Nørreport Station in Copenhagen is Denmark’s busiest transport hub. It was originally established in 1916, modernized in 1934 and in need of fundamental renovation in 2012. Following three years of construction work, the station in the heart of Copenhagen has been transformed into an open and accessible urban space with clear focus on the needs of pedestrians and cyclists.
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The few buildings on the forecourt are built mainly in glass and have rounded shapes, providing room for the constant swarm of people and emphasizing the clarity and natural flow of the layout, which gives people a sense of security. Materials are simple with natural surfaces, securing low maintenance demands– white concrete, granite, glass and stainless steel. When darkness falls, the lighting becomes a feature as well as a means of navigation and the towers ventilating the underground platforms rise as luminous landmarks for the area.
This cohesive space has no backs or corners. The design and layout of the buildings and bicycle parking facilities on the forecourt are based on a study of the flows of pedestrians from the surrounding roads and across the forecourt or down the stairs into the station.
The forecourt has been designed as an extension of the city’s ‘floor’ and direct pedestrian access has been established from the surrounding pedestrianized zones to the station forecourt, while vehicular traffic has been redirected, leaving only one traffic artery north of the station. Parking facilities have been made for 2100 bicycles on the forecourt in the so-called ‘bicycle beds’ which are recessed in relation to the general surface of the forecourt in order to secure a clear hierarchy and unobstructed views of the space as a whole.
The station and the forecourt are used by about 350,000 train passengers and passers-by on a daily basis, making it Denmark’s busiest transport hub. Therefore, the efficiency of the flows created was a crucial aspect of the project proposal from the outset. In addition, priority was given to making space for an urban atmosphere with activities which reflects the vibrant, dynamic metropolitan city of Copenhagen. In line with this idea, the parked bicycles are not hidden away; on the contrary, they are on display as an important aspect of the life of the city and of Copenhagen’s identity as the world’s best city for cyclists.
What was a tired urban space characterized as chaotic, unsafe and noisy is after the transformation characterized as a place where safety, comfort and efficiency are the key words and the daily user is in focus. In contrast to before, the area is now a place where people sit down, take a break and watch the world go by.
Gottlieb Paludan Architects and COBE designed the new station and forecourt with all its functions and facilities, having submitted the winning entry in the international architectural competition in 2009. SWECO (previously Grontmij) was engineering consultant and Bartenbach was in charge of lighting design.
For more than 3 decades now, the annual TED Conference and its many affiliated events have served as an important platform for, as their tagline puts it, “ideas worth spreading,” and has inspired countless people through its fast paced thought-provoking presentations. Founded in 1984 by architect and graphic designer Richard Saul Wurman, there have been many architecture presentations throughout the conferences—but there are even more inspirational talks which aren’t necessarily about architecture. Here we’ve compiled 21 of the best TED Talks in recent years which, while not strictly about architecture, will certainly appeal to the architectural mindset. Covering a variety of topics such as creativity, art, productivity, technological advancements, and the science of cities and the natural environment, these videos will inspire you to become a better architect.
Which non-architectural TED talks have inspired you? Don’t forget to share further recommendations in the comments below!
Janet Echelman is a world-renowned American installation artist whose large-scale productions have appeared in cities across the globe including New York, Vancouver, Singapore, and London. In this visually captivating presentation, Echelman recalls her journey from a 7-time art school reject to a successful self-trained artist who has figured out a way of creating a unique art form—all from taking imagination seriously.
Architects and architecture students are well-known for sacrificing their sleep in favor of increasing the time they can spend on their projects. In this video, Arianna Huffington speaks about her own personal epiphany regarding the importance of getting enough sleep. At what gain? She declares that “we can sleep our way to increased productivity and happiness—and smarter decision-making.”—work smarter not harder.
The process of learning never ends for architects; we are often encouraged to expand our field of knowledge in order to incorporate new ideas within our architecture (case in point: you’re reading this article). But sometimes learning can be a daunting task when you are not in the environment of a classroom or research laboratory, and “learning” is not the primary task of your daily routine. How can adults continue to learn independently? This TED talk encourages us to find learning communities on the internet, and shows how one might go about doing that. John Green is perhaps best known as the novelist behind The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns, but he is also known for creating “Crash Course,” an educational Youtube channel that teaches a wide array of subjects from literature and history to economics, science and philosophy.
