So yes it was a.

Case here.

Really generous introduction to to what
I've done afterwards but I think what I

would want to point out about my time here
is that you know I learn the skills and

techniques and methods of learning how
to design architecture but there's one

thing when I look back on my work which
I did in to prepare for this lecture

I look back and I realize that it was here
where I learned as much as architecture is

about providing an answer providing a
solution it's also about asking questions.

And my work was really asking a lot
of questions here a lot of arm

can look back and
say not so successfully but

what was important was I was trying I was
trying to develop a method and not just

how to ask questions but actually how to
figure out what are the right questions.

In that picture somewhere you wouldn't
recognize me but you recognize that space.

So this is an example this is the one
project in the show from when I was

a student this would be a photography
class and as I mentioned.

This process of asking questions
not everyone's going to get it

not all your professors will get it I
don't necessarily get it now that I am

a professor with certain students but
you really just need one professor and

that Fessor is going to be able to
encourage you to understand what you're

seeking is not necessarily any single
question but perhaps a set of questions

that lead to other things down the road so
this was in my photography class

I was asked to take a picture of something
that makes you think of the word desire.

So what I came up with was
melting chocolate in smearing

it all over my face and a kind of
performance that would occur over time and

you can top left would be the first
bottom right would be the last.

And unbeknownst to me and
this is probably not

one of the questions that I asked
because it was and was interested in

unbeknown to me when you smear chocolate
over your face you get really bad acne.

So that that kind of lingered for a while.

So.

Jumping forward.

Last year my partner and I we won
the Rome prize and the Rome prize is.

Given by the American Academy in Rome it's
the oldest overseas research institution.

That is American and

it's independent which is a big quality
of it that's important because you

can you there are no strings attached
you can do whatever you want you have.

One year.

They provide you with you know a studio
in a part partment Stipe in one year

to what we did was one year to ask
questions and having practice for now

fifteen and seventeen years it's
architecture a lot of what I had done

was provide answers in what we what we did
is we took the opportunity of this year to

ask questions about how we practice and
how we teach because we both teach.

And it was a kind of an incredible
opportunity this was our studio for

that year.

It is the it was a studio
of a lot of architects

that preceded us it was
a kind of common studio for

to give to the architects I think
Michael Graves was in the studio.

A graduate of this program who
were in the room price Katie nor

I think she was in the studio as well.

So you know it was in this time that
we were asking these questions and

we didn't necessarily even know in
the beginning it's very destabilizing we

were asking questions we didn't
know where they were going and

you don't have deadlines you don't have.

Clients you know have any
sort of deliverable but

we're just we were just doing work which
is producing work asking questions some of

them were really random questions that we
thought were like What was the weather

like when Peyronie's he was in Rome in
Baroque Rome some of them were you know.

Maybe more important questions like Where
can we get the best pork at a sandwich.

But back up a little bit both for
Kelly and I have taken Securitas past

both to get to New York and then to
Rome we didn't necessarily you know

we come from two different places
repel A was born in Tel Aviv I

was born in Vietnam where both
immigrants and we're both.

Coming from two very different
climate types which is an important

part of our work really
from tropical wet and

dry ice are I'm from tropical
what drive from area.

But this kind of map is not only about our
different stories but also mapping our

weather experiences and this forms a lot
of our thinking in architecture and

we see Rome as a similar kind of Securitas
path which is that we had to go to Rome in

order come back to New York and
kind of approach practice and teaching in

a different way kind of reorient
reorienting our values in our priorities.

So this is you know the underlay
is a climate map of the different

climate types in the world this obviously
is changing rapidly the will look

different in ten years they'll look
different again in twenty years.

But what the problem with most of these
climate Mouse is that they like climate

is very abstract and difficult to really.

Get people to understand how it
works whether it is immediate.

And experienced and so we like this map
more this is a projected climate for

in the E.U. for
twenty seventy where cities are.

In Northern Europe will have
the climate of cities in the south so

Stockholm in Oslo will have the climate
of of northern Spain in and

Rome will have the climate of North or.

Africa and this this map for

us is really instrumental because it's for
us the difference between climate

in something that occurred over
a long time that's abstract

in that as a result is easily politicized
in weather which is immediate and

you can't question the weather you
talk about the weather you may.

Disagree but everyone experiences it so

it's a very specific reason why
we approach weather because for

us it's a way to kind of reorient
to the discussion about climate and

eventually about climate change so
these temporal differences are.

A way to rethink architecture its
relationship to the environment.

So.

I'm going to go through a series of very
simple terms which I think we all know but

these are terms that are important
in our work and I think that.

What we some of what we did in this
past year is to question how we define

these terms are really simple and
you taken for granted but.

There are some sions
within them that we've

been kind of investigating in the past
year or so what makes us human.

It's really how we relate to others
in society in we we interact together

as humans we are socially dynamic
entertain and we gather in groups and

also our bodies respond
thermodynamically to exterior.

Environmental conditions to the weather so
the human body is a thermodynamic system.

We designed for humans the relationship
of thermal and social dynamics

is an important part of work and
it's actually how we define the boundaries

of our how we want to redefine
the boundaries of architecture in cities.

Nature is not an assumed term for
us but it is a question it's

a question that our predefined definitions
of nature we're kind of constantly.

