 I always find him extremely inspiring and warm and happy and exciting person and I'm really, really glad he's here, especially in a conference called Turn Me On. If anybody can turn us on today, it's Charles Landry and here he comes. Anyway, so I'm going to go a little journey around this topic, which I think has something to do with design, of course it does, and you only need to arrive at the station in Luxembourg to see the diversity more or less immediately, but it's in the city, it's everywhere, even this large group of Chinese people in the rain yesterday. So anyway, enough of Luxembourg, you know what Luxembourg looks like. One of the things I want to come back to is the idea of a vanity connects to sort of a European ideal of the city. And the question I think we could ask is whether Luxembourg could be a role model for that sort of a vanity. Now just to remind you that a vanity that started in the city-states in Italy, the Hanseatic being and stuff like that, broke the shackles of sort of feudalism, gay people, some sense of upward mobility and movement and social groups weren't stuck in their ways as before. There was an element of, you know, religious tolerance and so on and so on. So the city obviously, this ideal of the city is incredibly important. And of course it hasn't always remained like that, but nevertheless, let's think whether it can still be the case again. So the question really is, I know that obviously Luxembourg is diverse, does it think of its diversity as a sort of problematic, is it a bit threatening or is it an opportunity? And of course I'm going to argue that it is an opportunity because all these insights are very helpful. I'm sorry I can't help the screen but it somehow is doing the right thing that says lineage. Anyway, the lineage of all of these discussions are to do with the whole issue about sexual-capital integration. There are lots of debates going on, other debates about cosmopolitanism and identity and whether we're hybrids, other debates about cross-cultural connections and so on. And then of course there's the business case for diversity which is where it actually really all started, business was really arguing that first. And that's all about ultimately what I call the intercultural city and what the advantage of that city is. So the question, how is that working today in one way or another? Now being intercultural is more than just saying hey I respect you as your multicultural, I'm multicultural, I'm different. It's sort of saying okay what are we going to do to get back? How does that change the whole civic culture of our place? How do we get changed by these people who are coming in and how do we change them at the same time? And so to some extent it is opening up a possibility for a sort of unbounded dialogue where we meet in some sort of crossroads together and are changing ourselves in the process. And it implies too that we have a sense of curiosity about each other and the other in general and where that happens ultimately is in things like sitting around a table, eating together, obviously learning together in lots of other ways as well. So if you're looking at, it's that means, if you're looking at this intercultural thing, it means you have to look at it through a lens and I apologize again but the right is always not there, doesn't matter. The point is that can we look at this city diversity through the idea eyes of planning, through the eyes of architecture, through the eyes of housing, through the eyes of leisure, urban renewal and so on. And so this lens idea I think is quite powerful because when you analyse that you'll find that most cities are basically not looking at their place in that way. But what you have, if you did, would be you could create a situation where citizens are much more competent, confident and so on and able to deal with a world of difference, diversity and so on. But the big question is and there's a bigger question floating around and you know that bigger question, that bigger question of course is what is the world like today and that world today of course is massively transforming in one way or another and you know at what level it's just industry transforming into a knowledge economy but it's also in many other ways too. So in this world that is in motion in one sense or another, enabled by things like the internet etc etc is obviously quite strange and in a way we're all closer together perhaps the tyranny of distance has disappeared. But if you just look at these flight paths this is just taking yesterday of the planes zooming into Europe. You can see there's a hell of a lot of movement, a lot of people travelling to Luxembourg, but movement in general all around. This is just the planes at yesterday at five o'clock. And what that's doing is bringing all kinds of people together in old ways which have different views of life as we well know. This is a video store in Malaysia, it's quite interesting in its own way of course and that leads to a sort of global culture which is good and bad and it affects obviously our identity and obviously we also know that our identities are never really pure, they're rather mixed in lots of ways. For example I look very English but I'm really all my blood is German, it doesn't want to go down that route. So what you see is not always what you actually get. But the interesting point if we just graphically think of a city, are these just people, just specs in the landscape? Or are they in some way brought together and are connected or is it just a question of parallel lives? And the strength of diversity under certain conditions is when we get beyond the situation of parallel lives. Now many people find these processes quite invigorating and exciting at one level, others find it of course the absolute opposite, it's