Digital X
Norman Foster Foundation Public Debates Supported by Future Planet Capital
Digital X
Norman Foster Foundation Public Debates Supported by Future Planet Capital
Digital X | Introduction
All things digital are simultaneously local and global, large and small, inside and outside of a given boundary. The digital world is not crisp, it is porous and diffuse. It brings together previously separate worlds, like those of discovery, invention and expression. It does that because it has become the DNA of each. Architecture does that too. This week is about that kinship, that of architecture and of the digital world: how the two play together now and how they will change the world together, going forward. Fasten your seatbelts. Our plan is to discuss things that are outrageous today and will be commonplace tomorrow. What happens when the natural world and the artificial world are the same? How does society change when direct brain communication occurs among humans, and between humans and machines? How do materials change when they can think?
Nicholas Negroponte Workshop Mentor Norman Foster Foundation
Public Debates
Speakers
Norman Foster, President, Norman Foster Foundation
Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder and former director of MIT Media Lab
Ricky Burdett, professor of Urban Studies and director of LSE Cities
Luis Fernández-Galiano, professor at ETSAM, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and director of AV / Arquitectura Viva
Jonathan Glancey, architectural critic and writer
Hugh Herr, co-director of the MIT Center for Extreme Bionics
Kent Larson, director of MIT City Science Initiative
Amanda Levete, founder and principal of AL_A
Greg Lynn, professor at University of Applied Arts Vienna and at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture
Benedetta Tagliabue, principal of Miralles Tagliabue EMBT Architects and director of the Enric Miralles Foundation
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Schedule Tuesday 16th January 2018
6:00 p.m. Digital X Public Debates Lecture Hall, Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid
Keynote by Nicholas Negroponte
Dialogue between Hugh Herr and Kent Larson, moderated by Ricky Burdett Dialogue between Greg Lynn and Benedetta Tagliabue, moderated by Luis FernĂĄndez-Galiano Dialogue between Amanda Levete and Norman Foster, moderated by Jonathan Glancey Questions-and-Answers session
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Participants
Ricky Burdett Ricky Burdett is professor of Urban Studies and director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age Programme. He curated the Conflicts of an Urban Age exhibition at the 2016 International Architecture Biennale in Venice. In 2014, he was a visiting professor in Urban Planning and Design at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University and Global Distinguished Professor at New York University from 2010 to 2014. He is involved in regeneration projects across Europe and the US, was chief adviser on architecture and urbanism for the London 2012 Olympics and architectural adviser to the Mayor of London from 2001 to 2006. He was director of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2006 and curator of the Global Cities exhibition at Tate Modern in 2007. He was also a member of the Urban Task Force, which produced a major report for the UK government on the future of English cities.
Luis Fernández-Galiano Luis Fernández-Galiano is an architect, chair professor at Madrid’s School of Architecture, ETSAM, and editor of the journals AV/Arquitectura Viva. Member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, he is an International Fellow of the RIBA, and has been Cullinan Professor at Rice, Franke Fellow at Yale, a visiting scholar at the Getty Center, and a visiting critic at Princeton, Harvard, and the Berlage Institute. He has been president of the jury at the 9th Venice Biennale and of the Aga Khan Award and he has also been a juror in the competitions for the National Library of Mexico, the National Art Museum of China, the National Library of Israel, and the Noble Qur’an Oasis in Madinah. Among his books are Fire and Memory, Spain Builds, and Atlas: Architectures of the 21st Century.
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© GA/Yukio Futagawa
Norman Foster After graduating from Manchester University School of Architecture and City Planning in 1961 Norman Foster won a Henry Fellowship to Yale University, where he was a fellow of Jonathan Edwards College and gained a Master’s Degree in Architecture. In 1967 he established Foster Associates, which has since evolved as Foster + Partners, where he continues as Executive Chairman. He became the 21st Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate in 1999 and was awarded the Praemium Imperiale Award for Architecture in Tokyo in 2002. In 2009, he became the 29th laureate of the prestigious Prince of Asturias award for the Arts and was awarded the Knight Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1997 he was appointed by the Queen of the United Kingdom to the Order of Merit and in 1999 was honoured with a peerage, taking the title Lord Foster of Thames Bank.
Jonathan Glancey Jonathan Glancey, Hon FRIBA, is an architectural critic, journalist, author and radio and television broadcaster. He was Architecture and Design correspondent of the Guardian from 1997 to 2012 and Architecture and Design editor of the Independent from 1989 to 1997. Educated at the University of Oxford, he began his career with the Architectural Review and was a founding editor of Blueprint magazine.
