 Good evening everyone. It's my great pleasure to welcome Toshiko Mori tonight for the last, but certainly not least lecture of the fall semester. Toshiko Mori, founding partner of Toshiko Mori Architect and Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at the GST, will be sharing with us the work of her practice. She is the perfect person to inspire us as we look forward to a changing spring, helping us remember to think and act differently as architects attempting to make our contributions to the ever evolving world. I first met Toshiko many, many years ago. She was my second semester studio teacher at the GSD, and I considered her one of my mentors and a model as a practitioner and an academic ever since. A committed educator, Toshiko was a unique inspirational figure at the time and remains one today. She stood out in the way she approached everyone and everything with great curiosity and openness and the genuine belief and encouragement that architecture and design matter, not only in and for themselves, but most importantly for the good they could and should strive for in the world. In Toshiko's mode of teaching and practice, many of the false oppositions that most of us had been taught to imitate and internalize are able to come undone. Materiality becomes generative of a building's concept, rather than an applied afterthought. Materiality is not secondary to the external form and expression of a project, but rather a constitutive element. Environmental and social concerns can not only be combined with but also reinforced by a strong aesthetic sensibility and vice versa. The disciplinary preoccupations are no longer necessarily abstracted from the lessons of the everyday. And most importantly, imagining how architecture might evolve is never thought by Mori to be in reaction to what it has come before, but exists always at once in both continuity and architecture. As a first woman to be first tenured, professor and then department chair at Harvard's Graduate School of Design in the 90s, Toshiko broke many significant barriers, not just for herself, but especially for others and especially the many students like myself that she mentored and supported for over a decade. In her own words, if you have an interesting identity like my multiple identities of being a woman and being Asian, you create degrees of diverse empathy that are critical for engaging humanity. The sense of humility of empathy and of constant care and attention for the world around here, people and places have guided Toshiko so many contributions in leading the field. Her passionate mobilization of architects after the earthquake in Japan, her thought leadership and advocacy as part of the World Economic Forum Global Councils on Cities, or her more recent us spoken positions advocating for more gender and racial equity for the field and across schools of architecture. She has her two recent projects in underserved communities in Senegal, the Thread Artist Residency and Cultural Center in Sintien, and the FAS school and teachers residents in FAS have been widely and enthusiastically acclaimed for the ways in which they demonstrate the potential of architecture to help stabilize resource communities while also deeply engaging with the community they were designed to serve throughout the process. In these projects, Maury has found ways for the built form to capture to empower the ethos of West African communities culture. Maury was inducted to the Academy of Arts and Letters in 2020 and has been a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2016, a coveted and much invited speaker. She recently gave the Topaz Medallion keynote address at the 2019 AI conference on architecture in Las Vegas, as well as the keynote speech at the 2019 AI Women's Leadership Summit. She has won too many awards to list, but just to name just a few. Her recent awards include the ACSA Toh Sigma Delta National Honor Society Gold Medal in 2016, the architecture records women in design leader award in 2019. And most recently in May, her project FAS school and teachers residents was featured by the Guardian as one of the world's top 10 new architecture projects. I'm really delighted to have Toshiko Maury with us tonight at GSAP and to have the opportunity to hear about her work and thoughts about architecture and architecture education today. Please join me in extending her our warmest welcome. Welcome Toshiko. Thank you very much Amal for such a generous introduction and I've known Amal for a long time and I admire her leadership at the school and also as academic and also as a practitioner. So I'm delighted to be invited to speak to you. And also I have told for two semesters at GSAP and invited by Berna to me and because of it, I have many, many friends who are teachers at your school, and I have employees who are graduates of GSAP and Columbia College with me so I'm very, very happy to be here. Yeah, but I just miss seeing everybody because usually if it's in person I'd be hugging everybody and saying hello and just enjoying being a part of your community. So thank you for your invitation. Thank you Toshiko. And tonight lecture I would show several projects and it has a lot to do with the process of our approach of my practice. And I will start talking about the project right in our city, 277 Mott Street. And it is a very narrow 20 foot wide commercial building in Little Italy. And idea for that was to do a small vertical structure, but then within fitting within a guidelines of Little Italy. So it looks very different from other buildings, but everything about this building is as of right. Now, what's quite interesting about New York is that when you are walking on the street, the view you just saw, front of you, you hardly ever see it because streets are too narrow. And especially Mott Street when you're walking up and down the view from going up the street down the street, you want to catch the facade. So we introduced the elemental twist on the facade within the distance of 18 inches which is prescribed by law to actually make a building whose facade mutates when you're, when you are viewing it from a skew position. So that's why this twist actually occurs. As I mentioned, it's a tiny little footprint in the section of a building. So this is how the facade works. And to do this twist, which actually rotates in a very different rhythm throughout, we have done enormous amount of testing and also a practice and geometry size, everything with it. These are some of the drawings we create in which we deal a lot with materials and we actually work with how every single elements work together. In fact, they manufacturers use a drawing as really a template to produce this facade elements. These are some of the plan drawings, which shows the different profiles of the facade and some of the section drawings that you can go through. The real building is also the twist, but twist of metal. It functions as screen elements to screen against a harsh western sun. So it's really a shading device, but it's actually carries the same language of a twist, but in different material. And again, in these studies, we have done quite a detailed studies of the rhythm and the pace of a twist to actually help with some angles coming through. And these are some of the examples of fair trade. We have a black planet and manufactured in Italy near pizza. And in this technique we have used both hand manual and mechanical and digital and that's something of office always used to do trajectories between different mode of publication and that's actually how it is situated through in a building and that's actually show that twist it goes from a twist. The building becomes completely flat on the top. And that's the facade view. And as the light hits, sometimes it looks very white, sometimes cloudy day becomes great. And then the edge is very sharp so that sometimes it becomes very white, and sometimes it completely disappear so it's a very subtle way that facade can be mutable that it actually participate with a daily life of occupants that there's always element of small surprise in daily life of New Yorkers. Some of the images of screens in some of the details. And I must say that this building was a project of Delos Cathedral, Renfro, and then it just sat and was abandoned and owner came back and asked me to restart it. And I asked Liz, they're asking me, this is like, I'm