The Audi Magazine Spring/Summer 2018

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Spring/Summer 2018

The Audi Magazine

new kind of mobility—built to last, born to excite, the thrill of things to come. Cities that mobilize and whose prime purpose is the well-being of the people who live in them. Societies already living ahead of their time. Mobility providers who put sharing before owning, who believe in the future of drive systems using electricity, gas or hydrogen.

A new approach calls for new thinking that breaks the mold, creative and free.

A

New mobility begins in the mind. Moving means meeting change. Questioning the familiar. Embracing the challenge of the unknown. Mobility is a constant encounter, with people moving in new directions, people who inspire, who believe in the bigger picture or in that one great idea. Will mobility surprise us, soon even outstrip the power of our imagination?

For sure. But how? Never stop asking—with Audi.

From A

TO Anne-Li Karlsson 92 TO Tallinn 50

TO Banbury 116

TO Nina Kraviz 98 TO Copenhagen 10

TO Singularity 134

TO Los Angeles 70

TO Chan Hon Meng 108

TO Sydney 34

Fall/Winter 2017 Spring/Summer 2018

TO The next level of mobility solutions 150

The sense of precision and stylistic savvy with which the Danes are shaping their livable city of the future delighted author Daniela Schröder on her trip to Copenhagen. In Tallinn, reporter Lea-Marie Kenzler explored a society that is driving Estonia’s radical digital transformation forward with remarkable openness.

Author Niklas Maak pays tribute to a Los Angeles architect who builds to benefit his city’s neediest residents. And photographer Robert Fischer documented some of Hong Kong’s inspiring characters who are living a new kind of mobility in this high-energy metropolis.

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PHOTOS: MICHAEL NEHRMANN, MAX KOLLRUSS, NIKLAS MAAK, JULIA KERSCHBAUM

CONTRIBUTORS

WHY DO ES AUDI BELIEVE IN SUSTAIN ABLE CITIES?

COPEN HAGEN

Mikael Colville-Andersen,

expert in urban mobility

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“COPENHAGEN’S TRACK RECORD OF PILOT PROJECTS IS UNIQUE. THE CITY EXPERIMENTS WITH GOOD IDEAS TO SEE IF THEY BECOME AMAZING ONES.”

Denmark’s capital is not only considered one of the most livable cities, but also aims to become the world’s first carbon-neutral metropolis by 2025.

COPY: Daniela Schröder, PHOTO: Benne Ochs, ILLUSTRATION: Raymond Biesinger

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Each day, more than 8,000 cyclists use the connection via the Cykelslangen, the famous bridge with its orange two-way bike lane that snakes across Copenhagen’s inner harbor basin.

Lying just 3.5 kilometers off the coast of Copenhagen, Middelgrunden is the world’s first commercial offshore wind farm.

Ten of the 20 wind turbines are owned by 8,600 private shareholders.

PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Twenty minutes, that’s the benchmark.

When searching for a new apartment or for the best childcare facility. When deciding whether to accept a job offer.

When choosing the most laid-back bar for an after-work drink or the perfect restaurant for a weekend brunch. “20 minutes,” says Mikael Colville-Andersen, dismounting from a white racing bicycle.

“In Copenhagen, everything takes just 20 minutes by bike.” He laughs. “At least, that’s how it feels.” Pushing his sunglasses back into his hair, ColvilleAndersen slides the bike into a mass of two-wheelers parked outside a containerlike building. Trangravsvej 8 on Papirøen, a mini-peninsula within Copenhagen’s old port, is his office address. Dressed in a dark-gray shirt, jeans and white sneakers, ColvilleThe European Andersen previously worked as a movie Environment Agency director. These days, has its headquarters he rarely has time to in Copenhagen. shoot movies. For Since 1994, it has several years now, been responsible Colville-Andersen for providing has been Denmark’s policymakers with leading cycling lobinformation and byist, and nobody data about the status personifies the bicyof and changes cle movement quite in the environment like he does. His in the EU. consultancy firm has designed cycle-path systems for almost a hundred cities worldwide, including Dublin and Detroit. “But Copenhagen takes cycling more seriously than any other city,” he says. “Over the past two decades, an infrastructure has been created here that has made the bicycle an attractive and competitive mode of transport.”

in environmental terms. To this end, the city aims to become the world’s first carbon-neutral metropolis by 2025. This does not mean that the inhabitants will then no longer generate any climate-damaging carbon dioxide at all. In addition to avoiding CO2 emissions, this goal involves offsetting greenhouse gas emissions at one location with environmentally-friendly measures at another. In so doing, Copenhagen is taking a 360degree approach: From traffic and building to energy and water—the entire urban development is focused on the goal of being “green and clean.” CO2 emissions in Copenhagen have fallen by 38 percent since 2005, and the city aims to eliminate a further 900,000 tons of carbon dioxide by 2025. An ambitious goal. However, the vast majority of Copenhagen’s residents are behind the plan, with 87 percent happy for their city to become carbon neutral. Quite apart from that, it’s not just about improving the quality of life in the city, argues Morten Kabell, Copenhagen’s Mayor of Technical and Environmental Affairs: “In the fight against climate change, major cities across the globe play a key role because it is they that cause most Since the 1990s, of the world’s CO2 all aspects of urban emissions.” So, he development in argues, Copenhagen Copenhagen have is partly responsible followed a consistent for the world’s cli- sustainable policy: mate. In conclusion, from traffic planning Kabell says: “With all the way to our climate initia- alternative energy tives, we want to generation. play a leading role in the international arena and inspire other cities to do something similar.”

The Danish capital refers to itself with pride as the “City of Cyclists.” Virtually no other city pushes the bike harder as a means of mobility; green mobility plays a major role in Copenhagen’s future plans. Always highly ranked in the lists of the world’s most livable cities, Copenhagen also wants to lead the way

A stone’s throw from cycle-path-planner Colville-Andersen’s office, a very unique bridge spans the old harbor basin.

Opened in 2006, the Bryggebroen became the first new bridge between the harbor side and the old city in seventy years. The design is functional, simple and modern—typically Danish in style.

copcap.com

TO COPENHAGEN

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The Audi A3 Sportback e-tron with plug-in hybrid drive is a practical everyday vehicle for cities like Copenhagen. It offers up to

Audi A3 Sportback e-tron fuel consumption combined (in l/100 km): 1.8–1.6. Power consumption combined (in kWh/100 km):

50 kilometers of electric driving in city traffic with an extensive range and excellent handling over long distances thanks to the

12.0–11.4. CO₂ emissions combined (in g/km): 40–36. Where stated in ranges, fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions as well as

powerful four-cylinder internal combustion engine.

efficiency classes and power consumption depend on tires/wheels used.

TO COPENHAGEN

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that automatically switch to green whenever a group of cyclists approaches.

It’s shortly before nine in the morning at the University of Copenhagen’s medical faculty. Researchers and students stream into the 15-story building. Opened in January 2017, the Maersk Tower is regarded as the most cutting-edge educational “WITH campus building in Denmark. It is packed with OUR energy-saving technology and clad in copper- CLIMATE covered shutters, which INITIAfollow the path of the sun and provide shade— TIVES, WE an air conditioning system that does without WANT TO electricity. The copper INSPIRE also gives the building an unusual appearance, OTHER “the influence of the weather causes the color CITIES.” to change over time,” says Thue Borgen Hasløv of Copenhagen-based architectural practice C. F. Møller, which designed the Maersk Tower. The Danes are renowned for

PHOTO: BJARKE INGELS GROUP

Copenhagen is popular, with the number of inhabitants growing. Forecasts point to an increase of 14 percent by 2025.

More people, which means more traffic.

More bicycles. But also more cars. By 2025, the authorities expect the number of cyclists to increase by 27 percent and the number of cars by 20 percent, mainly in the suburbs. To meet the climate targets it has set itself, Copenhagen is expanding the infrastructure for alternative drive systems: charging stations for electric cars, hydrogen fuel stations, reduced parking charges for vehicles equipped with new drive systems. The authorities themselves are setting a good example: 64 percent of the administration’s fleet of vehicles already run on hydrogen or electricity, and new public buses are required to have an electric motor instead of a diesel engine.

PHOTO: UBITRICITY

Specially built for cyclists and pedestrians, it was the construction project that kick-started the cycling movement in Copenhagen. Today, Bryggebroen is one of numerous bicycle bridges in the city, with others under construction or projected. A total of 1,000 kilometers of cycle paths wind their way through the greater Copenhagen area with its population of two million—that’s on top of the hundreds of kilometers of bicycle lanes on the roads. Cycling in Copenhagen is convenient and safe. Even visitors to the city quickly find their way around on two wheels. The routes are separated from cars The future of and pedestrians, indicated with symon-street parking: bols and markings Street lamps and wide enough that also function to permit stress-free as charging overtaking, even with poles (such as those Denmark’s export

by Ubitricity) hit, the cargo bikes. would provide comTraffic lights along prehensive the main routes to charging networks the city center are for electric vehicles phased to provide in cities. The a “green wave” for technology is at an cyclists traveling at early stage of a constant speed of production maturity.

20 kilometers per hour; LED lamps in the asphalt act as a speed control. Despite these measures, cyclists now often experience tailbacks.

61 percent of downtown residents and 41 percent of Copenhagen’s suburban population travel by bicycle every day.

Between them, they cover a daily average of 1.4 million kilometers. Local politicians see cycling as a key element of the city’s identity, and central Copenhagen is set to become car-free by 2025. To make it happen, the administration wants to expand the bicycle infrastructure. The biggest project involves 28 bicycle highways with separate speed lanes that will connect the suburbs to the city center. To combat congestion, the city draws on digital technology. The next generation of traffic lights will incorporate sensors

TO COPENHAGEN

simple, attractive design that is also functional. In this case, functional means that the building is green. “Wherever a new residential or commercial building is developed, the focus is on energy efficiency and sustainability,” adds Hasløv.

“Green buildings have been an important priority in the city for years, and the political move toward carbon neutrality now trains the spotlight firmly on the construction sector.” Here too, Copenhagen’s administration is setting a good example: By 2025, the energy consumption of public buildings such as schools is set to drop by 40 percent. Buildings to be renovated will be Winter sport by equipped with energy-saving lighting, the sea: Just five new windows as kilometers from well as the latest indowntown sulation technology.

Copenhagen, While this reduces a 440-meter-long CO2 emissions from ski slope is the building sector being constructed by a mere seven peron the roof of cent, energy conserthe Amager waste vation is still the incineration most effective way plant planned by to curb emissions. architect Bjarke At the same time, Ingels. It is energy generation scheduled is part of the plan: for completion The city aims to in 2018. install more than 60,000 square meters of solar modules on public buildings over the coming years. This is equivalent to roughly eight football fields. The Copenhagen International School building already demonstrates that it pays to invest in solar energy. It sits directly adjacent to a harbor basin, surrounded by old warehouses, where seagulls screech and cranes heave steel crates onto container ships. The school’s exterior shell comprises 12,000 solar panels that provide for 60 percent of its energy needs. At this school with its very own power plant, the modules shimmer a turquoise to deep blue color depending on the incidence of light and viewing angle. Numerous types of green-

ery grow on the roof—yet another component of the CO2 strategy. Having adopted a mandatory green roof policy on all new buildings, Copenhagen already boasts 20,000 square meters of planted roof surface, with an additional 5,000 square meters projected annually. The Copenhagen In all the city’s cli- Climate Plan has mate projects, the earmarked the administrative, sci- equivalent of around entific and business 175 million euros fields pull together for mobility projects. as one from the out- They are set to set. The Technical curtail the city’s University of Den- CO₂ emissions by mark and Copen- eight percent. hagen’s communal energy providers develop innovative technologies for green buildings; when researching future energy-saving methods, the authorities cooperate with the city’s leading building and real estate firms, as well as with national and international telecommunications providers.

An example of this is in Albertslund, a suburb west of Copenhagen. Here, an old industrial zone has been transformed into an open-air, high-tech showcase where two dozen companies are testing nearly 50 new street illumination systems. All lamps are converted to energy-saving LEDs and integrated sensors control the lights, which only shine brightly if a vehicle approaches. At the same time, the sensors act as data collectors: The smart lighting system is set to become a realtime information source for cyclists and drivers—ultimately relieving the situation on the roads. The technology is also set to optimize winter road maintenance and enable on-demand collection of waste. Copenhagen is already turning to LEDs, with a total of 20,000 street lamps converted and an energy saving effect of 57 percent achieved.

The capital city was also ahead of the curve when it came to considering the future and the environment in relation to

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Thanks to the Mode 3 cable, the Audi A3 Sportback e-tron can be fully charged at public charging points in around 2.5 hours.

Copenhagen is converting all of its street lights to energy-saving LEDs. They are equipped with sensors so that the lights only

Fuel consumption and COâ‚‚ emission ďŹ gures for the Audi A3 Sportback e-tron can be found on page 23.

shine brightly if a vehicle approaches.

TO COPENHAGEN

energy production. How this began can best be seen from Amager Beach Park, Copenhagen’s nearby city beach and recreational area, which is roughly 20 minutes by bicycle from the town hall Danish sense of style: square. The artifi- When Copenhagen cial island is popu- residents rejected the lar with runners and initial design for skaters, while swim- the Middelgrunden mers, surfers and wind farm using three kayakers take to the straight lines, water and families the planners placed picnic in the dunes. wind turbines in Amager is situated the water in the shape on the Øresund, the of a giant curve. narrow strait between Denmark and Sweden, and is not far from the imposing Øresundsbroen cable-stayed bridge almost eight kilometers in length that links the two countries.

A stone’s throw from Amager, there is another colossal structure in the water, which is a source of pride not only to the residents of Copenhagen, but to all Danes: Middelgrunden. Comprising 20 offshore wind turbines that spin off the coast, the world’s first commercial offshore wind farm is just three and a half kilometers from the beach. When oil prices skyrocketed during the 1970s and industrialized nations were looking for alternative sources of energy, the Danish government decided against nuclear power and invested instead in renewable energy sources such as wind power. Even then, the Danes already had a strong environmental awareness. “During the mid-nineties, a group of Copenhagen engineers hit on the completely crazy idea of refining wind turbines so that they could be installed in water,” explains Middelgrunden manager Erik Christiansen. “Actually, it wasn’t such a crazy idea after all because a capital city simply doesn’t have the space to devote to generating green energy. But we do have the sea on our doorstep—so we use that instead. Middelgrunden became not only a national symbol of the shift toward green technology, but also the model for part-

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TO COPENHAGEN

nerships between energy providers and citizens,” says Christiansen. The offshore wind farm is organized as a communal cooperative, a traditional Danish economic model that is to this day still diversified through all sectors. Ten wind turbines are owned by Danish energy company Dong, while ten others belong to Middelgrunden’s 8,600 private investors and shareholders. The wind farm supplies a good four percent of the electricity consumed in Copenhagen, and that figure is set to rise.

Production of electricity and heat still generates most of Copenhagen’s CO2 emissions—which in turn means that this field offers the greatest potential savings.