Asking questions for.

So in this photo what is the nature where
is the nature there is both visible and

invisible neither nature is it just
the green plants that are growing on

the concrete frame or is it the invisible
air that's in between all of this

matter making the plants growth possible
or is it the facts of weathering

that you can see in the current concrete
we focus first on invisible natures

because though those are the natures
that make the visible natures possible.

In their sense through properties of
air thermal conditions humidity static

electricity in our times
it's becoming increasingly

important to design for the collective
collective is not the same as public for

us it's about fostering communities and

it's not about an association with
the same municipal government or two.

Larger stakeholders.

So signing for the collective
is at the core of what we do

is human nature to act collectively

there's a project that we did I won't show
in detail as in a while we did it for

Art Basel Miami Beach the contemporary art
fair but this project was probably our

first big break big big competition
that we won in it we really started to

develop this idea that architecture can be
a mediator between natures and humans and

where we're trying to do is reconnect
collectives and collect collective

collectivity with these invisible
natures such as the weather.

The project was made of seven miles
of rope hanging that would change and

shift as each each evening with
different weather conditions

nature is not the other of architecture
we have an idea that we call interior

urban ism that redraws the boundaries
between indoor outdoor and

between the city and the room architecture
can never fully separate from nature's.

In specifically for
us fully separate from the weather and

despite the best promises of the best
intentions of the of the modern project.

Nature is also not a single state there
are always multiple natures both visible

and invisible occurring simultaneously
we prefer to call it natures.

Which architecture mediates and adapts to.

We have a cross
disciplinary office Imodium

we work with different collaborators
beyond the kind of typical collaborators

that of the architecture discipline you go
beyond your structure and mirrors in your.

Different code consultant so you know
in the past week for twit scientists

in artists ranging from a marine biologist
to a robotics engineer from a music

composer to an interactive media artist
and going to show some of these projects.

Humans in nature is can
co-exist in new collectives.

Architecture is permeable to whether there
is simultaneously both urban interior can

foster new kinds these new
kinds of collectives So

how we define collective is I think
important we design to foster this

collectivity which is not necessarily the
same as working in public space collective

space can occur in public space but for
us collective space highlights are for

foreground people and in humans which is
who we are who ultimately is our client

so like whether the behavior of people
is inherently unpredictable and

we're always trying to harness its
unpredictability that we're designing

active environments and programs that
mediate and basically almost celebrate

the unpredictability of of
architecture in an environment and

a lot of what we do is actually design for
a certain amount of incompletions So

the idea of incompletion for
us is the project we don't design for

its final state we design for
maybe a few steps back and

the project is only complete after
it is inhabited by humans in natures

collective experiences linked
humankind to natural environments.

So I think that these three.

Sentences are kind of core core
values in terms of how we think and

how we how we work.

Some of which have been you know
has been developing over years and

some of it is more recent
during a work in Rome so

I'm going to show projects some
of from before some of them

before we went to Rome some were done in
Rome none of it is not chronological but

organized by these themes in these
questions that we're trying to ask and

in a way also to see the work that we
did before going to Rome as a way you

know you do work in Rome can can almost
reframe the work that we did before.

We.

Always prepared for
technical difficulties.

So.

This is the view from our studio.

And we were fascinated by this
constantly changing room in Sky One for

its first came there and it was actually
a first memory kind of weather memory from

there so we recorded the sky for
a month every day to our time clips

were probably the only people who would
wake up and be happy to see clouds.

Clouds speaking of clouds clouds were
first classified in the Earth early eight

hundred by Luke Howard who was a fox
father of modern media when she and

first to identify the urban heat
island effect where there was

at that time typically only thought of as
picturesque image is classification system

introduced both space and
time into whether in Italy or

in Italian the word for whether it's
Temple Temple is the same as time

Similarly our time lapse video show that
weather changes over time that there's

invisible characters are only visible when
you see in this way that air pollution or

wind speed visibility
ordinarily not not experienced.

So these are the kind of in a way
as a conceptual sketch of like

how otherwise invisible
characteristics of weather.

Can be can be experienced by how you
how you render it how you draw it.

So

one thing to look at with those videos
is the difference between the air and

the atmosphere the upper
portion the top third and

the air in the biosphere at
the white line that's the.

Line just above the city and the
difference in air quality between the two.

So this is the color values of
the atmosphere that's reflected.

In the kind of weather report
daily weather report this is

the color value of the biosphere
This is air pollution.

Reflect these are literally just
color sampling off those photos

that are the videos that I showed you but

both of these drawings we would say
are part of an understanding of whether.

This is the average sky this is taking

the color values of the weather
averaging them to get in are a constant.

This is climate.

This is what you experience in this
case over the period of a month or

so understanding this difference
between weather and climate and

that which is physically experience and
that which is understood is.

I think is an important
part of our before work.

This is what you rarely use what you
can't see but will say is experienced.

So we continued and we said that the
question of how to represent weather and

climate is not a new one.

Architects and artists have been
addressing this for a very long time when

we start to see it in other things we saw
in the very well known Peyronie's tease

views of Rome which I probably
saw the first ones here in.

The few.

