 Thank you very much for this invitation. I owe a lot not only to the Biennale for this opportunity But also to the urban age to give context to some of the things that we have been doing as a private practice But eventually to be able to gain a bigger perspective about the importance and All the challenges of the or the built environment ahead So the plan for today for this 15 minutes, and I've done finish this whole presentation It's fine. I can when I I see the three-minute sign I can stop So it's a perfectly fine, but about the question the what role for architecture? I would say before going into this thing the role for architecture I Would say synthesis the kind of issues ahead are so complex that the more complex the problem The more the need for synthesis In the end the forces that shape the built environment Tend to come from very different realms, and they eventually they pull in opposite directions So the what's needed there is a capacity to channel those forces in a common goal an Architecture at its very core has the capacity to organize information in a proposal key. So Diagnosis is fine, but ultimately The risk of making a proposal has to be taken and I guess at the very core of architecture is that that's the role of Design in the end what architects do is to give form to the places where people live It's not more complicated than that but also not easier than that The form of places where people leave and what informs the form of those places is The way we're trying to engage us architects as designers in this bigger question of improving quality of life through the built environment so going to to the presentation there's The urban age has been extremely important in making all of us including architects But the society at large to understand that we are living in this urban age Which is good news and bad news The good news I guess that's why cities are in a way a magnet is that cities are concentration of opportunities of Jobs of education of health and recreation That's why people come to cities and they will keep on coming and this in principle is excellent news Cities are also very powerful vehicles to deliver public policies to improve quality people's quality of life They there it's more efficient access to sanitation to education and transportation It they can it can be delivered more efficiently if people is concentrated in space and Ultimately, it's important and cities are good news because they have critical mass and more and more the competitiveness of cities Will come from knowledge creation the more people you have the more people physically meet forget about social media Internet we will we still need to meet that's why we actually meet physically here So the the critical mass of cities are it's going to be crucial in knowledge creation with will be leading development and economic growth, so That's why even if country intuitive the more people coming to cities the better the problem is that I Would say until not long ago, maybe a couple of months We thought that this the downside of this the bomb part is that there was a threat Mainly from what we call the three s menace the scale speed and scarcity of means We can So the threat comes We thought as I said not long ago from the three s menace the scale speed and scarcity of means Which translated into numbers means that we have to build for 1 million people per week with $10,000 per family That's the the level of migration of towards cities So Germany was worried about 1 million immigrants a year well as a world We need to deal with 1 million migrants per week with $10,000 per family So we thought it was that the threat But I guess there's another one and somehow it is connected to the events of crime. I didn't know I just found out this morning The kind of threats that we're we're Witnessing and we're experiencing comes not only from poverty But mainly from inequalities and I guess the question of peripheries in developed countries Where as I said if it was a social time bomb where pressure is accumulating is not only in developing countries I thought we had a lot of that in Latin America. I guess that the peripheries in Europe are not that different So one would have thought that the bomb side the pressure accumulating was in the poor countries in the world I guess right now more and more it cuts across is from forward before the reach and for the poor countries of the world in any case if we concentrate on The the one side of the three s menace If we don't solve the 1 million people city per week with ten thousand dollars per family We have a problem and the problem will mainly come from this three s crisis as social crisis a sanitary crisis And a security crisis people won't won't Will not stop when they will do not stop coming to cities They will come anyhow, but they will live in awful conditions in formal settlements in slums and favelas So this crisis of not being able to respond properly to the migration towards cities It's one big issue and the city itself could be what we have been trying to Implement through very concrete projects in our practice and I guess but is part of what was going to be shown at the Biennale here Is to be able to look at the city as a shortcut towards equality? Normally there is there's any agreement is that we do have an issue with inequalities And the only thing we tend to listen is that in order to correct inequalities we have to Implement income redistribution as if inequalities were just an economical issue It's far more complex than that in any case Cities can be an alternative path to correct inequalities because if you identify Strategically projects of public space public transport Infrastructure and housing