0:07

Welcome to the Talks at Google podcast, where

0:09

great minds meet. I'm Jocelyn,

0:11

bringing you this week's episode

0:13

with architecture critic, Sarah Williams-Goldhagen.

0:17

Talks at Google brings the world's most

0:19

influential thinkers, creators, makers, and doers all

0:21

to one place. Every

0:23

episode is taken from a video that

0:25

can be seen at youtube.com/talks at Google.

0:29

Sarah Williams-Goldhagen visits Google to discuss

0:31

how the environments we build profoundly

0:33

shape our feelings, memories, and well-being,

0:35

and argues that we must harness

0:37

this knowledge to construct a world

0:39

suited to the human experience. Taking

0:42

us on a fascinating journey through some of the

0:45

world's best and worst landscapes, buildings,

0:47

and cityscapes, Goldhagen draws

0:49

from recent research in cognitive neuroscience

0:51

and psychology to demonstrate how people's

0:53

experiences of the places they build

0:55

are central to their well-being, their

0:57

physical health, their communal and social

1:00

lives, and even their very sense

1:02

of themselves. From this

1:04

foundation, Goldhagen presents a powerful case that

1:06

societies must use this knowledge to rethink

1:08

what and how they build. The

1:11

world needs better designed, healthier environments

1:13

that address the complex range of

1:15

human individual and social needs. Originally

1:18

published in June of 2017, here is

1:21

Sarah Williams-Goldhagen. Welcome to your world.

1:30

Please welcome to Google, Ms. Sarah

1:32

Williams-Goldhagen. Thank

1:39

you. I'm really excited to

1:41

be here. I'm really excited to be

1:43

in Detroit. There's a

1:45

part of me that feels like I'm preaching

1:48

to the converted because you guys know the

1:50

built environment matters. It's been

1:52

changing a lot here and so on. Even

1:57

those people who do know that the built environment

1:59

is a reality, our matters don't necessarily

2:01

know all the ways it

2:03

matters or why it matters. And

2:06

there are plenty of people, all you have

2:08

to do is look at most of the American

2:11

landscape and you know there are plenty of people

2:13

who don't think it matters very much at

2:15

all. So I

2:17

wrote this book because I

2:19

really needed to explain to

2:24

a wider audience why

2:26

they should care about

2:28

design and about architecture. And

2:31

it took me through

2:33

a whole journey into

2:35

environmental psychology and then

2:37

cognitive neurosciences and

2:40

frankly, fields that I

2:42

really didn't have that much exposure to until

2:44

I started working on the book. And

2:47

I ended up, I think, making the best case

2:49

I could for how to

2:51

think about the built environment and

2:54

how to think about approaching designing it

2:56

and making it better. So what

2:59

this talk today focuses on

3:01

really is kind of conceptual

3:03

reframing of how

3:06

to think about the built environment. And

3:08

then I show you some projects that

3:11

actually embody and use

3:14

some of the design principles that I

3:16

came up with that are really central

3:18

to people's experiences of the built environment.

3:21

Okay, so why

3:24

is this up? And I think

3:26

that's a very interesting question that I think

3:29

you may wonder. We're looking at nature. This

3:32

is the first conceptual reframing I want to encourage, which

3:35

is it was only really 50 or 75 years ago when

3:38

I was a kid, not 75 years ago, that

3:42

when people thought of nature, they thought of rivers

3:44

and mountains and forests and fields

3:48

and disaggregated elements. Rivers

3:51

had their own biological logic

3:53

and then as people

3:55

figured out the polluting effects of

3:58

automobiles, the unintended. the

4:00

toxic secondary effects on

4:03

animals of pesticides and

4:05

so on. This eventually led to

4:07

a paradigm shift and people began

4:09

to reframe how they thought about

4:11

nature, conceptualizing it as

4:14

a single multifaceted

4:16

and profoundly interconnected

4:18

phenomenon, which they called

4:21

the environment. So

4:24

from nature to the environment. And

4:27

then following that reframing as

4:30

the environment, the environment became a terrain

4:33

of social and political debate,

4:36

leading to all sorts of policy initiatives

4:38

in public health and social justice,

4:41

environmental protection, and now of

4:43

course around climate change. So

4:47

the way people once thought about

4:49

nature before the environmental

4:51

revolution, which really started in the 1960s,

4:55

quite closely resembles the way most

4:57

people think about the built environment

4:59

today. They're buildings. Buildings

5:02

are created by architects. There's

5:05

parks and public squares designed

5:07

by landscape architects. There's infrastructure,

5:09

bridges, roads, etc. Those

5:11

are designed by civil engineers. And

5:15

then there's streetscapes like these. This

5:17

is Greenwich Village

5:19

on your right and

5:22

Louisville, Kentucky on your left. Streetscapes

5:28

and these kinds of things are the professional

5:31

province of urban designers and city planners who

5:33

all too often work with

5:35

their hands tied behind their backs, frankly. But

5:40

even though this is the way

5:42

both the marketplace and professional disciplines

5:44

parcel out the built environment, it's

5:48

wrong. It's

5:50

wrong because that's not how people

5:52

experience built environments. For

5:55

people, the built environment as we

5:57

experience it is one. continuous,

6:01

interrelated, integrated entity

6:06

where what we see outside

6:08

the building through the window is

6:10

as important as what we're experiencing

6:13

inside the building. So

6:15

this monolithic tower that you see

6:18

on the left,

6:21

which is by a

6:23

highly respected architecture firm, Rex,

6:27

looms pretty forebodingly

6:30

over the streetscape to which it's

6:32

connected and which it bridges over.

6:34

And it looms also over the

6:37

little landscape park that's on the

6:39

left and the

6:42

small four-story vernacular buildings.

