Norman Foster Foundation

In this episode of the Common Futures Series, Vishaan Chakrabarti talks about how last century impacted on cities, in a way that they were created for cars not for people. This century's challenge is to give the cities back to the people, by creating new solutions using new technologies that can make cities more sustainable. Vishaan Chakrabarti is the founder and creative director of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU). He is the author of A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America, published in 2013. Chakrabarti is currently on leave from his tenured faculty position at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), where he served as the William W. Wurster Dean of the College of Environmental Design. After the tragic events of 9/11, he was appointed to be the planning director for Manhattan. In this position he collaborated on the nowrealised efforts to save the High Line and revitalise the World Trade Center site. He serves on the boards of the Architectural League of New York, the Regional Planning Association, the Norman Foster Foundation and The World Around You. Common Futures is a new series of podcasts produced by the Norman Foster Foundation that aim to empower our community to make positive change as a platform for people around the world to share and hear inspirational stories and ideas that will shape the future. www.normanfosterfoundation.org

This episode of Common Futures features the winner of the 2021 RIBA Norman Foster Foundation Travelling Scholarship, Weronika Zdziarska, from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Zdziarska explains that this project will evaluate previous interventions carried out by international, regional and local organisations in South America, to improve the safety of women in cities. Five cities have been selected for evaluation, each representing different attitudes and responses to this area of research: Medellín, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; Santiago, Chile; Montevideo, Uruguay and Curitiba, Brazil. The proposal seeks to demonstrate the relationships between gender inequality and design, and to outline best practices for building more inclusive cities. Common Futures is a new series of podcasts produced by the Norman Foster Foundation that aim to empower our community to make positive change as a platform for people around the world to share and hear inspirational stories and ideas that will shape the future. www.normanfosterfoundation.org

Kent Larson is Director of City Science at the MIT Media Lab, with research focused on compact transformable housing, ultralight autonomous mobility systems, sensing and algorithms to recognize and respond to complex human behavior, and advanced modeling, simulation, and tangible interfaces for urban design. Larson’s book, Louis I. Kahn: Unbuilt Masterworks, was selected as one of the Ten Best Books in Architecture 2000 by the New York Times Review of Books. He has founded or cofounded multiple MIT spinoff companies including ORI Living, an architectural robotics company creating systems for dynamically reconfigurable environments. In this podcast, Kent Larson explains the concept of autonomous communities to create the autonomous cities of the future. He also proposes that future architects should be antidisciplinary in order to make the concept of autonomous cities a reality. Common Futures is a new series of podcasts produced by the Norman Foster Foundation that aim to empower our community to make positive change as a platform for people around the world to share and hear inspirational stories and ideas that will shape the future. www.normanfosterfoundation.org

Tim Stonor is a British architect and urban planner who graduated from The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and established the architectural consulting company Space Syntax Limited. Passionate about the ways in which people move, interact and transact in buildings and urban places, Stonor has been recognised internationally for his work in the design of spatial layouts. Alongside his practice, Tim Stonor is a founding member and former director of The Academy of Urbanism, a Visiting Professor at The Bartlett School of Architecture and a Harvard Loeb Fellow. In this podcast, Tim Stonor highlights the importance of urban design in tackling the main challenges that society faces in cities. Tim Stonor imagines the future of cities not only where traffic exists, but also where culture is generated and new ideas are born, with urban design centred on the pedestrian rather than the car. Common Futures is a new series of podcasts produced by the Norman Foster Foundation that aim to empower our community to make positive change as a platform for people around the world to share and hear inspirational stories and ideas that will shape the future. www.normanfosterfoundation.org

Mette Ramsgaard is an award-winning architect and head of the Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA). Ramsgaard's research centres on the intersection between architecture and computer science. Her focus is on the changes that digital technologies cause in the way architecture is thought, designed and built. Mette Ramsgaard has received the 2016 Innovative Academic Program Award of Excellence awarded to CITA by ACADIA and the 2011 Anna Nordlander Prize for female architects, among others. In this podcast, Ramsgaard recognises that architects are now standing in front of a new practice with new digital tools that are allowing to rethink the building process. She also acknowledges the impact that robotics will have in the architecture sector in the near future, including the conceptual changes. Common Futures is a new series of podcasts produced by the Norman Foster Foundation that aim to empower our community to make positive change as a platform for people around the world to share and hear inspirational stories and ideas that will shape the future. www.normanfosterfoundation.org

