onog što je bilo dostupno na tržištu. Slobodnostojeće kuće, mogu da smeste oko 30 porodica. Kuće u nizu, 60 porodica. ["100 porodica"] Jedini način da se sve smeste bio je građenjem u visinu, i pretili su nam da će ići na štrajk glađu ako se čak i usudimo da ponudimo ovo kao rešenje, jer ne bi mogli da prošire malene stanove. Dakle, zaključak sa porodicama - a ovo je važno, ne naš zaključak - sa porodicama, je bio da smo imali problem. Morali smo da uvodimo novine.
So what did we do? Well, a middle-class family lives reasonably well in around 80 square meters, but when there's no money, what the market does is to reduce the size of the house to 40 square meters. What we said was, what if, instead of thinking of 40 square meters as a small house, why don't we consider it half of a good one? When you rephrase the problem as half of a good house instead of a small one, the key question is, which half do we do? And we thought we had to do with public money the half that families won't be able to do individually. We identified five design conditions that belonged to the hard half of a house, and we went back to the families to do two things: join forces and split tasks. Our design was something in between a building and a house. As a building, it could pay for expensive, well-located land, and as a house, it could expand. If, in the process of not being expelled to the periphery while getting a house, families kept their network and their jobs, we knew that the expansion would begin right away. So we went from this initial social housing to a middle-class unit achieved by families themselves within a couple of weeks.
I šta smo uradili? Porodica srednje klase živi prilično dobro u oko 80 kvadratnih metara, ali kada nema novca, onda tržište smanjuje veličinu kuće na 40 kvadratnih metara. Mi smo rekli sledeće - šta ako, umesto razmišljanja o 40 kvadratnih metara, kao maloj kući, zašto je ne posmatramo kao polovinu dobre? Kada preformulišete problem kao polovinu dobre kuće umesto male, ključno pitanje je, koju polovinu radimo? Mislili smo da sa javnim novcem treba da radimo polovinu koju porodice neće moći da naprave samostalno. Identifikovali smo 5 dizajnerskih uslova koji su pripadali teškoj polovini kuće i vratili smo se porodicama da bismo uradili dve stvari: udružili snage i podelili zadatke. Naš dizajn je bio nešto između zgrade i kuće. Kao zgrada, moglo se isplatiti za skupu zemlju na dobroj lokaciji i kao kuća, mogla se proširiti. Ako bi, u procesu zaustavljanja izbacivanja na periferiju dok ne dobiju kuće, porodice čuvale svoju mrežu i poslove, znali bismo da bi ekspanzija momentalo počela. Krenuli smo od ovog početnog socijalnog stanovanja do jedinice za srednju klasu koju su same porodice napravile tokom nekoliko nedelja.
This was our first project in Iquique 10 years ago. This is our last project in Chile. Different designs, same principle: You provide the frame, and from then on, families take over.
Ovo je bio prvi projekat u Ikikeu pre 10 godina. Ovo je naš poslednji projekat u Čileu. Različiti projekti, isti princip: vi omogućite okvir, i odatle, porodice preuzimaju.