6:45

My husband, when he looked at this slide, he

6:48

said, you mean the schmutz on

6:52

the right. So people

6:54

need to think about the built environment.

6:57

The way that people think about the built environment

6:59

needs a paradigm shift. Just as in the

7:01

1960s and 70s, nature

7:04

was reconceptualized, not as a panoply

7:06

of disaggregated elements, but as a

7:08

single integrated hall. We

7:11

need not to think about architecture,

7:14

building, civil engineer, city planning, and

7:16

so on, but a continuous built

7:18

environment. And that is where the

7:21

vast majority of people all over

7:23

the world spend well over 90%

7:26

of their lives. And it's designed,

7:29

all of it. There are decisions, and

7:32

each part of the built environment is

7:34

a series of decisions that could have

7:36

been made differently. It's

7:38

critical. So

7:41

today, new scientific

7:43

findings are streaming in from

7:45

a lot of disparate disciplines,

7:48

most importantly from cognitive neuroscience

7:50

and from environmental psychology, revealing

7:53

a lot about how people

7:55

actually experience built environments,

7:57

both as individuals and as

7:59

insights. social groups. And

8:01

all these findings and research suggest that

8:04

many of the ways that people think

8:06

about the bill environment also needs to

8:08

be reconceptualized. People tend to act as

8:10

though the environments that we occupy, that

8:12

we work in, that we live in

8:14

and so on. They

8:17

tend to think of it as like a

8:19

stage and our lives are like these little

8:21

mini dramas that take place on this stage.

8:23

And what you're focused on is the drama

8:25

of your life, right? You're not focused on

8:27

the stage. The stage is just a platform.

8:30

Not true. What's

8:33

emerging is that the built environment

8:35

is not neutral at all, like

8:37

a stage. It plays an active

8:39

role in many dimensions of human

8:42

internal and social experience.

8:45

For example, who

8:47

knew that the buildings we inhabit

8:50

profoundly affect our health? And

8:52

more generally, how we feel physically, or

8:55

that the environments we inhabit affect

8:58

what and how as well as

9:00

how well we think. I

9:03

mean, that's kind of amazing. Indeed,

9:06

what's emerging clearly indicates that

9:08

the built environments effects on

9:10

us are far, far greater

9:13

than anyone, even architects appreciate.

9:17

So take the example, and that's what you

9:19

see on the slide, of

9:22

how built environments affect our physical health.

9:26

There was a study in the early 1970s, and

9:29

then there have been a lot of

9:31

studies that have followed off of this

9:33

one, that showed that after patients had

9:37

gallbladder surgery, they

9:39

were released from the hospital 30% more quickly,

9:44

and suffered about 30% less pain. If they happen to

9:46

land in a recovery

9:51

room that had a view of

9:54

a pastoral landscape,

9:58

rather than a recovery room across

10:00

the hall that looked out on a brick wall. 30%

10:05

quicker, that's a full day earlier. These

10:08

patients were discharged. 30%

10:11

fewer requests for pain medication along the

10:13

way. That's a big impact.

10:20

Such findings are, so one of the

10:22

places in the built environment that's already

10:24

beginning to incorporate some of this work

10:27

is in the healthcare industry. It's part

10:29

of the fact that a lot of

10:31

the hospitals and stuff aren't

10:33

that great, they're getting better. They're

10:37

already having an impact on

10:39

the health care architecture.

10:42

On your left, for example, is

10:46

the Nanaimo emergency

10:49

department on Vancouver Island,

10:52

where the architects, so

10:54

it's an emergency room. The

10:57

architects basically parceled out the emergency room,

10:59

which was like for 60 or 70

11:02

beds, something like that,

11:04

into these little pods of spaces. And

11:06

then each little pod of space got

11:09

dropped with a light well into

11:11

the center and a little garden

11:14

in the light well. So you

11:16

lie in bed as you're

11:18

in the ER, as you're looking out on a

11:21

garden. How

11:23

amazing is that? You think

11:25

every ER department should be like

11:27

this. They get a natural

11:30

light, they get a little green. But

11:33

natural light can ameliorate some

11:35

forms of mental illness, such as

11:37

depression. Well, that's well known,

11:39

right? And of course, whether

11:42

or not a room receives

11:44

natural light, whether it's in your home

11:46

or in your workplace or with others,

11:48

depends on how the building's

11:50

designed, as

11:53

well as where you are in the corporate hierarchy,

11:56

I guess. But

11:59

are not. Knowledge of light's effects on

12:02

mental health is becoming so

12:04

fine-grained, it's really so fascinating,

12:06

that now we know that

12:08

people suffering from bipolar disorder

12:10

recover from a mania much

12:12

more quickly if they

12:14

happen to land in a room,

12:17

if they're in patients, that receives

12:19

a lot of morning light rather

12:22

than a room that receives a lot

12:25

of afternoon light. Same amount of light,

12:27

but morning light has a bigger

12:30

effect on reducing

12:32

the symptoms of mania more quickly.

12:36

So there's study after study of

12:38

this kind of stuff, of the

12:40

effects of our environment, the physical

12:43

environment on health, but health's

12:45

not the only thing. The

12:51

built environment affects us not

12:53

only in these kind of

12:56

very quantifiable physical health ways,

12:59

it affects us in all sorts of ways

13:01

that are really quite surprising. Studies

13:04

indicate that most of, we now know

13:06

from cognitive neuroscience, that most of what

13:08

we think is actually non-conscious. I use

13:11

the word non-conscious rather than unconscious because I

13:13

don't want anybody to ask me about Freud.