The city has set its sights on achieving 80 percent of the total target by expanding new forms of energy: wind power and solar energy, but mainly by replacing coal power with renewable biomass.

Two power stations will run solely on wood pellets in the future. A new waste incineration plant that uses the “waste Copenhagen’s to energy” principle citizens want even is already supplying more wind heat and power to power; 85 percent thousands of Copensupport initial hagen households. proposals for The plant’s futurisadditional wind tic architecture conturbines jures up images of along their coast. luxury Arabian hotels. And like any practical solution in Copenhagen, it not only looks good, but is also built for fun: The architects constructed a ski slope on the slanting roof of the designer power station.

Copenhagen has spent the equivalent of almost 1.7 billion euros reconfiguring its energy sector, while the overall climate plan investment totals some 27 billion euros. It is an investment that will pay off, argues Copenhagen’s Mayor of Technical and Environmental Affairs. Exports of green technologies alone are increasing year on year by around twelve percent,

according to Kabell. Most importantly, however, this is creating jobs. In the construction, energy and transport sectors, implementation of the climate plan is expected to create over 30,000 new fulltime positions. Kabell’s bottom line: “Things that make sense for environmental reasons also boost the economy.”

The example of Middelgrunden shows that the strategy is paying off: The pioneering wind farm made Denmark the global leader in offshore renewable energy. In terms of both consumption and technology, the newly developed turbines became the archetype for all offshore turbines with which Danish manufacturers carved a reputation for themselves worldwide. Companies in Copenhagen became specialists in operating and maintaining the nearby wind farm.

The same firms are currently planning Middelgrunden’s regeneration. Virtually two decades after the project began, the cooperative is removing the old wind turbines and installing new ones. “Investments in green energy are not just good for a city’s environment and quality of life,” says Middelgrunden manager Christiansen. “They also benefit the economy and competitiveness.”

but it feels like the countryside,” says Nina Truelsen, who moved with her family from the city center to Ørestad three years ago. The district is not directly by the sea, but water is omnipresent here.

Ten kilometers of artificial canals run through Ørestad. “The water is cold and clear all year round,” says Truelsen. The good water quality is ensured by the local administration with the help of specially developed technology that filters soiled rain water from streets and roofs before it flows into the canals. Clean water right outside the door—on the path to a completely green city, Copenhagen also looks after the little details. Or as Mayor Kabell puts it: “You must also have the courage to embrace unconventional solutions that give the city a profile and individual districts a hallmark and identity all of their own.” It will not be easy to achieve the important goal of carbon neutrality, he says. “There are many hurdles and challenges to overcome,” Kabell concedes. “But we will succeed.” Anyway, the CO2 issue is just a first step. The next target for Copenhagen is to abandon coal, oil and gas entirely by 2050. 

And life is good in a city that espouses ecological ideals. Clean air and plenty of green spaces are a key health factor.

When combined with attractively designed public “WHAT’S GOOD spaces, they also enhance a city’s appeal. Ørestad— FOR THE Copenhagen’s newest district situated on Amager ENVIRONMENT Island—shows how it’s IS ALSO GOOD done. The planning process began 25 years ago, with FOR THE the goal of developing an urban district pointing the ECONOMY.” way to the future. Ørestad is dominated by buildings constructed of wood and glass along with residential homes featuring small gardens, extensive parkland and trees. “I’m living in a big city,

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2018 audi-technology-portal.de/en

At the 5,400-square-meter Audi plant in Brussels,

Alternative drive systems The goal of Audi is carbon-neutral mobility, and the response to this challenge is called Audi tron. Alongside electric mobility (Audi e-tron), the engineers in Ingolstadt are focusing on the Audi g-tron concept (natural gas, biomethane and Audi e-gas) and, in the medium term, on fuel cell drive technology which will be called Audi h-tron.

2,525 employees work on the first series vehicle with electric powertrain by Audi as well as on the Audi A1 and Audi S1 models. The facility in Belgium is due to be certified as fully carbon neutral in 2018. As early as in 2013, the plant installed the largest photovoltaic system in the Brussels area.

THE CO₂ ALLIANCE

usdn.org/public/page/13/CNCA

The Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA) is a collaboration of 20 cities to date, which are targeting climate neutrality and want to bring about at least an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Member cities include Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo along with Berlin, London, Washington and Sydney. The goal of the alliance is to develop joint approaches but also to make a political impact.

Completed in 2017, the Copenhagen International School with 1,200 pupils is not only the biggest school in the city. Its more than 12,000 solar modules also make it one of the buildings with the largest expanse of solar panels in Denmark.

CARBON FOOTPRINT The carbon footprint indicates the quantity of CO2 emissions a person or product generates over a specific period, such as the life cycle. In the case of products, the carbon footprint is derived from the amount of carbon dioxide required to manufacture, operate and dispose of it.

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Carbon reduction is essential.

IS CLE A N AIR IN OUR MAJOR C ITIES A PIPE D REAM? Sometimes nature is the best teacher.

PHOTO: DIMITRI YAKYMUK / UNSPLASH

SYDNEY

COPY: Jan Oliver Löfken, ILLUSTRATION: Raymond Biesinger

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PHOTO: ANNIE SPRATT / UNSPLASH

Skyscrapers draped in greenery, roof gardens and planted facades provide shade, store moisture and absorb toxins from the air—architects and city planners are tapping the power of luxuriant greenery to boost the quality of life in urban centers.

SKETCH: ATELIERS JEAN NOUVEL

TO SYDNEY

Ferns are ideal for planting on lower floors where the incidence of light is low. Just as they do in natural forests, these plants thrive in damp, shaded surroundings.

island effects that warm up large cities excessively, especially during the summer months.

PHOTO: MURRAY FREDERICKS

Shrubs and perennials guarantee a humid, temperate microclimate throughout the year. They also counter localized heat

PHOTO: ISABELLA JUSKOVA / UNSPLASH

TO SYDNEY

The One Central Park project in Sydney is a paradigm for green buildings. In total, more than 85,000 plants cover the 23 green cloaks of vegetation that stretch up to 50 meters high on the façade.

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TO SYDNEY

So it is hardly surprising that Patrick Blanc is not the only one to extol the numerous benefits of strategically planted structures. The Bosco Verticale, a vertical forest planned by Italian architect Stefano Boeri, was constructed in Milan almost in parallel with the One Central Park Sydney.

For this project, he designed two residential buildings—116 and 85 meters high respectively—with expansive balconies on all sides. Covering an accumulated area of 20,000 square meters, they

PHOTO: VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES

Throughout the year, green and colorful flowering climbers wrap their way around the 117meter-high facade of the urban oasis that opened in 2014. The project required much more planning and expertise than balcony gardeners can imagine. “Designing a vertical garden is a combination of science and aesthetics,” says French botanist Patrick Blanc, Other urban garden who is considered the modern innovator of the vertical garden. Together with Parisian architect Jean Nouvel, Blanc designed One Central Park, and selected designs by Patrick hundreds of suitable plant species, roughly half of which are endemic and Blanc are (in addition therefore unique to Australia. “The right plant in the right place,” says Blanc, to One Central Park) summarizing his botanic concept. Robust grasses and shrubs are more suited the vertical garden to the upper floors exposed to wind and sun. They also provide shade, thereby at the CaixaForum reducing the strain on power-hungry air conditioning systems. Middle floors (Madrid), the (indoor) afford the plants more protection and serve as a habitat wall in the Kulturfor vines and more sensitive flowering plants. Ferns, rho- The ambitious Via Kaufhaus Dussmann dodendrons and azalea species do best on the lower floors Verde project in in Berlin as where there is less sunlight. Blanc seeks inspiration for Mexico City has set well as Le Nouvel in his work on numerous expeditions into the plant king- itself the goal of Kuala Lumpur. dom. He chooses plants according to his motto: from creating 40,000 nature to the city! To this end, his high-rise habitats often feature species that square meters of can survive outdoors on cliffs or trees without a conventional plant base of green space in the soil. “Soil merely acts as a mechanical foundation anyway,” says Blanc. Plants shape of vertical only need water, minerals, light and carbon dioxide for growth and photo- gardens. The aim is synthesis. Be it in Tokyo or Paris, Riyadh, São Paulo or New York—Blanc for them to break largely does without fertile soil in his more than 300 vertical garden projects. down up to 27,000 An ingenious system of little hoses supplies water and nutrients automatically tons of toxic gases. to each plant, which puts down roots on a substrate made of basalt or mineral fiber. As well as using this low-maintenance hydroponic system, the plants even fertilize themselves from the city air—a welcome side-effect of the process of filtering particulates and nitrogen oxides that pollute the air in cities.

Bringing more greenery into urban areas is also one of the strategies for making cities more livable, as endorsed by the international community in 2016 at the UN Conference “Habitat III” in Quito, Ecuador. In addition to improving air quality, this can also allow more greenhouse gases to be absorbed and broken down—an urgent priority since urban areas cause more than 70 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. “The ability of planted walls to purify the air has been demonstrated,” says Rob MacKenzie of the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham. The chemist has already shown in a much-quoted 2012 study that planted facades can reduce the concentration of particulates and toxic nitrogen dioxide by as much as 90 percent.

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provide space for a total of 700 trees and 5,000 shrubs, securely planted in concrete tubs that are just under one-and-a-half meters deep. Thousands of creepers and flowering shrubs round out the planting of this magnificent green building. In collaboration with botanists from the University of Milan, Boeri sought out twenty different species of deciduous and evergreen trees as well as eighty additional plant species for the plant cover on the facade. The result? The Bosco Verticale changes its appearance with the seasons and never appears bare. “The vertical forest creates its own microclimate and increases the air humidity,” explains Boeri. Each year, his trees and bushes absorb 20 tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and release almost the same amount of oxygen back into the city’s air. Dust particles and nitrogen oxides from exhaust gases are also efficiently absorbed by the plants. As well as improving the air quality in the immediate vicinity of the building, the project benefits urban biodiversity. From larks to sparrows, more than 20 species of bird nest in the biotope. A microclimate forms around the building, reducing the air temperature by up to two degrees, particularly during the summer months. In this way, the Bosco Verticale effectively counters the heat island effect that drives summer temperatures in densely built-up urban areas several degrees higher than the surrounding countryside. “Essentially, this is a tower for trees,” explains Boeri, “which is then also inhabited by people.”

PHOTO: VERDE VERTICAL

verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com

Grasses, ferns, herbaceous plants, orchids or violets—around 450 different plant species thrive in glorious color at One Central Park in Sydney. Behind this name is not a botanical garden, but an imposing, 34-story residential building in the hip Chippendale district in the heart of this Australian city. One Central Park is considered a prototype for vertical gardens. This trend for integrating plants in buildings is attracting a growing following among architects and city planners worldwide. That’s because adding rampant green growth to a design not only improves the indoor climate and energy footprint of a building. It also filters toxins from the polluted city air and can cool urban canyons efficiently in oppressive summer heat.

The prototype building in Milan has earned Stefano Boeri not only architectural awards, but also notable follow-on commissions. His concept of a “living ecosystem for habitation” using hundreds of trees and thousands of plants is implemented in a 54-meter-high residential tower in Villierssur-Marne, a suburb of Paris, and in Utrecht in Holland. Concentrated in a confined urban space, the planting there is designed to be equivalent to roughly one hectare of conventional forest.

Boeri’s most recent project in southern China even goes one step further. At a site 300 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong, the architect is designing the master plan for an entire city based on the prototype of his Bosco Verticale. With construction The concept for the scheduled to commence in 2020, Liuzhou Forest City is to be developed for Dragonfly Building, 30,000 inhabitants on a 175-hectare site. Not just the individual residential which Belgian buildings, but also the schools, administration offices, hotels and hospitals architect Vincent will be planted using 40,000 trees, at least one million plants in total and Callebaut places in more than 100 different species. With this diversity of vegetation, the planner the heart of also hopes to create an urban ecosystem for a wide variety of bird and insect New York City, aims species. The forest city aims to prevent the smog that frequently plagues to revolutionize Beijing and other Chinese mega-cities from occurring in the first place. That’s agriculture. Rising because the plants in this green city oasis can absorb up to 57 tons of particto almost 600 ulates and 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. “The city of the future vertical meters and can only be a green city,” acknowledges Alexandra Quint, urban theorist and with 132 floors, it is expert on sustainable urban development at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology designed to provide in Germany. She even advocates the use of crop varieties for cooling building space for crops. facades, fruit and vegetables on balconies and freely accessible bodies of water. With their new building projects ranging from residential towers all the way to the planned city, Stefano Boeri and Patrick Blanc are already getting quite close to these ideals. Yet fully developed cities, too, must not overlook the need to add greenery for a better quality of life. Take, for instance, the “CityTree” by Dresden startup Green City Solutions. While it absorbs far less carbon dioxide and particulates than vertical gardens or forests, it is much cheaper and offers greater flexibility of use. Strictly speaking, it is not actually a tree but rather a vertical arrangement of planter boxes in which mosses and perennials are integrated in an area measuring twelve square meters. Installed in Stuttgart, Berlin and Hong Kong, the first CityTrees absorb up to half of the particulates and one eighth of the nitrogen oxides from polluted city air. The virtually maintenance-free wall of moss in this design is irrigated with around 10,000 liters of water annually delivered using a pump powered by solar cells. The addition of benches allows CityTrees to integrate seamlessly into the urban landscape. “In the future, there will be planted areas that we have not yet considered,” predicts Christian Ulrichs, who heads up the Division of Urban Plant Ecophysiology at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He recommends adding plants to urban 43

roughly 700 trees, 5,000 shrubs as well as thousands of creepers and flowering shrubs.

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PHOTO: JEREMY BISHOP / UNSPLASH

The Bosco Verticale (vertical forest) in Milan consists of twin towers with expansive balconies on all sides that accommodate

PHOTO: MACIEJ JEZYK

TO SYDNEY

The honey locust is a tolerant and hardy tree. Like all robust plants, it is predominantly used on higher floors to withstand the wind and sun.

which are native to eastern Asia.

PHOTO: STEFANO BOERI ARCHITETTO

A tree of life (botanic name: thuja) from the cypress family (cupressaceae) is a durable evergreen plant genus, three species of

PHOTO: LUNA AZEVEDO / UNSPLASH

TO SYDNEY

With Liuzhou Forest City in China, architect Stefano Boeri is going a signiďŹ cant step further than vertical gardens.

Here, an all-green city aims to accommodate a total of 30,000 inhabitants and eliminate 10,000 tons of CO2 annually.

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TO SYDNEY

Numerous studies have focused on the filtration of pollutants using plants in an urban setting. With regard to the positive effects, a study group led by Thomas A. M. Pugh from Lancaster University in England, the U.S. Forest Service under the aegis of David Nowak as well as the University of the West of England in Bristol and the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology are on the same page.

umsicht.fraunhofer.de/en

FILTER FACTFINDER

NERVOUS NASA GETS GREEN FINGERS When America’s space agency, NASA, realized in the 1980s that modern, sealed buildings that were highly energy-efficient triggered illness-like symptoms in residents or employees, it started to worry about its astronauts. As it turned out, various substances that originated from building materials, paints, coatings or cleaning agents would accumulate in sealed buildings. To prevent formaldehyde, trichlorethylene, benzene, xylene and ammonia from fouling the air in spaceships and on space stations, thereby endangering missions, the researchers at NASA hit on a simple solution: Potted plants were effective filters that could remove these substances from the air. The final report on the topic singled out the peace lily and garden chrysanthemum for special praise.