frightening and so on. And so you get these pro and anti attitudes towards the question of diversity as a whole. But when they can say is there's no doubt that everywhere we go in the world, this is the Shanghai Expo, the pavilion of the future, people are thinking about these sorts of questions. What will our city be like? How will they shape them? Can we again reimagine the links between housing and nature? How do these different dwellings look like? What do they feel like and so on? And indeed, can we envisage a sort of future where these mixes of people can live in relative degrees of let's call it harmony for the moment? Now I think you all know that all of these changes are happening in a context of there was an industrial city, et cetera, et cetera, became more knowledge intensive over time. And now clearly one of the issues you're talking about when you incorporate design into that process is really adding an extra dose of creativity into the way cities and places function and of course companies as well. Now the issue is since anything is thinking about what is the emerging advantage for you, you as Luxembourg in this context. And of course there is the bigger threat, not threat, perhaps opportunity. I don't know, of course the world is shifting towards the east. But one of the issues which relates to this question of diversity is of course 15 years ago or a while back people used to go to places because of the job of the company. That's now completely changed. People go to places because they like the place and then think of the job second. Now if this place, this place, let's say Luxembourg, is one that is open to difference of all of these different possibilities then it's likely to be much more successful. And you just look around you wherever you are, this happens to be Helsinki. You can see the signs which are really saying these different people they have some sort of skill somewhere, talents that we obviously want to have and we also want to keep the talents we already have in our cities. Unfortunately this is cut off but just as we're talking about diversity, diversity is also about age. Like fall this job, is this woman wrinkled or is she wonderful? So when I'm talking about diversity I think I'm also talking about the broader sense of diversity too. Now some would say that these shifts that I'm discussing represent a paradigm shift whether you want to use that word or not doesn't matter. The main point is that we're moving in a situation which was one that was very much about planning in a predict and provide way to one where we're trying to plan and think through things in the plan that known to creating the conditions to be able to deal with the unknown and the unpredictable. And of course I don't need to mention the sort of fragility of what I'm talking about and how that actually feels in places because although I'm being positive about diversity the reality is there's a lot of tension around in general. So let's look at this just for a moment a bit more closely. Now the city of course I don't need to tell you is the most complex designed artifact ever made by human beings and the fact is of course it's usually created from within a specific cultural perspective. That cultural perspective is usually increasingly an engineering perspective actually because we just make it sort of fit some easy templates to build the city just looking where our hotel is. That could be anywhere in the world if I just took a photo of it. But the city this complex thing the city actually could be much richer in terms of how it's thought through if we took all the skills and perspectives of those who are in them and brought them together in the way the city looks and feels. Perhaps in the case of Luxembourg it was nature that shaped the city rather than us actually shaping it given that it's sort of such a hilly place and so on. Now do I believe in what I'm saying that we can do I believe in reincarnation basically? Am I positive about the potential of this? And I personally have to be because I've just decided to be. And that is really then about how do I create this different type of city that looks and feels and has a completely different sort of atmosphere. And I think there are sort of four lenses you can look at this and I want to highlight this idea of what I'm calling civic humanity which is trying to recapture that ideal of the European city. And the four lenses I think we could look at of this, this civic humanity, this is this idea that we visited is focusing on four dimensions one and understanding and incorporating in city planning and thinking the idea of cultural literacy which is basically this intercultural stuff. Secondly to embed this idea of healthy urban planning that your planning is a way that makes you healthy without having to go to the gym which also means you're more likely to bump into each other in a chance encounter way. Thirdly eco consciousness obviously. And fourthly what I call creative city making. And what I mean by these things is the first is really seeing things culturally as this graffiti and television is certainly not the basic default position. And in fact culture which is the DNA of everything can be an obstacle or a problem so it depends what the atmosphere in a place is like in order to make this an opportunity. And in some sense it really is the other invisible hand there's the invisible hand of the market but the thing that really drives everything is culture as the real invisible hand. I mean if you just look at these three streets from three different options you can see it's the same street but completely differently conceived. And this last one has to be in Albania and they all in Luxembourg they would have talked about Albania but this is interesting isn't it? Because there's building and these