13:17

Non-conscious, but it also, I use the

13:19

word non-conscious because consciousness is really

13:21

on a spectrum where

13:25

non-conscious is over here and hyper-conscious

13:27

is over there, and things

13:30

move, can move along that

13:32

spectrum. That being said, most

13:34

of what we think, most of what we

13:36

process at any given moment is about 90%

13:38

non-conscious. That's

13:41

big, right? And

13:46

most of the non-conscious schemas

13:49

and associations that people deploy

13:51

to rapidly process their environments

13:55

and their daily experiences in

13:57

and about the world originates in the blunt sense.

14:00

that humans live in the kind of bodies

14:02

that they do. And

14:04

they experience the world and the

14:07

things in it according to conceptual

14:09

categories that are derived

14:11

from their embodiment. Our

14:13

cognitions are profoundly influenced,

14:16

they're even structured, by

14:18

the fact of our human embodiment, of

14:21

living in bodies. What does that mean? That

14:24

my thoughts are structured by my embodiment.

14:27

It's kind of abstract, right? Let's

14:30

take a metaphor that everybody knows, which

14:32

is thinking inside the box or thinking

14:35

outside the box, right? We

14:39

intuitively understand that metaphor because

14:42

we know what it feels like or

14:45

we can imagine what it feels like to be inside

14:47

a box. It's kind of confined, right?

14:49

It doesn't allow for a whole lot

14:51

of movement or

14:55

flexibility or whatever. And we

14:57

also know what it feels like to emerge

14:59

out of a box, right? It's kind

15:02

of liberated. And

15:04

I like this example a lot because

15:06

there was a psychological study

15:08

where the researchers actually constructed

15:11

like a 10 by

15:13

10 by 10 foot box. And

15:16

they put people inside of it with a desk and

15:18

they gave them a test. And

15:21

they said, take this test. And

15:23

what the subjects didn't know is

15:26

that they were measuring creativity. So

15:29

they took the test, went away. Two

15:32

weeks later, they came back, same box.

15:35

And they said, okay, sit

15:37

outside this box and take a test.

15:41

A different version of the same test, measuring

15:43

creativity. Well, lo

15:46

and behold, people who were sitting outside

15:48

the box scored

15:50

consistently higher on measures of creativity

15:53

than people who were sitting inside the box.

15:55

So that's like a metaphor that we understand

15:57

because we live in bodies. and

16:00

we occupy containers and so on

16:04

in the world. It's part

16:06

of this larger picture of

16:08

what we're calling embodied cognition

16:10

and the schemas that we use to

16:13

understand our experiences. And

16:17

that's just one example of how

16:19

the environments we inhabit affect the ways

16:22

we think because of our nonconscious and

16:24

embodied associations that we bring

16:26

to them. So

16:31

another example about cognition. I

16:35

think this is really cool. It makes me think I

16:37

should have gone to college in a different place. It's

16:41

been shown that students who

16:44

take exams in rooms with ceilings

16:46

that are painted sky blue score

16:50

higher than

16:52

when they take exams in rooms that are not painted

16:54

sky blue, with ceilings that are not painted sky blue.

16:56

More generally, people

17:00

who work or learn in environments

17:03

with high ceilings consistently

17:05

score better on tests of creativity than

17:07

when they are in environments with low

17:09

ceilings. Okay, so

17:12

all of this stuff is like, that's why I'm saying, yes,

17:15

we get that the built environment is

17:17

important, but the ways, I

17:20

mean, who knew, right? All

17:22

of these ways. Emotions.

17:28

And that's one that maybe people intuitively get

17:30

more quickly. It's like you know that you walk into a dump and

17:35

you feel a little dumpy, right? So

17:37

the fact that the built environments, the

17:39

environments we inhabit, influence our emotions is

17:41

maybe less

17:47

surprising. I mean, we look at a bright

17:49

yellow staircase with a wood,

17:51

this is actually a hospital that was built in the

17:53

1920s on your left. And

17:57

the architect consciously painted the stairs there's

18:00

this like sunny, brilliant yellow.

18:03

And he also, this was at the

18:05

point that architects were really fascinated with

18:07

metal. And so

18:09

he put a metal banister on there,

18:11

but he said, nobody wants to touch

18:14

metal. Metal's gross to touch, it's always

18:16

cold, and da da da, transmits too

18:18

much. It collects the

18:20

air around it too quickly. So he put

18:23

a wooden banister on. And

18:27

he was right. You look at

18:29

a sunny staircase and you imagine

18:31

touching a warm

18:33

banister that's made out of wood, and

18:36

it feels like a better space than

18:39

the other. Now, this

18:41

is one that I particularly love, this

18:44

example, which is, this is

18:46

the interior of the cathedral at Amiens

18:48

in France. And

18:50

if you haven't seen it, you should go see it.