Both plants were shown to filter all five of these pollutants from the air.

Twelve square meters of greenery: The flexible-use, vertical CityTree plant box is virtually maintenance-free.

Built-in solar modules power the irrigation pump.

residents are injecting

Urban gardening—the cultivation of vegetables and herbs in private or communal spaces—has also long ceased to be considered an eccentric pastime life in big cities. of a few enthusiasts, and is becoming a hip trend with a growing following, particularly in sprawling cities. Even the allotment garden—previously regarded as the epitome of bourgeois living—is shedding its stuffy image. a bit of nature into

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As early as 1988, vertical gardening pioneer Patrick Blanc patented his process for growing plants on reinforced concrete walls. The principle is based on metal frames with PVC plates over which a felt-like synthetic fleece is stretched, allowing the plant roots to gain a hold.

Plant: Definition:

Plants are living organisms that belong to the domain eukaryota. In

PHOTO: GREEN CITY SOLUTIONS

furniture such as bus stops or advertising columns. Were city dwellers also to become actively involved in this planting movement, better air quality and high levels of biodiversity of flora and fauna could be achieved even more quickly than with the help of ingenious new buildings and smart inventions. For instance, the number of roof gardens in cities around the world is increasing with the support of non-profit organizations such as Green Roofs for Urban gardening: Healthy Cities in the U.S. Many city administrations and nature conservation associations offer concepts for sustainable and, above all, insect-friendly With beds for blooms balcony planting. These concepts can be used to generate a level of biodiverand vegetables sity that rural communities surrounded by vast fields of rapeseed or corn can grown on wasteland, only dream about. roofs and walls,

Growing on walls

other words, they are organisms with a cell nucleus and a cell membrane.

Family tree:

Domain: eukaryotes (eucarya).

Kingdom: plants (plantae).

Divisions: vascular plants (tracheophyta), liverworts (marchantiophyta), true mosses (bryophyta), hornworts (anthocerotophyta).

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Innovations call for expertise.

CAN KNOWLEDGE BE OPENED UP TO EVER YONE? Welcome to the society of the future.

TALLINN

Robert Krimmer, professor of e-Governance

“EVERYTHING NEW CREATED HERE IS DESIGNED TO BE DIGITAL. AND IF IT CAN’T BE DIGITALIZED, IT SIMPLY ISN’T DONE.”

In no other city in the world are people as thoroughly digitally-minded as in Tallinn, Estonia.

How does that change a society?

COPY: Dirk Böttcher, Lea-Marie Kenzler, PHOTO: Matthias Ziegler, ILLUSTRATION: Raymond Biesinger

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Since the 1990s, this diminutive country with just 1.3 million inhabitants has systematically pursued a digitalization strategy. Its stature The e-Estonia in cyberspace has long since surpassed showroom is its physical bounddesigned to get aries. Kaevats calls political decision the substance of makers, managers, his work “the cool investors and stuff,” which in his the international view mainly refers media excited about to public admine-Estonia and istration. In this establish connections story, we will meet with leading IT a number of charservice providers. acters like Marten To date, the Kaevats and get to information center know a city so imhas welcomed mersed in the digital 45,000 visitors from world that many 130 countries. things still being debated elsewhere have long since become old hat in Tallinn. People there are working on things others haven’t even thought of yet. Whereas other nations are start-

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ing to put forms online for their citizens, Tallinn is getting rid of the concept of submitting forms altogether. “In the future, we will put big data and artificial intelligence to work to save citizens the time they spend filling out forms,” says Kaevats. “Our systems independently identify who is eligible to receive a child subsidy, for example. Ten minutes after the birth of their child, parents receive an email congratulating them and specifying the amount that will be transferred to them and when.”

Tallinn in November—first snow. Towers with glass facades stretch toward the sky; a picturesque old town crouches at their feet. People hurry along the sidewalks—at first glance, we don’t notice anything special in the capital of cyberspace. Kaevats had told us that digital services are primarily at work where they are not readily visible. In a way, they are only evident in the countless bureaucratic trips people no longer have to make because they don’t need to take documents to government offices or banks. “Digitalization,” states Kaevats, “gives people their freedom back so they can do what they want.” Our attempt to make the virtual world in Tallinn tangible takes us to the e-Estonia showroom.

We wait on a blue couch to be picked up by our tour guide. A door suddenly opens up in a nondescript wall, and Federico Plantera, spokesman and media representative, enters the room with a smile. “Welcome,” he says, “Is this your first visit here?” The showroom is an exhibition focusing on the present; this is where Tallinn brings cyberspace to life.

In one of the rooms, which is as cozy as a living room, five rows of seats face a large screen. Various objects are scattered around the room: a small bicycle, plants growing under artificial light, a model depicting a digital parking system in miniature form. A small, grey box with rollers turns out to be a robot being used to test a parcel delivery service in

PHOTO: ANNIKA HAAS

The first step in learning something about digitalization in Tallinn was going to Ecuador. We skyped Marten Kaevats in his hotel room in Quito. Everyone had told us he was the man to talk to. In the 1990s, Kaevats was a cycling proponent and an activist in the broadest sense.

Trained in architecture and urban planning, he introduces himself as a “circus bear.” Sporting tousled hair and a faded T-shirt, Marten Kaevats looks like a singer in a punk band—and not much like a National Digital Adviser. Kaevats works for the Estonian government as a consultant on digital issues. By invitation of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Exportadores de Servicios, he is today going to speak to an elite group of members of the Latin American service provider community in Quito about digital services. Digitalization is Estonia’s most important export hit and its only blockbuster.

TO TALLINN

Tallinn. During the EU Digital Summit in September 2017, these robots delivered candy to the heads of state attending.

Federico Plantera gives us an extensive lecture on e-services such as a digital ID card, electronic patient file, online voting, digital citizenship, and tax returns at the click of a mouse. What is still science fiction elsewhere is already science fact here. The 24-year-old Italian arrived in Tallinn as an Erasmus student and never looked back. “There is an incredible feeling of community here. Hierarchies are very flat or don’t exist at all.”

Whoever wants to do something just does it.

Project manager Indrek Õnnik works in the e-Estonia showroom, the city’s digital nerve center. The native Estonian gives talks there about

In another room, we meet Indrek Õnnik, the information center’s project manager.

He swipes across the screen of his smartphone, logs in using his mobile phone number, clicks twice more, and a completed form appears: his digital tax return. Review, confirm, done. “It takes exactly two minutes,” says Õnnik with a smile and holds a small plastic card in his hand like a trophy. The ID card is the symbol of Estonia’s digital society.

Estonians use it to pay for groceries and collect loyalty points; it functions as vehicle documentation, driver’s license and digital signature. Just for fun, “DOING MY Õnnik shows us DIGITAL how he can sell his TAX RETURN car by smartphone: “All of the data such as the initial TAKES registration, odomEXACTLY eter reading and inspections are stored TWO online under the digital ID. That inMINUTES.” formation is compiled on the eesti.ee Internet portal, where all the buyer has to do is submit an ID and confirmation, and the car is sold.” Õnnik can also visit the portal to have a prescription for medicine issued.

He just has to call his regular physician,

who checks his digital patient file and issues a prescription—also digital, of course. At home, Õnnik can use the ID card any time to see who has accessed his health data and when. “There are only three things you can’t do online,” says Õnnik with a broad grin: “Get married, get divorced and buy a piece of property.” e-Estonia’s show- Developed by room is located in Estonians Ahti the Ülemiste neigh- Heinla, Priit borhood, the city’s Kasesalu and Jaan digital heart. The Tallinn in 2003, quarter possesses instant messaging cult status as the service Skype place where Skype is one of the was largely pro- country’s digital grammed. To date, success stories. this is said to have generated over 100 spin-offs. It’s lunchtime and people stream out of their offices, returning with sandwiches and salads. During the Digital Summit, two autonomously driven buses ran not far from here. Within just a few months, a system had been developed to transport the Summit’s many guests from the ferry terminal to the city center.

For Professor Robert Krimmer, this example highlights a key trait in Estonia’s population: “There is no fear of digital applications. People here always try to see the opportunities. It means everything new here is always designed and made to be digital. If it can’t be digitalized, it simply isn’t done.” The native Austrian has been living in Tallinn for several years and teaches e-Governance at the University of Technology. He describes Tallinn as “a completely normal city with a digital option.” For Krimmer, the reason why this city’s residents so unanimously and systematically pursue digitalization is the country’s size: “Estonia is a very small country, and people here have always been closely interconnected. Everyone knows everyone.”

paperless administration, online services and life in a digital city.

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Robert Krimmer is Professor of e-Governance at the University of Technology. For him, Tallinn is “a completely normal city with a digital option.”

PHOTO: ANNIKA HAAS

He compares digitalization’s standing with that of Mozart in his homeland: “All Estonians identify with the country’s digitalization efforts.” Another observation that he attributes to digitalization is speed. “The pace of society has become lightning fast. You have little chance of making plans with an Estonian two weeks ahead of time, because so much can happen in the interim.” One of Krimmer’s fields of research is e-voting. Estonians have been voting online since 2005. How that works is demonstrated in a YouTube video by Taavi Roivas, who was Prime Minister in 2015. In an election period, citizens can vote as often as they want—in the end, the only decision that counts is the very last one.

Krimmer says that the procedure is firmly established, but voter participation has not grown demonstrably because of this method. “The expectation that this move would boost political participation has not been met to date.”

Valdek Laur and Risto Hansen’s door doesn’t have a bell, and it is locked. Only a phone call or access card allows visitors into the building. A small device on the door beeps, and “DIGITAL- the door opens. Two friendly men take us IZATION into the bright and tidy meeting room GIVES with a comfortable couch and two armPEOPLE chairs. Both employTHEIR ees of the Estonian government on the FREEDOM EU Presidency team, Laur and Hansen BACK.” come across as young inventors who have found their workshop in Tallinn. They instantly start talking about 3D-printed toys and cultured meat. Among other things, they are responsible for autonomous driving applications. “In August, when our autonomously driven buses were operating in the city for a month, they were a real

magnet. People had fun trying them out.” Laur says it’s important to give people time to get to know new technologies. “Now, the step of integrating selfdriving cars into the city will no longer be a major hurdle.” The city’s residents are ready for it. Laur also believes that autonomous driving will make the Estonia is the first streets safer. “And country in the it brings people to- world to offer gether. Whereas to- digital citizenship, day a bus only goes which enables to rural areas once people across the a day, very soon globe to set up people will be able and manage a to take self-driving company indepencars to a doctor’s dent of location. appointment or to Since 2014, more visit friends. That than 27,000 unifies society.” Es- individuals from tonians readily get 143 countries to grips with chal- have submitted lenges that are applications. considered obstacles elsewhere: “We are currently developing a legal framework for self-driving vehicles. Basically, whoever is in the driver’s seat will be responsible, regardless of whether they are actually at the wheel or letting the car do the driving.” Estonian company Guardtime has also proposed a blockchain-based solution to pinpoint and prevent at an early stage any potential hacking of self-driving and networked cars.

The development of self-driving cars is indicative of Estonians’ mindset when it comes to safety and new technologies.

Professor Jarno Limnéll, Estonian expert in cybersecurity at the University of Helsinki, likes to replace the term “safety” with “trust”: “Without a strong basis of trust, you can’t build a digital society.” In other European countries, he often encounters apprehension, whereas in Tallinn everything that can be digitalized is digitalized. “The population is convinced that the government is doing

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everything necessary to protect the digital infrastructure,” he states. There is also a certain resilience to possible attacks. “That is because, firstly, we inform people about all of the risks. Secondly, we ensure that our citizens have the skills they need to handle digital technologies.” According to Marten Kaevats, Estonia’s mentality is diametrically opposed to that of most other countries: Digital contracts are considered much more secure because, ultimately, signatures on paper can be forged. The city’s psychology also includes feeling comfortable with being a beta tester. “We tolerate errors and disruptions. There are no perfect solutions, only beta versions that we constantly improve,” he says.

Always being ready for something new is part of the national psyche.

And something seen even among the youngest Estonians. Jakob Westholmi Gümnaasium is an old school in the Kassisaba neighborhood. It has heavy floorboards and creaky wooden doors—but a small card reader sparkles at the front entrance. This is where students and teachers register to gain access to the school building. During class, all of the children work on The app reduced tablets along with schoolbooks and student absences by fountain pens. The 30 percent in five current topic of years. Teachers spend study is projected 50 percent less time next to the blackon administrative board. Connected work—that makes for via their tablets, two extra teaching the students type in days per month. questions that appear on the wall so that they can evaluate and comment on them. Two teachers stand at the front of the classroom: While Kettrud Väisanen teaches social studies, Aet Mikli takes charge of the technology. She continually checks the children’s tablets when she is not sitting up front at the computer steering the presentation. “Wherever we can work

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with digital systems, we do so,” says the IT specialist. Smartphones are not forbidden, they are integrated into the lessons. “Students should learn how to use the technology for themselves,” she states. The attendance and lesson plan book is digital and can be checked by parents at any time online. eKool developed the corresponding app. The company just moved into a new office in Telliskivi, Tallinn’s creative quarter.

Telliskivi is a former industrial complex right in the center of town. This fertile ground for ideas produces ateliers and studios, and an alternative café attracts young people. Tanel Keres, Managing Director of eKool, developed the cloud- “A LOG IS based management system for schools KEPT along with his team.

Teachers use the sys- EVERY tem to enter grades, TIME THE homework, absences and the topics of DIGITAL study. Parents can inspect this data, con- ATTENtact teachers and no DANCE AND longer have to call the school to report LESSON their child sick. Keres has two school-age PLAN children himself. He BOOK IS knows precisely what they are learning at ACCESSED.” school at any given moment, when they have a test or the next parents’ evening is scheduled—and would receive a message if his children were to not show up for class. The digital attendance and lesson plan book has been used by virtually every school in Estonia since 2002. No one worries about data protection. “Teachers can’t call up their students’ grades in other subjects. Plus, a log is kept every time a profile is accessed,” explains Keres.

The app saves teachers work time, making the school day more efficient and transparent.

As Adviser for Digital Solutions, Valdek Laur works on mobility concepts such as autonomously driven cars. A technology enthusiast—he is also a fan of cultured meat and toys made on a homegrown 3D printer.

Even the youngest ones are introduced to the digital world.

That’s why virtually every school in Estonia uses the eKool app.

CEO Tanel Keres introduced the system into the schools and also uses the digital system for himself as a father to view grades, homework and timetables.

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DIGITAL EUROPE Digital society is also the declared goal of the European Union. A white paper on the digital single market reads, “Building smarter cities, improving access to e-government, e-health services and digital skills will enable a truly digital European society.”