Farshid Moussavi is an award-winning architect and founder of Farshid Moussavi Architecture (FMA), aiming to go beyond how we have come to think of architecture by questioning the use of buildings. Moussavi is professor in practice of architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and was elected Royal Academician in 2015. She has published three books, The Function of Ornament, The Function of Forms and The Function of Style, based on her research and teaching at Harvard. In this podcast, Farshid Moussavi acknowledges the struggle of understanding and assimilating problems, means and tools arising. She finds potential in the way architecture and the digital have been meeting each other, with architects now relying on digital tools in an indispensable way. Moussavi explains how the use of the digital has led architecture back to its raw state and has liberated buildings from basic ideas of efficiency and storage into places that inspire. She appreciates new problems as opportunities for architecture to make a difference and make the world a better place. Common Futures is a new series of podcasts produced by the Norman Foster Foundation that aim to empower our community to make positive change as a platform for people around the world to share and hear inspirational stories and ideas that will shape the future. www.normanfosterfoundation.org

Hasier Larrea is an award-winning engineer, designer, and entrepreneur who is introducing robotic interiors to modern living. Recognizing the need for urban spaces that are versatile and vibrant, flexible and responsive, Larrea founded Ori, Inc. in 2015, challenging the world to see the potential in all spaces, unlocked by advances in technology and empowered by a different point of view that moves us toward a more affordable, accessible and sustainable urban future. In this podcast, Hasier Larrea explores how the qualities of the digital world are coming into the physical world to change the way we see and look at spaces. Larrea dispute the general belief of more square footage meaning more functionality, envisioning future spaces as designed to adapt to individuals and as the solution to affordability in the urban environment. Hasier Larrea defines the city of the future as denser, with more people able to live in the city without the compromises of density, making it possible to live large in a small footprint. #NFFStories is a series of podcasts produced by the Norman Foster Foundation that aims to empower our community to make positive change. A new platform for people around the world to share and hear inspirational stories and ideas that are going to shape the future. www.normanfosterfoundation.org

Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo are the Co-Founders and Directors of Ecosistema Urbano, a design and consulting company founded in 2000 operating within the fields of urbanism, architecture, engineering, and sociology. Ecosistema Urbano defines their approach as urban social design, understanding the design of environments, spaces, and dynamics in order to improve the self-organization of citizens, social interaction within communities, and their relationship with the environment. In this podcast, Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo explore the question of ‘how can we engage the citizens into the design making process and into the decision-making process?’ Delving into the challenge of designers to engage in a conversation with the public, they envision the autonomous city as composed of empowered active citizens in charge of their own future. The transition from our current city to the autonomous city leads designers to look into both worlds of reality and utopia, addressing real challenges while aiming at ambitious projects. #NFFStories is a series of podcasts produced by the Norman Foster Foundation that aims to empower our community to make positive change. A new platform for people around the world to share and hear inspirational stories and ideas that are going to shape the future. www.normanfosterfoundation.org

Norman Foster is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Foster + Partners, an award-winning British architectural design and engineering firm, and the President of the Norman Foster Foundation. Based in Madrid with a global reach, the foundation promotes interdisciplinary thinking and research to help new generations of architects, designers and urbanists anticipate the future. In this podcast, Norman Foster addresses the question of how crises have improved the quality of life of the cities, effectively transforming them. Foster uses the recent global covid-19 pandemic as an example of changing attitudes engendering positive changes within cities leading to the rebirth of the traditional European city. Reexploring housing, transportation, sustainability, technology and design through a holistic and innovative eye Norman Foster demonstrates ‘the only constant is change’, defining cities through their evolution and the power of city leaders. The ultimate city giving equal importance to sustainability and quality. #NFFStories is a series of podcasts produced by the Norman Foster Foundation that aims to empower our community to make positive change. A new platform for people around the world to share and hear inspirational stories and ideas that are going to shape the future. www.normanfosterfoundation.org

Anna Dyson, Hines Professor of Architecture and Professor of Forestry & Environmental Studies at Yale University, is also the Founding Director of the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture (CEA). The Center of Ecosystems in Architecture (CEA) unites researchers across multiple fields in the development of transformative systems for the Built Environment. The Center reinvents the DNA of the built fabric and prioritizes the requirements of living ecosystems towards the development of innovative methods for buildings and cities that support biodiversity with clean energy, water, and materials. In this podcast, Anna Dyson argues how technology and robotics have profoundly changed society into the Age of the Internet of Things. She recognizes the need to rewrite previous decisions regarding our urban environment and our relations between the living and non-living systems. Anna Dyson believes in the future of contemporary urban systems lying in more biocompatible systems and producers of net biodiversity. Dyson advises the young to follow their passion, and to keep questioning your environment, to listen to your own voice in order to become a strongly participating member of society. #NFFStories is a series of podcasts produced by the Norman Foster Foundation that aims to empower our community to make positive change. A new platform for people around the world to share and hear inspirational stories and ideas that are going to shape the future. www.normanfosterfoundation.org