18:53

But you can imagine other spaces that you've

18:55

been in where you just walk in and

18:58

go, unbelievable,

19:00

right? So

19:02

think of that experience, standing in

19:04

a cathedral or whatever place

19:07

really awed you, and you

19:09

thought was incredible. In

19:14

Amiens, you can't help but

19:16

feel this kind of wonderful

19:18

admixture of motions. You're

19:21

personally small and

19:24

a little bit overwhelmed. Well,

19:26

at the same time, you're sort

19:28

of spiritually uplifted because you have

19:30

this glorious creation surrounding you. And

19:35

scientists have demonstrated that when

19:38

people feel that feeling of awe,

19:43

that feeling itself nudges

19:45

them towards what are

19:47

called pro-social thoughts, to

19:51

consider their individual place in

19:53

a larger community and in

19:55

a larger cosmos, which

19:59

in turn, I'm thinking about

20:01

their shared humanity with other

20:03

people. So

20:05

places that inspire awe, what

20:08

Burke in the 18th century

20:10

called the sublime, demonstrably help

20:12

people feel connected to one

20:14

another. Who

20:17

knew, right? So

20:24

it isn't an exaggeration to say

20:26

that built environments and specifically the

20:28

design of built environments affect how

20:31

people fare physically. They

20:35

affect how they think, decide,

20:38

interact with others as

20:40

well as how they feel emotionally. What

20:45

we now know is that these effects

20:48

are real and they're not negligible. So

20:51

what this suggests is the

20:54

second reframing. The first was

20:56

from architecture, landscape architecture, to

20:59

the built environment. The second reframing

21:01

that I think we need to

21:03

do is instead of talking about

21:05

the mind-body connection, which we

21:08

hear about all the time, it's

21:12

the mind-body environment

21:15

connection. That's what

21:17

we need to be thinking about

21:20

because we're humans. We live in

21:22

habitats and those habitats profoundly shape

21:25

what we think, how we feel, what we

21:27

do, and how we communicate

21:29

with others. Another

21:35

logical implication of this is that there's

21:37

another way we need to rethink

21:41

the way that most people currently think

21:43

about buildings as well as landscapes

21:45

and cityscapes. Today

21:48

in the media and in professional

21:50

practice, the built environment is typically

21:52

bifurcated in two. There's

21:54

architecture on the one hand, Obviously

21:57

the building on the right. The.

22:01

Fancy forums like. kind of cool

22:03

he can imagine being there. Wow,

22:05

that would be great right? This

22:07

is by Zaha Hadid, it's and

22:10

Azerbaijan. So.

22:13

Architecture typically described very expensive

22:15

objects that are constructed at

22:18

the behest of elite clients.

22:20

And then there's everything else.

22:24

That's Detroit, by the way. Of

22:27

which looks more typical you wipe

22:30

what you see here not architecture

22:32

but to building. Or even

22:34

just consumption rate in these parts

22:36

of. The environment which is most

22:39

of the built environment, design and

22:41

quality construction is much less highly

22:43

prized if it's priced at all.

22:47

Most of what assists and are built

22:49

environments is not really designed. It's to

22:51

spill. But

22:53

what we know now and are

22:55

learning about the built environment profound

22:57

but mostly non conscious effects on

22:59

how we were, how we think

23:02

and feel, and so on suggests

23:04

that even the most elementary and

23:06

simple projects would serve people better.

23:08

If. They were more thoughtfully designed

23:11

and more carefully constructed using

23:13

the knowledge that we now

23:15

have about human cognition and

23:17

experience. There's no split. Between.

23:19

Architecture and building. It's all

23:21

architecture and it all matters.

23:25

And when it comes to the built

23:27

environment, there's no such thing as neutral.

23:29

A foot. Building. Or

23:31

a streetscape or an urban

23:34

plaza or green area isn't

23:36

helping you. Chances.

23:38

Are. It's not doing

23:40

good things to show I can't

23:43

say is literally hurting you in

23:45

some cases. it certainly is. Ah,

23:47

but in their not neutral none

23:49

of it is neutral. So.

23:56

We. Need to start thinking about the

23:58

built environment. As

24:01

a. Do. Is

24:03

it enriching us? or is

24:06

it impoverishing our experience? and

24:08

I use the word enriching

24:10

for specific reason. It also

24:13

comes from science up. and

24:15

there's. A funded scientific evidence

24:17

that when people and habit enriching

24:19

environments that engage some more toward

24:21

played that gives them a lot

24:23

of different things to do that

24:25

give them a lot of different

24:27

ways to imagine themselves. While it's

24:29

way more about this and a

24:31

minute on a literally for a

24:33

better for hims. Ah,

24:36

they have dendrites with more

24:38

more branches, a higher density

24:40

complexity of synaptic for action

24:43

synaptic connections so. Okay,

24:45

so wonderful with mean in terms of what should

24:47

be done differently in terms of design. Ah,

24:51

compare the playground which isn't Salinger

24:53

norm way to kind of the

24:55

ordinary playground that you take your

24:58

kids to when you don't have

25:00

time to go anywhere else. Rights

25:02

And. Among

25:05

this thing that this new way

25:07

of see that human experience is

25:09

embodied cognition tells us is that

25:11

the way a place looks to

25:13

our eyes is only a very

25:15

small part. Of

25:18

what makes it a rich and

25:20

enriched or enriching environments on now

25:22

under the step back from that

25:24

If you speak of cognition the

25:26

way that most people from what

25:29

I call the fuck model of

25:31

positions way most people think about

25:33

thinking or. The analyze thinking you

25:35

thanks I get all the sensory

25:37

input right and it comes from

25:39

all these different sensory portals and

25:42

then I processor and I use

25:44

my memories and experiences other places

25:46

into the then it becomes an

25:48

experience rates. It turns out that's

25:50

really not how we. Understand

25:52

the places that we are. To

25:56

It's a much more complex

25:58

process. It

26:00

involves not just fish, and

26:02

although our brain does privilege

26:04

fish and but auditory stimulation

26:06

is incredibly important, tactile stimulation

26:08

is incredibly important and in

26:10

fact one of the one

26:12

of the things that really

26:14

love is that. You

26:17

don't need to actually

26:19

touched surfaces to have

26:21

them activate. You were

26:23

tactile sensory perception or you need

26:26

to to look at all. And

26:29

you imagine what it feels like

26:31

to touch them So services textures

26:33

and powers of really, really important

26:35

in ways that some I think

26:38

have not really been recognized. Him.

26:44

The. Up new finding is that

26:47

are built. Environmental conditions are

26:49

not only multi sensory so.

26:52

Looking. At a surface actually

26:54

activates neurons in her brain

26:56

associated with vision. Say

26:59

that Smoke I sensory. It's.