So I'd still distinctly remember
seeing these drawings here and

what we did was we wanted incredible
things about the cademy as they get you

access to things that no one typically
can get access to so we got access into

the what's called the graphic
it's the drawing and

engraving archives of
the Ministry of Culture.

So I'm probably not supposed to show you
this they have a thousand copperplate of

the original couple plates appear in a sea
this is a close up they never let people

you can get you know get access
to photos of the coppers and

we saw them in person and we handled
them but they for some reason don't

want people to see the close up but what's
interesting about this is you see how much

kind of physical work is done
into in making this copper and

what we learn as we access the archive
was that the drawings the views

of Rome were not static drawings they were
temporal drawings they were drawn over

a period of twenty years the first
eighty views of Rome were modified for

a period of twenty years and
of those eighty.

We have the we got access to the list
of what's called the state so

he would modify the coppers over time and
then they would record the changes they

were made in the States so what we found
was that the vast majority of the changes

were not to the architecture the majority
changes were either to the skies.

Or to the ground to the lie or
to the shadow and

this to us was really fascinating which
led to these drawings which are a drawing

that takes a complete drawing and

makes incomplete an act of subtraction
in order to focus on what we think

is an important part of our artist saying
the drawing which is that there are two

atmospheres happening here there's a upper
atmosphere that is he goes back and he.

If you remember the drawing a show or
the image I show of the copper plate he's

going in and basically with
the with a wider tool deepening or

making darker the lines of the sky
adding a kind of drama to them or

he would go back in change
the shadows on the ground so

these two atmospheres one is
meterological the other is experience is

about human experience those are the two
fears that he was primarily working on and

that for us was really a kind of important
moment in our work in understanding

the controlling those two atmospheres
is perhaps where our work lies.

So.

As in Rome.

We did a project.

Also this is before we did
this project for Rome but

we did a project that also highlights the
everyday experience of the sky in the air

quality this is in Beijing as
a project for the Olympic Park

that you see the work very well known
her talking to more on stadium.

And we were interested in the smog it's
very well documented the issues of air

quality in Beijing and in many of the
large Chinese cities in what we are trying

to do is highlight an experience of
a city that appears and disappears and

we went there for our site visits we
would wake up one morning and you would

see you know a building across the street
you wake up the next morning and the air

quality is worse that building is gone and
this is this this idea of a city that.

Appeared and disappeared was really
important to our understanding of

how Beijing works as as you know on
the urban scale so for us we translate it

into this concept of the city in
the room in the room in the city.

So what we're trying to do was.

Create a kind of outdoor room with
a very large window in the sky

that would focus on the Olympic
landmarks that were appearing and

disappearing kind of calling
attention to their visibility.

This is the view from within that's
the and the big thing is the so

actually the media building
media tower T.V. in.

All the media for

the Olympic Games and where you can see
we're set within a very large public

space from within here you could see the
her talking to Mern building and this is.

A day of good visibility one thing because
we work a lot with whether we kind of were

forced to live our philosophy whenever we
go to document our projects they never had

the weather is never as we designed for
so when we were trying to photograph

the project they had unprecedented
beautiful skies for two weeks straight.

And we finally got that which is actually
still not the worst condition but

it gives you a sense of what.

The project more or
less looks like in most conditions.

So it's part of a very large
public space in the park

is massive and
what we said was we're going to

put in search something that maybe
would change the context of how you

see a view the spaces around it kind
of almost like a viewing device.

So it's it's neither fully open or

fully enclosed it's kind
of something in between and

what we did was that we specified
a material that was both kind of.

Fabric type of tensile fabric that's both.

Reflective and translucent so
that this image you can see

it takes on because of its quality
it takes on some of the color of

the of the air around it wider during
wider during nights or days and

becomes more yellowish during
during the days of poor quality

it was a competition proposal that we did
for an extension connecting to museums by

over auto with two very different
collections one is the Museum of central

Finland ours and the other is actually
the museum for all of our auto and

what we did was you know wanted to show
this is that not all of our work we're

adjusting to specific climate types this
is northern fin then it doesn't make sense

to do a building that's partially open or
fully open so it's you know it's a fully

enclosed structure it is you know in
the traditional sense it is a building but

what we're still doing is trying to
render the invisible atmosphere and we're

interested in the gradient sky conditions
that you get in that part of the world.

Result of very unique atmosphere
conditions in extremes between winter and

summer as well as conditions that you've
probably heard of the northern lights but

during dusk and during Sun's during
sunrise these kind of gradients guys

are very pronounced So
our strategy also kind

of evoking Otto is was to work
on the drudgery of a skylight

rather than multiple skylights there
was just one skylight face East for

the morning light and you can see
the sky it's a single cut in the roof.

That.

Lets the eastern facing morning sky light
and then a kind of curved glass wall

that's west and south so the idea was
that the ceiling would receive so

I'm a teeny Asli like kind of warmish lie.

In the morning.

And the beginning of a light
that happened later in the day.

In this surface is an architectural
surface that we thought would

kind of render that that that atmosphere.

We also develop ideas for
facades one of which was kind of to.

System of glass which you kind of see
they're basically glass tubes that

would work well for the extreme climate
for a kind of insulation system and

also kind of alternate visibility clear
visibility and more refracted visibility

humans and as I mentioned the human
body is a thermo dynamic system.