CYBER SECURITY Audi Electronics Venture GmbH develops concepts for highly networked vehicles with intelligent data transfer. The company also generates solutions to protect the security of data during transfer and storage, with the aim of letting customers reap all the benefits of a safe yet highly networked car.

audi-electronics-venture.de/aev/en

The capital of cyberspace makes the heart beat faster. Tallinn’s invisible side became tangible for us. You quickly get used to the fact that Wi-Fi can be accessed anywhere E-embassy: Estonia is in the city thanks to more than 1,000 setting up the world’s hot spots. The city first data embassy is inspiring and fasin Luxembourg to cinating. It has a preserve digital data. young, vibrant feel.

The primary aim is Marten Kaevats to keep sensitive explained to us that information secure a physical presence and untouchable. is still important even in cyberspace—a shared beer, meeting up with friends in the city. His mission is not just to install digital technologies and services, but to build communities around them. According to Kaevats, the preconception that the virtual world is squeezing real social contacts out of everyday life is justified—but also easy to avoid. “Face-to-face meetings are much easier to organize in virtual space.” It’s especially easy to win over like-minded people to an idea and make it happen independently of time and place. Kaevats has long since envisioned the future growing well beyond city boundaries. He calls this concept “hyper local”: “A world in which physical location is irrelevant, because the entire world can be accessed from anywhere.” People might then obtain e-residency in Estonia to start a company, while using the health care system in Switzerland and banking elsewhere. “We will then have to build trust between strangers, potentially from all over the world,” states Kaevats. Tallinn is living proof that digital technologies can do just that.

ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market

On the evening before leaving the city, we visit Spanish artist Mar Canet in the Arsi Maja cultural complex. The building appears abandoned and somewhat neglected. Electric cables criss-cross the facade, pipes lead nowhere, an old spotlight clatters in the wind. Studio 312 is bursting with boxes and cabinets, and a rhythmic clicking can be heard. Along with Varvara Guljajeva, Canet formed the artistic duo Varvara & Mar. “HYPER He is sitting at his desk answering LOCAL emails. A coworker DESCRIBES in the room is taking pictures of tin A WORLD cans as part of an installation entitled IN WHICH “Data Shop,” symPHYSICAL bolizing a store for buying and selling LOCATION personal data. The cans each contain IS IRREa storage device LEVANT, with the artists’ personal data from BECAUSE Facebook, Google THE ENTIRE Takeout, Visa and Mastercard. The WORLD label reveals the contents. “Our arCAN BE tistic work explores the relationship beACCESSED tween humans and FROM machines,” says Canet. He describes ANYWHERE.” the question of what happens with the data, who collects and uses it, as the “force field of a digital society.” The rhythmic knocking is getting louder.

Two metronomes are swinging out of sync. They are attached to a device that recorded the duo’s heartbeats for six months. The artists’ heart rates determine the metronomes’ rhythm. Whenever the pace slows, Mar says: “Now we’re sleeping.”

TO TALLINN

76 Technology service provider EasyPark has

developed a Smart Cities Index ranking 500 cities according to 19 criteria such as transportation, environmental protection, citizen participation, car sharing, Internet speed and quality of life.

Tallinn placed 76th. Copenhagen took first place ahead of Singapore and Stockholm.

Audi Urban Future Initiative Launched in 2010, the Audi Urban Future Initiative is a platform for international, interdisciplinary dialog about the future of mobility. The initiative acts as an incubator for new ideas aimed at enriching the debate on networked mobility and improving the quality of life in our cities.

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Digitalization spells Vorsprung.

SO HOW TO IMPROV E PEOPLE’ S LIVES? Assessing society’s needs and people’s desires.

L

A Audacious private homes, diverse cultural buildings, but above all innovative and high-quality projects for the socially disadvantaged—in Los Angeles, architect Michael Maltzan is building oases for our future way of life.

COPY: Niklas Maak, PHOTO: Iwan Baan

Like a giant hedgehog on freeway 10: The New Carver Apartments for the formerly homeless as well as elderly and disabled residents represent a new optimism in public housing for the highly vulnerable, dramatically underserved residents of downtown Los Angeles.

PHOTO: RON ESHEL

Michael Maltzan

“MY VISION IS TO CREATE PURPOSEFUL LINKAGES BETWEEN PEOPLE AND BUILDINGS THAT ARE AESTHETICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY PLEASING AS THEY ARE GOOD FOR MODERN URBAN LIFE.”

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leading role as a champion of social change in architecture—his belief that architecture is there for everyone, not just the elite in society who have the time and money to appreciate beautifully designed airports, elegant private villas or extravagant museum buildings.

Maltzan studied in Harvard before traveling from the east coast of America to California in 1988 to work with Frank Gehry. Many young architects at Gehry’s practice dreamed of emulating their mentor’s fame by designing cultural centers, museums or concert halls. Maltzan himself might also have taken this path had fate not intervened to send him his first clients. They entrusted him with what first seemed a rather unglamorous construction job—the design for InnerCity Arts, an extracurricular support facility where each year ten thousand youths from less fortunate or socially disadvantaged families spend time after school creating works in painting, animation, ceramics and theater. What Maltzan delivered in 2008 instantly put him on the map: a little oasis of white buildings in the heart of the city, a kind of village made up of many houses and small spaces, in which nothing hints at the hardship beyond. He did not build a fortress, but a place that welcomes everyone—almost like a Mediterranean hamlet with a small theater, workshops and film studios. Maltzan won numerous prizes for his architecture of inclusion whose aim was to encourage children to come and participate. The specialist press and the public alike were awestruck: Here was someone who had successfully created a warm, inviting atmosphere using the simplest of means.

Here was someone who had built a complex that might have been a luxury hotel or a stunning private residence—but instead was a home for the country’s have-nots, for the vulnerable and the forgotten. The building featured in an exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2009, with architecture historian Nicolai Ouroussoff writing in The New York Times that Maltzan was

bauhaus.de

At the edge of a forest north of Los Angeles offering a wide-open view over the glittering city, a most astonishing villa perches on a cliff like a spaceship that has just landed and opened its roof to make contact with the world.

An old crumbling paved road leads up to what looks like a white octagon.

Outwardly, it seems almost forbidding and completely impenetrable—but inside, everything is glass and openness; wrapped around an Los Angeles is inner courtyard, the house opens onto a regarded as the cradle wide balcony. The of modern architecmanner in which ture. Richard Neutra, Michael Maltzan Rudolph Schindler, reconciles the two Pierre Koenig or John fundamental qualiLauter influenced ties of a house in an entire generation this villa he built in of architects 2009 for artists Lari with their designs.

Pittman and Roy Dowell is unique: the protection it needs to offer on the one hand, and the openness to the world and the feeling of not being hemmed in on the other. You could walk around this house naked without being seen—while enjoying a view of the countless thousands of glittering lights and windows of Los Angeles that stretch to the horizon. However, this project alone would not have made Michael Maltzan the exceptional, multiaward-winning contemporary figure that he is. The houses for which the architect (born on Long Island, east of New York, in 1959) receives more awards and prizes than anyone else often look like elegant villas, his extravagant cultural centers like sculptures—but that is not what they are. Nor are they situated in exclusive residential areas or on glamorous boulevards. They jut out between multi-level car parks, warehouses and highways.

Like shining white castles, they stand beside arterial roads and freeways, in the no man’s land of major cities. They are homes for children from disadvantaged neighborhoods and buildings for the homeless. Michael Maltzan’s status as the most important American architect of our age can also be attributed to his

TO LOS ANGELES

the only American architect with a convincing track record of providing shelter for the poor. With just one building, Maltzan initiated a volte-face in contemporary architecture. His generally gleaming white, minimalist houses recall not only the forms of the Bauhaus movement, but also its socialist Form follows ambitions—the notion that architecfunction: During ture can improve the early years and simplify life for of the 20th century, all people, not just Bauhaus founder for the wealthy elite, Walter Gropius that it can make pursued the ideal it easier and more of defining aesthetics pleasurable. solely based on function. Expensive,

He followed this up with designs for the Skid Row Housapartments were ing Trust, which anathema to him. builds accommodation in downtown Los Angeles for the homeless as well as for people who lost their homes after the financial crisis of 2008 and ended up living on the street with their children. Maltzan built the Carver Apartments, a huge circular building situated directly adjacent to freeway 10 that looks from the outside like a giant hedgehog lying on its side.

At the heart of the building is an inner courtyard. A communal roof terrace of the type normally only found in luxury hotels provides a view of the city—and shows how the homeless can be provided with sanctuary and, quite literally, given a sense of perspective and a means of connecting with other people in the city.

A similar role is performed by Maltzan’s Rainbow Apartments, whose 87 residential units are grouped around a large staircase and a yard on the first floor, where the homeless can gather and socialize away from the gaze of people on the street. Here too, a grand gesture allows those who have suffered misfortune to regain their dignity and selfbelief: The beauty of the building, the aesthetic experience, the renowned “game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light,” as Le Corbusier ornate and

poorly equipped

PHOTO: ANN ROSENER / GETTY IMAGES

mmaltzan.com

TO LOS ANGELES

defined good architecture, is used here to restore a sense of self-worth to people.

Maltzan also designed the Crest Apartments for veterans who had lost their homes; however, his most spectacular building to date is the Star Apartment complex of 102 residences, a communal kitchen, a basketball court, gym, a bookshop and community gardens. The complex comprising prefabricated elements lifted into position on top of an existing single-floor building includes a communal area on the ground floor where formerly homeless people can meet potential employers, spend time and access the Internet. This is another aspect that tends to be forgotten: People who lose their home and their credit card can no longer readily access the Internet and are cut off from job searches and communication.

Maltzan’s philosophy of “architecture for all,” his social engagement and his belief that architecture can improve the lives of all people irrespective of wealth may also be typically American. After all, most Americans have ancestors who once fled to the New World to escape the ravages of famine and persecution— perhaps most poignantly expressed in the poem by Emma Lazarus at the Statue of Liberty in New York: “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free / the wretched There are allegedly refuse of your teemmore than 43,000 ing shore.” It is an homeless people American tradition living on the street to believe in these in the Los Angeles tired, poor, encumarea. In the U.S., bered, rejected peoonly New York has ple; to believe in more people with society’s marginalno fixed abode. ized and forgotten.

According to one However, it is not statistic, there are just the fact that 52,000 homeless Maltzan’s houses people in Germany. restore dignity and opportunities to the poorest in society that makes them so important. In particular the apartment dwellings he builds for the middle classes are designs for the end 81

Mixed use for a new model of living: Maltzan grouped the 102 Star Apartments around three communal areas that are built on top of one another, a public health center at street level, the community meeting point above it, with balcony levels at the very top overlooking the city.

The Inner-City Arts Campus is a beacon project. Each year, over 10,000 at-risk youths find ways to express themselves creatively in this contemporary open-air village.

PHOTO: FRANK RAMSPOTT / GETTY IMAGES

TO LOS ANGELES

rooftop landscapes. The buildings adapt to changing living needs and the separation of working and living has been removed as far as possible—a room can become an office, an apartment for a friend, or even a workshop.

However, the boxes can also accommodate unconventional “post-familial groups”—which will become increasingly important given that the proportion of families in the population of many cities is now below thirty percent.

And the fact that a pensioner or a single father might not want to live in a single apartment but would prefer to live in other structures is something many architects fail to consider. For instance, there are no designs for eight octogenarians who want to live together in a type of shared accommodation arrangement rather than in a retirement home, just as there are no designs for three single parents who want to bring up their children together. How could housing be built so that it can once again cater for families large and small, singletons in unions that resemble extended families, a grandmother and a divorced mother with a child? All these people are by no means special cases, but members of a new demographic majority. For centuries, these types of “extended families” were the norm: A craftsman’s house or a farm was home to a close-knit core family that also included servants and maids, apprentices and various guests. In this respect, the futuristic small white villages that Maltzan is building as little oases in the no-man’s land of Los Angeles or stacking as friendly, welcoming castles are similarly a reminder of an ancient way of life that might also represent our future.

lacity.org

of a consumer world that has existed since the 1950s. It was a world where every family purchased a bungalow, countless electronic devices and at least two cars in order to Los Angeles also travel to work from the suburbs, and represents the where the number extreme urban of consumers grew sprawl of a region. solely due to the The Los Angeles need to acquire all County administraof these things inditive district includes vidually. Since then, 88 independent the lion’s share of towns and extends all wages has been more than 100 spent on rent or kilometers from property loans, cars north to south and and interior fittings.

160 kilometers Is there any other from east to west. way? Could we lead a more relaxed existence by sharing things and spaces intelligently? By living in the heart of the city instead of spending hours every morning commuting to work from the outskirts? Maltzan’s structural responses, his residential complexes, represent a fundamental shift in spatial thinking. It is architects like Ryue Nishizawa, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto or Sou Fujimoto in Japan and above all Maltzan and his colleagues in America who are re-imagining our concept of urban spaces almost by themselves. Rather than dividing a city into streets, squares and apartments, they build houses like miniature cities in which eight children from four residential units can play together in a protective yard setting. They design micro-villages in which pensioners, other children or the single graphic designer can act as a surrogate family to the child whose father works in another city from Monday to Friday, to the widower, to the visitor. These new living environments are built around a new culture of hospitality with restaurantlike collective kitchens and loggia-style semi-open spaces shared by multiple residences, where people can hold communal barbecues during the summer. These innovative clusters let people check in with children or parents during work breaks, or meet friends on park-like

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An outside-the-box perspective sparks extraordinary ideas.

PASSION MAKES THE DIFFERE NCE. Talented people who follow their calling are a source of inspiration.

MS. KARLS SON MS. KRAVI Z MR. MENG

TO ANNE-LI KARLSSON

NOT TOO PERFECT How can art bring visions of the future to life?

And what are the advantages of analog depictions in a digital world? Swedish artist Anne-Li Karlsson finds the answers by using special ink to run power lines through a paper city. There is just one thing the set should not be: too perfect.

COPY: Birte Mußmann, PHOTO: Anton Renborg

Art is like a kind of calling card for its creator. What do you want viewers to take away from your drawings?

ANNE-LI KARLSSON: My work falls into two categories: On the one hand, I do commission illustration work for clients such as magazines and corporations.

The main goal here is to use illustrations to capture and project stories or information.

These drawings fulfill a certain purpose and follow the given specifications. When I work on my own projects with no such specifications, different, mostly black-and-white drawings emerge.

Images with some flaws and rough edges. I love being a bit provocative with these illustrations, challenging the viewer.

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THE AUDI MAGAZINE:

Anne-Li Karlsson, 48, Illustrator The Korean-born Swedish artist was adopted when she was one year old. Stockholm has been her home ever since. In summer 2017, the illustrator created a paper city for Audi with power

What do you find attractive about these imperfections?

I personally find things that aren’t completely flawless more interesting than ones without a

single blemish. For me, rough edges are a part of life. Maybe it’s also my artistic contribution in opposition to minimalism, which is so revered in Sweden. It’s a thread that effectively weaves through everything: design, architecture, fashion. Tidy, clean and expressed in muted colors. A lot of people like this style, but it doesn’t appeal to me. I’m more of a collector. Despite that, I find the development fascinating.