27:03

Not only multi sensory, but

27:05

what also is called multi

27:07

modal which means that sensory

27:09

perception is always preparation for

27:11

action. Your motor

27:14

neurons are involved. So I look

27:16

at that window and I imagine

27:18

foods that window open. For.

27:20

Right says it open that way to

27:22

stop the Muslim whatever or in I

27:24

imagine sitting on the Cheers hard as

27:27

soft to the ducks are motor systems

27:29

are involved. when we're in

27:31

the in the built environment so.

27:34

In terms of this playground, that's why

27:36

just looking at all those orange false.

27:39

Can. Inspire and us a sense

27:41

of kind of playful buoyancy rights

27:44

as you think. wow else and

27:46

on those balls that before so

27:48

enriched environments. Good people, many many

27:50

different kinds of opportunities to engage

27:53

in them and to imagine engaging

27:55

in them even if they don't

27:57

actually engage in them and simulate

27:59

not just are visual system but

28:02

also our sense of touch. Hearing.

28:05

Movement. And more so

28:07

you look at this up

28:09

the surface here. And

28:11

you can sort of imagine what it

28:14

feels like to walk on top of

28:16

that surface and desist playground, which by

28:18

the way I think is incredibly cool.

28:20

I used to see sad these old

28:22

research. Everything here is recycled materials by

28:24

the way I'm in has sound components

28:26

so that you can bounce sound off

28:28

and then you can hear it like

28:30

thirty feet away. On the other side

28:32

the playground, it's full of a lot

28:34

of cool stuff. Up.

28:37

Okay, So

28:39

this is the moment

28:42

when in. When

28:44

I've given such a thing

28:46

she a design matters, talks

28:48

race that someone goes. With.

28:51

Him and. Isn't.

28:54

That really expensive. We

28:57

can't always afford to do that.

28:59

In fact, I was giving a

29:01

lecture and in rural Arkansas at

29:04

one point and I ate my

29:06

little spiel. And.

29:09

Hands shoots up right afterwards he

29:11

says. We're building a

29:13

post office in town now that's a

29:16

public building, which means it has to

29:18

be functional and it has to be

29:20

inexpensive. So what can you tell me

29:22

about? What about design for that kind

29:24

of building? So I wrote a whole

29:26

book. Suspects for try to answer that.

29:31

Is. So. As

29:35

I said, there isn't a divide

29:38

between architecture in building. it's all

29:40

architecture okay, and if you have

29:42

a tight budget. Don't.

29:45

The services as liner just

29:47

sad costs not necessarily. And

29:50

not have done well at pretty

29:52

much any level of investment you

29:54

can purchase better design or worse

29:56

to find. Put

29:59

in another. way. And

30:01

this actually sort of went around Twitter the

30:03

other day, it costs just as much money

30:06

to design a bad building as it does

30:08

a good one. And

30:10

so the examples that I'm going to show

30:13

you that embody some of the principles I've

30:15

been talking about are where

30:17

there has been virtually no budget

30:19

or a teeny tiny budget and

30:22

the people have done extraordinary

30:24

things. What you're

30:26

seeing on the screen is in Port

30:28

Elizabeth, South Africa in one of the

30:31

townships. It's a

30:33

daycare center and community center that

30:37

is built entirely of recycled

30:39

and scavenged materials. So

30:41

we have corrugated plastics,

30:43

wooden pallets, discarded

30:46

lumber, discarded tires and scavenged

30:48

bottles. It's

30:51

a one room building with

30:53

the community constructed under the

30:55

supervision of a bunch of

30:58

volunteer architects, basically. So

31:01

I showed the picture on the left just to

31:03

show you that's the setting. Okay,

31:05

that's what everything else around it looks

31:07

like is these corrugated tin little huts.

31:11

But the designers managed

31:13

through really simple means to convey a

31:16

sense of place that dignifies the community

31:18

and dignifies the people who use it.

31:20

So have a look. One

31:25

principle they used, okay, let

31:28

me just describe this. So these are

31:30

just alternating pieces of lumber, one place

31:32

this way, one place that way. Okay,

31:34

that's it. Not that hard to do,

31:37

right? These are the ends of

31:39

the bottles that were scavenged

31:42

to create this thing, which is, as you

31:44

can see on the inside, a whole window

31:46

wall. Okay,

31:50

the designers first use the

31:52

principle of patterns complexity. Humans

31:55

are at nothing if not

31:57

pattern seeking creatures that That

32:00

helps us comprehend our environments really quickly

32:02

and with minimal effort, we're always looking

32:04

to see what the pattern is. Patterns

32:08

also reassure people by giving them a sense

32:10

of order. So, okay,

32:12

I know I'm in a controlled environment.

32:15

There's pattern here and

32:17

gives coherence to a

32:20

project of any scale. But we all

32:22

know that patterns on a

32:24

large scale, even on

32:26

a medium scale, a pattern

32:29

that lacks sufficient complexity is boring.

32:33

You see that a lot in the

32:35

best environment. That's

32:37

part of the reason so many people dislike modernism,

32:39

but we won't go there. So,

32:42

in this building, complexity is

32:44

created by the unexpected use

32:46

of these scavenged and recycled

32:48

bottles to create this incredibly

32:50

luminous, wonderful wall. There's

32:52

multimodal stimulation, in other words,

32:54

stimulation of our motor as

32:56

well as our visual and

32:59

sensory neurons, because we

33:01

look at that wall and we can imagine, particularly

33:03

on the inside, you can imagine what it feels

33:06

like to hold onto that bottle. You've

33:08

held onto bottles like that, right? You've imagined

33:11

what it's like to have one

33:13

in your hand. So it stimulates our imagination

33:15

and our motor neurons, our tactile engagement

33:17

with these surfaces, even if we never

33:20

touch them. The

33:24

bottles also obviously introduce color and

33:26

fill the interior with a kind

33:28

of diffused light. Remember, light

33:30

is really bright in South Africa. And

33:34

that light changes all day long in

33:36

this really simple one room interior as

33:39

the sun moves through the

33:41

sky. So

33:44

other details that I love. The

33:48

windows are opened by this very simple

33:50

pulley system. So

33:52

you think open a window, imagine

33:55

just doing the pulley. It's easy, right?

