January 21, 2008 · 03:43 PM

Future City

What does the city of the future look like? Which impact will the climate change have on city planning? How do urbanisation and Megacities change our way of life? Leading architects discuss their ideas.

The Panel: Patrik Schumacher, partner at Zaha Hadid Architects, Charles Renfro of Diller + Scofidio, Bjarke Ingels (BIG) and Richard Saul Wurman.
Hosted by Kazys Varnelis, Director of the Network Architecture Lab at Columbia University.

Richard Saul Wurman has written and designed over 80 books and created the TED conferences, held annually in Monterey, California, covering topics from science, arts, politics and more. In the Seventies he coined the phrase "information architect", referring to a society that creates massive amounts of information, but with little order. Today in the panel he explains what the former mega cities were and what the mega cities are today.

Patrick Schumacher's thesis is that we should be looking at nature with regard to its systems, orders and patterns like leaves and riverbeds. Those patterns provide a useful scheme for designing cities.

Charles Renfro talks about the former Highline of New York, which was a food-delivering rail line and is now out of order, covered with vegetation - a positive "agri-tectural" element as he sees it. He plans sideways, entrances and platforms for the Highline - "a place for Sundays".

Bjarke Ingels would like to re-design Denmark, initially concentrating the main ports into a "super harbour" in Fehmarnbelt. This harbour would have the outline of a star and would be visible from outer space.

 

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