too busy, I can totally understand, you can take this project, but I found a remnant of some of a glass bricks they started to purchase. So I use this. This is like a little homage to Liz and Rick. Rick was my professor at Cooper Union, so you can imagine Liz was a year behind me, so they're good friends. So I actually lined the backyard in her brick in a night time it's actually lit up so it's actually a bit of homage to Liz and Rick on this project and that's the real facade. So going to something very, very, very different just to show the scope of project. I have a nonprofit called Para Acoustica, which is for the music. It's to develop portable concert hall for classical orchestra. And it's a nonprofit derived from a seminar at the GSD. And some of the students from that seminar are still active board members. An idea is to create the idea that concert hall by and large are very expensive to build and also near impossible to maintain it as a profitable venue because you can only perform certain numbers. And then you have to fill the audience because of it, the course for tickets as you can imagine going to kind of become very, very expensive. So I was working with collaborators. It's one professor from Kennedy School on Future of Nonprofit to come up with viable model for a profit making nonprofit so that it can take care of itself, and also huge out to a Breidenberg who started U.S. We have to go to remote communities and that's where they don't have concert halls, but that's where we can find new musical talents. So with that idea this started from research and became nonprofit. The research is continuing today. I just want to show you. So the inspiration is from English Gothic cathedral, which is huge structure, but this particular geometry allows you to hear the choir, entire lens of a cathedral without any sound enhancement. And then portability using tent and idea of a fan and also idea of geometry organic geometry or hexagon and something like little lilies that opens up. Those are some of the inspirations behind what we are trying to do. Also we are collaborating with Philip class, who says that I am a nomad I travel he actually in fact in early Korea travel for in Africa in my lead to research and drum music. And then this is a photograph he gave me when he was performing in Greece. It started to rain. So the audience came and offered him umbrella to cover. I really like this idea and can you make a tent, which is like umbrella for the orchestra that can travel with us. So that was the assignment and ideas, and I worked very closely with Philip class to come up with a program of this with the group. So this is actual form of it. And we have ideas that very idealistic idea that two people can erect it, and at least the way realistically, it's every component can be carried by less than two people so the weight. We were told that musicians has very delicate fingers so they have to be something very easy to do and in series of umbrellas like a little bit kind of reverse umbrellas was idea of prototype and each umbrella is about 35 feet in a diameter. We came up with a model of 300 600 900 audiences. See in a layout here we have a quite a generous orchestra. And that's because we've classed that you have to make the orchestra area large enough for video with nine symphony in which you have a full orchestra in there. And there's more flexibility if you actually can for this particular size. And this is a section through it. And we also work with a volunteer volunteer by Arab acoustics, who has modeled concert halls all over the world, and they can digitally test it so we've gone through acoustic testing with them throughout to make sure that all of the sounds of orchestra can be heard through the audience from 300 up to 900 people the way the geometry which is very similar geometry to English Gothic cathedral, but then of course it's made up in membranes so this membrane is collaboration with Taiyo Kogyo or Japan and they actually have a 75 cent of membrane structure in the world it's a private family owned business, but they have really come up with algorithms and analogies and also analysis method to structurally understand structures. So this was actually what we came up with. And so this is a company that makes so the soccer stadiums and even 10 structure and make guides or so forth. So we're working with specific material of fabric, but it actually has enough reflection so that you can hear the sound. The thing about 10 structure is a sound escapes when there's a performance, more so text size is transparent so you escape you don't hear anything. And it's, it's actually substandard in terms of acoustics. These are different layouts, but also there's another area when they need the tent is when it rains. So when it rains, usually all the tents make drumming sound and it's not really suitable so you can't hear anything. So Arab came up with this membrane structure which was developed for Beijing Olympics swimming pavilion first when they had installed it without it. It's so noisy no one could hear anything and it was driving swimmers crazy. But then this membrane structure was introduced and I think it was used in the end. But then with this we really we find it more. It's very interesting. This is a mesh structure which is caused outside of a tent, but it's not too tight, but it's not to open just enough openness so that when rain hits it, it actually bounces back and does not go into the tent. So that's actually what it does in terms of rain screen mesh as acoustic purpose. And also we were able to attach lightweight photovoltaic panels, because these tents go into play remote places where there's no electricity so that's one of the reasons that why acoustic enhancement was important that we will not have microphone speakers in many places they want to go. And one of the concern there is that if the classical music continued to be more of a latest venue, one would lose audience and then one would not be able to discover talents because they don't have access. And it's not limited to classical music but idea of access is important and this youth orchestra of America's also develop leadership through music in which they go and then audition youth and they will come back and they were actually going into many different conservatories. And with the mission of being social leadership is on combined with music is a very important ideas. That's me and Philip going through all this he basically gave us all the programming and we did do a full size mock up in Kyoto, Japan, in which acoustic worked wonderfully. Thankfully, it's, it really works and also the rain screen we tested it works very well we couldn't hear any water we used firehose from fire engine to test it. So, this was going on. And but we actually thought that we can push it a little bit further. And currently we are making new models and new research you're using air beam, which is as the previous project you so it has metal structures. And it does add to cumbersomeness and weight and cost and air beam is that it really has not been developed since 1970 really since X470 was when Tangier was a master planner. That's when air beam structure was used very much but no one really touched it. So engineers are very excited that this is one of our first time we really looked at his possibilities. And one it's actually easy to assemble easy to disassemble lighter and less expensive. It's different from inflatable is that you inflate that just a structural element, and also what's interesting about it, it can be wobbly. But that's okay. And when you when it actually it's not strong against hurricanes but it can come down very easily and go up, and one can fold it up and transport very easily so we're actually going through this. And while we're going through that we realize that and we they were asking us to come up with different use for maybe medical facilities like pandemic exterior hospital rooms or intermediate rooms for shelter, especially for people who don't have to go into the hospital. But if we can't stay with the family, especially in Japan they need this intermediate kind of facilities temporary. And we are looking at different ways of social distance classrooms use. And then lastly, lastly, concert hall themselves I think it can house up to 96 to 100 people, and we're working with different theater groups throughout the