I S S ( THE ART AND SCIENCE OF) U E 02 THE POSSIBLE ISSUE 02 ( THE ART AND SCIENCE OF ) THE POSSIBLE 2 (THE ART AND SCIENCE OF) THE POSSIBLE Why do we do what we do? It’s a vital question for anyone involved in designing and building cities. Even the smallest of our daily decisions can P16 have profound ramifications for the people who will live in the places we create, and the societies that they make up. So it’s a question that we’ve found ourselves asking again and again in this issue of The Possible. Mark Bessoudo calls for a new type of “wisdom-loving philosopher- engineer” who can apply the lessons of moral philosophy to fields such as driverless cars and artificial intelligence, P42 while Gordon Gill challenges architects to think beyond buildings, and their clients to accept a wider interpretation of a brief. And what are the limits of city density? Just because we can build tall, should we? How do hyper-dense cities affect the social and psychological wellbeing of their P18 THE ART AND SCIENCE OF inhabitants? As the global population grows, that’s something else we’ll have to consider in much greater detail in the years ahead. Let’s start now. Tom Smith, WSP “It sounds like science fiction, but the cities we live in today would look like science fiction to people from 100 years ago” Karl Sharro, PLP / page 23 Editor-in-chief Julie Guppy Editorial consultants Mark Bessoudo, Cover illustration by Noma Bar Published by Wordmule © WSP Editor Katie Puckett Jason Brooks, Steve Burrows, Bridget wordmule.co.uk 1600 René-Lévesque Blvd. W Production editor Nick Jones Kennerley, Bill Price, Paul Tremble Design by Supermassive 16th floor Creative director Sam Jenkins Printed by Greenshires Montreal, Quebec H3H 1P9 Canada wsp.com 5 (THE ART AND SCIENCE OF) THE POSSIBLE CONTENTS 07.2017 48 CONNECTED THINKING THE HUMAN FACTOR 6 42 Our panel of columnists take on the future … INTERVIEW: Steve Burrows engages with digital natives 7 GORDON GILL Jonathan Ledgard builds a droneport 8 Neil Cadenhead rethinks hospitals for a post- One of the architects of the 21st century’s antibiotic world 10 most iconic buildings takes down some of Teemu Jama and Tuija Pakkanen measure the era’s sacred cows urban-ness 11 Alex Copley detects tremors in the megacity 12 Who builds your architecture? 14 Mark Bessoudo gets philosophical 16 SPACES 48 TEAM ANGST 18 Constant connectivity and new collaboration 18 tools are changing the way design teams work together — and not always for the better. It’s HOW CAN WE LIVE LIKE THIS? never been more important to understand what really drives our relationships at work Urban populations are set to double by 2050. The question is, how dense can cities get? 42 TOOLS 26 THE SMARTEST PLACE I KNOW 54 Grimshaw partner Keith Brewis picks a 1990s city with an intuitive labyrinth of public transport MARVELLOUS MUTATIONS 14 26 66 Future cities will be built not from miraculous new materials but familiar ones — radically re-engineered to be stronger, lighter, greener, and even programmable 28 54 THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION 44 Education is at a crossroads, as the Fourth Industrial Revolution looms. So how can schools 66 and universities prepare students for a world that doesn’t yet exist? BLANK CANVAS Can we create a totally recyclable building? Three WSP engineers weigh up the real cost 7 (THE ART AND SCIENCE OF) THE POSSIBLE #NEXTGENERATION #VIRTUALREALITY #SILICONVALLEY AFTER THE DINOSAURS We need to start looking at the world through the eyes of digital natives, writes Steve Burrows — they’re the ones who will be solving the problems we’ve created ’m spending a lot of my weekends hope that the next generation will do ONE, for example, is looking at how wear a VR headset and feel like we’re I talking about engineering at the something better. we could grow buildings instead of present, turning our heads to talk to the moment — and answering a lot of To really inspire children, we need to assembling them and what sort of food person next to us? They are also looking questions about it. I’ve been involved in make better use of the technologies that we could farm within a city. Perhaps we at how to share data files so you can walk making Dream Big, a US$15m IMAX film have shaped the digital generation now will consume protein from insects that through a virtual project. We could walk created to inspire children to join the built graduating around the world. When I talk don’t require much water per pound through the space with the client, making environment industry. Actually it’s more to Silicon Valley start-ups, the word they of protein. I met another company that