In buildings there's also exchange
of heat energy which you.

Should know from your from your courses
from higher temperature to lower

temperature invisibly occurring in
the air the human body benefits as both

a thermal and socially dynamic system
the relationship of thermodynamics and

social dynamics in collective space
especially in an urban space is

one that can activity social interactions
group interaction strange maybe not like

you know strangers holding hands but it's
a kind of it's a relationship I think we.

Have been interested in very recently.

One of our first impressions coming to
Rome was in the P.R. they fascinate

us there are five or six or actually
maybe even more names for Italian.

A.

They all have both they have the it took
me a while took me you know six months to

finally get an answer but the different
names have to do not only with

size which would be the obvious
kind of explanation but

also with architectural character is
it more open is it more closed and

I thought that we thought it was really
fascinating the Greenwich it feels more

like an open urban space or
more like a kind of outdoor room.

Changes its name.

For us that was the beginning
of a series of drawings.

Where we would do these walks through P.R.
you never experience of peanuts and

central Rome single it's always
a series of interconnected together

as a kind of network and within these
pieces we would take the target for

the thermal thermal photography.

So the obvious one on the top is the heat

transfer is that happen
as the sun tracks across.

On the by.

That's a cobblestone.

Those Roman cobblestones very
dangerous for for ankles I would know.

Cobblestone out of the street and.

The difference between the temperature
of it being out of the street versus

in the street or
here the heat transfer that happens and

the metal panel transferring from.

From the from the from the steel
to the stone so we took.

These walks and composite together

thermal photography in translate into
what we call a thermodynamic drawings.

And these are drawings that ten feet long
in are generated from the photography

transform to show exchanges they're
made in their exchanges between

material in people in the wintertime
people clustering groups

according to the sun patterns and
in the summer they cluster in the shade

in these drawings what we're trying
to get at is that people in city

the people in the city are together when
they're in the same temperature range.

So another kind of walk where

from morning to afternoon the groups
are formed as a sun tracks across a plaza

strangers who don't do not know each other
close enough to be perceived as together.

This project is called Cloud seeding it's
another project that has to do with this

idea of thermodynamics and
social dynamics and how they interrelate

in a plaza and the pavilion was first
designed to activate a hot news Plaza.

It was a competition brief the museum
in the bottom part that's called

the Design Museum alone done by.

Israeli British architect This site is

just outside of Tel Aviv this is their
National Design Museum and music.

I am in the city started a project where
they wanted to figure out how to say.

Activity or
take advantage of underutilized or

neglected urban plazas so.

Our project.

Took this brief and

kind of asked a set of questions about
what are the variables that change and

I was least sun is changing but
another variable that's changing is wind.

In these are some of the wind
roses in the Mediterranean

in this part of the world
the wind changes from morning

to the afternoon changing direction as
it comes off the Mediterranean Sea.

So what we did was we had this.

Kind of very lightweight
structure that held

balls of what you see here thirty thousand
balls that would move with the wind.

Creating a kind of flat landscape in
the air in changing from day to day and

from morning to afternoon
is simply a kind of moving.

Shadows that are not just the the result
of of the sun but also of wind so.

These are some of the images that
you're seeing there you know this is

again I spoke about it before but this
unpredictability I think is an important

part unpredictability that leads to
a kind of design language of incomplete

is important part of how
we think about design.

So it's a steel structure a very simple
one we borrowed from a kind of vernacular

language of the green house Israel
as they have kind of pioneers in

growing growing fruits and
vegetables in a very extreme climate and

when you drive around
Israel you see fields and

fields of green houses we remove
the wall panels on the roof panel and

install and installed instead a ceiling
panel which is made of a architectural

measure very very lightweight and
thin that water and wind can pass through

allows for
kind of totally dead flat surface to to

move you know when you do these projects
and you're not you know in the place and

you're communicating we had it local
architect the biggest concern we had

back instruction was whether how whether
they couldn't solve it totally dead flat

because the slightest amount of gold would
shift all the poss into into one corner.

So during the day it would could move it
would move from one side to the other

so this is the most dynamic for us there
and it makes activating social dynamics

that the different thermal conditions
created by the shade would activate how

people use it and there are different
events that the both the city and

the medium organized there was a.

That was when there was they removed all
the furniture to get ready for an event.

But they were public performances
there was a kind of outdoor says

the media tech museum had
a had it had a kind of free

library and or just you know kind
of like a shape structure for for.

The shapes are a shape structure for

just kids to play ball.

So.

One thing that we do is when we're
designing is we ask these questions about

like which we have a lot
of interest in program and

questioning what you define program so
one of things is about saying like if we

are not designing a sari for a fix program
the program given to us if we think about

this as perhaps a bookstore and
that we can design for conditions there

were conditions rather than programmatic
conditions how would it look like and

what would it be so these are kind of
speculative drawings that we do sometimes

you know during the process or
after the process.

And the next project is one that is
from Rome that we kind of developed

over a year one of the things that they
say it was it's most closely related

to the actual proposal we had for
the room prize when we applied and

was things they say because of the prize
there's no deliverables there's no.

