It was the end of October in the mountains in Austria. I was there on a field trip with my architecture students from Zurich. And when we reached a high valley, I surprised them with the news that there was no hut or hotel booked for the night. It was not a mistake. It was totally on purpose. The challenge was to build our own shelter with whatever we could find. And we all survived. It was cold, it was really tough ... and it was a great learning experience to discover that there are a lot of resources given by nature for free, and all that we need is our sensitivity to see them ... and our creativity to use them.
那是在10月底 在奥地利的山里。 我在那里和我的来自苏黎世的 建筑系的学生开展一个实地考察。 当我们到达一个很高的山谷时, 我突然告诉他们 我没有预定小屋 或者旅馆去过夜。 这不是一个失误, 而完全是故意的。 挑战任务是自己动手建造住所 用任何我们可以找到的材料。 我们都成功了。 那儿很冷,整个过程真的很艰难, 这也是一个很精彩的学习过程, 知道大自然给予人类的 免费资源, 而我们所需的则是 发现它们的敏锐度 和运用它们时的创造力。
I found myself in a similar situation. When I was an architecture student about 13 years ago, I went to Bangladesh to a remote village called Rudrapur with the aim to design and build a school as my thesis project. I had lived in that village before when I was 19 and a volunteer at Dipshikha, a Bangladeshi NGO for rural development. And what I had learned from them was that the most sustainable strategy for sustainable development is to cherish and to use your very own resources and potential, and not get dependent on external factors. And this is what I tried to do with my architecture as well.
我曾有一个相似的情况。 大约在13年前 当我还是一个建筑系的学生的时候, 我去到孟加拉国 一个叫Rudrapur的遥远小村庄, 我的目标是设计和建造 一所学校作为我的论文项目。 那时我19岁,我曾经住在那个村庄 当一个“Dipshikha”的志愿者 这是一个孟加拉国致力于乡村发展的 非政府组织。 我从他们那里学到 对于可持续发展 最有持续性的策略 是珍惜并且运用 你自己的资源和潜力, 而不是依赖于外界因素。 这也是我想在我的建筑 中去体现的。
In terms of suitable building materials for my school, I didn't have to look far. They were right under my feet: mud, earth, dirt, clay, however you call it ... and bamboo that was growing all around. Electricity in remote Bangladesh is rare, but we didn't need it. We had human energy and the people were happy to have the work. Tools were an issue, too, but we had these guys, water buffalos. We had also tried a bit cows, but interestingly, they were too intelligent. They were always stepping in the holes of the previous round. They wouldn't mix the mud, the straw --
说到适合我学校的建筑材料, 我不用去很远的地方去搜寻, 它们就在我的脚下: 泥土,地球,污垢,粘土 不论你怎么称呼它, 还有到处生长的竹子。 电力在孟加拉国的偏远地区不太常见 但我们不需要它。 我们有人类的力量, 而且人们很乐意干这些活。 工具也是一个问题, 但我们有这些家伙, 水牛。 我们也尝试了用牛 但有趣的是 它们太聪明了 它们总是踩在 之前路上的坑 它们不会把这些泥土,稻草
(Laughter)
(笑声)
the sand, which are the ingredients in the walls. And except a small team of consultants like my partner for realization, Eike Roswag, and my basket-weaver cousin, Emmanuel, it was all built by craftsmen from the village. And this is the METI school after six months of construction.
和作为墙壁成分的沙石 混在一起。 除了一组的咨询人员, 比如我的合作伙伴 Eike Roswag 以及我的表弟,篮子织工 Emmanuel, 这个学校是由来自村庄的 工匠建造的。 这是METI学校 六个月的建造成果。
(Applause)
(掌声)
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)
Load-bearing earth walls that really ground the school, and large bamboo structures that bring the lightness in. That's the classroom on the ground floor. Attached to it are the caves. They're for reading, for snuggling, for solo work, for meditation, for playing ... and the classroom on the top.