you can improve quality of life in a relatively short period of time In that sense improve quality of life Through these projects instead of having to depend or wait for that income redistribution only so that's one side of the thing the other the other new thing is that this social and sanitary and security crisis Will require from us and this is something I learned because of the Biennale because of the joint venture with the UN habitat from John Claus is He said that the city in itself can be a vehicle towards development The way we were talking about I was taking notes in all of our conversations And it was extremely useful for us as practitioners is that he was saying in the UN The developers expert approach would be okay. We will grow We will eventually become rich and once we're rich then will we create a good quality city And his point does was that if this triangle over there is followed The rule of law the right financing and the right design the city in itself is the way through which you achieve Development you don't wait for it. You use the city as a tool for development This proved of course as an architect I think this was extremely Interesting, but this proved to be very right one week ago I was in a in a lecture for a private investment bank and this approach made a lot of a lot of sense To these people if it made sense to them means that there's a point there also meeting with mayors that Eventually instead of waiting for the minister of finance to give them money So that the city with the right approach in itself can then benefit the minister of finance and not the other way around I think it's a very Important paradigm shift and I will try to to finalize with this point In any case Using the city as a shortcut towards the quality The point is that if these are the forces that if not Addressed properly will create the built environment ahead With this kind of footprint what John Kloss was saying that one of the crucial issues here is the role of public space He was talking about the proportion of public to private space in a place like Manhattan close to one to one But every square meter of public land There's one square meter of developer land in a private way and normally the approach of a developer would be Okay, if I'm given a piece of land I'm going to give away for public space as little as possible so that I can sell as much land and Have profit, but this is counter-intuitive close point. We're saying the more Right a proper public space you give away the more profitable is going to be your own investment Because when you have a ratio close to one to one like in Manhattan Then each private initiative on the black thing over there in the mass gains value over time If you move to informal settlements that ratio drops to less than one to ten per every square meter of private land There's less than one tenth of public space which makes that every individual private Intervention and in an investment goes down in value over time So the role of public space it's crucial in the creation of development but also in a way to Redistributed redistribute quality of life. There are some examples Here at the Biennale how to make a very efficient and innovative use of public space Like the project in Medellin that is presented here that are senali for the transformation of water tanks into public space project at the Jardini of The use of an old highway transform into market Transport have Created by a former policeman so an NGO not only designer things here or a politician or a company like the public Enterprises of Medellin in this case a former policeman tied and this was a rather dangerous place That abandoned piece of highway that now has been transformed in one of the most lively places of Durban in South Africa What Raul will show what we can learn from the for this a massive amount of people moving towards cities from from Experiences like the Kumbh Mela The requalification of peripheries land architects Italian French practice Requalifying peripheries by the way The opening of the Biennale for the first time in Biennale's history was the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and at the opening He made the announcement that given the Italy is presiding g7 next year He would like and actually it was approved 500 million euros to requalify peripheries to understand what was the possible role and relationship between architecture Politics and quality of life. So I guess that these are the kind of signs Where we architects should be prepared to deliver if there's a such an approach to deliver some concrete Knowledge and I guess these are some of the clues that one might get. This is at the at the Giardini as well Kule with a floating school the role of infrastructure or against inventive Infrastructure if there's not the conventional while there are other ways to still deliver in this case education in Nigeria The role of incremental housing given these numbers we won't be able to solve the proper amount of people coming to cities unless we Deliver incremental open systems to channel people owns capacity instead of resisting seeing people as part of the solution And not as part of the problem The same incremental approach by Bell architects from Germany as incremental urbanism So that's one end of the spectrum for which here at the exhibition. There are some clues For how to deal with them So in just the three minutes that I've been that are left As I said before a couple of months ago We thought that this was already difficult enough to deliver or to have knowledge for how to create the 1 million people city per week That that if we don't solve it we had an issue But we found out that if we do solve