No requirements you very rarely do people

do the project they apply for because the
city itself and the experience of being

there changes your perspective drastically
and so for us this this was what we called

the long burn project we did a series of
short Burns This is the long burn and

at first you know at first we thought we
weren't we were going to do the project we

proposed but eventually this kind
of involved in it became the twelve

month long inquiry but we use as a kind
of sounding board to test a lot of these

ideas these questions we're having about
natures and humans and the collective and

the possibility of this socialization of
a kind of what we call by their rooms so

this is a map of incomplete
projects in Italy Italy has

over six hundred incomplete structures
publicly funded that doesn't go

into thousands of private incomplete
projects they have a ministry of

incomplete which I've always thought was
an amazing title for a job search title.

It's a job that I had wanted.

So incomplete for us our.

Modern ruins.

So they are found spaces

they're urban leftovers without
a future but rather than focus on this

quality is incomplete we looked at them
also as whether rooms kind of laboratories

two in which our idea of indoor
cities interior weather.

Thermal and
social dynamic mixes come together

in rather than concentrate on them
as failures we wanted to see them as

opportunities and they raise questions
about in architecture the but

the discipline of architecture about the
whole idea of end of completion you know

in these kind of unstable societies and
in the times we live in what exactly when

is a project ever really complete There's
changing climate changing programmes

changing sites changing clients all these
things in a way we're constantly working

in some form of incompletion as
architects this is a project that

is outside of Rome it's a sport it
is a very very large now Tory I'm.

That they spent.

Two hundred seventy million euros on
construction stopped in two thousand and

twelve.

And there is still

you know they try to come up with
ideas on what to do with it but.

It would take apparently another four
hundred million euros to complete it.

And this is by an architect who.

Has has perhaps a track record of this.

Project.

And what we.

Did a lot of video when we're in Rome.

What we're doing is to try to receive
this failure as opportunity in that

there's opportunity seeing as hybrid
environments that combine indoor and

outdoor conditions.

HJ So
this could be seen as an indoor rain.

A new kind of weather room.

A Roman fountain.

An open enclosure.

Dry pools.

Penner make window an artificial mountain.

A monument without a city.

And yes we came to Rome with a drone.

A new coliseum.

A cloud machine

an air quality barometer these are views
from the action from the American Academy

of building appearing and disappearing and

depending on their quality
in humanity conditions.

OK so for decades Italy has
forecasted the incomplete

it is a condition that existed going
back to fifty years post-war in Italy.

But in a strange way it has predicted
what would happen in the past ten years

in as a result of the global economic
crisis these are some of the ghost cities

that you see in China or
looking very similar to Africa new towns

also structures that may be
physically competed completed but

not occupied and that this kind of
definition of incompletion is one in which

is much more nuanced and may be more based
on a kind of temporal definition this is.

In southern Europe you know
you can't drive through in

Italy Spain Portugal Greece without seeing
sites like this in Greece they call it.

Rebar in waiting in a lot of it's actually
there's a lot of different drivers for

and I think that would be
a whole nother lecture but.

The say that it's there's also
there's a kind of culture that is

a subject because of.

The in a way that it becomes so
prevalent and just kind of everywhere and

what we said was that you know it's
a really interesting thing to think

about Italy as the future in this way
that forecast at this so what can we say.

As architects what can we do in are so

kind of learning from very unique
conditions in Italy it's climate it's

architectural history of adaptability
to indoor outdoor conditions and

its history of public space offers so
kind of a way forward so

this is a one in complete project
we ended up designing a kind of

developing a kind of design initiative
about developing a set of strategies for

incomplete we use this particular
project as a as a way to.

Test the ideas this is closer for
a train station assign them a lawn.

Where it's a really interesting site
because it's set within a field and

there's a kind of continuity a natural
field continuity between the field in

the structure and that the field
has qualities of interiority

in the same way that the incomplete
building is kind of experience as a urban

space in that reading of the project and
reading a lot of the incomplete projects

is really really how we kind of generated
or are designed from it which is that

these things simultaneously exist as
landscape Urbin in architectural scales.

So the train station itself.

Which is here you can kind of see
those those scales coming together

the train station was originally designed.

From the national rail system
construction stopped in

two hundred ninety three belief.

And it was intended as part
of a national master plan

to redefine train train
transport in Italy.

The National Rail eventually
cancelled out project which ended up

canceling the cancelling national project
which canceled the construction for

this this particular train station so
it sits there.

But we were interested we were confronted
with an incomplete other Aussie

an architect fascinated with ruins and
here we have a ruin of a Russian building.

So the task for us was.

How do we kind of take some of
the intentions of Rossi in reinterpret.

Through the.

And of the incomplete
in a way stripping bare

some of the early principles of
postmodernism which I think is a really

right now currently with if you've seen
some of what's out what are the images

coming on the Chicago be an alley
is I think a relevant question.

So this is interesting in that Rossi
was very much interested in collective

memory collective memory of ruins but
incomplete has no memory there was never

any occupation as a program or
a function it

differs from an abandoned structure in
that there is the lack of memory so

we are looking at defining
collective memory and

also atmospheres which I think he
was also interested Miss fears and

in a different way and his fears for
us are grounded I think in science and

science and
then eventually technology that.

Our atmospheres are about temperature and
humidity in static electricity and

the different kind of materials
that we think we work with.

So as a result our definition of
the collective I think is different so

collective memory for
Aussie would be this kind of shared.