shops and all of that. The others were also in Australia and in Asia. They're very different. This one is telling you where the airport is and it's very clear which direction they're in. And then in terms of the healthy urban planning most planning of course is very segmented. It's very hardware driven and everything here is logically conceived. This is Perth, Australia. But the result is a nightmare because nobody with social understanding and understanding of human emotions was involved in creating this. And most places in the world really like that. Basically disappointing and so on. Here's to Sao Paulo last week you just ran a motorway straight through your eyesight and so on. And this is the result of places you know you've been to. We didn't really plan for this. So healthy urban planning is actually getting rid of that and thinking about that differently. Which really is about hanging around and sitting about and all those sorts of things. And the eco-consciousness thing is of course actually planning in such a way that you're healing the environment and Friberg is a good example of that. This place called the Song Shift is a complex of buildings and structures which co-designed by architects and artists which is you sort of know when you're there that it's a different place. And finally what I'm calling Creative City Making is really that change between hardware thinking and blending hardware thinking with software thinking which starts from the person outwards and their diversities and mixes and differences and blends that together with the hardware rather than just saying let's do the hardware and you can sort out how you feel about it later. And that to me is a very important shift. Thinking about this software thing because mostly people understand software of the city are usually in status terms very low whereas in fact they should be very high. The other thing when we're thinking about this designing with a greater sense of vision and broader mind is to also think of the senses not only the obvious senses but also I said several about 50 senses. But one of them particularly is I'm just pointing out electrics. The electromagnetic fields in cities which make you feel ill or comfortable or good are one million times larger than they were 80 years ago. So if you just remind yourself that the electromagnetic field is one million times stronger that may be quite an interesting design challenge to think that through. So this is really about seeing the city through the senses first rather than through the simple infrastructure needs. So that what I'm really saying replies that we can do a few reconsiderations. For example trends. Clearly the here and there phenomenon. You're here and there at the same time and nobody's speaking something here and looking over there talking to you. I've got faster networks. This sort of world shapes the way we think about who we are in this place and who we're mixing with and so on. The second really thing is really revisioning planning which therefore needs to be far more involving and engaging with a far wider group of people rather than the simplistic economic dynamic leading to very soulless buildings in you know the typical office block that looks pretty soulless today may have glass but that may reflect back on you may be quite shining because it's really great. Then really it also reminds us that we can rethink the resources we have in the city and what they are of course is in the skills and competence of people which comes back to the point about the more people you've got the different views the more potential you might have and that really means also trying to make the invisible visible because many of these assets of these people are completely unseen and so on so finding ways of revealing them in the urban landscape of a physical public realm is incredibly important and that means of course that you would redesign the city in a different way and I know we're going to talk about that later spaces which might look and feel completely different than we have constructed so far and what that brings us to is a different story of the city itself which each city has of course multiple stories there's not one story this multiple layered story which may be in this case a sort of breakthrough story that does something very unexpected and more or less finally on this point it requires also a different form of governance and representational structure who is actually being represented I'd love to know who's represented in the Parliament, does it reflect the diversity of Luxembourg or not and all of this requires a different form of bureaucracy which is actually more open minded and lots of other things as well and reflects the diversity that we're just discussing at this moment and finally what that means is that the actual rules and regulations that one has would need to be reassessed and a lot of this is of course about creating regulations which are not too specific but based on principles and more on trust and so on now I've asked people over several years what cross-culture makes a great place give me the words that make you feel that this is a place you like and this is across different cultures and different social groups and there's some things people say are first impressions count, how do I arrive what is the airport like this happens to be real bad what does that happen when I then actually get into the town what is that feeling and emotion you like because my first impressions are also my last impressions they then say what I want is something familiar something which is easy a sort of good neighbour or something where I sort of home from home where I feel safe and secure where my kids can play and so on this is Barcelona this by contrast is a business district in Amsterdam I've never ever seen a