Sweden is a country with a large stature compared to its population size. And although there is so much space between the major conurbations, what dominates is a certain standardized sameness.

But the mute backdrop lets us carve out a niche where we can show individuality—with accessories. A friend of mine wears brightly colored socks under black suits to her job. I do it my way: with the interior design of my apartment. Which is the opposite of minimalist.

lines drawn in electrically conductive ink.

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You have a large bookcase in your living room. And you mainly draw with pencil on paper. You seem to have an affinity for the analog world.

Yes, that’s true. I like the sensation of touching paper and the feeling of producing a result by hand with a pencil. I also like the fact that analog deThe Swedish artist pictions are not always perfect. Like used electric ink to when a line is not draw the lines making completely straight. up the paper city’s In the digital world, electric grid. The the way machines “Electric Story” video work generally preshowcases the cludes this type of electrifying interplay imperfection. Algobetween modernrithms ensure that day mobility and the results are very urban spaces. precise. And, of course, that’s critical in many spheres—but not in all. A picture that is too perfect can be jarring and rob our imagination of the ability to freely form associations with the perceived image.

Perfect things often appear immutable and hence untouchable.

Has digitalization influenced your artistic expression?

In some ways, yes. The majority of my work is analog. Nonetheless, the digital does make its presence felt. For one, communication has become digital, whether I am contacting my agent or people interested in my art. I also have to send most completed projects to the client as a digital file. The times when artists delivered work in large portfolios or envelopes are long gone.

You started drawing relatively late. At what point did you realize that you wanted to devote yourself to art?

My first big job was illustrating an article in the Swedish maga-

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“I FIND MINIMALISM BIZARRE. ROUGH EDGES ARE A PART OF LIFE.”

zine Darling on the topic of pornography. The rest is history, as they say. In the early days, the magazine was a trailblazer with its progressive visual idiom and a sassy linguistic style.

The paper city you created for Audi did not have to be mailed when it was done.

How did you approach this project?

The entire assignment was sort of a group project brought to fruition by a multi-member team.

There were people who took care of building the cityscape, while others created the lighting or tracks for the camera. Ultimately, the whole project was to be captured on film. My job was to design the city—so naturally, I had to think first about the style for designing my urban space.

What criteria did you use to make that decision?

In the beginning, I took various approaches. But it quickly became clear to me that the purely electric Audi should not be driving through a futuristic world.

The move toward alternative drive systems is happening now and will be stepped up in the near future. So, I chose to place the vehicle in a modern-day cityscape. My inspiration was drawn from my hometown of Stockholm and other Scandinavian cities.

Paper, a small battery, a special pen and a miniature Audi: This is the combination you used to light up buildings and streetlamps. How did you connect the electric circuit?

The power supply for the paper city was a small e-tron battery.

I used a pen filled with special ink to link the battery’s contact points with those of the individual stations – just like a utility

PHOTOS: DVA

audi.com

TO ANNE-LI KARLSSON

Anne-Li Karlsson’s first major assignment was from the Swedish magazine Darling, a print publication whose hallmark, particularly in the early days, was a progressive visual idiom and a sassy linguistic style. This project was originally conceived as a digital magazine.

TO ANNE-LI KARLSSON

would lay power cables. When the vehicle drives by, the final contact is made. The electricity then flows, and the city lights up block by block.

What challenges did you face with the building project?

Although the paper city is a miniature, the whole thing was very much like a large-scale project.

Every single aspect had to be meticulously planned and precisely executed—the structure of the city, all the tiny details and the lines’ paths. Naturally, over the two weeks it took to create the paper city, there were things that didn’t work right off the bat. The first tests that the team and I ran were with facade prototypes. Often just applying trial and error.

“A PICTURE THAT IS TOO PERFECT CAN ROB US OF IMAGINATION.”

In her living room, Anne-Li Karlsson surveys four facades of the electrified paper city that were used as dummies for the initial test runs. Her source of inspiration for the urban space’s design were the cities of her home country, Sweden.

Projects like this electric city made from paper provide a glimpse of a future that people are just now beginning to imagine. Are creative, artistic projects like this the way to make this topic more approachable by adding a touch of whimsy?

I think that for people who still don’t know what to make of this issue, it’s a good way to do it.

This playful approach lends complex, highly technological subjects like this a certain lightness of being. Now In 2018, Audi and then, complex issues need to be is focusing broken down and on electric mobility: simplified so that The first purely people can begin electric production to understand and car, the Audi e-tron, form a mental imrolls off the age of them. It’s an production line in important step toBrussels. ward encouraging curiosity and interest in something. They can then ask questions and discuss complex issues such as modern-day mobility.

What does mobility mean to you personally?

Mobility means different things to me. In my daily life, I rely on a car for professional reasons.

I meet this need by being a member of a car-sharing service. During my free time, I enjoy getting around Stockholm on a bicycle.

Plus, I love traveling and learning about other cultures and customs. Increasingly, I am becoming aware of the shift occurring in transportation in recent years.

Electric mobility is a major topic in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries. Of course, support through government financing is an important aspect. We are also a country very much attuned to nature—and alternative drive systems chime with this approach to life.

When you think of mobility in the future, what do you picture?

I have a very specific image in mind. It comes from an old schoolbook. The image shows Amsterdam in the Netherlands and illustrates the problem of more and more densely built-up cities. Various modes of tranportation—airplanes, ships, trains, cars—are all pictured in one image. They all coexist and meet a need in the very different situations in which they are required.

This vision feels realistic and tangible to me.

And when you think about your hometown, what do you wish for the future?

Stockholm in 2040? My city will also use these variable modes of transportation. But a lot will change going forward.

I wish for global awareness of sustainability issues to grow more quickly. 

The entire setting took a week to build.

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UNTIL THE END OF THE NIGHT She is considered one of the most fascinating artists in the international club and techno scene.

Nina Kraviz, producer, singer and DJ, uses the universal language of music to thrill crowds all over the world.

COPY: Jan SchlĂźter, PHOTO: Ryuya Amao

TO NINA KRAVIZ

What fascinates you about performing your music live for so many people?

NINA KRAVIZ: It goes without saying that it’s important for me to get across my musical ideas. But the true art and greatest creative

PHOTO: !K7 RECORDS

THE AUDI MAGAZINE:

challenge is interacting with the audience. The goal is to reach out to the dancing crowd, to capture and hold their attention.

Until the end of the night.

Interaction and communication, the human factor. In your genre in particular, though, the focus is on digitalization and technical innovation.

Technology offers us a wealth of new options for the production process and playing music to a live audience. But digitalization has not reinvented music.

In recent years, new music has first and foremost been louder and noisier, even more amplified and compressed. Plus, the sound systems in the clubs Nina Kraviz has are also becoming more powerful. I released numerous can’t say why that EPs over the is. But I can see that, past ten years and over an extended runs her own two period, music has record labels: been condensed and трип (Trip) and optimized further Galaxiid. She has and further. Minialso published malism and the pocompilations on tency of electronic the internationally music are probably acclaimed mix-CD the most recent inseries DJ Kicks novations. and fabric.

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Nina Kraviz is difficult to pin down since she’s always on the go. It’s almost unrealistic to expect a face-to-face meeting with her: It would have to take place during a long-haul flight or in an airport lounge. During our Skype interview, Nina Kraviz was in a hotel lobby in San José, Costa Rica. She seems well rested even though just 24 As successful as hours ago she was still spinning at the Kraviz is, she remains New York nightopen and approachclub TBA. The Rusable to her fans. sian native is among Maybe the key is that a handful of female she initially led a international DJ sucompletely normal perstars. For several daily existence as years now, Nina a dentist, her chosen Kraviz has been the profession, before most prominent and organizing her sought-after of this own series of parties exclusive club, perin a Moscow club forming around the and slipping little by globe for tens of little into life as a DJ. thousands of fans— at the Coachella Festival in California, one of the world’s largest music festivals, at the genteel Montreux Jazz Festival as well as at the Flow Festival in Helsinki and one of the world’s biggest open-air electronic dance music events, SonneMondSterne on the German Baltic Sea coast. Nina Kraviz doesn’t just spin records, though. She also sings music she produces herself and operates two record labels: трип (Trip) and Galaxiid. Her sound is rough around the edges, energetic, multifaceted, unlike common open-air techno, not particularly easy to digest—and yet she enjoys worldwide success. These days, the mid-thirties artist sometimes performs as many as three sets in a single night.

Some musicians in the electronic scene are experimenting with artificial intelligence, software that independently generates new sounds. What do you think of that?

In fact, artificial intelligence is already being used in studio production. But I can’t imagine using it during a DJ performance.

I don’t have anything against artificial intelligence as long as it doesn’t affect my artistic values of emotion and vulnerability, and doesn’t dampen my passion for music. Unpredictability and spontaneity have to

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be preserved when making music and spinning records.

In many situations, technology can help and support people. That’s now true for creative processes as well.

The only problem with creative processes is when there is too little creativity. And that’s something technological tools definitely can’t help with. They ultimately only make the situation worse, because artists have to expend less and less energy to foster their own creativity.

You play your own DJ sets without any technical support.

I have never used deejaying programs. That is diametrically opposed to my idea Her prolific online of what being a DJ is all about. Regardactivity has won ing the question of her impressive whether DJs should numbers of followers use vinyl or CDs for on Facebook and their performances, Instagram.

I have a clear Nina Kraviz’s recorded answer—both. The DJ sets easily net choice of format difive million rectly influences the views on YouTube. way I spin. It has a great deal to do with how fast I can make decisions. Besides that, it impacts what I play next and, of course, is linked to the technical process of mixing the music. And to how I perceive and internalize the music.

What is the future of music? How will the way we listen to and consume music change?

What music will sound like always depends on who is composing it, how, for whom, and where it is subsequently performed. I believe that people listen to music differently today than thirty years ago. David Byrne once said, “Music is made

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for the place it is heard.” I can only agree. Twenty years ago, music was made for small clubs that often had poor sound in the sense that they did not have a good sound system. Today, techno music is produced for festivals with a 20,000-strong audience who can enjoy a first-rate PA In 2016, Nina Kraviz sound. The same supported the analogy applies to cultural promotion listening and perefforts Audi pursues ceiving music. Studby working on a ies indicate that, techno version thanks to technoof Richard Wagner’s logical advances, Parsifal entitled people today have Black Mountain. a slightly altered brain structure compared with ten or twenty years ago. I take it that these “new” brains perceive music differently and that music will therefore adapt to these new conditions.

Rumor has it that in your youth you discovered your favorite music on the radio, a true old-school medium.

Yes, that’s true. I discovered techno and electronic music through a DJ show on the radio.

To this day, I love radio. And, in 2016, I was the host of my own show on BBC Radio 1.

Radio is a great alternative medium for playing music, because you don’t see your audience.

That changes the way artists project their creative energy.

I can tell a story, and there is a meditative quality to hearing my own voice in the headphones and imagining who I am talking to at that moment. When radio stations invite me to perform live on air, I love to do it, and I have already played DJ sets live.

The life of a star DJ inevitably involves jetting back and forth between the big

See the short film Black Mountain at: audi-city.com/berlin/blackmountain

TO NINA KRAVIZ

residentadvisor.net/dj/ninakraviz

TO NINA KRAVIZ

cities and party spots all over the world.

Isn’t that tiring in the long run?

Not for me. I enjoy traveling. It was always the most important thing in my life, Upcoming even before my music career. Traveling performances by means discovering Nina Kraviz: something new. ObApril 6, 2018: serving every new Rewire, various detail and change. venues, The Hague; Travel is still wonJune 9, 2018: drous for me. Time Junction 2 Festival, and again, I am asBoston Manor Park, tounded that I can London; July 13, fly halfway across 2018: Melt! the globe in just a Festival, Ferropolis, few hours and land Leipzig. in a completely different culture. With a new time zone, a foreign language—and a completely different mentality and outlook on life. And this sensational thought—being part of the world and feeling that everything is interconnected. I often see it as a privilege to travel frequently, since not everyone can do that. Sometimes I get very emotional when I think about how beautiful our world is. Especially when I travel during the day, I always look at the landscape I’m passing through.

I love it when I recognize where I am at a given moment. I still remember once when I was traveling back from Japan over Siberia and saw a broad river glimmering in the sun. When I looked on the map, it was the Lena. A waterway more than four thousand kilometers long that weaves all the way into the Arctic. When I saw the river from the airplane, I was as excited as a little kid. 

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“I ENJOY TRAVELING. THIS SENSATIONAL THOUGHT— BEING PART OF THE WORLD AND FEELING THAT EVERYTHING IS INTERCONNECTED.”

TO CHAN HON MENG

STREET FOOD WITH A STAR A gourmet meal that costs less than a cup of coffee? Try the chicken in soy sauce Chan Hon Meng cooks up at his food stall in Singapore. The chef has just received a Michelin star for the second year running.

COPY: Ulf Lippitz, PHOTO: Vanessa Caitlin

The weird and wonderful scents of Singapore overwhelm the unsuspecting visitor. In Little India, cumin and cardamom will captivate you. In Gardens by the Bay, you’ll be enchanted by jasmine and lemon trees. And in Chinatown, past the banks’ proud glass towers, you’re greeted by the aroma of raw fish and cooking stalls. Crowds surge in the narrow streets, propelled along by their appetites. Old men playing mahjong fill the Chinatown Complex’s main plaza, with European backpackers looking on in awe.

Chinatown Complex is a dominant concrete block that holds an inconspicuous secret: stall number 02-126. In a space measuring four square meters on the second floor, two cooks conjure up their specialty: melt-in-your-mouth chicken in a velvety sauce. It’s the best street food in this Southeast Asian city-state and the cheapest Michelin-starred meal on the planet.

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In summer 2016, the Michelin Guide awarded the Liao Fan Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodle street food stall a star. Just 2.50 Singapore dollars, which is about 1.60 euros, buys a gourmet meal here. Is that possible? Is it seemly, considering that elsewhere people shell out hundreds of euros for eightcourse menus at classy restaurants bearing the same guide’s stars?

“Michelin and my food—how do they go together?” is a question Chan Hon Meng, who opened the stall in 2009 and has been running it ever since, still asks himself. The guide was all about first-class restaurant food, that much the Malaysiaborn chef knew, so it had nothing to do with his world. Little wonder that he was flabbergasted to be included among its ranks. Chan, 53, sports a simple shirt, black pants and a tidy brush cut. His ears stand out a bit, as do the veins marking his lower arms like rivers on a map; his hands are covered with calluses.

TO CHAN HON MENG

The star has changed remarkably little about the rhythm of his life. He still rises at five each morning, walks 20 minutes from his apartment to the stall in Chinatown, takes delivery of fresh chicken from Malaysia or Indonesia, cleans and cuts it, concocts the sauce according to his secret recipe and finally rattles his shutters open at ten.