Shared understanding of of architectural
language that as as as a group of.

As a society we all innately know

in this the role of the architect
to kind of into it somehow.

In for us the collective is a much more
literal definition we're literally

speaking about collectives not as a kind
of single vision shared but actually

a collective made up of many different
voices in a kind of city within a city so.

Similarly with atmosphere our definition
by a sphere is a literal one it's one

based on science in that we looked at the.

Thermal we look at it not necessarily
as a as a ruin with a memory but

actually just as a site it's like any
other site that you go to that has

properties to it that you
need to understand and

this particular site comes with
a certain amount of mass and

that mass has there must be so
in this particular climate

in the summertime you can get full shading
from the floor slabs of concrete for

subs that have their own mass there's
no facades so it's fully ventilated and

it's actually really quite
comfortable to go to these sites.

In this part of the world in the winter
time the sun comes in very low and

this is actually a solar radiation
analysis for winter it comes in

very low so if you are in the during the
in the path of the sun it's actually quite

warm which is why when you're in Italy
in the winter time people eat outside.

So.

This thermal mass of structure.

What we did was we said we're
not going to complete it is not

about completing the project but
in some way.

It's incompleteness.

It's surrounded by a metal mesh kind
of like in a very mesh that would serve

as a railing and also as a growing surface
these weather rooms that we're designing

for capitalize on both the thermal and the
social character of this particular site.

So it's.

A platform is not a public space
because it's not operated by any public

institution is a collective space that is
run by the people who use it it's located

in the city's periphery where incomplete
structures tend to be in Italy and

also in a lot of southern Europe.

It's in the periphery you also have
a kind of lack of quality spaces for

people to gather as well as a very high
currently a very high unemployment rate so

the idea is that we're creating new trying
to create new over last between work and

learning it's an open air building for

future work a collective urban space for

learning skills and sharing knowledge
this is the workshop line so

these a series of elements that we design
designed each with a certain thermal and

social and social socially dynamic
character this house is open

work spaces that can be used as design
studios incubators are catering kitchens

radiant heating occurs in the ceiling and

it's shared with the areas around
it which we call learning Plaza

learning Plaza is basically where
workshops happen so you the idea is you go

here you would use the space you can use
the facility to work but in exchange for

you need to also teach So you're
teaching the skills that you have and

you would also learn skills from other.

People using using the facilities kind
of exchange and sharing of knowledge

because this is the what we call
the room of doors and it provides

different scales of spaces as well as
openness and close to the environment.

You know the boundaries between work and
learning I think are increasingly diffuse

it's no longer that you go so
university to to learn

you spend your four years here you go out
you work increasingly what's happening is

that you are constantly learning as you're
working and I think that's the kind of

social change that we are trying to pick
up on in the project these are the multi

stages they're basically bleachers
that would change in the.

Change in their configuration.

And what we did was we
said that the stair corps

there's a lot more stair corps
are needed for this kind of building so

we propose removing them and filling
them with what we call the tower of air.

And the tower air is says that rather than
trying to heat and cool a semi exterior

space which would be an enormous waste
of energy the tar there basically says

you go up to these to these spaces there's
furniture that is radiantly heated so

you're heating the chair you sit
on is heated similar to a car so

you heat your body rather than
the air around your body so

the workers of today independent
consultants internal freelancers start

up employees in the work that they
perform the contract work the micro jobs

that work for equity to me as new
places for work and sharing knowledge

so it's a strategy it's a I would say that
you know not to see it as a project but

as a kind of design initiative that we
are launching in speaking to different

organizations about how to not only think
about new overlaps of work in learning but

also how to capitalize
on underutilized spaces.

So this project was a project
we developed for a client.

Who had a who's who wanted to take
over this ship building facility.

And it's a kind of contemporary ruin
as well the main hall it would build

it was used to build
yachts the main hall was.

The size of the Tate Modern Turbine Hall.

But his company basically created
sustainable architectural panels.

And those panels were had
very strict requirements so

a space like this is really not ideal So
what we said was that.

You know in order to the if you asked
it McCaleb engineer they would tell you

the diagram on the left which
is a kind of concentric diagram

a kind of air quality
version of the thermal and.

The outer most is most dirty in
the inner most is your clean room but

this is not very good for programs for

interaction of people so we developed
a kind of intersecting them on the and.

These diagrams are lexicons
that we draw we do this we

rarely This is not something we show to
a client but it's an internal document

where we are designing kind of hybrid
conditions between architecture and

environment so an air corridor or
wall of air these are some of the.

Systems that we that we
develop as we design projects.

So the idea with the project is that
there would be rather than that one

large volume three volumes each one
parallel in each one can be subdivided

into different conditions of heating and
cooling as well as air quality.

And this would change depending
on how they're used and

big require the client was visibility
one of the programs he asked for

was a kind of event space he didn't want
it to be he wanted people to experience

the kind of full scale
of this Turbine Hall so.

What we did was to propose.

What we would call walls of air and
they're essentially very large.

Air curtains the same thing that you would
have walking into a grocery store but

at a massive scale this scale of walls and
the idea

the experience of this is actually that
you would be moving almost in the same way

that you may move around in the city at
the urban scale and experience different

temperature ranges you would have the same
effect on the inside so the outer

the outer most is least climatized And
as you go in it gets warmer or

cooler depending on whether it's winter or
summer so.