it We have an issue as well Because if we built for such amount of people with the actual building systems that we have today and the carbon footprint The amount of energy that is used in the building industry then we end up with no planet So we other choose human human social crisis or we choose an environmental crisis The new thing here is that the environmental crisis is not just a green thing or let's say the ministry of the environment Now the Environmental crisis is connected to a security threat the map of the wars on on water Short-touch is exactly the same the correlations exactly the same with Conflicts then the consequences of migration. What are the conflicts of those migration in the peripheries? So it's now the report is not coming from the ministry of the environment Then from the Department of Defense in the US So now the thing I guess it became something Serious in the sense is not just a hippie romantic thing about saving the planet now. It's a security threat and For dealing with that kind of threat. I would say that that the Biennale we will witness Both strategies we will need hypertech and we will need infratec. So from the work of Almost no technology and non-skilled labor like the golden lion winner Solano Benitez from Padaway To have way of high-end designed by Lord Foster, but using sand bricks with very little energy embedded To state-of-the-art engineering by oxen d'orv block and the young in this pavilion here at the at the Cordelia To using materials that has no industry behind no lobby behind like earth Anna Herringer or Bamboo by Simone Vellis and the center pavilion In any case just to to conclude What the John close was saying and I thought it was extremely illuminating as that in order to tackle this issue We need we may need to pay attention to this Triangle cities may become this shortcut towards the quality the vehicle towards development or a way to Deal with the environmental security threat if we follow these three things the right rule of law the importance of the void and public space will be crucial Patient capital none of these issues will be sold if the way we finance these operations keep them asking of returns and profit of two digits Only one digit and that will only happen if capital instead of looking for Profitability is looking for predictability Eventually, let's say pension funds will be the kind of way to finance this kind of operations Otherwise, we will never be able to deliver this kind of quality and finally good design And I hope that while going through the Biennale You will find some clues about how design can contribute with synthesis to these complex issues. Thank you Can I just before we move on to roll? Couple of questions Joe you may want to add to this In one of your sketches you have the beautiful parabola One of the great engineers, and then you have banky moon written next to it Help help us understand that where where we how does that work? Where does that? interface happen between It's just on Well, I guess that We never thought the world could be a connection actually Donald Trump was Mocking Obama by because he was saying that there was a connection between terrorism and Climate change and the point was that the more we put a pressure on the environment Be it the water be it the carbon emissions then you're creating social conditions for people that may make I They migrate or they will create conflicts and they will Be an issue with weaker institutions and those Conflicts tend to happen in places where the bio the environment is threatened first So in this report from the Department of Defense Well, which I think is the the new thing the numbers on the facts are the same But the the the fact that is the Department of Defense now being worried But to be a security issue and the terrorism coming will be in a consequence of that Has made it become now something that more decisions makers are paying attention to it's banking moon They are because after Obama said that I think it was exactly one year ago July 2015 not not long before the Biennale opening also Ban Ki-moon said I agreed on that so now we have more and more public figures agreeing on the relationship between Environment and and this way why a bolt and brick is over there because we will need to create knowledge inducing materials that are extremely available are ubiquitous like mud like bamboo like wood Sandbricks working with extremely simple Technologies like the old arch or the old brick or need to save energy and the the project about the the bolt there Can deliver this the resistance with 30% of the matter that is used using conventional methods So I guess this is the kind of knowledge that we need You're the director Does this imply what you've just said That the architect has to play a completely different role than maybe we've been used to we'll talk about this more of Greater modesty Yes, I know I guess that the kind of challenges will require a lot of boldness and audacity and and really Trust your your I mean I guess if you're you're confident in your knowledge Then you don't have problems that the starting point is outside architecture and outside yourself and this I guess is the thing The the farther away from architecture is your starting point in in issues that interest not only other architects But the society at large that's why the list of threats and challenges at the beginning like inequalities pollution waste Poverty migration these are issues that every single person can have a say that interest at normal citizen The way we engage this non-specific conversation as architects is through the specific knowledge of architecture Which is to translate all those forces into a proposal