Implementing Advanced Knowledge
bits
5.2.1 Interview Gunter Pauli
Interview - Gunter Pauli
(The text that here follows is an extract from an IAAC published interview by Willy Müller and Areti Markopoulou with Gunter Pauli in occasion of his lecture at IAAC in 2012.)
GP: Let’s start with the most basic thing: health. Look, let’s remember that the person that lives in the city is a citizen, right? And what was new about the city was bringing together a lot of people at a density that was not human, so we had to change the word, and so we invented the word citizen, because there were so many of them. I always start with what we have, but I’m going to make an important correction... not a correction, I’m going to add an interesting element. What we have are flows. I’m not interested in the material, the ston; the house doesn’t interest me, what interests me is what flows we have and the fact that they are all subject to the laws of physics. The law of gravity always works, there is no eclipse of gravity: it doesn’t exist; a solar eclipse, yes, a gravity eclipse no: you can’t change anything. Second: we have to recognize that every chemical process depends on physical conditions such as pressure and temperature. Third: we have to recognize that everything that is biological is an exception. Now, if I want to plan a town, all of the people, who are biology, who not only have physical processes, but also a psychology, who are always different and cannot be standardized, the first step must be to understand the physics. What? The flows that are generated, this for me is the basic model of design, from that we can do what we want, on condition that we recognize that physics is the basis. That’s why I talk with architects a lot, because architects know very well what the force of compression is, tensile strength, and if the architect hasn’t understood this, he isn’t an architect. The architect is one of the few that takes physics as the starting point, and not just physics but the application of physics, but then unfortunately they forget it: once the CAD has done their work for them, they don’t think about it any more. Cover - Gunter Pauli lecturing at IaaC Figure 1 - Demographic distribution in Turin 2
Unfortunately, we have outsourced chemistry: an architect today doesn’t say, I need this and this and this. No. Architects say “this material exists, this material exists and this material exists; they don’t create their material... What a mistake! WM: Here at the IAAC are committed to that... GP: You have to create your material, but create it with what you have, yet again, and it depends if I’m... for me the construction material for Masdar should have been... sand! Sand with what? With CO2, of course, because right next to Masdar they have all of that. So I need to make materials with CO2 and sand, and this allows me to make glass wool... all of that construction should be done with glass wool, not with any other material. The other materials are expensive, imported at a tremendous cost that only the rich can afford and then give it away ans say “look”...
“... for me the construction material for Masdar should have been... sand!”
WM: With rather dubious results from the point of view of architectural quality... GP: There is no aesthetic... none. But we mustn’t forget that in the famous Guggenheim in Bilbao the entire roof is of glass wool... the entire roof. The first major project by Frank Gehry with glass wool, because he had to resolve those roofs: of course when you have crazy roofs you need a material that you can cut, and you can cut glass wool any way you want, and as well as that you can I could produce it, it’s not difficult. This is my approach to the opportunity of self-sustainability: What have I got here? In Masdar I have unlimited amounts of CO” and unlimited amounts of sand, so those are my construction materials. And what I use is temperature: the only thing I need is temperature, and that temperature is also available right next there; in other words, I use what is available and I get going. And second: this is the
Figure 2 - MIT Live Singapore 4
material that gives you structure, because a city is distinguished by its structures. Guadí, Bofill, all of the grat architects have to ghink about structures, but inside those structures they have flows. Now you’re creating your structrue, your artefacts, and you have to think about the flows, because once you put up a structure you’re either blocking these flows or you are generating these flows, but you cannot deny them, and you have to see what the flows are. My flows are always of water, materials, people, light, dust, sound, electricity, energy... Whatever flows are there, because there are always flows in physics. So I have to understand physics, because of course... If I generate a shadow and there is sun then I’m generating low pressure and high pressure and I’m generating... wind! I show people that when you walk through a city and see where the sun is, on the other side of the street there is always a breeze... always. No planner or achitect has though about it, but it’s althat when you generate a structrue you generate shadows, and if you generate shadows
you generate widns... everybody knows that. And when we have sun we protect ourselves from the sun... That’s crazy! Accept it” Don’t let it in, but take it, because it’s the flow: it’s like aikido, when you receive a hit... WM: I resist it... GP: .. and you give it back. This is the philosopñy of flows... all of these flows. I won’t go into much detail, but for me it’s biological. The only guaranteed biological flow from the very first day is pee and poo, and so all design has to start with that. These are not my words, they’re the words of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci had understood perfectly in the fifteenth century that if you don’t organize yourself around pee and poop there’s nothing you can do about it, you don’t live in a healthy city. So what do you have to do? Chemistry, because it’s the only way: if you can’t control biology, you need chemistry. Because physics can’t do it, because physics has only one option: burn it. That is the choice of physics, but you can’t do it with such good material. So, the stigmatization of human waste: that is where you have to start; that is the first point. If you design systems to re-use the flow...it’s guaranteed! If there is a concentration of people, you’re guaranteed to have it, but to produce this solid and liquid waste people have to eat, don’t they? So, how is the flow of food? For this, my first plan is -excuse me for saying it like this, but it’s pee and poo: they are the first things. And the second is food, because without food you don’t have a viable city, because without food you don’t have a viable city, or you have a city that lives off the exterior, a pariah city that is incapable of solving the problem and reesorts to imposing its power through money in order to control its surroundings. These are basic design principles, but everything gradually has to connect to its flows, the way I could use the force of gravity with these two materials, how that could be combined with my need for energy, for heating or cooling, how I connect it with sound, how I connect it with my mateiral flows. Figure 2 - Image of the interview, IaaC Archive Figure 3 - Big Data Flows Visualisation 6
Every one of us loses ten grammes of skin cells every day, and there’s nothing we can do about it... We lose all that skin, and if you don’t know thatyou lose it and you don’t keep the place clean you end up living in a lice farm, and that’s not the idea, is it, that you turn your house into a lice farm? This is biology. The typical reaction is that we are not going to allow that to happen and so we will use chemistry again. To kill? No, you don’t kill, you have to understand how to generate control of your cells, and it’s not by taking two showers a day, because you will still be losing skin. Rather, it’s about understanding that the only way to stop lice from thriving on this is that there are UV rays, so I have to see to it that all my stuff is exposed to UV rays, because I have those , they’re guaranteed, and they are free! But we install UV filters in most large buildings, and so every building with a UV filter is a lice farm, and so every so often someone has to come along with chemistry, and so we end up killing ourselves because we are putting in place a system that is not sustainable: contro. By means of chemistry rather than physics. WM: What you refer to in your book as cascade effects: in other words, analysing the way a cascade process can to some extent mimic natural processes.