child play there and I'll give you a hundred euros if you've given me a picture with a child playing there I don't put any cheating yeah but you get the point that it's quite clear even from a punctuate perspective that there would never be a child playing there and there's that point at the corner of the building but anyway, different aspects like that the other thing people are always asking for is human scale great streets and all of those sorts of things because the essence of the great city of course is a great street well designed good materials and all of that all of this you know the point I'd be really saying is once these basic things are there the sense of security people open out this is South Hallow that's weak every 200 metres or less you have police usually men so that doesn't give you that sense that you can just move around and navigate a city so once that is there that sense of safety people won't encounter exchange they want to cross fertilise because they know the city is about exchange transaction, talking doing things together in one way or another where ideas are exchanged which may lead to projects may lead to services and products and economic advantage they then also want this sense of openness to other cultures when they feel safe in themselves in one way or another they want their choices and possibilities they can read that chance street you know to be able to set up a business of some sort they want mechanisms to be there that you can have a small business out of nothing there are a lot of places where it might be an old container or something like this this is a container bar these companies here were set up so it's a bit like an exhibition a museum exhibition on the outside they want surprise and wonder something that occasionally gives them some sense of wow I didn't realise that this was happening in this city I'm not saying you put a second straight here in Luxembourg but it could be anything it could be a café that looks bizarre and feels bizarre and is all immersive in some sort of way so once people feel relaxed again they also want to with a decline of religion something that's spiritual, soulful that gives them some sense of a higher purpose in their city this is Valencia the point being that all of this suddenly comes into play once people feel a basic sense of security they think once they feel safe let's have some temporary installations and of course we know about the pop-up culture that exists new working formats like this pop-up office here quite interesting we'll just roll it along to the next down the corridor or even the things that you know about strange billboards and so on this is Paris and you occasionally want the iconic, the memorable something that is really so strange in your place in your place this is Loubet and here was an old swimming pool and the guy was leaving the museum guy said I need a museum and he said just put the museum in the swimming pool and that in a way is iconic a museum inside a swimming pool you can do lots of things in that water as you can imagine you want things that are dynamic and agey vital in some sense because within that vitality comes the critical mass that enables things to happen which allows a sort of rich activity base to occur for example things like markets and so on that you can see is obviously all quite stimulating and within that the external spaces is rather like an exterior living room which could be a version of home from home but whilst all of what I've said has been slightly over stimulating people want the opposite because great places have a diversity in another sense which is peace at one hand and loudness and stimulation on the other hand so that's what really identifies really interesting places so you can move from one atmosphere one quarter or whatever you want to call it to the next and within that and this is incredibly important this sense of urban trust trust is perhaps the key thing about all of it here an old guy and a young woman actually coexisting in the same physical space without needing perhaps to be watched by a CCTV camera in case everything happens and within that the great place of course has some sense of real deep locality which is also globally oriented and because Sophie does live in the Netherlands I thought this is so Dutch nowhere else do you find that sort of machine where you buy hot whatever it is you buy then we don't find it in England we do know when you see it that this is typically Dutch and within this I think the city can show its intent in the physical environment now this has to be a green version in Malwa western harbour where you can see how the carbon neutrality works through the physical fabric and as you walk down below because it could be in many other ways as well and partly given that you are I'm sure you'll agree that what makes a cultural life interesting is this balance of difference between fringe activities wacky slightly mad activities with the mainstream as well and these things playing off each other in some intricate sort of format and that is of course about you know today's classic was yesterday's innovation so you need both these two things simultaneously and then the obvious things like limits on noise and dirt and so on you want a bit of dirt but not too much because once it's too dirty you feel slightly unsafe as you can see I'm playing around with a sense of the organic and the planned and that's always a very difficult balance you know here in Singapore they want everything planned and you lead to this innovation that I'm here called by all of this that doesn't look very innovative in terms of the physical fabric so what we've got here I suppose is a balance of wildness and order I don't know if this is ordered or wild I'm not sure it's an Amsterdam but just then around the corner