City planners and architects today are embroiled in dealing with a retrospective problem: the urban inequality produced by the car-congested megalopolis in cities all over the world. Enrique Peñalosa is a two-time mayor of Bogotá, Colombia (serving from 1998 – 2001 and now from 2016 – 2019). In this video, he discusses the transformation of the Colombian capital through a public transportation initiative and how it is a solution against urban inequality. He suggests increased mobility as an integral part of smart cities all over the world.
Stress is public health’s enemy in the 21st century, and the phenomenon continues to plague architecture schools at alarming rates. Psychologist Kenny McGonical presents new research which suggests that “stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case.” She urges the viewer to see stress as positive, so that it can actually help to improve your performance. Essentially, the talk details with how to actually achieve a well-known saying: “If you can’t change something, change your attitude about it.”
The creative process is a complicated thing. In school, architects are regularly encouraged to rely on precedents, incorporating the successful ideas of others into their work in order to guarantee success. But in the real world, intellectual property laws can make this a risky business. In this refreshingly honest talk, Kirby Ferguson makes the case that all creative works are simply remixes of things that already exist, suggesting that when it comes to creating something new, understanding this is “an incentive to not expect so much from ourselves and to simply begin.”
Desertification is believed to be an ever-present effect of Global Warming that has been observed on practically every continent, and Allan Savory has dedicated his entire life to understanding the phenomena. In this video, he presents a startling discovery which goes against previously accepted theories of desertification. It turns out large herds of livestock and pastoralism is the “realistic and low-cost” solution to reverse desertification.
If ArchDaily’s Facebook comments are anything to judge by, architects can be a pessimistic bunch; it seems this pessimism can kill your dreams leading to… more pessimism. In this video, Bel Pesce recalls her journey to success and offers a dose of reality, making us realize how faulty perspectives can hinder you from succeeding and achieving your dreams. Pesce is a Brazilian national, who studied at MIT and had a successful career in Silicon Valley before opening a school in Brazil dedicated to helping students achieve their dreams.
In this talk design critic Alice Rawsthorn recounts the design work of “unlikely heroes” from Blackbeard to Florence Nightingale and connects these people with well-known designers like Buckminster Fuller. Rawsthorn paints a narrative of how the greatest designers are often the most rebellious. In her own words: “All of these designers and many more are pursuing their dreams, by the making the most of their newfound freedom, with the discipline of professional designers and the resourcefulness of rebels and renegades. And we all stand to benefit.”
Here, the father-son duo behind Gapminder.org present incredible insights into just how easily, thanks to today’s media environment, we are led to make ignorant assumptions and how we can work towards being more aware of fact-based realities. In the first portion of the talk, Hans Rosling presents a few examples of how people seem more ignorant than chimpanzees. Then, as director of Gapminder, Ola Rosling provides 4 points on how to drop our preconceived notions and be… well, less ignorant.
Participating in philanthropy offers a sense of fulfillment for anybody, including architects. Unfortunately, the work of the architect, no matter how down-scaled, requires substantial capital which virtually disables architects from applying the tools of their trade towards positive change. With inspiration from Dureen Shahnaz, architects can be the bridge between capitalist practices and philanthropic endeavors by designing the infrastructure that facilitates a hybrid program of socially-conscious capitalism for various charitable pursuits.
At the dawn of what is known as “The Internet of Things,” Marco Annunziata presents a future with exciting implications for us all. With the price of computer sensors and memory space having drastically decreased over the last decade, Annunziata declares that machines are now “brilliant: self-aware, predictive, reactive, and social” which effectively creates a world where information itself is intelligent. For architects, the implication of these changes could be that buildings are reactive to their inhabitants, and with information being provided by buildings themselves, maintenance can be performed in these structures just before they break.