GP: An interweave them with each other according to the context you’re in. Not imitation but inspiration... WM: Okay, taking inspiration from nature... don’t you think that is the most artificial act that we can perform? GP: It isn’t artificial, because nature has always developed that way. It isn’t just that this is the way that biodiversity is created: it isn’t artificial because nature is co-created all the time in adapting to change. Another problem with most of our cities is that we set everything in concrete and cement so that nothing changes. Really! And, of course, that’s complicated, and this is why London is losing 40% of its water, because the pipes don’t work any more: they leak, and 40% of the water is lost! In Sweden it’s 30%, but there is no city where this isn’t happening. In Berlin, where I come from, 25% of the water is lost because the pipes leak, but these pipes are a hundred years and it would cost too much to replace them. So we waste water. And now we are going to have a debate about CO2 and CO2 emissions... No, no, no! If you solve the basic problem of water you will immediately have a reduction in CO” emissions, but it’s all because you have designed in a way that is not sustainable. We can go on with this philosophy in every context, but if we do that the most important thing is where we start, the variety of having construction systems in which 90% of the building materials are directly available. There are exceptions, of course; there are also migratory birds. I am not a you cannot do that perons: I’m both dogmatic and pragmatic. In other words, at any point in time we want and we will see, no problem, let’s think a little bit above... “totalitarianism”, right? We need to be flexible. WM: Here at the IAAC we are doing an exercise of understanding the city as a metabolic structure in which we move in flows, and analysing the relationship between these flows within that structure and how we can design it in the future 8
if we have information in real time. For example, looking at these flows: What is it? How far? What time? What amount? And so on. It’s what we call urbiotics: a process that can help us design with more information, help us design and imagine in terms of this cascade effect... What do you think? GP: I am not content with real-time information: it’s not good enough. I have to have vision, imagination, fantasy and foresight... Yes! Because real time- what use is it? WM:... I can explain what use it is... GP: I agree with you that it’s useful... WM:... If you have vision, if you can imagine... GP: Exactly! So the first thing you have to have is vision, and vision is fed by imagination. We need fantasy, without fantasy there is no vision, because vision is the translation of... A simple case from one of my fables, “a whale will never fly”: that’s fantasy. The whale generates six volts of electricity from its little fish and its krill... that’s true; and that’s vision, isn’t it? This is the most important thing I do with real-time information... I put it in a vision, and I can’t do that without fantasy, the fantasy that feeds everything, every step I take, because the fantasy enables me to... The beautiful thing is that for a child everything is reality, even fantasy... everything. And as I see it what architects need is to enhance their capaity for fantasy, not only to come up with extraordinary forms... No! To imagine the flows! The wonder of being able to imagine flows that don’t exist today, for which we have no data. The actual data don’t give me anything because they don’t exist, but in here (in the head) I can see them, and once I can... WM: It’s the concept of the city of the future... To imagine the flow that you cannot see!
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EDITORIAL TEAM Manuel Gausa, IaaC Dean Mathilde Marengo, Communication & Publication Jordi Vivaldi, IaaC bits Editorial Coordinator
ADVISORY BOARD: Areti Markopoulou, IaaC Academic Director Tomas Diez, Fab Lab Bcn Director Silvia Brandi, Academic Coordinator Ricardo Devesa, Advanced Theory Concepts Maite Bravo, Advanced Theory Concepts
DESIGN: Ramon Prat, ACTAR Editions
IAAC BIT FIELDS: 1. Theory for Advanced Knowledge 2. Advanced Cities and Territories 3. Advanced Architecture 4. Digital Design and Fabrication 5. Interactive Societies and Technologies 6. Self-Sufficient Lands
Nader Tehrani, Architect, Director MIT School Architecture, Boston Juan Herreros, Architect, Professor ETSAM, Madrid Neil Gershenfeld, Physic, Director CBA MIT, Boston Hanif Kara, Engineer, Director AKT, London Vicente Guallart, Architect, Chief City Arquitect of Barcelona Willy Muller, Director of Barcelona Regional Aaron Betsky, Architect & Art Critic, Director Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Hugh Whitehead, Engineer, Director Foster+ Partners technology, London Nikos A. Salingaros, Professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio Salvador Rueda, Ecologist, Director Agencia Ecologia Urbana, Barcelona Artur Serra, Anthropologist, Director I2CAT, Barcelona
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