live changes in response to feedback. than a movie — it’s a movement. The use a lot about the construction industry was reconnecting the maker and design For the children I talk to, this is the intention is to reach 20 million children is “dinosaur” — getting new technology industries with hands-on models that business they want to join. They can’t over the next two years. I’m speaking adopted is one of the biggest problems interact with the digital world. They’ve believe how we do things now. When I tell to packed houses of 350 children, they face in a male-dominated industry, created workstations where you model them that we take a 3D model, produce encouraging them to become engineers. where the average age of the leadership shapes in clay, and it’s data-enriched so a 2D document, send it via email and These inquisitive young minds ask is in the 50s. The problem is not creating as you work the clay, you get feedback expect the other person to understand whether you can be interested in biology, new tools, it’s getting the industry to on what you’ve done. If you’re designing it in 3D, they say things like “you can’t or art, or psychology and still become accept and adopt them. a city, you can pull a tall building up and be serious”. I tell them that the future is an engineer. I tell them that rules-based But the kids don’t see the world that see the square footage, cost or energy theirs to shape, and that it’s the greatest mathematics and physics will soon way. If we want to attract the next use, restoring the touch and feel that 2D time in history to be an engineer. be done by an algorithm. In the future, generation, we’re competing with screens have taken away. engineering will be about being able to companies like Google, Apple and Then there was a firm called Visual Steve Burrows is executive vice president think creatively and consider the impact Twitter. If we want our children to follow Vocal, looking at the future of meetings. at WSP and a visiting lecturer at Stanford of what they create — a field for people in our footsteps, we need to look at the Could we create a room where we all University from all backgrounds who simply want to world through their eyes and do things change the world for the better. differently. For digital natives, BIM is not Their parents ask me questions too. optional, and virtual reality is essential. They’re typically not too proud of what For the last few years, I’ve been to the “When I tell children that we take a 3D model, produce a 2D has been built in their lifetimes — Design Futures Council event in San Paddy Mills Paddy document, send it via email and expect the other person to concrete apartment blocks and highways Diego, where there are plenty of people Portraits through the middle of cities — and they thinking about things like this. Terreform understand it in 3D, they say things like ‘you can’t be serious’” P32 9 (THE ART AND SCIENCE OF) THE POSSIBLE CONNECTED THINKING #DRONEPORTS #AFRICA #AI impact. Large parts of Africa are very shipbuilding or in construction and said, arid; it’s a real problem watering the soil. we’re just going to do it cheaper. They “There are many things that have to be proved about this UNDER AFRICAN SKIES It’s pretty easy to imagine that within had access to regional markets, and had the next two or three years we’ll have an educated workforce. In Africa, there technology, and the most obvious thing is whether humans very cheap, super-advanced drip-feed are much more intense demographic Jonathan Ledgard leads a team of roboticists, architects and irrigation. You take a piece of hosepipe, and environmental pressures. I think actually want a robot flying over their heads” logisticians seeking to build the world’s first droneport in Africa. By add one robotic widget, connected with the African path of development is 2030, he predicts, there will be one in every town in the tropical world AI, which might cost you 20 bucks. going to be completely different, and Suddenly you have drip-feed irrigation it’s a great opportunity to think again tech but can be incredibly smart. will follow. There are many things that may add 20-30% to your output over about very basic questions. For example, We know there is not going to be much that still have to be proved about this the year, while saving water. should we allow new megacities to be money in the system, but that AI and technology, and the most obvious thing I think that robotics will also play a shaped by the motor car or should we other technologies, particularly renewable is whether humans actually want a The Possible: Why drones? You’ve said and, eventually, for e-commerce.