One of the most debated issues among practicing architects lies in where to draw the line between working too much, and having dedication to one’s craft. Nigel Marsh of Fat, Forty, and Tired fame, is offering a new perspective on how to achieve a “Work-Life” balance. Unlike the common trope that simply consists of saying “no” to your job and “yes” to your family, Marsh is asking us to scale back our expectations on various aspects of our lives.
In the world of Architecture, one of the most popular documentaries about urbanism and city planning is Jan Gehl’s “The Human Scale” which privileges quantifiable data on cities and changes based on empirical evidence. This TED Talk by physicist Geoffrey West seems to be proposing a completely different way of understanding and thus shaping the city. He states that simple mathematical laws govern the properties of cities. Wealth, crime rate and walking speed among others can be deduced from a single number: a city’s population. In a talk that seemingly echoes Gilles Deleuze’s Postscript on the Societies of Control, West talks about how might our cities be designed differently—differently from Gehl’s happy city but also differently from the 20th century sprawling metropolis.
At the time of this TEDxToronto Talk, Rodolphe el-Khoury was directing the RAD Lab at the University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. The research lab is primarily concerned with providing resources and expertise on the “spatial ramifications of embedded technology and ubiquitous computing,” and habitually produces research that extends far beyond the reaches of architecture. In this video, el-Khoury goes through a project-based survey of how technology can disappear but simultaneously be adapted into our everyday lives. Rodolphe el-Khoury is now the Dean at the University Of Miami School Of Architecture.
Stefan Stagmeister is a designer that runs a creative branding and identity studio in New York. Every 7 years, he closes the entire studio for a year-long sabbatical in order to rejuvenate and revive his and the rest of his staff’s creativity. In a presentation which details the subsequent projects that were inspired by Stagmeister’s sabbatical, he urges the rest of us to see the productivity involved in taking time off and pulling ourselves away from our work—a concept which many creatives seem to struggle with.
In a retrospective talk, Anupam Mishra talks about the amazing feats of engineering built centuries ago by the people of India’s Golden Desert to harvest water which are still being used today—demonstrating their superiority to modern water megaprojects. Contemporary architecture today is interested in the adoption of local folk knowledge for the sake of architectural innovation. Ideas such as Mishra’s help facilitate this effort.
Elizabeth Gilbert is well-known for the freakish success of her memoir Eat Pray Love, and that is precisely her problem. In this talk, Gilbert reflects upon the aftermath of overnight success of creatives and transcending one’s “best work,” as well as the seeming precariousness of the lives of creatives and creativity themselves. Rooted in Greek philosophy, Gilbert’s talk tries to dispel the notion of the “rare naturally creative genius” and show instead that all of us “have” a genius. An inspiring talk for those looking for a kick of inspiration.
The question: “How do we improve the city?” is common in architecture circles—in presentations, symposiums, and the classroom. In some ways that conversation has become muddled, with the same rhetoric simply being reformulated among architecture’s practitioners. In this refreshing talk by the sculptor and non-architect, Theaster Gates discusses the improvement and beautification of his neighborhood of Grand Crossing, Michigan. While architecture is widely implicated in the talk, it is instead culture that is placed at the core of what Gates is talking about. It’s an interesting way to look at infrastructure, urban planning, and urban renewal that departs from the usual language of architecture. Perhaps it takes a talk such as this to state the obvious: that architecture is culture.
The idea of self-promotion is something that many architects are uncomfortable with, and as a result, few do it well. But according to Simon Sinek, there is a simple key to becoming a leader in a field and being successful, whether that’s in a commercial venture or in becoming the leader of a social movement. Sinek uses this single theory to explain why Apple was able to out-compete other equally capable technology companies, why the Wright Brothers were the first to achieve manned flight despite a total lack of funding, and why 250,000 people turned up to watch Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. And the good news for architects? The key to becoming a leader is not through exaggeration or deceit, but in connecting with people over your core beliefs.
We say we want to do this, but we often find ourselves reverting back to our not-so productive habits.