So the purpose of design, trying to understand and trying to give an answer to the "3S" menace, scale, speed, and scarcity, is to channel people's own building capacity. We won't solve the one million people per week equation unless we use people's own power for building. So, with the right design, slums and favelas may not be the problem but actually the only possible solution. The second case is how design can contribute to sustainability. In 2012, we entered the competition for the Angelini Innovation Center, and the aim was to build the right environment for knowledge creation. It is accepted that for such an aim, knowledge creation, interaction among people, face-to-face contact, it's important, and we agreed on that. But for us, the question of the right environment was a very literal question. We wanted to have a working space with the right light, with the right temperature, with the right air. So we asked ourselves: Does the typical office building help us in that sense? Well, how does that building look, typically? It's a collection of floors, one on top of each other, with a core in the center with elevators, stairs, pipes, wires, everything, and then a glass skin on the outside that, due to direct sun radiation, creates a huge greenhouse effect inside. In addition to that, let's say a guy working on the seventh floor goes every single day through the third floor, but has no idea what the guy on that floor is working on. So we thought, well, maybe we have to turn this scheme inside out. And what we did was, let's have an open atrium, a hollowed core, the same collection of floors, but have the walls and the mass in the perimeter, so that when the sun hits, it's not impacting directly glass, but a wall. When you have an open atrium inside, you are able to see what others are doing from within the building, and you have a better way to control light, and when you place the mass and the walls in the perimeter, then you are preventing direct sun radiation. You may also open those windows and get cross-ventilation. We just made those openings of such a scale that they could work as elevated squares, outdoor spaces throughout the entire height of the building. None of this is rocket science. You don't require sophisticated programming. It's not about technology. This is just archaic, primitive common sense, and by using common sense, we went from 120 kilowatts per square meter per year, which is the typical energy consumption for cooling a glass tower, to 40 kilowatts per square meter per year. So with the right design, sustainability is nothing but the rigorous use of common sense. Last case I would like to share is how design can provide more comprehensive answers against natural disasters. You may know that Chile, in 2010, was hit by an 8.8 Richter scale earthquake and tsunami, and we were called to work in the reconstruction of the Constitución, in the southern part of the country. We were given 100 days, three months, to design almost everything, from public buildings to public space, street grid, transportation, housing, and mainly how to protect the city against future tsunamis. This was new in Chilean urban design, and there were in the air a couple of alternatives. First one: Forbid installation on ground zero. Thirty million dollars spent mainly in land expropriation. This is exactly what's being discussed in Japan nowadays, and if you have a disciplined population like the Japanese, this may work, but we know that in Chile, this land is going to be occupied illegally anyhow, so this alternative was unrealistic and undesirable. Second alternative: build a big wall, heavy infrastructure to resist the energy of the waves. This alternative was conveniently lobbied by big building companies, because it meant 42 million dollars in contracts, and was also politically preferred, because it required no land expropriation. But Japan proved that trying to resist the force of nature is useless. So this alternative was irresponsible. As in the housing process, we had to include the community in the way of finding a solution for this, and we started a participatory design process.
Namena projekta, pokušavanje da se shvati i pokušavanje da se odgovori na opasnost "3S": veličina, brzina i nestašica, je da usmeri ljudski građevinski kapacitet. Nećemo rešiti jednačinu jednog miliona ljudi nedeljno ako ne koristimo ljudsku snagu za građenje. Sa pravim projektom, straćare i favele ne moraju da budu problem, već zapravo jedino moguće rešenje. Drugi slučaj je kako dizajn može doprineti održivosti. 