world to see how we can work it through in terms of numbers. And I will show couple project here which kind of relates to the threat and fast projects that I'm all talked about spoke about. It's because there is a technical and technological innovation and thread and fast using vernacular architecture, but it just didn't come out of nowhere and and also there's actually coincidental understanding of relationship of hybrid structures that we can do. And actually come up with. So this is a project in Buffalo, New York. It's addition to Lord and Burnham greenhouse. And this is probably one of the second oldest greenhouses that Lord Burnham has made. And Lord and Burnham did start in Buffalo so it's kind of very interesting legacy so this is like Victorian structure. And the Botanical Gardens program is very Victorian colonial and everything so in a way how do we actually come up with a new facility which is not a colonial extension of colonial architecture, and not not an extension of colonial program in which they people collected plants from a colonies when they conquered them as colonies so this empire gathering this is kind of this is questionable in terms of Botanical Gardens, but now because of ecology and environment that we really have to study. And I think they are thinking of new program for wider community, school kids and so forth. So, what we came up with is, is the kind of a tale that comes out of a Victorian greenhouse to create another pocket, and also to reorient itself to the park, which was designed by Olmstead. Before it was cut off, but it's just not engaged so there's a relationship between park and this new addition that that can work together. And also came up with a new way of education and then different gardens and different ways of circulation to reprogramming what you call specimen garden into much more circular ecological environmental and educational ideas. This is a model, a very quick model which show you the concept behind this particular scheme. And, but it's actually very simple idea it looks like very complex geometry but an expensive but it's very simple idea, which is if you have a standard greenhouse, what you see there, and you actually zip open the gable and, and then you actually make the gable and connected together, then you actually end up with this particular geometry, and we call it branching gables. So if you actually take more almost any sections, you end up with a standard greenhouse structure. In terms of structure, it's actually there's no it's no rocket science there, it looks like something parametric out of nowhere but it's actually fundamentally very functional and simple, but it has this thing. It's a membrane structure ETFE as I've learned a lot about membrane structure going through whatever concert hall in which it's much more efficient and much lighter and less expensive sunglasses to use this at this time because it comes out in the pillows, and you can regulate that's how tight the pillows are and you can also have different kind of freedom to create environment specific to certain type of plant to grade a different shading system so there's much more advancement on this ETFE we are working with on it. So inside it will look like that and we're working with Arab engineers on the columns and all, all of the structural elements, as you can see them. So that's actually the view of it, we just finished schematic design and we are going or going on to a design development as we speak now. And related to these structural ideas I want to show this subway canopy you probably have seen number seven line in Hudson, Hudson Yard in Hudson Park in Boulevard and landscape design is by Michael van Barkenberg it was collaboration to produce a subway canopy of more shape more like his designs and also multi-directional and so that people from different parts can actually come together it just becomes a shelter so that people coming in and out going home going up becomes this quiet moment of repose before you get into busy subway station or busy Hudson Yard structure structure itself is a hybrid between a boat and a dome so it will look like a total shell in a sense it's a grid shell structure and every single glass panel. There's no curve panel it's all square panel and this is by Streisberg man. And it's it's very notable their specialty is a great shell structures. So this glass structure itself is a structure in itself so that's something quite influence are thinking about it so this is one of a view about it. And I talk about it because straight and fast project. Which I will talk about next is collaboration with Streisberg man and a structural engineer and it's a pro bono project for me and then so it was for Streisberg man and this structure engineer also knows enormous amount of bamboo structures also. They have worked in bamboo structures in Southeast Asia, but also understand this relationship between how to make what one would turn a primitive materials, but then applying the principle, some of the most advanced structural engineering into transforming into another structure elements which is probably larger than what they can provide. So, with it I would present two projects in Senegal, as I mentioned, and it's a project is a collaboration with Joseph and Annie Arbor Foundation. And they have this motto, which says the relation and education of vision through that's their mission really. And then they always have a dictum saying maximum effect with minimum means and Annie Arbor's also says, you can go anywhere from anywhere. So this idea over Joseph and Annie Arbor Foundation was very interesting to me, I have done exhibition design for them. And that's how I met the director of a Joseph and Annie Arbor Foundation and told me about the projects in Senegal they've been working for 20 years. As a medical to build up the medical community because this is the area where there's no western medicine, especially rural areas. And one of the highest rate of maternal mortality and infant mortality. So this is actually a severe area. He was asking me would you be interested in like looking at it perhaps your Harvard students being interested so I in fact took students twice to Senegal and when I was younger I was fearless everybody got a lot of shots and took malaria pills and and then hand sanitizer it's worse than you're going to pandemic you can't drink water. Really, and then only from bottled water and you can't eat any fruit except something peeled, all that kind of precautions, but we have done two seminars on different ideas about developing these communities. And a couple years after that, they came back and asked me to build project for a thread and then second fast so that's actually the reason behind it so the area is where the red circle very remote Dakar is the capital of Senegal. And you'll know, many of you know Dakar as a capital also has and shares set memories because that's actually is one of the closest port to America, and this is where the slaves are shipped. And it's, they have museums and they have island, and it's really heartbreaking and but in a way for me to really understand what happened in Africa in terms of slavery, and then what. Who are they just not Americans Europeans everybody. It's implicitly exploitative globally it's a global phenomenon really so we I had this back in my mind of course and then it resonates one of the reasons I very I've spoken about black lives matter is because I kind of. It's just indelible memory of me and also my students who went there we visited like when you experience it. You really understand that quality of humanity against humanity and spying. So that's the Dakar and then our communities about seven miles away it's in rural community by car it's very remote and under results. And material is very scarce. So the area is in a click in a village here. Within a compound of clinic that Joseph and any others foundation have been helping and building exactly they've built them in addition they built seven or eight other clinics and maternal communities and also for you to jump here, which is shelter for young girls who refuses to have the courage to run out or we can't return home and then food is abandoned by family so and then also they also build kind of guns and farming schools and so they've been doing a lot of work in the community very familiar with them and so what they did is they have