承重力很强的土墙 是学校的支柱, 大面积的竹子结构 给里面带来了光线。 那是一楼的教室。 与之衔接的是洞窑。 它们可以用来阅读 小憩,工作, 打坐,玩耍。 顶层的教室,
The children all signed with their names in Bengali the doors, and they did not only sign, they also helped building the school. And I'm sure you all had your hands in mud or clay before. It's wonderful to touch. I love it. The children loved it. And can you imagine the feeling of a small boy or a girl or an illiterate day laborer standing in front of that school building and knowing that you built this out of the ordinary bamboo and just the dirt underneath your feet, using nothing but your hands? That gives such an enormous boost of trust and confidence in yourself and the community.
门上写满了孩子们的 孟加拉语名字, 而且他们不仅仅是签下他们的名字 他们也帮助装点了学校。 我知道你们之前都用手 触摸过泥土或者粘土 触摸它们是很棒的。 我爱这个体验。 孩子们也爱这个体验。 你能想象一个小男孩或者女孩 或者一个不识字的劳工站在那所 学校建筑前面的感受吗? 他们知道这是由自己的双手 只用了普通的竹子 和脚下的污垢泥土 建立的学校? 它极大程度地增强了 你对于自己和整个社区 的信任和信心。
And in the material. Especially mud has a very poor image. When we think of mud, we think of dirt -- it's ugly, it's nondurable -- and this is the image I want to change. In fact, it's the 11th rainy season for this school now, really harsh, horizontal monsoon rains, and the walls are standing strong.
关于建材, 尤其是泥土,给人的印象并不好。 当我们想起泥土的时候, 我们想到了脏 丑陋,难以忍受 这正是我想要改变的印象。 实际上,这是这所学校到目前为止的 第十一个雨季, 雨下得很猛,是横向的季风雨, 但是墙壁屹立不倒。
(Applause)
(掌声)
So how does it work? First rule, a good foundation that keeps the wall dry from the ground, and second rule, a good roof that protects from the top, and third rule, erosion control. Mud walls need speed breakers so that the rainwater cannot run down the wall fast, and these speed breakers could be lines of bamboo or stones or straw mixed into the mud, just like a hill needs trees or rocks in order to prevent erosion. It works just the same way. And people always ask me if I have to add cement to the mud, and the answer is no. There is no stabilizer, no coating on these walls, only in the foundation. So this is the close-up of the wall after 10 rainy seasons, and as much as I grew a bit older, the wall got some wrinkles as well. The edges my not be as sharp as before, but it still looks pretty good, and if it needs repairing, it is really easy to do. You just take the broken part, make it wet, and put it back on the wall, and it will look the same as before. Wish that would work on me, too.
那么,它是如何起作用的? 第一条规则,一个好的地基 使墙壁从地面开始保持干燥, 第二条规则,一个好的屋顶 可以从顶层保护, 第三条规则,侵蚀控制。 泥土墙上需要一些阻碍, 使得雨水就不会 很快的流到墙下 这些阻碍可以是 可以是竹子 或者石头,或者是稻草与泥土的 混合物, 就好像山丘需要树木或石头 去防护侵蚀。 它们的工作原理相同。 人们总是问我 是否需要在泥土里加水泥, 答案是不需要。 在这些墙上没有稳定剂 没有涂层, 仅仅在地基里 才有这些添加剂。 这是一张墙壁的近照 在10个雨季之后, 就好像我会渐渐变老一样, 这些墙也会有一些皱纹。 边缘地方也许不像之前那么尖锐, 但它仍然看起来不错, 如果它需要修复, 也是很容易的。 你只需要将断裂的部分 打湿,然后把它们放回到墙壁里 它会看起来和之前一样。 希望这可以发生在我身上。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Yeah, and the great thing is, if an earth wall is not needed anymore, it can go back to the ground it came from, turn into a garden, or get fully recycled without any loss of quality. There's no other material that can do this, and this is why mud is so excellent in terms of environmental performance.
是的,而且很棒的事情是 如果这面墙不再被需要了, 它可以回到土地里, 变成一个花园, 或者被完全回收 其品质丝毫不受损失。 没有任何其它材料 可以做到这样, 这就是为什么泥土是 就保护环境而言很杰出的建材。
What about the economic sustainability? When we built the school, I practically lived on the construction site, and in the evening, I used to go with the workers to the market, and I could see how they spent their money. And they would buy the vegetables from their neighbors, they would get a new haircut or a new blouse from the tailor. And because the main part of the building budget was spent on craftsmanship, the school wasn't just a building, it became a real catalyst for local development, and that made me happy. If I had designed the school in cement and steel, this money would have been exported and lost for those families.