2012. godine učestvovali smo na takmičenju za Inovacioni centar Andželini, i cilj je bio da se izgradi pravo okruženje za stvaranje znanja. Prihvaćeno je da za takav cilj, stvaranje znanja, interakcija među ljudima, kontakt licem u lice, da je važna stvar, i složili smo se oko toga. Ali za nas, pitanje pravog okruženja je bilo veoma doslovno pitanje. Želeli smo da imamo radni prostor sa prikladnim osvetljenjem, sa prikladnom temperaturom i prikladnim vazduhom. Onda smo se zapitali: da li nam tipična poslovna zgrada pomaže u tom smislu? Pa, kako ta zgrada tipično izgleda? To je spoj spratova, jedan na vrhu drugog, sa jezgrom u centru, sa liftovima, stepenicama, cevima, žicama, svačim, i onda staklenom oblogom spolja, koja prilikom direktnog sunčevog zračenja unutra stvara veliki efekat staklene bašte. Kao dodatak tome, recimo da čovek koji radi na sedmom spratu prolazi svaki dan kroz treći sprat, ali ne zna na čemu radi čovek na tom spratu. Stoga smo mislili da bi možda morali da izokrenemo ovu šemu naopačke. Pomislili smo, hajde da imamo otvoreni atrijum, šuplje jezgro, istu grupu spratova, ali sa zidovima i masama unutar, tako da kada sunce sija, ne utiče direktno na staklo, već na zid. Kada unutra imate otvoreni atrijum, možete da vidite šta drugi rade iz unutrašnjosti zgrade i imate bolji način da kontrolišete svetlo, a kada smestite masu i zidove u obim, onda sprečavate direktno sunčevo zračenje. Mogli biste takođe da otvorite te prozore i dobijete ukrštenu ventilaciju. Ove otvore smo napravili baš te veličine da bi mogli da funkcionišu kao izdignuti trgovi, spoljašnji prostori kroz čitavu visinu zgrade. Ništa od ovoga nije naučna fantastika. Ne trebaju vam sofisticirani programi. Ne radi se o tehnologiji. Ovo je samo arhaičan, primitivan zdrav razum, i korišćenjem zdravog razuma, prešli smo sa 120 kilovata po kvadratnom metru godišnje, što je tipično korišćenje energije za hlađenje staklenog tornja, na 40 kilovata po kvadratnom metru godišnje. Sa pravim dizajnom, održivost nije ništa drugo sem rigoroznog korišćenja zdravog razuma. Poslednji slučaj koji bih želeo da podelim sa vama je kako dizajn može da obezbedi razumljivije odgovore protiv prirodnih katastrofa. Možda se sećate da je Čile 2010. pogođen zemljotresom od 8,8 stepeni Rihterove skale i cunamijem, i pozvani smo da radimo na rekonstrukciji Konstitusiona, u južnom delu zemlje. Dali su nam 100 dana, tri meseca, da isprojektujemo skoro sve, od javnih objekata do javnih prostora, mreže ulica, prevoza, zgrada i najvažnije, kako zaštititi grad od budućih cunamija. Ovo je novi čileanski urbani dizajn i u vazduhu je ostalo nekoliko alternativa. Prva: zabraniti instalacije na prizemlju. 30 miliona dolara potrošenih uglavnom na eksprorpijaciju zemljišta. Ovo je upravo ono o čemu se priča u Japanu danas i ako imate disciplinovanu populaciju poput Japanaca, ovo može da funkcioniše, ali znamo da će u Čileu, ova zemlja biti na bilo koji način ilegalno zauzeta tako da je ova alternativa bila nerealna i nepoželjna. Druga alternativa: izgraditi veliki zid, tešku infrastrukturu da izdrži energiju talasa. Ovu alternativu su ne baš slučajno lobirale velike građevinske kompanije, jer je to značilo 42 miliona dolara u ugovorima, a to je bila i politički poželjnija opcija, jer eksprorijacija zemljišta nije bila potrebna. Ipak, Japan je dokazao da je pokušavanje odolevanja silama prirode uzaludno. Stoga je ova alternativa bila neodgovorna. Mi u stambenom procesu, morali smo da uključimo zajednicu u način traženja rešenja za ovo, i počeli smo proces učesničkog dizajna.
(Video) [In Spanish] Loudspeaker: What kind of city do you want? Vote for Constitución. Go to the Open House and express your options. Participate!
(Video) [na španskom] Zvučnik: Kakav grad želite? Glasajte za Konstitusion. Dođite do Otvorenog doma i izrazite svoje opcije. Učestvujte!
Fisherman: I am a fisherman. Twenty-five fishermen work for me. Where should I take them? To the forest?
Pecaroš: Ja sam pecaroš. 25 pecaroša radi za mene. Gde treba da ih vodim? U šumu?
Man: So why can't we have a concrete defense? Done well, of course.
Čovek: Zašto onda ne možemo da imamo betonsku odbranu? Dobro odrađenu, naravno.
Man 2: I am the history of Constitución. And you come here to tell me that I cannot keep on living here? My whole family has lived here, I raised my children here, and my children will also raise their children here. and my grandchildren and everyone else will. But why are you imposing this on me? You! You are imposing this on me! In danger zone I am not authorized to build. He himself is saying that.
Čovek 2: Ja sam istorija Konstitusiona. I dolazite ovde da mi kažete da ne mogu da nastavim da živim ovde? Moja čitava porodica je živela ovde, odgajio sam svoju decu ovde, i moja deca će takođe odgajiti svoju decu ovde. I moji unuci i svi ostali. Zašto mi onda namećete to? Vi! Vi mi ovo namećete! U opasnoj zoni nemam pravo da gradim. On to sebi govori.
Man 3: No, no, no, Nieves...
Čovek br.3: Ne, ne, ne. Nieves...
Alejandro Aravena: I don't know if you were able to read the subtitles, but you can tell from the body language that participatory design is not a hippie, romantic, let's-all-dream-together-about- the-future-of-the-city kind of thing. It is actually — (Applause) It is actually not even with the families trying to find the right answer. It is mainly trying to identify with precision what is the right question. There is nothing worse than answering well the wrong question.
Alehandro Aravena: Ne znam da li ste uspeli da pročitate prevod, ali možete da zaključite iz govora tela da učesnički dizajn nije hipi, romantična, stvar koja okuplja ljude da bi sanjarili o budućnosti grada. Zapravo je - (Aplauz) Zapravo se ne radi ni o porodicama koje pokušavaju da nađu pravi odgovor. Uglavnom se radi o pokušavanju preciznog identifikovanja šta je pravo pitanje. Nema ničeg goreg od dobrog odgovaranja na pogrešna pitanja.