done public health and they have done education with the kindergarten they have done production in terms of agriculture school. But now they want to go back to culture where their foundation is based upon so that's the cultural center is what they wanted me to build in this community. And that's the plan of it and community itself looks like this series of African huts and people are very beautiful and artistic. They have locally designed textiles and they wear them in very creative ways very lively. And in this area about 12 tribes live together fairly peacefully but they don't speak the same language. So arts and music and performance become a means of communication. And the gentleman in the white is Dr. Gaba, who is a doctor of this clinic and he has known Arbor's Foundation because when he was a youth, he was a volunteer and he went to medical school in San Luis but came back and said that I have to have a clinic here and he was very supportive of this cultural center because as you know as you may know Senegal is about 90% Muslim and he has seen the onset of a more fundamental Muslim movement in which he was afraid if we don't encourage artistic expression it could be crushed in it's just like a time bomb that's about to take. And also in this clinic he uses performances like theaters to inform communities to prevent malaria like having mosquito nets and so forth they actually do skits and they perform from village to village. They do music and dance and gestures. So he actually thought that art is a very, art and culture is a very important ingredients of culture which can connect to public health so that's actually something both projects read and fast that built next to the clinic operated by Dr. Gaba and he actually acted as a construction chief of a project and that's his existing clinic built by Joseph Nani Arbor's and it's a large, very large families in there and it's one family maybe 30 to 40 people because they have multiple wives and polygamy is there because of survival and as I mentioned before maternal mortality was one of the highest there and their infant mortality also one of the highest there for the survival of this polygamy was proliferated but since the clinic opened there's really nearly a zero or maternal or infant mortality which again stabilize the community so that in a sense a family actually has an impact in terms of improvement of life over people in general. So the center itself has two courtyards and the Muslim communities open times you have to have men and women in separate public spaces and that was the intent but in practice just never happened everybody here was just together and this is much more liberal Muslim community and we actually thought about how different communities can gather in different parts so it's a very loose programming but then it has enough diverse spaces so that you can have used by several different communities from kids doing homework to women gathering together order people men so they can actually be together at the same time not to be exclusive use of one type of person. So one of our crisis there is that shortage of water. They never had a practice of collecting rainwater but the well aquifer was abandoned but climate change aquifer was drying and Dr. Margie Bar did a very interesting analysis very detailed analysis of how much water they consume and we actually targeted. Perhaps we can make our building able to collect nearly about 30% of use which actually accounts for the use of a villagers and and what it is is that when we did a climate analysis if they were able to collect water during the rain season they can totally survive during the dry season. There's a social aspects of it which is that usually women and especially girls their task is relegated to going to further places in rivers and lakes in order to collect waters which means because of it after elementary school very few girls go to junior high or high school because they are very busy with those tasks and they risk meeting dangerous animals and bandits so in a way it really makes life for women very tough and ideas that if we can create a system right in the village and this may not be a drinking water but very very useful for agriculture and the question miscellaneous use of the clinic does have separate well which has federation system for drinking water and hospital uses. So we actually figured out we have a two systems in there and design of a roof is driven from this idea to be able to optimally collect rainwater to be able to shed it in the canal system. It can be directed to to system system so that's very practical functional ideas, but at the same time we look at looked at wind orientation in which case, just this area can be very very hot in the summertime, and very still, and idea is that can this building improve on that in by creating a stack effect. So that how air comes in, it just rise up but promoting that by having these two holes oriented toward the proper wind direction so there's a really comfortable breeze going through there, in which case in its open structure is shaded, but it's actually much cooler than exterior environment. And it's a challenge this idea because African heart is all enclosed and everybody lives outside. They only go inside to sleep, but it's all pitch black. So there's absolutely no spatial understanding between pitch black at night and sleeping and daylight activity then just outdoors. So the idea of sitting in between space was very new to them. And I was afraid that that's idea may not fly with them they think it's a weird place they won't come in but somehow because of comfort levels they got used to it, and they understood that it has a really interesting idea and it became a very active gathering space. And again, this is remote community. If I try to try to transport any materials, it becomes very very challenging and very expensive. So how to give jobs to the village people. One is, yes, it's actually source of economy to get jobs of building this center, but also secondly they will learn how to maintain it, how to fix it. They will perhaps learn new skill set which is a skill they are used to because I really observed and working with Dr. Mageba how what type of technique we can use to this building realistically with the village cross people. We looked at African hat and realize that it's actually very sophisticated very beautiful. It's a real it's woven structure. And I also have to say that it's very I just put smile on my face because any of us and weaving and she also wrote a piece called weaving as architecture I'm like, Aha, this is really the time I can experiment with woven architecture at any of us named so I was very happy about it and just on a side note, any of us said that first thread was not really interesting for her but as you know in Bauhaus, women were not allowed to study anything except weaving. And so she did not have any choice but through weaving she has gone through incredible and also many other women in Bauhaus too, inventions and looking at things and more recently I think her contribution has been valued more. She had a Bilbao and a museum Bilbao and also Tate modern she has had so exhibitions so one is trying to really see the contribution and really not to demean weaving as a craft, but another part of art form and even really going into architecture so it's actually our evolving perception. That's another idea of agenda discrimination which actually buried this particular graphs of secondary in the previous times but I think we are really thinking of it as my final form of expression and technique. So that's actually underlying structure in bamboo. So we took all of that together, and then came up this particular form in which you immoral very precisely by computers, but translated into technique and geometry which can be easily built locally with bamboo structures and everything is tied together. It's really a compression ring which is tilted and which stabilizes the courtyard and then columns around it with a perimeter beam. That's basically very simple idea. And also, as Schreisberg-Gerwin came up with an idea of a two different one with a single layer with a sandwiched on the exterior, another double layer and sandwiches and an element in between. So where the stress is very much this green double is used and when it's not so much this red element is used. But again, this is