Such discipline applied to street food and the passion for cooking may have convinced the testers to bend a rule. In 2016, for the first time ever, the renowned Michelin Guide awarded stars to not one but two street food stalls. “The ability to create sublime products from simple things is a great form of art,” said Michael Ellis, international director of the Michelin Guides, elaborating on his decision. Both the star-awarded stalls are located in Singapore, cook Chinese food that costs a tenth of other Michelinstarred establishments’ dishes, and could not care less about fancy decor. No cedar or artworks distract from the culinary experience.

Yet while Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle serves up varistop,” is how ous cuts of pork in a Michelin defines bowl for about ten one-star restaurants.

Singapore dollars— It goes on: liver pounded to “Exceptional quality delectable tenderproducts, unmistakness, wontons and able finesse, meatballs with nooperfect flavor, cuisine dles and the house prepared to a chili sauce—Chan consistently high asks just a quarter standard.” of the price for his authentic chicken dish. It’s the bargain of a lifetime: haute cuisine quality with a hot-dog-stand price tag.

“High quality

cooking, worth a

So it doesn’t take a lot of money for locals and tourists alike to get their hands on this legend-steeped chicken. What they do need in abundance, though, is time.

These days, the food court at Chinatown Complex looks more like the entrance to some popular New York or London night 110

club, complete with ropes keeping the hopefuls in an orderly line. This morning, 60 hungry street food fans snake slowly past the other stalls, hoping their turn will come in two hours—“slow food” takes on a whole new meaning.

It’s a good opportunity to reflect on what makes Singapore so special in the culinary cosmos. Three cultures—Malaysian, Indian and Chinese—come together here. Their cuisine is best enjoyed at the stalls in hawker centers.

Built in the 1950s and ’60s, these complexes aimed to get the street food off the streets and into a more hygienic setting in an effort to improve quality control. At first, only the city-state’s poorer residents came to the food courts. Now that Singapore’s high per-capita income has transformed it into the Switzerland of Southeast Asia, the hawker centers have become a hip magnet for well-heeled locals. At many of the stalls, they are served by elderly men and women who keep this multicultural locale’s best culinary traditions alive.

With his one-dish philosophy, Chan Hon Meng is a low-profile star in an industry of supercharged egos. British chef Gordon Ramsay famously bellows at his cooks on camera. Hawker Chan, as he is known here, bows to each guest who requests a selfie. Chan has expanded from one to a little network of stalls, dubbing them simply Hawker Chan because it’s easier to remember than the name of the stand in the complex. Within a single year, he opened two locations in Singapore and one each in Taiwan and Thailand, with Indonesia and the Philippines in the pipeline.

The master rubs his face with his palms to stay alert. Oblivious to the leaden sky outside and protected from the elements,

Liao Fan Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodle occupies just four square meters on the second floor of Singapore’s Chinatown Complex. Chan included the city in his stall’s name in reference to the Hong Kong chef who taught him his craft.

PHOTO: CARRIE MEIER-HO / HARRYS DING

Even after receiving his Michelin star, Chan, a Malaysian native, still stands at the stove in his stall and prepares the 180 chickens that go into his secret sauce blend every day.

TO CHAN HON MENG

Chef Chan tells the story of a trip to New York, his first flight to the other side of the world. Working alongside an American star chef in Manhattan, he whipped up a menu for paying guests. Then he got back on a plane, flew twelve and a half hours to Dubai and another seven to Singapore. A 13-hour time difference, while back in Chinatown chickens were being chopped up nonstop. He shakes his head, still not quite able to grasp the turn his fate has taken. But success does breed ambition. His dream: “Become number two after Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

Hawker Chan speaks only Mandarin, not a rarity in a city where over two-thirds of the population Many country are Chinese natives.

A young woman is editions, one on hand to translate signature red cover: for him. She works The Michelin Guide for Hersing, a comrestaurant compenpany that specialdium awards izes in brand manits coveted stars agement—that is, each year to chefs all the science that will over the world. turn Chan into a Singapore currently brand name. Hersboasts 30 restaurants ing claims to have with one star, seven invested a million with two and one dollars already. Inthat garnered three. terviews, cooking tours, fast food restaurants—Hawker Chan has literally hitched his wagon to a star.

And why shouldn’t he? After a life at the stove, nose to the grindstone like the rest of the country, diligent and disciplined day after day, he worked his way up from 114

assistant cook to head cook, and then finally opened his own stall nine years ago. While all around him a port city abandoned by Britain morphed into a modern financial hub, Chan, in his own humble style, fulfilled the dream of calling his own shots.

At long last, the food arrives. The meat is tender, slightly juicy. Its consistency is reminiscent of a firm paté, not even remotely related to the dry, rubbery broilers some other fast-food purveyors churn out. The chicken practically falls off the fork as you cut it, the dark sauce tinting the crisp skin a chocolatey brown. It goes without saying that the master won’t reveal his recipe, his most valuable asset.

He presides over its preparation with an eagle eye. All he’ll say is that coriander, ginger and angelica root are added to the soy mix. That’s what makes it slightly sweet, melting on the tongue. Heaven!

Even though he still works from morning till night and lives in the same apartment—Master Chan tries to maintain a low-key lifestyle—many, many eyes are now upon him. And not just peeking through the windows of his little stall, but from every corner of the culinary universe. They watch as he continues to pursue his happiness. At Guide Michelin, they don’t need to see any more to be convinced of his unwavering skill: This year, Chan holds on to his star. 

PHOTO: ASIA CITY MEDIA

Chan sits in an air-conditioned restaurant. It’s his own venue, the first in the Hawker Chan chain, located on a side street next to the Chinatown Complex.

Although it can seat about 80 diners at Formica tables, staff in freshly laundered uniforms still need to help the guests keep calm. There’s a wait here as well, but at off-peak times it may be only 30 minutes.

And the food costs a dollar more than at the stall.

Creativity calls for new thinking.

ARE DRI VERS OB S OL E TE ?

Racing algorithms.

BANBURY

The ďŹ rst racing series for autonomous vehicles, Roborace is about so much more than just showcasing the latest digital technology. It opens the door to the future of the automobile.

COPY: Angus Frazer, PHOTO: Robert Grischek, ILLUSTRATION: Raymond Biesinger

TO BANBURY

Ten cars roll onto the racetrack and take up their positions at the start. No rumbling engines disturb the silence. The signal turns green. Five cars race clockwise around the track while the other five make their laps in the opposite direction.

The electrically powered motors propel the cars to speeds of up to 320 kilometers per hour before they meet at an extremely tight corner halfway round the track. At this point, the two sets of five cars are racing head on toward each other. But the dreaded prospect of a massive pile-up doesn’t materialize. Elegantly dodging each other, the racers avoid collision at breathtaking speeds by mere millimeters.

What sounds like utter madness may be a very real possibility for the not-toodistant future. That’s because the race cars are self-driving—no human sits behind the wheel. At least that’s the vision for Roborace in Banbury, a town 120 kilometers northwest of London.

Russian businessman Denis Sverdlov established the company with finance from his Kinetik investment fund, which is valued at USD 500 million.

Intended as a supporting series to the FIA Formula E, Roborace aims to be the first international championship for autonomously driven cars. Roborace cars—that is, both the DevBot development vehicle, which can be operated by either a human driver or an artificial intelligence system, and the driverless Robocar without a cockpit or steering wheel—have already performed on racetracks in public. So far, the company has three DevBot cars and two Robocars in addition to two nonroadworthy Robocars that were built purely for demonstration purposes. A full fledged racing series would only be conceivable in three to five years’ time at the earliest. But Roborace doesn’t just plan to serve up high-speed driverless action.

As Chief Strategy Officer and UK native Bryn Balcombe explains, “Roborace rests on three developmental pillars—electric mobility, networking technologies and autonomous driving. The challenge the series faces is finding the middle ground 122

between sporting entertainment and developing autonomous driving technology that’s truly relevant to everyday life.”

Customarily, motorsport at its highest level paves the way for automotive technology in “conventional” cars. Yet Balcombe, who has pursued a career almost exclusively in Formula 1, strongly believes that this no longer applies today.

While electronic driving aids are prohibited in motorsport, it’s precisely this type of technology that needs to be advanced for autonomous driving. “Roborace is a platform on which the technology necessary for autonomous driving—technology that will make our roads far safer in the future—can be Roborace has its tested,” he explains.

Perhaps, as a result, own YouTube channel car manufacturers where viewers can will eventually enter watch a number of their own vehicles documentaries about in the series. At first, the advances made however, Roborace by the race series will provide the as well as background hardware while the videos on the vehicles’ various teams supdevelopment, among ply their own softother highlights. ware—much as is the case in Formula E. Sounds like a championship for programmers. Balcombe disagrees. “The best way to think of Roborace is as a drivers’ championship—even though in this instance, of course, there are no drivers. Artificial intelligence (AI) makes all the difference, since it’s the caliber of the software that determines which team triumphs—especially when all Robocars are otherwise identical.” When it comes to the different software sets for autonomous driving, Balcombe is confident that they will produce very diverse driving styles. “The software system’s performance varies, above all because machine learning plays a role here. Although we are all bound by the same rules, people, too, have different driving styles. It’s the same with artificially intelligent cars. I believe that carmakers are going to develop their brand identities far beyond vehicle shape

TO BANBURY

Daniel Simon, 42 The designer has previously worked for Audi and created sci-fi cars for Hollywood blockbusters.

He says of the Robocar: “The core of the car is a torpedo-shaped fuselage which houses everything from the impact structures to the battery and artificial intelligence. The flaring over the wheels is not just for aggressive looks, it also generates downforce. In designing a car, I always imagine I am working on a skeleton. You pull the skin over it, and make sure that some of the bones and joints poke through in a very athletic fashion.”

Lucas di Grassi, 33 As of last year, the Audi pilot and reigning Formula E champion is also CEO of Roborace. He is very excited about the future of the autonomous racing series: “There’s a physical limit to how fast the human eye can relay information to the brain and

drivers are capable of. But today’s computers are already capable of responding 200 times faster than a human. The combination of human and machine could lead to an unexpected, bright future for both, and that’s including driving at speeds never before thought possible.”

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PHOTO: AUDI AG

or feet. That caps what even the world’s best racing

PHOTOS: PHILIPP WENTE, AXEL HOEDT/BY BRIGITTA HORVAT

the brain in turn passes on instructions to the hands

and design.” You’d think that a world of autonomous driving would send shivers down the spines of people like Lucas di Grassi who earn their living as a racing driver. But the Brazilian, Formula E Audi driver and reigning world champion, has a different take: “While Roborace will never replace motorsport, we still need a racing series to push the technological envelope as regards autonomous driving, networking and electric drives.” Fully convinced of the autonomous racing series’ potential, Lucas di Grassi has accepted the post as Roborace CEO. Doesn’t that amount to something of a betrayal of motorsport’s die-hard fans?

“Not at all. People today still get excited about horse racing even though it’s been a long time since we used horses to get from A to B. I also doubt that anyone has stopped playing chess just because the supercomputer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in New York in 1997. So why should we turn our backs on motorsport just because racing cars piloted by artificial intelligence can go faster than with a human driver?” But are we really likely to reach the point where autonomous cars can outperform racing drivers on the circuit? “It’s already happened. At present, the Robocar can easily outpace your average driver. Now, the challenge is whether it can beat a professional racing driver. And that’s just a matter of time.”

Di Grassi, too, emphasizes that Roborace will help to make the world a safer place by reducing the number of road accidents. “There are no limits to what we can achieve with Roborace. And best of all, there’s no danger to human life in the process. In this way, the technology can keep on evolving and improving until it’s fully matured. If it works, great. If it doesn’t and there’s a crash, well that’s a financial loss but no one was hurt.”

Di Grassi knows what he’s talking about: In the first lap of qualifying for the 2017 GT World Cup in Macau, his Audi R8 was involved in a huge pile-up of twelve cars. The accident happened when the car in the lead got stuck on the edge of the track in a blind corner and the drivers

coming up behind couldn’t see the crash, let alone react to avoid it. With the help of networking technology, which connects cars to each other and their environment, such accidents could potentially be prevented in the future.

Yet countless hours of work still lie ahead before humanity can reap the many benefits of autonomous machines. No one knows this better than Roborace vehicle science engineer Teena Gade from the UK. At a very young age, both Teena and her sister Leena, who is a racing engineer and helped Audi Sport to victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, developed a passion for motorsport and science. Following stints on the Subaru World Rally team and Williams F1 team, Teena is now responsible for the Roborace simulation program. “There are already cars capable of staying within lane markings on highways without human intervention. But we need to develop tomorrow’s AI cars so that they can also deal with borderline cases,” says Teena Gade. “How does an AI car respond to an unexpected obstacle on the racetrack? Using a simulator, we need to put the Robocar through scenarios in order to train it to respond appropriately to situations.” Gade knows these are the same chalRobots have long lenges that autonomous vehicles will been used in also face in day-tocar manufacturing. day traffic: “When In its own laboratory, AI cars are legally Audi is currently approved for use on developing units for public roads, most its smart factory other vehicles will designed to support still be driven by employees in the people. Other road cooperation between users will soon noman and machine. tice the AI car, but they are not going to take things slower in the morning rush hour just to considerately let an autonomous vehicle into a rotary. We’ll have to put the AI car through its paces to ensure that it moves briskly with the flow of traffic and perhaps even occasionally, metaphorically speaking, can elbow its way in.”

bit.ly/2Fu3gOh

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Level 3: Conditional Automation

The driver remains responsible for the car at all times,

The new Audi A8 is designed for Level 3 conditional

applications from Audi. Level 0 stands for no automation which

but, alongside acceleration and deceleration, the car can

automated driving. On multi-lane roads with physical

means conventional human-controlled driving without a supportive

take over the steering in certain situations. An example

central barriers and where national laws permit, the

assistance system. Level 1 is defined as driver assistance. While the

of this is the four rings’ traffic jam assist, which can also

Audi AI traffic jam pilot can take control of steering,

driver is supported here by the system either during acceleration/

be found in the latest Audi A4: In slow moving traffic

braking and acceleration at speeds of up to 60 km/h in

braking or steering, the person behind the wheel retains full respon-

on well-maintained roads, the assistant can take its cue

slow moving traffic. Although drivers no longer have to

sibility for the vehicle and must be ready to intervene at any time.

from lane markings, roadside structures and other road

constantly monitor the system, they must remain vigi-

users to keep the vehicle in the correct lane up to 65 km/h.

lant and take control when system limits are exceeded.

Level 4: High Automation

Level 5: Full Automation

Vehicles with high automation require no intervention

Driverless Level 5 cars will require neither a driver nor

“Automated and autonomous driving will fundamentally reshape

from the driver, who can hand over full control to the

controls such as a steering wheel or pedals. The car will

society, our mobility behavior, our everyday lives. When it comes to

system. These functions are, however, confined to

pick up passengers from their front door and take them

both vehicle ownership and mobility services, autonomous offerings

certain areas, such as parking garages and highways.

to their destination autonomously. And if you’re travel-

to our customers will become significantly more important over

Drivers only resume control when their cars have left

ing in a vehicle modeled on the four rings’ 2017 Aicon

the coming decades. Roborace is a good platform to prepare society

concept car, you’ll enjoy a whole new world of free-

for that and to push the technology forward.” Alejandro Vukotich,

dom—surfing the Net, watching a movie, reading a book

Vice-President Development Automated Driving, AUDI AG.

the areas reserved for fully automated driving. In 2017, Audi showcased its vision for the future of Level 4 automation—the Elaine concept car.