So it was pretty obvious after this process that, well, we chicken out here and go away because it's too tense, or we go even further in asking, what else is bothering you? What other problems do you have and you want us to take care of now that the city will have to be rethought from scratch? And what they said was, look, fine to protect the city against future tsunamis, we really appreciate, but the next one is going to come in, what, 20 years? But every single year, we have problems of flooding due to rain. In addition, we are in the middle of the forest region of the country, and our public space sucks. It's poor and it's scarce. And the origin of the city, our identity, is not really connected to the buildings that fell, it is connected to the river, but the river cannot be accessed publicly, because its shores are privately owned. So we thought that we had to produce a third alternative, and our approach was against geographical threats, have geographical answers. What if, in between the city and the sea we have a forest, a forest that doesn't try to resist the energy of nature, but dissipates it by introducing friction? A forest that may be able to laminate the water and prevent the flooding? That may pay the historical debt of public space, and that may provide, finally, democratic access to the river. So as a conclusion of the participatory design, the alternative was validated politically and socially, but there was still the problem of the cost: 48 million dollars. So what we did was a survey in the public investment system, and found out that there were three ministries with three projects in the exact same place, not knowing of the existence of the other projects. The sum of them: 52 million dollars. So design's power of synthesis is trying to make a more efficient use of the scarcest resource in cities, which is not money but coordination. By doing so, we were able to save four million dollars, and that is why the forest is today under construction. (Applause)
Bilo je prilično očigledno nakon ovog procesa da ćemo se ovde uplašiti i otići jer je previše napeto, ili ćemo ići čak dalje u pitanju - šta vas još muči? Koje ostale probleme imate i o kojima želite da se sada pobrinemo da bi grad morao da bude isprojektovan iz temelja? Ono što su rekli je bilo, vidite, lepo je što čuvate grad od budućih cunamija, zaista cenimo to, ali će sledeći naići tek za oko 20 godina? Svake godine, imamo probleme poplava zbog kiše. Štaviše, u sred smo šumovite regije zemlje, i naš javni prostor je očajan. Siromašan je i ograničen. A poreklo grada, naš identitet, nije zapravo povezan sa zgradama koje su pale, povezan je sa rekom, ali reci se ne može pristupiti javno, jer su obale pod privatnim vlasništvom. Stoga smo razmišljali da moramo da stvorimo treću alternativu, i naš pristup je bio protiv geografskih pretnji, imao je geografski odgovor. Šta ako, između grada i mora imamo šumu, šumu koja ne pokušava da odoli energiji prirode, već je rasipa uvodeći trenje? Šuma koja može da smanji vodu i spreči poplavu? Koja može da plati istorijski dug javnog prostora, a potom može da obezbedi, konačno, demokratski pristup reci. Kao zaključak učesničkog dizajna, alternativa je bila uvažena politički i socijalno, ali je i dalje bio problem troška: 48 miliona dolara. Stoga smo napravili anketu, u javnom investicionom sistemu, i otkrili smo da je tamo bilo tri ministarstva sa tri projekta u istom mestu, ne znajući za postojanje drugih projekata. Njihova suma: 52 miliona dolara. Snaga sinteze dizajna je pokušavanje stvaranja efikasnijeg korišćenja najoskudnijih izvora u gradovima, što nije novac već koordinacija. Radom na tome, možemo da sačuvamo 4 miliona dolara i zato se šuma danas izgrađuje. (Aplauz)
So be it the force of self construction, the force of common sense, or the force of nature, all these forces need to be translated into form, and what that form is modeling and shaping is not cement, bricks, or wood. It is life itself. Design's power of synthesis is just an attempt to put at the innermost core of architecture the force of life.
Bez obzira da li je to snaga samoizgrađivanja, snaga zdravog razuma, ili snaga prirode, sve te snage treba da budu prevedene u formu, i ta forma je modelovanje i oblikovanje a ne cement, cigle ili drvo. To je sam život. Snaga sinteze dizajna je samo pokušaj stavljanja u najskrivenije jezgro arhitekture snagu života.
Thank you so much.
Hvala vam mnogo.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)