a local technique but it's very simple twist of local technology to make a much larger structure than what they have but using the same technique. So we used, they speak French, so this diagram of assembly and like a cartoons and we show them how to in terms of sequence instead of reading blueprints in which case it doesn't mean anything but in this case you build this first, you do this build this second, you build this third, you hoist this up. And so this is how they built it and then very precisely and so that's how construction draw and and also what's wrapped here in straw is a small piece of steel like L angle. It's nearly like a scrap steel but that's enough to be able to reinforce it when you need it but wrap it up in a straw to protect it. The kids they should be in school but they came and helping get got excited about it and learning how to do it. And these are the local people who make the roofers really a local roofers, but then in this case, we made them make the much thicker than regular ones, because what's one of the things I learned a lot about the direction of the thatch and also I have them look that any of us textiles. And as you can see it's slightly thicker than others. What it does is a directionality of a thatch helps to direct the water. So in a sense it's actually much more efficient than a lot of other materials and it is a flyable in a strong wind the structure stays with sometimes just a thrush. Yeah, just flies away, but the grass is going right next to it they cut and repairs it. This is a master roofer that we worked with, and also making it thicker increases insulation value. And a thatch is very interesting because it's not solid. So it's porous. So when air goes, it goes up to the thatch it slowly goes out. So in a sense, it actually does promote very, very slow stack effect, which actually helps in terms of keeping temperature, much more comfortable as I mentioned before. This is in construction. And also the brick was built with a local mud. It's a mud brick. And luckily this particular region has a roof, which has a very strong alkaline value, which is very strong. And so that was made during the season, and dried in the sun so that's how the bricks are made. So that's what they look like. And for the bricks we actually went back to examples of Justice Albers brick structures he's actually done one wall at Low School at Harvard, and then he has collaborated with architects in New Haven to make fireplaces. So there's a lot of example of brick patterning and ideas that Albers has done. So I showed them to local craftsmen. This is a Harvard idea. And also there is a local tradition of using some of blocks to be ventilation device, as well as privacy devices. And this was an invention of theirs is a local vernacular brick of blocks, which prevents sandstone from coming in but air to go through. So in a sense it's like it catches the sand, and then it just gets rid of most of the sand and then air can just come through. It's a very, very good idea. So that's actually how it is. And we painted it, plastered it white just because it's actually environmentally it keeps it cooler. So that's what the wall looks like and this is detail of a constructional wall. So, frontally it looks solid, so it gives you a privacy, but it has enough porosity for the wind to come in throughout. So that's actually the elevation of it. Also, this is one of the earliest Joseph Albers piece called glass painting. And this was made when he was in Bauhaus, and he was not wealthy. I mean he was actually very poor. So he collected materials from a garbage cans in Bauhaus and made this piece. So it made quite an impression on me and also the villagers because it's a beautiful piece. And we found out that there are broken tiles from the car that's the garbage which we could get for nearly nothing. And these are like the garbage shires broken tiles. So we, and also there was a craft there, which uses it. There's a skill set because it's a traditional craft to use those tiles for the same reason it's inexpensive, if left over from another economy, but they can take care of it. And also there is another food they call broken rice. And they use that to cook the main food because the rice which is left over from bottom of rice sack and against the reject, but they make delicious food out of it. So there's this wisdom about how to deal in a scarce resource circumstances. And I think those are very beautiful. It's actually DIY. We just said you could do whatever you like. And they were inspired by Albert's painting. So they made this, they said there's a water, there's idea of water. So they made all of them. Also, Joseph Albers have designed numerous furniture and they were looking at them and they built their own furniture like ours furniture there, or the stools like that. And also some of the mockup of ours, which was made in wood, and they looked at it made doors out of it. So they got very much inspired by some of the examples. And so, the way that's actually, it's a collaborative project completely. And there's little Albers library there in which some of his drawings and books are studying there. So the center is artist residents. There are two rooms. One is director and one is artist who's invited international artists filmmakers even fashion designers there. And also local artists, even there's a hip hop music producer or composer was there. So African artists, and even writers French writers American writers opera producers and many, many people it's been become very, very active and attractive residency. And outside and this was opening in which nearly 2000 people from the region came, it becomes a big gathering space and places where they exchange dances and performances together. And the places maintained by women in a village they wrote it from different tribes to try to maintain it. And this was a couple years ago. And I just wanted to know what happened with the water and what they did is they actually formed a woman's agricultural collective on the site by using the collected rainwater and started to grow gardens. And then it becomes very burden and maybe counterintuitive, but in the area which one of the driest one can control agriculture better because you know exactly how much to portion water. And then also very sustainable in a case that you know what are the most productive plans to plant and resilient. And they became very, a lot of plants and it just became very green and women's collective saving growing eggplants and okra which are much more higher price than regular peanuts or onions or bananas. And they have been making money and and also at the threat, there's a beehive and there's a honey and also they women's collective got a grant from a Senegalese government to grow ponio which is a very fine grain gluten free grew like couscous but very fine. So they are using that as a product and this these areas of it costs about 10 US dollars per year for a child to go to school. And because of it, women were able to send a lot of their kids to school then and when they're beginning a lot of kids but just not going to school so that actually an impact in terms of economy. Of course I am an architect we designed we didn't design it's really complete ingenuity but people programming and working things through so and then it's used as community centers and they just kids hang out there and and there's a generator there and solar power generator so that at night time they use it come to do homework there. And that's the overall picture of this was two years ago we won one took his drone and did it at night time what it looked like the one which is covered is a system it's that's actually covered drying the dry season so it doesn't evaporate. It's actually made by the same people who made a portable concert hall it's a very high tech textile, but it does it keeps the water temperature cool it doesn't evaporate and they exchange it to a more mesh trying rain season. So that rain can go through but kids and animals don't fall into there so they actually that's one high tech elements they have and outside now they became a local soccer tournament area so it became attracts everybody every September to huge soccer local soccer tournament. As a result, we have done a lot of research on this particular typology, and we, this is a thread on the left the right is the last project I show next