那么经济的可持续性呢? 当我们建造学校的时候 我基本上是住在 建筑场地的, 晚上的时候,我和 工人们一起去到市场, 我可以看到 他们是如何花钱的。 他们可以从邻居那里 买到蔬菜, 他们可以在裁缝那里剪一个 一个新发型或者是买一条新衬衫。 因为建筑预支的 主要部分 花费在了工匠上。 学校不仅仅是一个建筑 它成为了一个真正的 当地发展的催化剂, 这使我很高兴。 如果我将学校设计成 使用水泥和钢筋的, 这些钱就被成为其他开销 对于这些家庭而言就是一个损失。
(Applause)
(掌声)
The building budget at that time was 35,000 euros -- it's probably doubled by now -- and this is a lot of money for that region, and especially because this money is working within the community and rotating fast, and not on the stock market. So when it comes to the economic sustainability of my project, my main question is, who gets the profit?
建筑预支在那时候 是35000欧元 现在恐怕是要翻两倍了。 这对于那个地区来说 是很多钱, 尤其是因为这些钱 是投资在社区里面 而且周转得很快, 不是在股票市场上。 所以当讨论到到我项目的 经济持续性 我的主要问题是,谁获益?
How many of you in here have some experience living in a mud house? Chris Anderson, where is your hand?
你们在场的有多少 有住在泥土做的房子里的经历? Chris Anderson,你的手呢?
(Laughter)
(笑声)
You? OK.
你?好吧。
Yeah. It seems totally out of our focus, but approximately three billion people all around the planet are living in earth houses, and it is a traditional building material in Europe just as much as in Africa.
是的。 这似乎是在我们关注之外的事。 但是地球上 约三百万人 都居住在土房子里, 这是一个传统的建筑材料, 不论对于欧洲还是非洲来说。
Strangely enough, mud is not considered worthy of being studied at universities ... so I brought the dirt to Harvard,
奇怪的是, 泥土被认为是不值得 在大学里研究学习的, 所以,我将泥土带到了哈佛。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
precisely 60 tons of dirt right in front of the main facade of the Graduate School of Design. Students and faculty rolled up their sleeves, got their hands dirty and transformed the front into a warm place for people to gather. Children would climb the structures, skaters would ride the ramp, students having lunch breaks, and it was particularly fascinating to see how many people were touching the wall, and we usually don't go around cities caressing our facades, right?
准确来说 我在设计学院正门口 放了60吨泥土。 学生和员工们 卷起袖口 开始在泥土里干活, 将前线转变成一个温暖的地方 供人们聚集在一起。 孩子们可以在建筑上攀爬, 滑板者可以玩坡道, 学生们有午餐休息区, 尤其令人惊叹的是 看到那么多人触摸这面墙, 我们通常不会走在城市里 触摸那些外墙,对吧?
(Laughter)
(笑声)
(Laughter)
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Of course, this was a small-scale project, but in terms of awareness-building and in terms of education, it was like an acupuncture trigger point. And in fact, in more and more countries, load-bearing earthen structures are not allowed to be built anymore although they're traditional and have lasted for hundreds of years, and not because the material is weak, but because there are no architects and engineers who know how to deal with that material. So education on all levels, for craftsmen, engineers and architects, is really strongly needed. Equally important is technological development, like prefabrication developed by my colleague Martin Rauch, who is an Austrian artist and expert in earthen structures. And he has created technologies for rammed earth elements, for prefabrication of rammed earth elements that include insulation, wall heatings and coolings and all sorts of electrical fittings that can be layered to multistoried buildings, and this is important in order to scale up and in order to [speed] up the processes, like in the Ricola Herb Center in Switzerland.