we're building lots of units and people work and do lots of other strange things there so those are the interesting balances I'm continually showing up new and old is another one Amsterdam again that new Java Island uses the template of the old but it's very different in terms of how it appears or here in this interesting use of the museum or here equally in Toronto and what is very important from the point of view of interculturalism is that this is a place that produces things it's not just there for people to consume stuff so it should be have spaces and places for incubation and we're going to see one tomorrow so again you can see I'm always doing these dinghongs, the flexible overfits the organic and the planned spaces that are movable multi-adaptable etc etc very difficult for the traditional planner to think through this type of place which I think encourages the diversities that we're talking about and then finally on this point it's about then creating a rich story of the past present and the future which happens to be both in as you can imagine so where did it come from and where are we going now if I summarise this and we put it in a sort of index what do you look out for as a city as a Luxembourg, there are probably ten things, small points what is the public framework like is that public framework one that's like sort of a bureaucratic spaghetti which is silent or is it one that understands that you need to across departments send out some signals and manifest it that this is a place that encourages difference and all of the things that we're just talking about now and it's willing to get out of its box and willing to rewrite the rules the second point how much is it allowing the distinctiveness to express itself in the urban environment in every possible sense which I'm calling really to some extent the soul of the city the thirdly openness is the key thing we're coming back to it again and again what's the balance of openness and closeness in this place you don't need to be open every single minute of the day but is the default position to be more open than closed and then this question of entrepreneurship is there an entrepreneurship across community, private and public domain can you do interesting things like this escalator just in the open air as well as being very positive about open source creativity and here is a creative factory we're seeing one tomorrow but that one's in Rotterdam as you know everything's called a creative factory but be careful don't call yours creative factory too I'm not sure anyway we'll talk about that tomorrow then there's the issue of how is this place in terms of its strategic agility is it a place which is just at the ordinary leaders and the people have said I want that or is this a place where you have leaders who are willing to tell a story of that place that barely gets beyond the short term and if it is a good story it tends to deal with the problems of people disagreeing because the story of its compelling can do that and then this city this place you have to say what's my learning landscape like am I giving every category of person the possibility to learn and is that learning embedded in the city so it's a learning city or is it in some campus in the middle of nowhere is it sort of a lifelong learning type of situation and how well does my city communicate you can assess that is it communicating well internally between groups and externally with the outside world where you can wear everything for example is Wi-Fi enabled and is this place being conceived of using all of these resources of the people we've just discussed is it using all of these people together and creating and I'm being a bit simplistic here Plato said the city is a work of art is the way the city conceives itself thinking of creating a living work of art where it's not only the physical but also the activities of the people in their differences that is shaped in this place that then I believe will lead to some level of livability with hospitals with whatever cycle paths and so on and most importantly perhaps is this place effective is it doing what it says it's doing now I'm not quite sure this is the most ineffective thing ever because the lying thing was too lazy to shift the tree but the more I look at this I think this is the most inspired project I've ever seen which came through sheer coincidence rather than planning so what that ends up with at the end and I'm finishing off now is basically at their best these interesting places we're discussing really have five components which is their places of some sort of anchorage and that anchorage is even for those who come from the outside it's a place of possibility it's a place where there are connections of all sides connections to their own diaspora connections to their own place connections with the people here who have always been here it's a place where you can learn and improve yourself you can be inspired so it is about memory having some form of memory that is credited and legitimized in this place and this memory may get old building this sort of thing that you know this is a sort of creative factory type thing I suppose we'll see tomorrow but it couldn't be other things a place of possibility here Singapore, the possibility room in their national library lots of people went in there they were doing what they seemed to think there was something there for them so that possibility is all sorts of incidental things and then that connection point bridging between cultures and so on and finally learning centers that are open and transparent and lots of places which you feel frightened to go in and where you feel you can learn in a life long way so all of this is not necessarily about money it's actually about changing the mind just a small bit thank you very much