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Hugh Herr Hugh Herr is creating bionic limbs that emulate the function of natural limbs. TIME magazine named Dr. Herr the ‘Leader of the Bionic Age’ because of his revolutionary work in the emerging field of biomechatronics—technology that marries human physiology with electromechanics. A double amputee himself, he is responsible for breakthrough advances in bionic limbs that provide greater mobility and new hope to those with physical disabilities. He is currently professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab and co-director of the MIT Center for Extreme Bionics. Herr is the author and co-author of over 150 peerreviewed manuscripts and patents, chronicling the science and technology behind his many innovations. These innovations include computer-controlled artificial knees, active leg exoskeletons and powered ankle-foot prostheses. A computer-controlled knee prosthesis called the Rheo, which is outfitted with a microprocessor that continually senses the joint’s position and the loads applied to the limb, was included in the list of Top Ten Inventions in the health category by TIME magazine in 2004. Kent Larson Kent Larson, architect, directs the MIT City Science Initiative focused on developing urban interventions that create more entrepreneurial, liveable cities. Research includes ultra-light shared-use autonomous vehicles, transformable micro-housing for young professionals and a tangible simulation platform (CitySCOPE) to predict human dynamics and urban performance. City Science living lab partners include Shanghai, Taipei, Hamburg, Helsinki, Toronto and Andorra.
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© Matt Holyoaks
Amanda Levete Amanda Levete is a RIBA-Stirling-Prize-winning architect and founder and principal of AL_A. Since its formation in 2009, AL_A has refined an intuitive and strategic approach to design. Collaborating with ambitious and visionary clients, AL_A develop designs that are conceptualised as urban projects, not just buildings and projects that express the identity of an institution, a city or a nation. Recently completed projects include the Victoria and Albert Museum Exhibition Road Quarter (2017) in London; MAAT (2016), the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon; and Central Embassy Bangkok (2017). Levete trained at the Architectural Association and worked for Richard Rogers before joining Future Systems, where she was a partner from 1989 to 2009. For over a decade, Levete was a trustee of the Young Foundation and Artangel, and she is a visiting professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. In 2017 Levete was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday honours list and made a CBE for services to architecture.
Greg Lynn Greg Lynn is professor of architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and a studio professor at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. He was the winner of the Golden Lion at the 2008 Venice Biennale of Architecture. In 2010 Lynn was named a fellow by United States Artists. He is distinguished for his use of computer-aided design to produce irregular, biomorphic architectural forms, as he proposes that with the use of computers, calculus can be implemented into the generation of architectural expression. Lynn’s latest works begin to explore how to integrate structure and form together, as he has discovered some biomorphic forms are inherently resistant to load. In his installations he often experiments with methods of manufacturing from aerospace, boat building and automobile industries. 11
Nicholas Negroponte Nicholas Negroponte is the co-founder (with Jerome B. Wiesner) of the MIT Media Lab (1985), which he directed for its first twenty years. He gave the first TED talk in 1984, as well as thirteen since. In 2005 he founded the non-profit One Laptop per Child, which deployed $1 billion of laptops for primary education in the developing world. In the private sector, Negroponte served on the board of directors of Motorola and was general partner in a venture capital firm specialising in digital technologies. He has provided start-up funds for more than forty companies, including Zagat and Wired magazine.
© Manuel Outomuro
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Benedetta Tagliabue Benedetta Tagliabue studied architecture at the Istituto di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV) and currently acts as director of the international architecture firm Miralles Tagliabue EMBT, founded in 1994 in collaboration with Enric Miralles, based in Barcelona and, since 2010, in Shanghai. Among her most notable projects built are the Edinburgh Parliament, Diagonal Mar Park, the Santa Caterina market in Barcelona, Campus Universitario de Vigo and the Spanish Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, which was awarded the RIBA International ‘Best International Building of 2011’ award. Her work received the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2005, the National Spanish Prize in 2006, the Catalan National prize in 2002, City of Barcelona prize in 2005 and 2009, FAD prizes in 2000, 2003 and 2007. She is also the director of the Enric Miralles Foundation, whose goal is to promote experimental architecture in the spirit of her late husband and partner Enric Miralles.
Credits
Supported by:
Collaborating Institutions Architectural and Sustainable Design in the Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, CA, US Architecture and Digital Theory, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, UK Architecture, Planning and Geomatics, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa Architecture, Digital Media and Technology, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Architecture, Service Innovation and Design Department, National University of Singapore, Singapore Australian School of Architecture and Design, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid, Spain Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain Estudio Rafael Moneo, Madrid, Spain Fundación COAM, Madrid, Spain Matadero Madrid—Centro de Creación Contemporánea, Spain Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain Tata Centre for Technology and Design— Indian Institute of Technology of Bombay, Mumbai, India Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv, Israel Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
Except where otherwise noted, text and photographs © Norman Foster Foundation Norman Foster Foundation Monte Esquinza 48 28010 Madrid Spain T +34 91 219 15 47 www.normanfosterfoundation.org info@normanfosterfoundation.org
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