当然,这是一个小规模的项目, 但是就意识开发 和教育而言, 就好像针灸的触点一样。 实际上,在越来越多的国家 承重力强的土墙结构 已经被禁止建造, 尽管它们非常传统 而且已经存在了几百年 这不是因为材料不好, 而是因为缺乏 知道如何运用那些材料的 建筑师和工程师。 所以,教育各个层次的 工匠,工程师和建筑师 真的很需要。 同样重要的是 科技的发展, 比如,由我的同事Martin Rauch 所发展的预加工一样 Martin是一个奥地利艺术家 且专长于土壤结构。 他创造了技术 来处理夯土成分 并且来预加工夯土成分, 这些技术包括绝缘 墙体加热和制冷, 以及所有可以放在 几层高的建筑的 电子设备, 这对于规模化 和加速进程是很重要的, 就好像在 瑞士的Ricola草药中心一样。
And finally, we need good built projects that prove you can build with an ancient material in a very modern way. It is not a matter of how old a material is; it's a matter of our creative ability to use it today. These, for example, are three hostels that I did in China in the village Baoxi, about six hours by bus from Shanghai. The outside shape is woven bamboo, and the inside core is stones and rammed earth. And it is a traditional building material. Even large parts of the Great Wall of China have been built with rammed earth, but it's getting replaced by concrete.
最后,我们需要好的项目 证明你能够 用古老的材料 结合现代的方式进行建造。 这不是材料有多老的问题 这是我们现今创造力的问题。 比如,这三个旅馆 是我在中国的宝溪建造的 距离上海6小时车程。 建筑外面的形状是编织的竹子 里面的核心 是石头和夯土 这是传统的建筑材料 即使是中国长城的 大部分 都是由夯土制造的 但是夯土正在被水泥所取代。
And this trend is happening very fast. Within only a couple of years, China has consumed more cement than the United States in the entire 20th century. And this trend of replacing natural building materials with materials that require a lot of energy, that are energy-intensive, and that emit CO2 is really clearly contributing to climate change. And we have alternatives, such as mud, stones, timber, bamboo, earth, that are totally effective options for all sorts of purposes.
这个趋势发展势头正猛。 在仅仅几年之内, 中国消耗的水泥量 已超过了 美国在20世纪消耗的总量。 自然建筑材料正在被 更加耗能的材料所取代, 它们是能源密集型的材料, 也会释放出二氧化碳, 这种趋势确实是 全球变暖的一大因素。 而我们有其他选择, 比如泥土,石头,木材 竹子,夯土, 这些都是非常有效的选项 不管出于何种目的。
This, for example, is an office building that we did for Omicron Electronics in Austria. Mud is healthy for the planet, but also for the human bodies, and the material is low-tech, but the performance is high-tech. The earth walls keep the highly sophisticated tools in the building safe by naturally regulating moisture.
比如这个, 是一个我们为奥地利的Omicron电子 建造的办公楼。 泥土对于地球来说是健康的, 对人体也是如此, 而且材料是低科技, 但是性能是很高的。 土墙为楼内复杂的科研工具 提供了安全的住所 因为它可以自然调节湿气。
And this wall in my own home is our humidfier. We love our six tons of dirt at home not only because it's healthy and sustainable. Its archaic warmth is touching deep within.
我自己家里的墙 是我们的加湿器。 我们很爱家里的这6吨泥土 不仅仅是因为 它健康且可持续。 它古老的温暖 可以直击内心深处。
My personal dream is to build a mud skyscraper right in Manhattan.
我个人的梦想是在曼哈顿建造 一个泥土摩天大楼。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Yeah.
是的。
(Applause)
(掌声)
And this dream isn't so crazy if you think of the mud city of Shibam in Yemen that was built in the 16th century and has lasted now for 500 years. What was possible that long ago is possible today as well, and we can apply all our technical know-how to these ancient materials so that it meets our needs and our dreams.
这个梦想不是疯狂的 想想在也门的希巴姆市, 完全由泥土构成, 它建于16世纪 至今已有500年的历史。 如果以前实现得了, 如今我也做得到。 我们可以将我们的技术 运用在这些古老的材料上 满足我们的需求和梦想。
All around us, and just below our feet ... are wonderful natural building materials. Let's use them. And I deeply believe our homes, our work spaces, our cities would become more healthy and sustainable and more humane and beautiful.
就在我们周围 就在我们脚下 是令人惊叹的自然建筑材料。 让我们运用它们。 我深信 我们的家园,我们工作的地方, 我们的城市 将会变得更加健康, 也变得可持续发展, 更加人性化 更加美丽。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)