33:58

And they were really had no money,

34:01

these architects. So they wanted to

34:03

create sliding doors so

34:05

they could open it out to the community.

34:07

So what they did was they got old

34:10

skateboards, and they used the

34:12

wheels and the skateboards to create the runners

34:15

to slide the doors. So that does

34:17

two things. One, you think, wow, a

34:19

skateboard, that's a door. So

34:22

it's a creative transformation that

34:25

carries some of the meaning of the

34:27

former use of that object, the skateboard

34:29

into and creates a kind of sense

34:31

of playfulness. So

34:35

you might say, well, OK, that's South Africa.

34:40

The United States is a bit more complicated.

34:42

Well, no, it's really

34:44

not. In fact,

34:46

the lecture that I was giving in

34:49

Arkansas was the same time I saw

34:51

this building. So

34:53

this is rural Arkansas. House

34:56

here, little sheddy thing here. And

34:58

I want you to focus on that building right there.

35:07

That's a Russian Orthodox Church

35:10

in Springdale, Arkansas. It's

35:14

in as vernacular, detritus-filled

35:16

landscape as you could

35:18

possibly imagine. So

35:20

the congregation for this church had no

35:22

money, certainly not enough to build

35:24

a new building. So

35:28

they settled for a three-car garage, which

35:31

they bought. And they hired

35:33

a local architect named Barlin Blackwell to redesign

35:35

it and make it into a church. So

35:39

Blackwell used very simple, very inexpensive

35:41

materials, I mean, basically Home Depot

35:44

kind of stuff, like this box

35:46

metal facade. But

35:49

he took the principles of human pattern-seeking

35:52

and people's proclivity

35:54

to be drawn to landscapes

35:56

of pattern complexity, and

35:59

he also built it. He also used color, which

36:01

I'll talk about in a minute, to create an

36:03

absolute tool of a building. He

36:06

wrapped the entire facade in this

36:09

sturdy box-corrugated metal and lined

36:11

every edge, windows, top, bottom,

36:14

and so on, in

36:16

black to create a kind of crisp, this

36:20

is a constructed building, right?

36:23

I mean, all you need, really, is

36:25

that black edge. And you go, oh,

36:28

wait, that doesn't look like every other metal

36:31

facade, corrugated metal facade building, I

36:33

see. He also floated it.

36:36

You can't really see it in the image, but these

36:38

are all black stones. And

36:40

so he stopped the corrugated metal

36:43

about that far off

36:45

the ground and then poured black

36:47

stones. So that makes the building

36:50

appear to float, right?

36:52

It's a church. So

36:54

it just creates a little bit of

36:56

specialness. And

36:59

then he placed the windows, one,

37:02

two, three, and then I'll talk about the cross in a

37:04

sec, in really unexpected

37:07

locations. So

37:10

to break this repetitive, striated pattern in

37:12

a way that sort of captures our

37:14

attention, you go, oh, well, well, wait,

37:16

what is that? And

37:19

then you have the suggestion of the cross. He

37:23

glazed the windows with different colored

37:26

glass, red, blue, yellow, and

37:28

so on. In

37:31

this tiny building, it's a tiny building

37:35

to create a different kind of emotional

37:37

atmosphere wherever you

37:39

are in the building. He also, what

37:41

you're seeing on the top left-hand side,

37:44

and he used paint. So colored

37:46

glass and paint. So

37:49

in this image, that's the cross that

37:53

has red colored glass on it, okay?

37:55

And then from this tower, he just

37:57

basically painted it with this. red

38:00

paint to create this

38:03

incredibly kind of red

38:05

luminous interior. He

38:08

mostly edited out your views of

38:10

the surrounding landscape because we saw

38:12

what the surrounding landscape looks like,

38:14

not exactly something that makes you

38:16

feel spiritually uplifted, but he gives

38:18

you views of the sky. So

38:23

it's such a smart design. So

38:29

you proceed from the front entrance,

38:31

which is over here, along

38:34

the short hallway, which

38:37

has, during services, has candles lit,

38:39

as they do in Russian Orthodox

38:41

face. You're

38:43

already sort of getting prepared for the mood. Then

38:46

you stand in this light

38:49

filled, red filled space

38:51

as the transitional moment.

38:55

I mean, this is a small hallway we're

38:57

talking about before

38:59

you enter into the sanctuary space. OK,

39:02

and that is, by the way, natural

39:04

light that is slotted in through a

39:06

skylight at the end. But

39:08

you don't know where the light is coming from,

39:10

creates a sense of mystery. And

39:15

so we have craftsmanship. We

39:17

have the use of color. We have a

39:20

very carefully sequenced spatial

39:23

procession. We

39:25

have a kind of relationship

39:27

of interior to exterior that's

39:29

very thoughtfully managed, patterned complexity.

39:31

And all of this comes

39:34

together to create this really distinctive

39:37

peaceful place. This

39:39

is one of my favorite parts of this

39:41

little church. So it's a

39:44

Russian Orthodox congregation. They really wanted

39:46

to dome. They didn't

39:48

have money to build the

39:50

dome, not even a cent to build the

39:52

dome. So what did Blackwell do? He

39:55

found an old discarded

39:57

satellite dish. and

40:00

he stuck it in the ceiling and he

40:02

had someone paint a painting on it.