is fast school, and we realize that there's incredible potential for hybrid typologies and it's that study was a part of a Chicago architecture finale which is curated by Mark Lee and Sharon Johnson couple years ago, and we were interested in making some models of it, this is a scale model of it, what would happen. And that's actually installation of it so we think there's incredible amount of possibility using this technique to come up with many more hybrid structure about it. The last project I show is a fast school, and this is a village further in a rural area that's read by we have to cross Gambia River, and then it's one of the driest areas. And it's also much more conservative and this area never had a secular school and then kids illiterate they do not know how to write or read. And then I had math. So Nicholas Fox waiver who is a director of the foundation was approached by the tribal leader, and they saw thread they said they want to build a school like thread. And then Nicholas said, yes, but we have to make sure that kids are going to be learning practical matters and secular matters so they can be equipped to go outside of a world. And, and the boys and girls have to be able to study together. In elementary school age six to 11 or 12 and there was no school there it's only Quran's religious schools that they go and girls and boys study separately on a big plaque wouldn't plaque they learn. But it took Nicholas three years to negotiate the curriculum and now it is like a three days secular three day religious school, and they are question village nearby. But Christian kids also have to take religious studies to so they actually understand each other's religions to. So, one of the reasons why is that in this area, if you can imagine combination of poverty and ignorance is lethal, and they realize that without equipping kids with knowledge and understanding and information that they could. They are very targeted by terrorist organization recruited by them, and then it becomes that's the only future. And all, or else they have to migrate to in different places but they cannot protect themselves if they don't speak the language can't write can add. All this can read any contract they have to sign so the Malibu, the tribal leader resisted it but they understood they said that this is in fact elders did not want to have a school, but they understood now that it's actually this idea of expanding knowledge is the extension of elders wishes so it took a long time but we were able to finally build a school with the proper program which we think will be helpful for the community again in both projects in terms of programming building me and Nicholas and. I was foundation working very hard so that we are not imposing we always listening but we are advising so that one can in some places able to improve and stabilize the life they have so it took a lot of visit a lot of discussions lots of going through this so. That's actually what it is so the shape is like a oval shape and it has four classrooms one is semi open and to two other buildings one is the bathroom and another one is teachers residence and has two teachers and each section through it has. A very different five different sections so each classroom has a very different feeling called spatially very, very different so then it's not repeat. I would say that the regular regular schoolhouse given by government in Senegal made out of concrete blocks with a corrugated metal roof. What happens is that middle of summer. It gets so hot that kids get cooked in it so they don't want to go to school and in rainy season it's so noisy they can't hear the lessons so the kids don't go to school. How good is it when you have a school when you have a school kids don't want to go so that's one thing so I was told that don't make a school that looks like institutions that given by government. Or given by American foundation or something has to look indigenous and then a second improve the conditions so that the kids will want to go so. And the whole concept I presented is. In a sense it's very related to Joseph Albert's ideas that when he immigrated from Germany to America, escaping Nazis, black mountain school, and then eventually teaching Harvard and Yale and living in New England he did teach in one room. One room schoolhouse. So this idea that I said this is schoolhouse, they call me zone. And you're going to kids are going to meet new families from different tribes, and they like this idea very much like it's Amazon it's not, it's really not institution. And then, because of it, this profile section of profile really is like a little house profile. And also we made it like this is a sectional a bearing wall profile and similar materials it's actually nearly the exact same workman who worked on thread worked on it. Dr. McGabe who also has a clinic right next to this how it's actually extension of threads since young clinic is there so he supervised the construction of it. It's a very similar construction except a different geometry, and it's a little bit larger and has a courtyard. This particular shape, there was ancient improving, which is ancient Maudi family dwelling which looked like that existing this area. It doesn't exist anymore, but then this particular shape was not unfamiliar to them. This is my money keep the my team of Dr. McGabe second from a left, and then the roof as Linda became friends they're like amazing craftsman and they took pride in building and maintaining both projects and this is a clinic which is next to the fast school. So again, this fast school in terms of education, public health is part of education to so kids learn to wash hands kids learn how to deal with Ebola or malaria so there's this really important idea of tying education not as independent but part of a life. So opening day and the kids are sitting there so. So, also, they are also much more simple than slip but ventilation area. And in this building, again, the roof is very thick, it's porous, so the there's a stock effects there. And there are two teachers and I think one of the reasons why we have a circular is that teachers can go to one classroom give assignment to another and run to another classroom they're actually busy teaching for classrooms between two of them, but then they can easily circulate among them but also. Kids at different levels so they are free to migrate from one one classroom to the other so they actually reflect the way it operates it and also this circular central. Oculus provides interesting shades throughout the day so that courtyard can become useful. And that's actually the way it looks it looks very iconic but kids you can see very flat but they know they can see it so they know how to walk to come to school in these areas. courtyard work in schools, the girls and we also designed furniture there. And that's actually the courtyard view again from. And it looks quite airy but yeah, they have also a garden now and I wish I had this garden view. But now this area just aquifer so all the water collected from roof is directed to aquifer. They have so much water collected they have now two hectares of gardens that mothers of the kids actually. It's another set of agricultural collective, they have established very quickly so this is the last image of a of tonight and I just want to show it because the idea that the kids these small kids and to be able to provide a space and and also place comfortable space for them to learn I think as an architect is is an amazing gift for me. So I'm very thankful I think this is a fitting week to be thankful for many things we do but I think that I want to just end by saying that architecture. can make a change and I think it may be incremental and maybe small step at a time but I've as an architect who is think of holistically about structures in life of communities. And then even small things are collecting water or making building cool really can change the lives of people so in the modest means I think we can make a change but thank you so much. Chico, this was really, really wonderful and so inspiring and amazing to you and on this beautiful image of these children and this gorgeous structure. You know, as far as I've known your work you you've been interested in in materiality and really getting into materials and understanding structures and lightness and this kind of temporary, temporary