What architecture can do for you | Alice Kimm | TEDxFulbrightSantaMonica

hello everyone when I was 17 I traveled to Europe for the first time that trip was full of so many wonderful moments but one stands out in Rome I entered the pantheon and the power of that space and its light changed something inside me and I knew So, instinctively, that space really has the power to transform people. 30 years later, I was in Beijing as an architect and went to see the bird's nest-shaped Olympic stadium. I only had 20 minutes so I ran up the first flight of stairs I could find and entered near the top and was once again overwhelmed by the force of that incredible steel structure and the space of the then empty stadium in front of me.

It made me feel like I could be an Olympic athlete just for a second and that really made me realize again that

architecture

has the power to inspire now those buildings are civic monuments, they were commissioned by governments to symbolize the strength of entire peoples, but

what

I know and

what

I have learned is that the potential of

architecture

is found everywhere, so it is between each of you and the space between you and me is on this stage is in this room is in this building It is on the streets outside and expands into the city of Santa Monica and far beyond.

The great architects of Santa Monica Charles and Ray Eem captured this perfect notion in their 1977 film Powers of 10. This film is used by mathematicians to teach students. children about scale we, architects, use our special understanding of scale and our understanding of the relationship between all things to design spaces of all types and sizes now, um, I think many of you are probably still wondering what All this has to do with me. Well, what is architecture to me? Simply put, architecture is the design spaces we all inhabit. Those spaces, of course, are physical, but sometimes nowadays. If we are virtual like the space between me and the person I am texting on the other side of the world, our children today live in a time when science and technology make it possible to cross physical borders and connect with others in ways that we could never imagine a short time ago, so architecture is also a space that helps us communicate and when those spaces, whether ancient or current, change lives as the pantheon and the nest of birds were for me. bird, then our interactions with each other and, by extension, our lives. become much more meaningful and creative now, some of you might have spaces that already do this for you, in which case you are lucky because it doesn't happen often, it is rare and sometimes it just happens by accident, but many times this power Architects achieve the great architecture through special skill sets that are rooted in the idea of ​​the performance of a space, so let's take again the pantheon, a building that is thousands of years old, its power lies in those perfect proportions and the design of that great Oculus through which The light flows now when I was 17 years old.

I didn't know. I just felt something, but now I know that the underlying magic of that space is the performance of those two things, carefully designed and intelligently proportion and light working together and that this building remains. Today, after so many years, the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world is a miraculous structural feat that also underlies those great proportions and that sublime light, so some architect or architects knew what they were doing, they knew what they aspired to something magnificent and the people who commissioned it maybe didn't know what they were going to get, I bet they didn't, but they knew they had to ask for it, but architecture has always had really basic responsibilities and today they have taken on those responsibilities. much more urgently why, because there are so many scary things happening in the world, unstable governments, poverty, overpopulation, environmental deterioration, these things are never far from our minds, how could they be?

We are bombarded by its effects day after day. and there is serious speculation about whether humanity can survive this Millennium so what are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to run away? There is nowhere to run. There is nowhere to hide. So we, architects, do our best to provide them with spaces that are healthy and profitable. and efficient in the use of resources, that is the definition of sustainability and we do this to help preserve our planet and our innate drive towards stability which right now is incredibly threatened, but doesn't it stand to reason that if humanity is the cause of most of these problems and most likely we can use tools that are specific to us, perhaps to reverse some of the damage or at least slow it down.

Architecture is one of those tools, so in fact, today architects are doing great, amazing work everywhere. A dramatic example is Mazdar City, a new net zero city just outside Abu Dhabi that is being built and this means it aims to create new energy and use no more than what is notable. Other architects seek to emulate high-performance structures found in nature, so you may see building structures that resemble spider webs or building facades that open and close like pine cones depending on the outside temperature. Now this isn't because cobwebs and pinecones are pretty - although they are pretty, they are very, very pretty - it's because the beauty of their shapes is tied to a performance-oriented survival instinct that has weathered them so well. throughout many eras, so we, architects, are trying to learn from these elements of nature to design buildings that will help humanity survive longer, better and stronger, but architecture is In all parts I think it is like that, the city of Mazdar is not the common reality, the common reality is that people like us live and work in economically built environments because I don't know about you, but I think I live on a budget so in me and in my At my husband John Fredman's practice, we believe that projects of any type, size, and budget have the potential for a big impact right down the street here in Santa Monica.