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PHOTOS: AUDI AG

Level 2: Partial Automation

autonomous driving, as defined by SAE International, with sample

PHOTOS: AUDI AG

The fab four: Four of the six levels of automation on the road to

or simply relaxing.

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While work on the Robocar hasn’t yet concluded, the hardware is almost done.

Despite that, developing the software, which allows the car to detect and ana130

lyze its environment at lightning speed, remains a major challenge for the Roborace team. “We’re constantly working on evolving the software and testing the vehicle,” reports Bryn Balcombe. “But because the Robocar has to move, we depend on cameras, GPS, lidar and ultrasonic sensors—of which new models are forever coming onto the market.” Nevertheless, when the team watches the car flying over the Upper Heyford airfield test track at full throttle, many of their struggles are forgotten. “Seeing the Robocar driving autonomously at 200 kilometers per hour—it’s just incredible,” admits Balcombe. What would be even more incredible is several Robocars maxing the speedo and competing against each other on the circuit. “Just imagine we had an AI drivers’ championship and a constructors’ championship with maybe two Robocars from the same team vying for the driver’s title. Remember how exciting that made Formula 1 over the years?”

What will happen on the final lap of the drivers’ championship when two Robocars from the same team with an identical number of points on the board enter a corner from opposite directions at 250 kilometers per hour? “At some point, we might want to send commands to the cars from the pits or even orders to the whole team,” enthuses Balcombe. But just as with racing drivers, the Robocar’s artificial intelligence may not necessarily heed those instructions. 

PHOTO: KYODO NEWS/GETTY IMAGES

If there was ever a car capable of giving some elbow, it’s the fantastic Robocar. It’s the brainchild of California-based automotive designer Daniel Simon who has already worked for a host of carmakers, including Audi and Bugatti, and created futuristic vehicles for Hollywood movies such as Tron: Legacy, Oblivion and Star Wars VIII. The sci-fi influences are unmistakable in the Robocar. With its low-slung posture, it oozes pure power and an eerie, almost extraterrestrial intelligence. “For over a century, people have sat behind the wheel of a car,” says Simon. “That’s why it’s so important for Robocar to stir feelings and elicit an emotional response.” But it’s not just the car’s design that is compelling—so is its technology. One of the highlights is its innovative carbon-fiber monocoque with racecar suspension, which was designed in-house. The battery generates a maximum output For 20 years now, of up to 655 kilowatts (almost 900 robots have been horsepower). Concompeting in a sidering its weight football tournament. of roughly 1,000 Last year, more kilograms, that gives than 3,500 the vehicle a top researchers and speed of about 300 students from kilometers per hour.

40 countries came An electric motor is together in the fitted to each of the Japanese town four wheels so that of Nagoya to pit the torque vectoring their autonomous effect ensures better robots against grip and improved each other stability. The system in the RoboCup. is comparable with the e-quattro technology that Audi has developed in recent years. As a result, the Robocar can produce a variable torque output of up to 300 newton-meters at each wheel, which helps the car achieve lap times that are currently two seconds faster than those of a Formula E racing car.

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Processing the huge volume of data from the Robocar’s array of radar, lidar, cameras and GPS sensors calls for serious computing power. Processor manufacturer NVIDIA delivers the solution.

fiaformulae.com

Formula E This season, Audi is the first German carmaker to field a team in Formula E (alongside which Roborace is staged as part of the ancillary program). The brand with the four rings takes over the ABT Sportsline squad’s starting slot. The Allgäubased team has participated successfully in Formula E since the inception of the electric racing series, and will in the future take care of the Audi race cars as fielding squad. Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler headed to Hong Kong in early December for Formula E’s fourth season. The 2016/2017 title was won by Audi driver Lucas di Grassi. Racing calendar: March 17 Punta del Este, Uruguay; April 14 Rome, Italy; April 28 Paris, France; May 19 Berlin, Germany; June 10 Zurich, Switzerland; and July 14/15 New York, NY, USA.

20 25 The four rings’ involvement in Formula E also heralds the Audi product offensive in electric mobility due to be ushered in with the Audi e-tron in 2018. As announced at the 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show, Audi plans to have over 20 electric models in its lineup by 2025, including plug-in hybrids and purely battery-powered cars.

COOPERATION The use of processors, for instance, in the central driver assistance controller (zFAS) of the new Audi A8 (see left) is just one aspect of the Audi-NVIDIA partnership.

Over the last ten years, the duo has also successfully collaborated on cockpit displays and infotainment.

nvidia.com/en-us/self-driving-cars/partners/audi

NVIDIA DRIVE PX2 AI

FUTURE MODELS

Capable of performing up to 24 trillion operations per

units. The company, which is today at the forefront of

second, the DRIVE PX2 AI supercomputer made by

AI development, has been in partnership with Audi for

NVIDIA is perfect for the job. The energy-efficient

over a decade, with the Audi A4 already using a NVIDIA

NVIDIA graphic processor, which has the same pro-

chip as early as 2007.

Robocar deep learning capabilities. The upshot is that

A Tegra K1 chip from NVIDIA is a core component of the

it learns more with each race.

driver assistance controller (zFAS) in the new Audi A8.

Another example of cooperation between NVIDIA and

Set up in California in 1993, NVIDIA forged its repu-

the four rings is the piloted-driving Audi Q7 deep

tation by instrumentally spurring the growth of the

learning concept, which impressed industry experts

PC gaming industry with high-end graphic processing

when showcased last year at CES in Las Vegas.

PHOTO: NVIDIA

cessing power as 150 high-end notebooks, lends the

Audi is no stranger to visionary automotive design like that of Daniel Simon’s Roboracers. The Audi Aicon and other concept vehicles on display at exhibitions and car shows already offer a window on the future of car design. But the most revolutionary looks produced by the brand with the four rings usually stem from its work in Hollywood. In 2004, for example, the (autonomous) Audi RSQ in I, Robot created a sensation in its own right, and the Audi Fleet Shuttle quattro, as seen in Ender’s Game, was a big hit not only with Audi fans in 2013.

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Piloted driving is about to change our everyday lives.

WILL TECHNO LOGIES BETTER HUMAN IMAGIN ATION? Futuristic visions are a matter of mindset.

Nimbus Karijini, 2017, Photo: Bewley Shaylo Made possible by: FORM – Building a state of creativity, Australia

SINGULARITY If you want to see how Silicon Valley elites envision the world, enroll in Singularity University.

Their business plan: permanent optimism.

Nimbus Probe, 2010, Photo: Berndnaut Smilde

COPY: Stean Heuer, INSTALLATIONS: Courtesy of Berndnaut Smilde and Ronchini Gallery

PHOTO: BILL WADMAN

Ray Kurzweil

“BY 2045 WE WILL MULTIPLY THE COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE OF OUR CIVILIZATION, OF PEOPLE AND MACHINES, BY A FACTOR OF ONE BILLION. THAT WILL BE THE DAWN OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY—A FUTURE THAT DEFIES OUR IMAGINATION.”

If you’re in a hurry to learn how Kurzweil and other Singularitarians think and to 142

A future where technology prevents people from ever experiencing deprivation is also the favorite focus of Peter Diamandis, who founded the singularity movement along with Kurzweil. The Californiabased serial entrepreneur’s undertakings include launching the worldwide competition known as X-Prize. He also published a book entitled Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, whose

optimistic tenor is a kind of manifesto for the organization. This positive outlook is based on exponential technologies, i.e. innovations that don’t grow in a linear fashion or incrementally but in giant leaps. “The world is changing faster than any of us are aware,” Diamandis says.

“If I think linearly and take thirty steps, one after the other, then I’ve gone thirty steps or thirty meters. But if I take thirty exponential steps, doubling the distance I’ve gone with each step, after thirty steps I’ve gone a million kilometers, or 26 times around the Earth.” This difference calls for individuals to radically rethink their ideas of the pace and scope of change. For companies, it can mean the oft-cited disruption or even the demise of their business models—from the triumph of digital photography to new modes of transportation that can be ordered with an app. And for the planet, Diamandis says, exponential technologies—from manufacturing through robotics all the way to gene therapy—are a huge opportunity to eradicate poverty for billions more people and give them access to clean drinking water and reliable health care. As soon as the Internet has completely pervaded the planet, for example, even the most elite university in the US would be no more than a couple of smartphone-taps away from any African village.

What happens when you think about exponential change? Singularity University’s CEO Rob Nail knows the answer first hand. A graduate of Stanford, Nail sold his biotech startup to a big corporation in 2007 and was looking for a fresh challenge when he attended the inaugural summer program at the newly-founded Singularity University. “I immediately realized that even in my own field I had no idea what was coming up and how fast. That was an unbelievable eyeopener,” Nail recalls. His initial amazement became a full-time job as head of SU in 2011. “We want to counter the permanent doom and gloom in the media

with something positive. If we are to live in a world without want, a great many things need to be set in motion in the next thirty years, by governments and politicians, major companies and startups, academics and foundations and investors. We aim to bring all these groups together so they think far beyond their day-to-day operations, develop unconventional ideas and implement them in unusual partnerFor two years, the ships,” Nail says.

Over the past nine Volkswagen Group years, this call to has been a member actively shape the of the Innovation future has evolved Partnership Program into a global moveat Singularity ment. Its epicenter is University, which located in the NASA aims to establish Research Park, the close contact between former civil-military Fortune 500 airport known as companies and Moffett Field, south Silicon Valley of San Francisco. pioneers. The Group Singularity rents organized an SU three buildings next summit in Germany door to a historic for over 100 of its U.S. Marines airexecutives. ship hangar; its administration, conference center and an incubator for startups from all over the world are housed here. Every couple of months, nearly 100 leaders hailing from all corners of the globe are invited to attend the Executive Program in California. Over the course of a week, they absorb and discuss the greatest possible array of ideas dealing with the imminent disruption.

singularityu.org

prepare yourself and your company for the dramatic transformation of all areas of life, head to Singularity University.

Founded in 2009, the organization has grown into one of the most prominent think tanks for digital transformation.

It has not only attracted hundreds of top managers to California but also runs conferences from Berlin to Sydney to prime humanity for the “great challenges” ahead and bring people together to come up with unconventional answers.

“We are basically optimists who believe that technology can be used for the good of humanity. That’s why we want to educate and inspire people, and put them in a position to understand and use exponential technologies,” says Carin Watson, referring to technologies such as microprocessors whose power virtually doubles each year. After twenty years as a corporate manager, Watson is now in charge of learning and innovation at SU. In her view, society has a lot of catching up to do if we are to be ready for a ubiquitously connected future in which virtually any question, even a complicated medical diagnosis, can be answered with a dense network of sensors and intelligent devices. “As soon as I graduate from a university, my knowledge is already outdated.

It would be naive to ascribe magic powers to new technologies. But they can unlock new opportunities for tackling humanity’s great unsolved challenges, from poverty and hunger to education to health. We believe,” Watson adds with a disarming smile, “in a future of abundance, not of deprivation. And we should all help build this future.”

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

As Ray Kurzweil takes his place on stage, next to a fake fire flickering on a flatscreen, to describe his optimistic view of the high-tech future, silence envelops his audience of nearly 100 executives from 38 countries. Smartphones are whipped out to record every word uttered by the inventor and futurist, who is also a director of engineering at Google. Kurzweil talks to the members of the Executive Program at Singularity University, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, for over an hour about the unstoppable advance of artificial intelligence and microscopic nanobots. The 69-year-old computer scientist claims that, within a few years, these tiny robots will flow throughout our bodies to reprogram our immune systems and connect our brains with the cloud. “Our thinking will be a hybrid of biological and non-biological thinking.

This upgrade will The Google Lunar make us funnier and more intelligent,” X-Prize competition Kurzweil says with launched by Peter the sober conviction Diamandis’s X-Prize of a man who has Foundation sparked dedicated his life to the Berlin-based researching the synPTScientists’ Mission thesis of man and to the Moon. machine. His bestAudi is a partner to selling books inthe group clude The Age of and supports the Spiritual Machines development of the and The Singularity Audi lunar quattro is Near. The titles moon rover. refer to the not-sodistant day when ever accelerating technological advances will make it impossible to differentiate between people as biological entities and digital systems consisting of hard and software—the turning point when atoms and bytes become one. “The singularity,” argues the visionary scientist in his 650-page tome published in 2005, “will allow us to transcend the limitations of our biological bodies and brains.”

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PHOTO: AUDI AG

audi.com/mission

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So far, around 3,000 people have taken part in these high-priced, intensive courses in the orbit of tech giants such as Google, Apple and Facebook. Acceptance into this small circle hinges on an application process in which candidates have to describe how they personally intend to change the world. “It’s a oneof-a-kind opportunity to ask questions about exponential technologies and feel the incredible innovative spirit of Silicon 143

Nimbus De.Groen, 2017, Photo: Cassander Eeftinck Schattenkerk

Nimbus Himalayas Museum, 2015, Photo: Nina Chen

TO SINGULARITY

Valley,” says Tobias Regenfuß, who heads Cloud & Infrastructure Services at Accenture in Munich and attended the most recent Executive Program, in winter 2017. “Whether you share Singularity’s vision 100 percent or not—in the past, we all underestimated the speed at which things were changing. I will be able to use everything I’ve taken away from Singularity University this experience in maintains a global my daily work and presence thanks to 83 for my clients,” is local groups currently Regenfuß’s positive active in 48 countries. review. For Pinar Attendees of the Emirdag, a Turkish intensive courses physicist, the most and summits around exciting component the world set up is the fresh view of the groups to spread the world she will the ideas. take back to her job as head of a small innovation team at State Street Bank in London. “It is crucial to understand the larger social and economic implications of technical innovations. But first, you have to open yourself up and completely change your views and ways of thinking.”

valuable contacts with mentors, potential business partners and investors. Since its launch in 2016, a total of eleven teams have gone through the incubator, as Monique Giggy, head of SU Ventures, reports. Most of them went on to become portfolio companies. SU Ventures has invested in a total of 58 startups, which have attracted 220 million dollars in investment capital and created over 500 jobs to date. The program’s success stories include the drone pioneer Matternet and Majik Water, whose technology lets poor communities in Kenya turn naturally occurring moisture in the air into drinking water. “Startups that find their way to us,” Giggy says, “are incredibly passionate about what they are doing to make a difference in the world.”

Beginning in 2018, the plan is for these entrepreneurs to share their enthusiasm with the Executive Program attendees as well. Managers can then establish contact with young talents right in Moffett Field, to help make the vision of mutual cooperation between man and machine become reality even faster. 

In order to accelerate the transformation across the board, Singularity recently also began supporting and funding promising startups from Kenya to California.