capacity and it was really interesting to see the building, you know, also carrying some of this logic, you know, to New York, you know, context where as you said you brought the, the manual the mechanical and the digital so even in New York not, you know, relying purely on on let's say digital and and, you know, as we've seen, you know, in your work this kind of back and forth between these contexts that are so different and we've seen New York transform, you know, under COVID with these temporary structures and these tent like, you know, restaurants that have taken over the street and unable social life to happen even in the in the pandemic. You know, I'm wondering if you actually see a future to to what you know, as you mentioned, any albours you know put to the side brought more and more to the core. Now, do you think that there's a future for these temporary structures and the for kind of experimentation with fabric and other methods of building that could sort of become more permanent or more accepted in cities such as New York. Now that we've seen this transformation happen here. I'm absolutely right about this because I think one of it. One of the problem architecture it's static and it stays and some buildings can become obsolete. And then it's such a waste. And then, but if you have a temporary structure that can adapt to different crisis or different and then to enhance what exists as architecture, I think the way the sidewalk cafe is doing it in a more informal way. But I do understand that New York is now lobbying to have cultural institution able to use sidewalks and empty spots and parking lots to do more temporary events in which case, for example, actors are very sad because there's, it's in the musicians to because not having audiences doing an infinite rehearsal. But even few audiences and then to have interactions in social distant world I think it means a lot so there's actually a need for the temporary theater spaces and we actually talking to some theater groups here. It's great to do that. And that's another reason I'm developing this airbeam structure in Japan. And also there's a need in Japan to because everywhere in pandemic this entertainment industry, especially live theaters live musicians they suffer a lot. There's a certain limit to you can do it over zoom. And, and they miss it this interaction with the audience and I think audience misses hearing a live songs. So I think it is a huge future. And also one of the interesting thing about temporary structure as I see it is, it could be shared by many people, it can be used and we used. So it fits into shared economy mode in which it's not like Carnegie Hall is Carnegie Hall and it's an entity, but the portable concert that we are developing can be used by many different orchestras, in which actually reduces the cost, but also idea of a sharing by sharing structures, you share the knowledge. So it really improves the community values and I think silver lining of pandemic is this temporary structures there but we are sensitive to people who are eating, and we know how sidewalks can be shared by many people. So one is more aware of many more activities around us and communities. I think this is essential for us to survive through. So I think there's a, in my opinion there's a huge potential in architecture for temporary structures. And actually to be, to be more accepted in, in cities of brick and stone and, you know, as opposed to, you know, you mentioned mecca or, you know, these these places that have, you know, can host millions of people at once just using 10 style structure. I heard really at the heart of your talk is not just a kind of sense of really, really working with the community but, but collaboration right that that you have, I mean from even Liz and Rick who kind of became collaborator with this small installation, you know, maybe without without them knowing but sort of, which I thought was so beautiful at this solidarity between architects and kind of like building on their using their materials but your collaborations with Philip glass with Arab etc. And then with the community and so I wanted you to expand a little bit on collaboration today and how it's, it's changing again from just to kind of very large, maybe teams of engineers etc to to how we understand collaboration to engage communities more actively or you know who collaborates in the process is something that's quite interesting in your work. So I think you probably noticed that I'm very much interested in building activity as well, and we make drawings nearly like a shop drawings. So we actually enter into territory of fabrication quite a bit. So negative about a building industry is it creates an antagonistic relationship between architects and builders and contractors and it's absolutely not necessary I think there could be more blood zones and more medieval. This idea of a relationship of designing and craft should be more integral. And with a digital technology, it should be, I think in a way that you, you can actually design more precisely. And in fact, you could actually design and you can share the manufacturing knowledge and then things like I, you know, IDP and all that that's actually happening now. And I don't know if it's the best platform but more digital production advances, more collaboration is required. More sharing. And, and I see it as positive because it really reduces this antagonistic relationship which has happened about blaming each other, or who pays for what because I think everybody is shared profit and share loss. But I think that's maybe the future where we're going and a lot of projects, I work with a community is a lot of sharing and sharing responsibilities, and that doesn't mean that you don't have responsibilities but you are part of a team part of a community that you value each other So it's a very different approach and I hoping that's the way we will go. And another sort of, I think, still I think pioneering mode of practice that even though it's, it's expanding and certainly is of great interest I know to our students is, you know, starting new forms of practice and you mentioned that you have a nonprofit and you sort of researched how one could do that and meet you know there are a few models now but I'm, I'm curious about the relationship between the nonprofit and your practice and how the two operates or, or is it all nonprofit or you know just how you came to think this was kind of the only way to do the kind of work that you wanted to do. So I think nonprofit is I have two partners I mentioned Jim build now who is a senior fellow at Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and he's a lawyer, and his specialty is future of nonprofit he basically is saying majority of nonprofit will fail because one is so dependent on donation and he is a partner because he thinks that I'm making a nonprofit model, which which can survive on its own income. So it's still a nascent stage and we have had donations and then also collaboration with Arab and then Tio Kogyo everybody to make it once, and then he also thought that they actually is an actual need for portable concert hall, and then that can be used. So we, our research is also about making things but also this research is the type of nonprofit which can actually support itself without donation. I think it's very interesting how we are approaching so we have many different numbers as to how to operate it. And you can see that architects by and large we are nonprofit because we don't have a different story. But it's amazing that you're exploring that, which is designing this kind of former practice I really appreciate that so let us know when you when you figured out how to. I know so that's actually yeah that's a model model make different kind of model making. That's right. That's right. And I want to make sure to open it up to questions but before doing that you mentioned that, and then I think this is something that is so interesting you mentioned that before your work in Senegal you had done seminars and so do you really kind of take time to in advance of a project to sort of understand the context of culture may connections and so wanted to hear more about that relationship between the seminar and and the work and how students were engaged you mentioned some students are on your board for your This was a seminar we started on the research and then