40:05

And so does

40:09

good design have to cost money? No. And

40:13

the other thing the satellite dish does is

40:15

that it reflects the sound back and

40:17

so it improves the acoustics of this space

40:20

quite a lot too. So

40:29

my parting words, the

40:31

design of the built environment is

40:33

no discretionary luxury. It's

40:36

central to human well-being, to

40:40

human health, to

40:42

cognitive development, and

40:44

to social relations. It's

40:46

not just architecture versus

40:48

building, landscape architecture versus

40:50

voids. Our built environments

40:53

are habitats and

40:55

it all can be better designed

40:57

or worse designed. And so

40:59

this is the last way we need

41:01

to think about, to change how we

41:03

think about the built environment. Instead of

41:05

asking as so many architecture

41:07

critics or other people or

41:09

lay people do, do

41:12

I like it? Hmm,

41:15

so to my taste, is it any good? You

41:18

can ask all this question, that's fine. But

41:20

we also need to be asking a

41:24

different set of questions that are actually

41:26

more important, which is where

41:30

and with what means can we

41:32

create more enriching environments

41:35

and how? Thank

41:44

you, Sarah. I'm going to kick things off. I have

41:46

a quick question and then obviously if we have any

41:48

audience questions we can flip over to that as well.

41:52

In your book, which I read, which is

41:54

fantastic by the way, you

41:56

say that much of our built world can and

41:58

has to be remade. We

42:00

have before us an unprecedented opportunity to reshape

42:03

the world into a better place. And

42:05

again, we talked at lunch beforehand. One of

42:07

the reasons we wanted you to come to Detroit was

42:09

to talk a little bit about the city of Detroit,

42:12

because we do have a

42:14

fantastic opportunity to really rebuild a city

42:16

that people actually live in, kind of

42:18

from scratch almost. What's your

42:20

advice for a city like Detroit to take

42:23

some of the principles that you

42:25

discussed previously in the presentation and

42:27

apply it to this rebuilding and

42:29

revitalization of a giant metropolitan area?

42:34

A few things. One, they should read my

42:36

book. But

42:39

more important, well, that's important,

42:41

but don't

42:46

be seduced by

42:49

this architecture versus building divide.

42:52

Don't think, okay, so if we invest

42:54

in these big, iconic things, then

42:57

that'll help and attract attention to

42:59

so on. Big,

43:04

iconic things are fine. I have no problem

43:06

with big, iconic things. But

43:09

investing in design at all

43:12

levels is important.

43:16

But it's not just that. I'm not saying that

43:18

architects are heroes, because a

43:21

lot of architects are not really trained in the principles

43:23

that I'm laying out here and that I lay out

43:25

in the book. Because

43:29

of postmodernism, because of a whole lot of

43:31

different things, basically,

43:34

the mantra among architects is you

43:38

can't really predict people's experience

43:41

of an environment. We don't

43:43

know enough. It's all subjective.

43:45

French people experience

43:47

it differently from Americans. No.

43:53

There's a lot we know. And

43:56

that knowledge should become much

43:58

more widespread and should

44:00

be incorporated into what

44:02

clients expect from

44:04

the designers that they hire. And

44:08

that means looking to fields

44:10

that are not necessarily

44:13

directly connected to architecture like environmental

44:16

psychology and so on. And there

44:18

are architecture firms that are actually

44:20

putting environmental psychologists and cognitive scientists

44:23

and so on on staff. So

44:27

get the right stuff. That

44:30

would be my advice. One

44:32

other question too. You focus

44:34

a lot on education in the book and you mentioned

44:37

it in the presentation as well. How

44:39

it relates to performance and creativity

44:41

and things like that. I

44:44

find it interesting you've got on

44:47

one end of the scale when children

44:49

are very young you go into most

44:51

modern daycares or kindergartens and

44:53

there's lots of natural light, there's

44:55

lots of soft round surfaces, some of

44:57

that for safety of course. Lots

45:00

of bright primary colors, lots

45:02

of fun interactive creative things

45:04

that these children can play

45:06

with. And

45:08

kids obviously develop and it seems like a really fun

45:10

place. I've got two children, I go to their daycare

45:12

and I'm automatically happy. As

45:15

you progress through your educational career and

45:17

you go into colleges, most universities you

45:19

go into a big lecture hall and it's

45:22

cream colored, white, hard

45:25

chairs, very boring,

45:28

very non-traditional in terms

45:31

of a

45:33

place of education and learning. How

45:35

does that happen? How do we go

45:37

from getting it so right at a

45:39

young age to completely losing this vision

45:41

of design and the built environment when

45:43

it comes to colleges? I know that

45:46

there's history there. A lot of these universities were

45:48

built 100 years ago if not

45:50

longer but there's still a lot of modern buildings

45:52

that we're building especially in

45:54

the educational field that have these same issues. How

45:56

do we bridge that gap? Where did

45:58

we lose sight of that design? process? Well,

46:01

I made a reference before to

46:03

modernism. I said, you know, this

46:06

is why a lot of people

46:08

hate modernism because it's so repetitive.

46:11

Most of the stuff that I'm talking about,

46:13

people just didn't know, I mean, didn't know

46:15

15 years ago, a lot

46:17

of it. And so most

46:22

of those spaces were built with

46:24

the kind of neutral, you

46:26

know, the environment as stage

46:28

set, the built environment, the stage

46:30

set model where the environments themselves

46:32

weren't going to help people learn.