And all of our time spent learning about different productivity tips and “hacks” doesn’t seem to help. We know we should be doing our Pomodoro sessions and turning off the Internet while we work, but instead we keep ourselves “busy” with things like:
Checking out what’s happening on our favorite social media sites every couple of hours (or even more often than that)…
Obsessively checking our inboxes to get that latest email fix…
Spending time chatting with our friends and colleagues (while convincing ourselves that this classifies as “work”)…
And checking the “easy” items off on our to-do lists, when we know deep down what we should be spending time on.
Pretty soon the entire day has gone by and we feel like we’ve accomplished nothing.
And you probably have a good idea of just how productive you would be if you could just stop doing the things mentioned above.
Unfortunately, it’s much easier to say “today I’m going to just work and get stuff done” than it is to actually do it.
Below I’m going to outline a very simple system, based on Newton’s First Law of Motion, that will practically force you to become more productive than you ever thought possible.
The First Law states that “objects in motion tend to stay in motion.” This system is all about using this law to develop a proper foundation for being ultra-productive.
This foundation consists of the following:
Getting Enough Sleep – According to scientific research, our health and productivity depends on us getting enough sleep. The leading experts state that we need 7 to 9 hours of sleep per day to perform at peak levels.
Meditation – Over 1,400 scientific studies have proven the incredible benefits of meditation. Most importantly as it relates to productivity, meditation increases our will power. We’ll need this will power to resist the many daily distractions we face.
Proper Diet – Eating right also has a tremendous effect on our productivity. The easiest way to see a boost in your energy levels is to eliminate processed foods from your diet and make sure you eat plenty of green vegetables.
Exercise – Exercise not only increases our energy and our ability to focus, it’s also been proven to grow new brain cells as well.
You might have even experimented with adopting some of these habits only to have them fall off after a couple of weeks (or even sooner).
But when we use the Newton’s Law to help us adopt these habits, we can make them automatic in a very short amount of time. Here’s a 3-step system for doing exactly that:
Step 1: Start by making a conscious effort to get enough sleep.
Here is where you’ll want to focus most of your willpower.
The easiest way I’ve found to adopt this habit is to set a “night time alarm.” This involves scheduling a time every night where you’re going to shut off all distracting electronics and begin getting ready for bed.
Then make waking up at a decent hour the #1 thing on your to do-list for the following day.
Step 2: After you’ve woken up and brushed your teeth, meditate as soon as you can.
This is probably the most critical step for making the system work.
I’ve found that 20 minutes is the perfect amount of time to meditate in the morning, but this does take some practice to work up to.
So I recommend starting with 5 to 10 minutes and building upon that.
(Note: if even 5 minutes seems impossible for you, go with the mini-habit strategy of meditating for just one minute.)
Step 3: After you meditate engage in some form of exercise.
Exercising in the morning is much better than exercising later in the day in terms of productivity because of the “cognitive buzz” exercise provides you that you’ll be able to then use to tackle your most important projects for the day.
This works beautifully because remember: “objects in motion tend to stay in motion.”
Do this for 30 days and your life will change. I guarantee it.
And again, if you’re just starting out, use a mini-habit strategy. Here’s an example of what you might do:
Wake up after getting a good night’s sleep
Meditate for 5 minutes
Do 1 push up (yes. Just one)
The routine above takes no more than 10-minutes and it’s something you’ll be able to easily build upon.
Pretty soon you’ll be unstoppable and accomplishing literally twice as much as you were before!
Attention Pick The Brain Readers:
If you would like more information on how to develop these habits and become unstoppable, be sure to download my Master Day Checklist.
This Checklist contains my proven 5-part formula that will put you in the top 1% of achievers and get you accomplishing more in one month than most people do in a year. It also includes the amazing 4 + 4 = 100 Framework millionaires and world-class athletes use to feel amazing and unstoppable every single day and much more.
Ron Reich is a former lawyer turned entrepreneur whose mission is to help people master the game of life and accomplish their mostly deeply important goals. Download his Master Day Checklist today to find out exactly how to do this.
This monochrome house in the Spanish town of Mora appears split in half by a narrow recessed entrance, which extends from the street to a garden and pool at the rear (+ slideshow). (more…)
Sig Nordal 