then we realize that it's actually a project which can which needs to go beyond it and then unfortunately academia, there's no potential for long term research, especially in architecture it's usually semester long or one year long at the most in the ends. And when I found the partners for nonprofit who's able to support the work. I realized that we should really make it into a different format. And it's research or research based nonprofit which eventually becomes operational so I talked to students about it and I even talk to school about what about nonprofit do you want to get a credit I just mentioned that it started with a seminar that's that's it. So that's, that's how it is and it's separate from it takes place in my office but we have different, we have completely different accounting system and we, we have, we have we have initial fund from donors in which we were able to do. And then also Taiyo Kogyo has been funding some research on their own and Arab also they're contributing so somehow we actually have amazing partners and collaborators to keep working on this project. So maybe I'll try to tie some of these. Some of the questions overlap. So the first question is, thank you for your inspiring work and ask how you kind of transitioned from some of your, maybe more high end work to low budget community minded work. And the other question is just thanking you know thanks you for the social culture and economic issues within your design that you highlight and ask what should architecture students focus on to make social change. The first one, high end to low end. It's like, for me, the communities who don't have resources, they actually deserve the best we can offer. So in a way, because they don't have choice and high end clients they have so many choices they can make. We can do many different designs so to do low budget project, we have to be more focused, and we really have to challenge ourselves more than where we do high end clients who have different choices. So we have to be very careful but we benefit greatly because high end clients, let us do a lot of explorations is a lot of research that's when we're doing a project so we accumulate knowledge. And like all the knowledge I worked on Hudson Yards, the canopy, that, you know, that knowledge gave me an idea of how to do the work so in a sense that we can connect high end and low end and I think one can make it very productive practice. And it's not like we don't do separate practice to high end low end. So in any anyway, I think we have to play more highest more demanding practice for low end and high end. So that's right. The social practice is, I, I think that every practice of architect is social. And then you, you, if you start to separate social practice for non social practice just know, and, and, and I always say that we are not politicians but architecture is political. We build has meaning and then it does convey message and even private residences, it really affects people's lifestyle they will live very differently, perhaps, in a very small sense but family is very important unit and without family unit we don't have a community. We don't have civilization so even a small less colonel or what you do in architecture, you always have to remember it has huge impact. So that's actually goes into innovation and when everybody's talk about what's innovation what's innovation but innovation in itself is not just something new, but it's cumulative and it's impactfulness. As a student you always think of whatever you do, small, what are the impacts of different you have so that's how you probably expand going back and forth in your ideas. And maybe building on this back and forth and you touched upon it already to two questions that are kind of pushing this notion of connection, what you know what are your takeaways from building in Senegal, and how did those projects changed in which new projects in Western countries. And, and again, similar question. Do you hope to bring some of these constructive methods, which are all often put down as low tech or primitive in your work in other contexts particularly in the US where those are overly dependent on concrete and steel so in this back and forth. Are you hopeful to bring some of these techniques I mean we touched upon it a little bit with the fabric notion and in New York or and of course your acoustical portable structure is already doing that to some extent but you know it's I learned so much in Senegal projects, I think I learned more by working through this it's really it's importance of vernacular and we usually regarded as no architecture, but there's enormous amount of wisdom in any and every single vernacular. I think approaching it to analyze vernacular to make it into contemporary society, not only engages the community to the contemporary world and one criticism I have about modern architecture is there's a big cut between what's traditionally vernacular to make something new, but I think our world is so that we will engage back in tradition vernacular, and then from there to bring it back so that with that one can actually bring the culture front and center. So that the community will not be cut back and they will not be segregated there's something that is going on and and one of the most important thing for me and I did a study on it really how to bring culture of Indigenous people in this country, African American culture which has been disregarded largely in architecture how to bring back that language into architecture and by then doing that you actually start to knit back and heal the society which is destroyed or wounded. So I think that's actually in a deeper sense that's what I'm learning because somehow the communities in Senegal, both of them work in a state of desperation and now I wouldn't credit myself I really credit resilience or community that they are thriving so I think that is a brace that is possible by architecture. Do you consider Kenzatange to be an inspiration. Yeah, yes, yes. Well, I have a very different perspective because I my first building. I have seen that a child 10 years old is he is Hiroshima Memorial building. He visualizes the atomic bombing and displays as harrowing. It is just as a child you just have nightmares for months and months and I still have years what you have seen witness. And then when you really trace back to the way he worked on it. I think that he made sure that that's some purity if you know the building, and it's race priority, and then see through a destroyed dome. And that dome was not preserved when he built that and got a master plan, but he actually took them about 1250 years after that dome was preserved. So he is the kind of master planner master architect in which he actually had a vision beyond what's possible today. And he actually had a very clear idea to do this building it will frame it it's going to preserve and that is going to be symbol of a piece, not his building so. I also have a net another anecdote was Kenzo Tange because he's from there. High school in Hiroshima, many of our classmates were killed. And then when it was bombed, he was on the train back when he was of Tokyo to see his father who was ill, who died on his trip. But then when he arrived in Hiroshima, the bombing and his mother died. He actually, as a university student blunt here to do master plan in Hiroshima and walk in a basement of city hall as an activist to try to put the city back together. So, knowing that amazing story of how he was a young person, and how that dream that that building is one of his first building as a young architect. That kind of activist dream and passion. And of course he did this amazing building afterwards so that origin of who he was is what really inspires me. This story. No, no, this is actually a wonderful way to end and on this image of healing and bringing people to back together through through architecture and certainly in your work. It's been really your whole trajectory is inspiring and to see the work now just continuing to flourish and just so beautiful, and so thoughtful. So thank you so much for being with us this evening. I too wish we were together. It's really were just stuck in the flat grid for a while longer, but hopefully not too much longer so thank you Toshiko and hope to see you soon. Thank you so much everybody stay safe and healthy and well. Thank you so much. Thank you.