It's a kind of strategy of adaptability
I think as well as programatic.

Flexibility So this site was damaged.

During Hurricane Sandy so
what we propose for the the existing boat

dock the boat loading dock which is a foot
of conch a foot of concrete very thick.

Would be prohibitively expensive to remove
waste troughs through it because it all

slopes toward the water so capturing
the water and putting it into the wind and

putting money towards the island that we
call the Garden Island in the center so

under that would be a cistern capturing
the rainwater and island would basically

be a kind of space for
the people who work there to to to gather.

So jumping around back to Rome this is a
very well known map this is the only map.

Drawn at the same time and

also partially in collaboration
with Bernie saying this is.

The first plan a metric recording of Rome.

Spent.

Twelve years serving the city
recording in measuring and

recording every single
building in St in the city.

So we this was also part of the archive
that we were doing research in

in you know this is the kind of very well
known the action of city in terms of

figure ground but
what we're interested in is a character

that is more than figure ground I mean
this is a figure around drawing but

there's a kind of invisible invisible
set of information that's that's within

there and what is really interesting
about this drawing is that it's not

really public private
as we know it there's.

Churches which are kind of quasi i
public space there's a porticoes of

palaces that it's understanding of
the city between public and private.

Much more nuanced than contemporary
Rome meaning that there were

gradients between what is fully public and
private and as people would walk around

the city they would experience these so
it's actually a social a social map

as much as it is a kind of urban
map is a map of sociability.

That was how we approached the drawing and

we kind of redrew that a certain portion
of for this is in its interest every day.

In terms of that kind of
social map meant that there

was also different thermal conditions so
the inside of churches or

cooler portico of the palaces
are shaded so this.

Kind of sketch drawing in
which we were trying to show

that in actuality the baroque
Rome was a lot more.

Say thermally and
socially mixed than contemporary Rome.

So these drawings were kind of the two
sets of joints you're looking at were done

in parallel one is an analog to the other.

So this is I think this is
the last project this is

an exhibit that we did in the academy.

And these are some of the collaborators
of what we worked with which a list

of almost sounds like a joke about
a composer historian two writers and

a physicist walking into a bar.

And it was a kind of
incredible collaboration

which really harnessed harness
the what life was like at the cademy.

This was the performance
on the opening night.

For the exhibit.

It's a single piece of paper
that's forty feet long.

Imagine when you're working on a model and
you'd really don't want to make a mistake

imagine that in forty feet there's
nothing no single piece of paper or

not no single amount of paper is added or
removed it's all cut and

folded from this single
long sheet of paper.

Cut through a digital digital plotter.

And what we call it in your city so
it's our idea of a city where the opposite

scales of the built environment the urban
and then teary are combined together and

it's an idea that we've been
developing over the year which is that

architecture perhaps is not a middle scale
but it's actually a place in which these

two scales come together in which they
collide together in which you have

these kinds of spaces that
can come they can come.

Here the wall of their rain floor
an outdoor room a roof paan

air corridor in the last one is not a
space but is important part of the project

which is the carbon emissions
from all of the other elements.

So the city varies density
to meet a architecture and

environment as well as defining
what is the outdoors and

indoors so they are seeing two layers of
the bottom layers red as the interior

spaces in the top as the exterior and
you start to see things that start moving

programatic elements are moving between
one and the other depending on.

The density in which
those elements are at so

as they those elements
the unfolded as they are.

Closer together we read them as interior
spaces in the drawing on the in

the model that's what it shows in as they
start coming apart as urban spaces so

along the same drawing are multiple
drawings at different scales and

you can see that here these are just the
drawings from there on the model in this

kale changes that happen depending
on where they are in the model so

that's the kind of idea
of an interior urban ism

something that combines exterior elements
such as weather with interior programs

so this collaboration that we did.

A show video just to kind of
preface it that the video is

mostly taken from the opening night which
there was a performance in the performance

was readings by two writers
the two writer fellows and

a historian fellow who were reading
excerpts from their books that they're

working on and the excerpts had something
to do with environment in the city and

then going to start to hear the voices
kind of mutate and that's the work

of a kind of sound installation that
we worked with the music composer.

Who basically took those voices in he
identified within the voice little

snippets of the kind of text in the voice
that he would trip he would transform into

an environmental sound so words that
were spoken about the environment

would become sounds such as ice
cracking or water drops and

there was a kind of interesting
really fastening for

us collaboration because we were also
dealing with elements that were in some

way transforming from
architecture to environment from

sounds to from words sounds
a kind of degrading of language.

So the funny little black.

Objects are carbon ice molds and

they we worked with the climate scientists
who is at the Earth Institute at

Columbia and in this collaboration
what we were what he would give us was

data sets on the amount of carbon
emitted into the air basically one of

the prime contributors to to air
pollution carbon emitted into the air

as a result of the amount of construction
or amount of enclosure some more surfaces

that architectural produce more carbon
emissions so these little carbon nice

models were deposited on to the on to
the project over the period of a month so

the exhibit was up for
a month and they would melt.