A friend of ours asked us to design him a house that was small, sustainable and serene. He did not do it. He knew where this demand would take him, but he knew he had to trust us to deliver something great and the result is a house whose soul whose power lies in the relationship between the interior and exterior space that then works hand in hand with the technologies that are invisible. but we make this house very, very energy efficient and, like in the pantheon, we introduce light from above into the main living space of the house to give it that mysterious quality that makes it special.

Further east in Pasadena, we work with some of the world's leading sustainability engineers at Caltech. These are some of the people who are inventing super thin photovoltaic panels, for example, and we created a working environment for them from which they could also educate the world about what it is that they are doing and how urgent it is, so we wrapped the core . of the building in these images of the changing Earth, it is a very simple strategy: every day these people come in and out of their building and they walk by these walls and they remind themselves that they have to do what they are doing for the for the sake of all of us, but the environment is also inspiring and this is again due to the quality of the natural light that comes from the materials used, which include rapidly renewable and recycled cork and bamboo for example, but above all all the feeling of being connected to an outside community through the use of glass and opening views to the trees just outside, everyone in this building feels like they are part of a larger world and that this building also cleverly houses a series of boxes designs that really help Being very energy efficient is very important when you remember that buildings use more than 30% of the Earth's energy reserves.

It's quite ridiculous, in fact, now, all over the academic quad, some of the first aerospace engineers work in this building whose identity is inspired by the Flow Principle: an idea that all life cells and matter move at through the limitless regions of infinity through space, so that when you enter the space of this lobby and this ceiling is illuminated and glowing, you feel the flow that drives the work that is done within. but architecture can establish identity and make connections between people in many different ways, which is why in Mexico we created an indoor public plaza for a large book fair in honor of the city of Los Angeles, a city whose friendship is greatly appreciated by Mexico , so we brought La Spirit. to life by using the technologies that make this city what it is the people, the million visitors, did not have to read many fine texts, the architecture gave them the history, so the balloons that hang in the space that You'll see in a second they were specially designed and inspired by the aerospace industry that was born and raised in Los Angeles and they not only form lights for space but are also backdrops for independent films that were commissioned especially for this event, so which is extremely immersive.

The atmosphere had to do with culture, the technologies that give it life and the relationships, the emotional connections between Mexicans and Angelenos, it was very fun and now we are almost in the construction of a cultural monument in Korea Town here in La, it is permanent . Gateway that will symbolize unity and friendship between these two places that are on opposite sides of the world. Now you can probably tell by my name that I'm Korean-American, but having lived and worked in Los Angeles for over 25 years, I belong here. city, so this project means a lot to me.

I think the shape of the structure will give rise to many different associations for people who experience it, but it is actually this set of programmable LEDs on top that will be the vehicle for transmitting countless images, messages and communications. between the two cultures but also towards the rest of the world, so each of these projects has a sphere of influence that resonates outward and connects with all the other architectural spheres of influence that exist and together collectively, that's how I believe that architecture can change the world. for the better, but now we have to accelerate this process of connectivity, we have to work together to achieve that performance that is necessary for the survival of Humanity, as well as the power that is necessary for the Spirit of Humanity to thrive because I believe that each one of you probably understands Yes, we need energy and we need health just to live and breathe, but don't we need creativity, inspiration and beauty to give meaning to our lives and happiness?

Architecture is one of the things that can balance some of this and that balance was what I felt in the pantheon many years ago, so in 2008 I was back in Rome in front of the pantheon with two of my children, they were very young and the only thing they cared about was ice cream, so I was also with my dad, thank God, he is also an architect, he has always been an inspiration and just like we did when I was 17, we went back in together and a Once again the space of the pantheon left us breathless, so I will ask you to demand the best you can from your environments just as you choose what food to put in your bodies, choose what spaces your bodies inhabit and pass it on to your children, to your students, to all the people you come into contact with every day and this is how each of you promotes the possibility of great architecture everywhere. that we architects are an idealistic and therefore irritating bunch, but we are also cynical and realists, and that is a good thing because we accept the condition we find our world in today and choose to work with it moving forward.

We aspire to bring a transcendent and emotional experience to each of you in ways you can't even imagine. That's why we are architects. That's why I'm an architect. We can offer this if you take the time to ask us thank you. a lot