Teams that propose innovative ideas for dealing with the big issues such as poverty, health and education can enroll in a seven-week SU incubator before presenting their concepts and prototypes at a demo fair. As soon as the idea turns into a startup, SU Ventures participates in the newly founded enterprise and sets up

Berndnaut Smilde’s Nimbus works present a transitory moment of presence in a specific location. Smilde is chiefly interested in the temporary aspect of the work: “People have always had a strong metaphysical connection to clouds and through time have projected many ideas on them. The installations are there for just a few seconds before they fall apart again. They can be interpreted as a depiction of transience or emergence, or just as fragments of a classical painting. Although the physical aspect Nimbus Roebourne, 2017, Photo: Bewley Shaylor

is really important, in the end the work only exists as a photograph. The photo functions as a document of something that

Made possible by: FORM—Building a state of creativity, Australia

happened at a specific location and is now gone.”

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Singularity is visionary. But we need to deďŹ ne the near future.

WHAT’S NEXT? Mobility services will expand the way we experience the world.

THE NE XT LEVEL OF MO BILITY SOLUT IONS COPY: Owen Young, PHOTO: Robert Fischer

audiondemand.com

AUDI ON DEMAND IS A PREMIUM MOBILITY OFFERING WITH FLEXIBLE OPTIONS AND ALL-INCLUSIVE SERVICE.

Hong Kong is not only one of the world’s most innovative but also among its most densely populated cities. More than seven million people live in an area of just 1,100 square kilometers.

Fewer than one in a hundred residents has a vehicle registered in their name. Nowhere else do people embrace new trends as eagerly—such as new ways of using cars, including the four rings’ premium mobility service Audi on demand.

Available outside Hong Kong in Beijing, Singapore, San Francisco, Manchester and Munich, Audi on demand allows customers to pick and choose from exclusively equipped top models that run the gamut from compact cars, through SUVs, to highperformance sports models. Users select their preferred car via smartphone and book it for a flexible period ranging from one hour to a month. It’s mobility at its most flexible and convenient.

What do customers like most about the service?

Audi on demand

customers in Hong Kong have their

pick of the crème de la crème of the

four rings’ models.

And the selection of models is regularly

updated. At present, for instance, the

selection includes the Audi A3

Sportback e-tron,

Audi S3, Audi Q7,

Audi S5 Cabriolet,

Audi RS 6 Avant and

Audi R8 Spyder V10.

Audi A3 Sportback e-tron fuel consumption combined: gasoline: 1.8–1.6 l/100 km; electric: 12.0–11.4 kWh/100 km. CO₂ emissions combined (in g/km): 40–36. Audi S5 Cabriolet fuel consumption combined (in l/100 km): 8.0–7.9. CO₂ emissions (in g/km): 181–179. Audi RS 6 Avant fuel consumption combined (in l/100 km): 9.6. CO₂ emissions combined (in g/km): 223.

Audi R8 Spyder V10 fuel consumption combined (in l/100 km): 13.6–12.6. CO₂ emissions combined (in g/km): 309–286.

Where stated in ranges, fuel consumption, CO₂ emissions and efficiency classes depend on tires/wheels used.

TO THE NEXT LEVEL OF MOBILITY SOLUTIONS

Jimmy Lui, 30 Lui seeks peace and quiet three times a day—in the morning, under the shower after his workout.

At midday during his power nap. And in the evening, as pictured here, on the drive home in an Audi S3 from central Hong Kong to the New Territories.

Depending on traffic conditions, the trip takes 45 minutes. During those moments, he’s highly focused, filtering out life’s background noise and homing in on what’s important, analyzing it, making decisions and planning. As an employee of an international insurance company, he doesn’t want to leave anything to chance—or worse, the competition.

“As soon as I get into an Audi, I’m totally focused. Just being in the interior catapults me from one moment to the next into a calm, meditative state. It clears my head and spurs my desire to achieve major goals,” says Lui. Which is why the insurance broker can’t deny that his passion for automobiles (he likes to wash his car himself) is underpinned by a sly self-interest: Lui can recharge his batteries and motivate himself with rewards— after all, a luxury car is something you should earn. Plus, of course, there’s the fun factor. Which thanks to Audi on demand, has suddenly increased exponentially for Lui. That’s because when the financial expert gets together with friends to go touring through Hong Kong’s mountainous hinterlands, they aren’t limited to the cars in their garages.

They might all pack into an Audi Q7 or spread themselves across a couple of sporty models. “Putting pedal to the metal to climb the Peak up to Hong Kong’s best viewing point, I tune into the engine sound as if it were a symphony.

Afterwards we all rave about the experience, like it was a concert.”

When Lui travels for business, he also takes advantage of Audi on demand, usually opting for an Audi RS 6 Avant to pick up clients for appointments or show them the city. But what converted him to Audi? “The Chinese’s strong family ties are still a vital part of our culture. Often, the decision is made for you. If as a child in Hong Kong your father drove you around in an Audi, there’s a good chance that’s what you’ll drive one day.” Asked if that was the case with him, savvy financier Jimmy Lui just winks in reply. 

Fuel consumption and CO₂ emission figures for the Audi RS 6 Avant can be found on page 157.

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TO THE NEXT LEVEL OF MOBILITY SOLUTIONS

Heison Ng, 38 Ng is a film director who produces music videos and commercials. He believes the secret to a good day’s shooting is thorough preparation.

“Of course, I can’t control everything—like the weather or surprise road closures, for instance.

But beyond that, I have to take responsibility for any production errors that occur. That keeps your feet on the ground and forces you to never lose sight of the details—in the storyboard, during shooting and when dealing with your team.”

Heison Ng says that although he is often hard on himself, he’s a go-with-the-flow kind of guy who quickly adapts to unexpected conditions. This is something he learned working on his first music videos. “Modest budgets mean you get no second chances. Even if the weather turns during a shoot. The solution is quite simple: You have to rewrite the script on the fly to include the storm. But not with commercials. There, I have to deliver exactly what I’ve promised the client according to the storyboard.

Ng produced two films for Audi and became a fan of Audi on demand in the process. “I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to the service.”

Since the director is mad about Japanese fashion, he enjoys flying to Tokyo to keep up with the latest styles coming out of Omotesando district. He admires Yohji Yamamoto’s creations in particular. “With Audi on demand, I can now keep on changing my car in sync with the trends I discover on my travels,” enthuses Ng. “What a luxury!” And that’s not all. Ng also chooses his car to suit the occasion and his mood. Together with his wife, he enjoys taking excursions along Hong Kong’s coastal roads at the end of a hard working week. “The sunset at the site where they’re now building the 55-kilometer-long bridge to Macau is spectacular. Driving there in the Audi R8 Spyder V10 really lifts your mood. It almost feels to us as if we’re defying time and space.” 

Fuel consumption and CO₂ emission figures for the Audi R8 Spyder V10 can be found on page 157.

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For director Heison Ng, Audi on demand is also a way of lifting his mood. A drive in the Audi R8 Spyder V10 is his reward for Fuel consumption and COâ‚‚ emission ďŹ gures for the Audi R8 Spyder V10 can be found on page 157.

getting through a tough working week.

Fuel consumption and CO₂ emission figures for the Audi R8 Spyder V10 can be found on page 157.

TO THE NEXT LEVEL OF MOBILITY SOLUTIONS

Cannan Lee, 33 Clients can reach the Bank of China financial adviser around the clock. Often he’s still sitting in the office at midnight. Pretty stressful!

No wonder he regards his leisure time—recharging his batteries on spontaneous drives or immersing himself in the world of beautiful design—as sacrosanct. His placid and charming air quickly makes it apparent—Lee is very self-assured.

“I could hardly wait to be old enough to take the driving test. Back then, I didn’t care what car I drove—just as long as I was behind the wheel. That’s until a friend lent me his Audi and I couldn’t get the car out of my head!” Banker Cannan Lee lets his hand rest thoughtfully on the door handle of the Audi S5 Cabriolet. Lee has booked the sports car from Audi on demand to fetch his wife from the airport. She grew up in Canada and works in the international fashion industry.

“Her job is also tough. And she, too, loves driving,” says Lee. “When we first found out about Audi on demand, we thought it was a joke. The service just seemed too perfectly tailored to our lifestyle. Suddenly we have the most varied Audi models at our fingertips and can choose depending on mood, destination and needs—whether it’s a shopping trip or occasional drive just for the fun of it.” Lee hops into the Audi S5 Cabriolet and laughs. “What more could you ask for? It’s a sunny day, I have a sporty car and my wife will no doubt be in an excellent mood when she gets to take the wheel at the airport.” Whether Lee uses a car for professional or recreational purposes, he believes it should reflect the driver’s mindset—which in his case, for instance, is best defined as “reliability in style.” It’s also what he appreciates about the Audi on demand service and regards as a basic requirement in Hong Kong’s tough competitive environment. “Transactions on the financial market have gotten faster, which has increased the pressure. My friends often debate staying here or going abroad. My mind is made up. I grew up here and I plan to grow old here. Which means that I’m partly responsible not only for ensuring Hong Kong’s place in the world but also improving it.” 

Fuel consumption and CO₂ emission figures for the Audi S5 Cabriolet can be found on page 157.

166

Raymond Lai, 40 The passionate car driver loves Cantonese pop music. His only problem is that permanent parking is scarce and expensive in Hong Kong.

What’s more, buying a car isn’t worth it for Lai who can easily commute to his job in the city using public transport. “But then I heard about Audi on demand and now I can pursue my two passions at the same time. At weekends, I book a high-performance car, choose the Cantonese pop soundtrack to go with it and enjoy a couple of hours conquering Hong Kong’s steepest streets.”

TO THE NEXT LEVEL OF MOBILITY SOLUTIONS

Theodore Gun, 42 A former Apple employee, Gun started his own business in Hong Kong and is now a consultant to retail chains aiming to gain a foothold in Asia. “My job is to build bridges into unfamiliar territory,” says the native of Japan. “I help explain cultural differences so that my clients don’t have to be afraid of the unknown.”

With his shoulder-length hair, Gun doesn’t look typically Japanese but rather like an articulate European or American product designer. But his Nippon-based clients appreciate his Japanese style of communicating with its restrained gestures and carefully considered responses. “Hong Kong is the perfect city for me. It’s multicultural and is a short hop away from the other major Asian metropolises,” says Gun, who wouldn’t be an early riser if his two children didn’t force him out of bed.

“So my day starts at 7am. Usually, conference calls determine my daily schedule— mornings for the U.S., afternoons for Europe and Japan in between times.”

Although Gun’s garage houses cars of his own, he still makes use of Audi on demand because in his family and professional life he’s continually thrust into new roles: keeping the kids entertained with fun weekend trips to Disneyland, for instance.

“When we use Audi on demand, everyone is good to go far more quickly,” grins the consultant. “All I have to say, is ‘hey, listen up everyone, I’m trying out another new Audi model,’ and before you know it they’ve all charged out the door.” When, in contrast, Gun travels on his own, he prefers sportier cars. “Audi on demand contributes to the high standard of living in Hong Kong.” Which gives him pause for thought about his native country’s place in the Asian world. “I worry that Nippon is missing the boat. Population numbers are decreasing rapidly. It takes forever before decisions are made. Where the Koreans, for example, respond within a month to changes in the economy, and the Chinese within a week, it takes the Japanese a year. I hope that with their experiences abroad my children will lead the charge in opening up my homeland to the world.” 

Fuel consumption and CO₂ emission figures for the Audi RS 6 Avant can be found on page 157.

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Gary Suen, 30 Suen studied architecture in California before opening his own practice in Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong is like New York—a multifaceted metropolis with a taste for exclusivity,” he says.

“And Audi on demand is just as exclusive.

Gorgeous cars are ready and waiting for me.

Registering is simple, as is invoicing—none of it a drain on your time. That instantly struck a chord with me. What’s more, Audi on demand brings variety into everyday life. I can travel between building sites, clients and construction companies in a different model every time.”

BY THE WAY

“AN URBAN INNOVATION CULTURE CALLS FOR DYNAMIC DESIGN.”

Kärt Ojavee, 35, textile designer and lecturer On the way to the hotel in Tallinn, we run into Kärt. She carries a roll of linen, optical fibers and cable under her arm.

“This curtain is twenty meters long and connected to the Internet. Its lights react to data regarding wave height in the Baltic Sea and the strength of the wind. It brings together traditional textile production and innovative technology.”

The Audi Magazine – Masthead Publisher AUDI AG, I/VM-2, Creation/Sales Media, 85045 Ingolstadt Responsible for AUDI AG Jörg Dietzel Project Director Anja Weinhofer Central Coordination and Editing Vera Kraus, Christina Rüges Responsible for Editorial Content under German Press Law Jörg Dietzel, Anja Weinhofer Publishing House & Concept loved gmbh (info@loved.de) in collaboration with Mirko Borsche (Bureau Borsche/bureau@bureauborsche.com) Editor-in-Chief Bernd Zerelles Managing Editor Jan Strahl, Valerie Bachert Editor Birte Mußmann Final Editing Timo Ahrens Authors Dirk Böttcher, Angus Frazer, Steffan Heuer, Lea-Marie Kenzler, Ulf Lippitz, Jan Oliver Löfken, Niklas Maak, Jan Schlüter, Daniela Schröder, Owen Young Creative Direction Mirko Borsche (Bureau Borsche/bureau@bureauborsche.com) Art Direction Julia Kerschbaum Layout Christian Friedrich, Jana Herrmann Managing Director Peter Matz Publication Coordination Daniela Sutter Internationalization Ilker Yilmazalp Picture Editor Peggy Wellerdt English Adaptation Burton, Münch & Partner, mail@BMPwriters.com Advertising Sales G+J e|MS, Am Baumwall 11, 20459 Hamburg, tel +49 (0)40 37 03-0, www.gujmedia.de Lithography Otterbach Medien KG GmbH & Co., 76409 Rastatt, tel +49 (0)72 22 952-0, info@otterbach.de Production Coordination Cross Marketing Produktion GmbH Printing Druck Pruskil Gmbh, Carl-Benz-Ring 9, 85080 Gaimersheim Contributor Mieke Haase Cover Cyrill Matter (Photo), Werner Schreyer (Model) Proprietary Advertisement Jan Friese (Photo), Katharina Nitzpon (Hair & Make-up), Werner Schreyer (Model) Table of Contents Robert Fischer (Photo) No responsibility will be accepted for unsolicited manuscripts and photos received. Despite careful selection of sources, no responsibility can be taken for accuracy. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. © 2018 Audi Magazine All rights reserved. Article number: 18849/2101.00.18 THE AUDI MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED TWICE A YEAR. THE FALL/WINTER 2018 ISSUE WILL BE AVAILABLE FROM AUGUST AT WELL-STOCKED KIOSKS. YOU CAN ALSO DELVE INTO OUR STORIES EXPLORING FUTURE MOBILITY AT ANY TIME ONLINE: WWW.AUDI.COM

PHOTO: MATTHIAS ZIEGLER

Kärt lectures at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her specialist field is experimental bio-materials.