Those winter time in Rome
it's warm they melt and

basically degrade the model to kind
of destroy your own model which

as an architect is not the easiest thing
to watch but when you choose to do a paper

model outside that's you kind of celebrate
the fact that it's it's possible and.

Eventually the over the period
the Monthly's that all the carbon

ice models would connect together and

you could see you could read depending
on whether space is more urban or

is more interior you could read the amount
of carbon emitted into the air over time.

So this is not meant to
tell you ask questions but

just to remind you the importance of
asking questions in your own work.

I think that I'm going to
show one last video since

i'm because none of this shows
anything to do with teaching.

You know a teacher Columbia
teacher event studios and

seminars this is actually not clear
this is at a university called

University Technology Sydney where
I've been going every year for

two years now but to do third year
I go and teach a two week workshop

on carbon fiber structures I'm interested
in it because much of the work that we do

with whether it's the enclosure that's
that that's the thing that changes and

moves in because it's just
easier obviously to make.

Essentially you know that a wall or
ceiling adapt and

change but
the promise of carbon fiber which has the.

Image of started carbon
fiber has the highest

strength to weight ratio of any
material structure material.

Allows us to explore this question and
to ask what if you have

structures there whether it's at all
structures that can flex in a way so

structures not designed to resist but
to actually kind of flex with.

And move with the wind forces or
structural structural load so

this is done with a group of students
each year well when I go it's like ten or

twelve tins and we're fortunate in that

you know this university funds
the carbon fiber which isn't cheap.

So well without.

Thank you.

It was.

Yeah.

Yes.

It's working in a collective It is a very
intense process the first three days

each day it's groups twenty people or
so three or

four cents per group they have to get they
after three days they pitch their project

and then as a group we choose one
project and we spend the next ten days

prototyping you know it's a material that
really you have to get an understanding of

how it behaves so it's a lot of
testing and prototyping and building

small scale models large scale models and
then eventually build one complete.

Final installation and
you know because it's Australia

others barbecue and beer which is
a good way to finish a project.

There.

Yeah that's a ten million
dollars question.

I mean I think that you know the.

The if before we we said that
we're going to focus on weather

as a way to rethink climate
in sustainability or

environmental design we did this for
kind of five year period which allowed.

Us to go outside of the topic in order to
come back with a different perspective

we are now I think in the.

Where we're saying we have
a very strong set of ideas and

values about this issue that we want to
address more directly climate change.

Working and

also working with organizations that
would be willing to take on some of these

questions so I think that one of the big
question when the big issues for us is.

Doing work rather than waiting for
clients to come to us we

were trying to do the work we can
show to clients potential clients.

To who.

I don't know I don't know his work.

So I think I know yeah I
think I know he referring to.

I mean I said I know it worked
well enough to compare but

I think that one thing that we do that
they say there's the other architects who

are working in this within within the
space is a focus on the kind of social.

That's important in also focus on how
to translate it into architectural

ideas into larger larger scale I.D.'s for

us that installations
are a form of built research so

we're testing ideas that we want
to implement at building scale.

And if I think I know you
talking about his He's an artist

yeah I think I've seen
some some of his work.

But I think the interaction
there is is more is a facade.

For we're trying to do
things a little bit more.

Immersive.

Really very.

Very well there were.

Five years' worth of the virus
going around the world.

I'm told.

He.

We have we have explicit we've
explored other materials

not necessarily when we deal with
temperature there's just a lot more

flexibility in temperate climates but
when I

say we explore the materials I'm not
talking about stealing concrete glass but

other properties of air so besides
temperature we've worked with humidity

we did a project where we were to
a static electricity and we used

static We recently tried to create a is
an installation where we made a big

plotter robotic plotter
that would draw static

electric ions onto a wall surface and then
we would drop dust this goes crazy project

dust dust that would either attract or
be repelled by the static electricity so

it's like creating drawings out
of static electricity and dust.

I wouldn't say it's more applicable
temperate climates you can you can you can

have more of this condition of in
between outdoor and indoor but

like for example you know the project that
we did in the competition for northern

Finland there were translating the ideas
into a kind of interior atmosphere that

you can can make a connection between
what's outside and what's inside.

We have done you know like
New York areas like New York.

Washington D.C. They are some of the most
difficult climates to work in because

they are very hot in the summertime and
very cool in the wintertime so

in those in those climates we're not using
the same strategies we're not always

trying to make a connection
literal physical connection but

maybe one based on technology for
example where you can.

We did a competition proposal for
museum in Washington D.C.

that had a very large scale kind
of skylight surface that we use.

Digital technologies to basically
translate the each day's weather

into a kind of color so

the coloring of the space would shift
subtly depending on the weather outside.

So I think that there's different
different strategies depending on where

where it is we don't want to say that
you know we think the Arctic should be

just fully open to the climate but I think
that it can be more open in a smart way.

I mean I think that at the time
in coming there are so

there's a lot of people
speaking about adaptability and

kind of programmatic flexibility which
is perhaps part the reason why I

went to go work for
me in the late ninety's.

It was let's say it's in the air and
it's a topic that we were always very

careful about because it has
such a long article history and

also an article history that has
at times not been so successful so

we're we're we're careful when we can and
when and how we deploy those great.

Thank you.

Thank you thanks Mike.

There was a mistake that.

I won't forget.

Thank you for having me.