46:35

But we know that's not true. And actually,

46:38

I think you may be referring to one example

46:40

I gave in a book, which is actually a

46:42

study done on college students, where

46:44

they put college students in a typical

46:46

classroom with linoleum floors and hard metal

46:49

desks and some blackboard and stuff like

46:51

that, and they seated them in a

46:53

circle and so on. And

46:56

then so they, I don't know, I can't remember

46:58

the details of the study, but it was something

47:00

like they did two weeks of class in that

47:02

classroom. And then they did another two weeks of

47:06

in a similar classroom

47:08

in terms of size,

47:11

and orientation and arrangement

47:13

of furniture, but the furniture was

47:15

soft. And there

47:17

were rugs on the floor. And there

47:19

were task lights. And there was a

47:21

couch behind them. And

47:24

the students participated something

47:26

astonishingly like 40% more

47:28

and were more engaged

47:32

and learn more, therefore learn more in

47:34

what was the so-called soft classroom than in

47:37

the hard classroom. People just don't know. They

47:39

don't know these things matter. Part of the

47:41

reason that people don't really appreciate the built

47:43

environment so much is because most of our

47:45

thoughts are non-conscious

47:49

and the built environment is

47:51

inert and static. And

47:53

so you don't pay a lot of attention to it,

47:55

but that doesn't mean it's not affecting you. So

47:59

have you have you seen

48:01

any studies that kind of show how people

48:05

develop maybe in more of a city

48:07

versus a suburb versus the country or

48:09

I mean I'm sure there's no average

48:11

American city or suburb or country so

48:14

to speak but I

48:16

mean the same way that you're talking about how

48:19

certain buildings are designed have

48:21

you have you kind of expanded it more on

48:23

a macro level and just to kind of understand

48:25

how people develop in those three types of environments?

48:28

Oh sure absolutely I

48:30

mean look the I

48:32

tend to emphasize it less because

48:35

particularly the suburb versus city is

48:37

a pretty well-known in Paris

48:40

and I mean suburbs are very isolating

48:43

and they're very homogenous and cities

48:46

are like

48:49

beehives of diversity I mean there's just

48:51

they're different people and there's different things

48:53

to do and so

48:58

you tend in a suburb to

49:00

get a very homogenous view of

49:03

your social world and

49:05

also you know there are times I

49:08

wouldn't say this to my husband but there

49:11

are times when I think the nuclear family

49:13

is about the worst thing that

49:16

modern society has given us there are other times

49:18

when I think it's great but you

49:21

know kids that

49:24

grow up with more than two role

49:26

models you know if you hate your

49:28

dad you like your uncle or stuff

49:32

where there are just more people

49:34

around and more internet communities are

49:37

we know this are psychologically much

49:39

healthier kids so

49:42

there's definitely a big urban dimension

49:44

to this so much so I

49:46

mean streetscapes that the configuration

49:49

of the streetscape can either encourage

49:51

people to connect with one another

49:53

to look at each other or

49:55

to ignore to put their eyes

49:57

down and just look at the

50:00

sidewalk. There's a ream of stuff

50:02

out there about this. Yeah,

50:07

sure. So thanks for the talk. Really interesting stuff.

50:09

I have not read your book, but I do have a question

50:11

for you. It seems as

50:13

though it my understanding of one of the hurdles

50:15

to getting great design more ubiquitous, whether it's in

50:17

the United States or globally, is

50:20

this understanding of the value

50:22

sort of gap. And

50:24

I think the way I would describe

50:26

it is that the economic costs are

50:28

sort of easily understood, and they're written

50:31

in economic terms, and they're easy to

50:33

measure, essentially. And then the value component

50:35

to great design is often talked about

50:37

in terms of enrichment and things

50:39

that are not economically defined. Do

50:42

you have any examples whether they

50:44

be be they, you know, public

50:46

or private projects, where folks

50:48

have done a really good job of

50:50

economically defining the value proposition of doing

50:53

greater design? Absolutely, yes.

50:55

There are, I mean,

50:57

post occupancy evaluation is what it's

51:00

called. And it's something that architects

51:02

are still having trouble with, because

51:04

it kind of holds them accountable

51:06

in ways they wish they weren't

51:09

held accountable. But, but there are

51:11

post occupancy evaluations, I can think

51:13

of two. One

51:15

is a retail supermarket,

51:19

in which they were in, you

51:21

know, kind of a big boxy

51:23

type space, no natural light. And

51:26

then they moved into a different building that

51:28

had skylights, and

51:31

25 to 35% more customers, a lot. A

51:33

lot of studies

51:41

have been done on workplace

51:43

productivity, and including

51:46

by people who've been working on this for a

51:48

long time and really know what they're doing. So

51:50

the studies are excellent, in which

51:53

they show that workplace productivity,

51:56

employee retention, workplace productivity, all these

51:58

things have been measured. they go up

52:02

dramatically in better

52:04

designed environments. So

52:07

those are two examples I can think of. There

52:09

are others too. There was actually, it was in

52:11

Michigan. There's a

52:14

factory in Michigan that they

52:16

hired an

52:18

architect who does a lot of green stuff and

52:21

he did a little bit like that

52:23

emergency department. He sort of put these

52:26

little green moments all through the building.

52:28

And again, productivity went up, people

52:31

were happier, they stayed at the jobs longer,

52:33

et cetera, et cetera. So there are

52:35

coming to be more and more examples and we need

52:38

a lot more studies of that. Well,

52:40

hopefully we see an evolution kind of occurring

52:42

right now. And again, we hope

52:44

Detroit is kind of a landscape for a lot

52:47

of folks to come in and practice some of

52:49

these design efforts and kind of expand upon some

52:51

of the opportunity available. Thank

52:53

you again, Sarah. Very interesting. We really appreciate

52:55

it. Congratulations on the new book. Thank

52:58

you again for joining us for Talks at Google.

53:00

One more quick round of applause. Thank

53:04

you. Thanks

53:11

for listening. To discover more amazing

53:14

content, you can always

53:16

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53:18

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53:23

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