 Okay, so can you all hear me okay. Good. Welcome everybody. So this is the first of the tech talk series. A new annual event series hosted by the building science and technology sequence. And this year we would be focusing on the implications of technological challenges related to materials cities and ethics. And I have the pleasure of introducing Timothy bit Lee, who is the Teresa Heinz professor of sustainable communities in the department of urban environmental planning and the School of architecture at University of Virginia. Tim's work is really exquisite and he focuses on sustainable communities and urban strategies to increase livability. Nature integrated spaces while reducing ecological footprints of cities. He directs the biophilic cities projects at University of Virginia, and he leads projects on topics such as the value of nature in the time of pandemic as well as an inspiring by annual biophilic cities journal. Please make sure to check it out. Tim is also the author and co other of more than 15 books on green organism by philic and resilient CDs team we're excited to have you with us today and to hear more about your work. Thank you so much for joining and sharing your work with us. Thanks Lola, it's great to be with you hoping everybody can hear me. Sounds good. Okay, and you can see the screen. I wish I could be there in person and, and when all this is over, and then it goes over and we're back to some kind of normalcy, I promise I will come. I would love to hang out in person so invite me back great. So, I'm going to in the time that I have I think the plan is, is maybe for me to talk around 40 minutes or so and then have some questions, questions and answers at the end so my goal is really to introduce you to this idea of biophilic cities and in particular, this global network of cities that we have going on right now so biophilic cities is really, it is at once a sort of a set of practices, a global movement we believe, and then also a network of cities and individuals and organizations that have also joined the network so I'll start, you know I am an urban planner and, and as Lola says I spent a lot of time thinking about sustainability and, and what it means to be a sustainable and resilient city and cities today are facing huge challenges and trying to rapidly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change and so on. So, we believe that that will require cities to be denser and more compact and we can talk about that. Often, the objection to that is that there won't be room for nature, or that we won't as residents of cities have that connection to nature. And so you see the question mark cities in nature but it's really take away that question mark so we, we argue strongly that you can and must, in fact have compactness and density, and, and nature as well. So the idea does build on this concept of biofilia and have to give a credit to your Wilson at Wilson at Harvard he wasn't the first person to use the word biofilia but he's really the one who's claimed it in the way that we, we mean it today this idea of co evolving with the natural world and the notion that we are health, healthiest and happiest, able to lead the most meaningful lives possible when we have nature all around us here's by the way one definition from Ed Wilson. And that means nature that isn't just in places where we go to visit once or twice a year on holiday of key premises that it has to be nature all around us and, and, and we have to be living in cities where cities and urban neighborhoods immerse us in the natural So in around 2012 or 2011 we started this thing called the biophilic cities project at at UVA. And we started actually as a research project we had funding from the summit foundation Washington DC based foundation and multiple years of funding. And we were very generous and it was largely about trying to understand the innovative ways that cities around the world were, we're putting nature at the center of their design and planning and then at the end of this project, couple of years of research we brought representatives to the University of Virginia, where the University of Virginia is. And we had four days of meetings and at the last on the last day, we sort of all agreed, we really needed to keep this momentum going and to, to build on the esprit de corps. And, and so we kind of spontaneously started this biophilic cities network, which I'll tell you more about. Most of you know, the evidence has just been been building over the last few years, especially, and we could spend the whole time talking about this evidence coming from from medicine and public health and economics. But I think it's, for me, a very intuitive thing when I think about what what are the things that I'm drawn to what are the things that give me a joy and meaning and they are the things in the natural world they are flowers and butterflies and birds and trees and, and places like the shoreline and and the sounds of things like water. And so these are things that tend to make us tend to reduce our stress levels and tend to make us feel better. And, and there is a lot of evidence, and you could argue that it's more, more, it's less causal and more correlational and that's certainly true but it's, it's building almost by week by week. And just a little, little few little snippets of some of the evidence here's a bioscience study showing the relationship between greener and more natureful neighborhoods on neighborhoods that are higher and in bird diversity and trees. Those places tend to show lower levels of depression, anxiety and stress. And there is a power, you know the power of nature, power of a walk in nature many of you know the know about the forest bathing work out of Japan that at the end of that walk through a forest. Your stress hormone levels go down that that walk in that forest gives you a boost to your immune system and the Japanese are so convinced that they've set up, you know, a network of forest bathing stations around around the country. You know entirely understand why this is the case and what the dynamics are at work. There is a science behind this. Here's a quote from Richard Taylor who chairs the physics department at the University of Oregon, who talks about this idea of fractal fluency fractals are these self repeating shapes and forms in nature so that that leaf is a small version of the bow which is a small version of the larger tree. And, and pretty good evidence that as Taylor argues our visual systems have evolved to sort of effortlessly process these that fractal information that we see in nature so not surprising that we are calmer, happier, more relaxed in the presence of nature and Jeff by the way is from a wonderful initiative in the UK where they're using birdsong as a as a way of detecting hearing loss. And it's really meant to remind me that there's a growing body of evidence about the power of birdsong. You know, hospitals in the UK that are recording birdsong and then playing it back to the patients times when for instance a child is going into surgery or stressful times when children are getting inoculated for example. So we have this this incredible power that nature has. And it's really difficult to array it to summarize it on on on one slide you can't really do this. I tried to do do it in this slide I was getting ready for a health care conference. And a couple of years ago I'm trying to create a summary slide, and it's hard, but it is true that the things on the right are all associated through research in evidence with the presence of nature so lower depression I've already mentioned the levels of stress improved mood, improved happiness, a greater physical activity greener the neighborhood the more it propels us outside and get more exercise even things like crime and gun violence, shown to go down and green greener neighborhoods evidence coming is an apology that we're more likely to be generous in the presence of nature more likely to be cooperative more likely to think longer term so it can be argued that we have nature around us we are better human beings. So if you had to summarize all of this, we find the word flourishing to be a really good one, because it captures not only the, the pleasure and joy that you get from having nature around you but also the meaning and purpose that nature gives to to our lives so we want, we want flourishing communities and planets, planets but we also flourishing human beings as well. So just a mola mentioned this work that we've started to do around the pandemic and I know there are lots of folks, lots of colleagues in New York and elsewhere that have done a wonderful job tracking the way ways in which people are reacting or responding to, to the pandemic in real time and how we're managing lockdowns and all of that and I think it's maybe an obvious thing to say now but we, we have, you know, appreciated nature in ways that maybe we didn't before nature has been a saving place, a bomb assault it's, it's been that thing that's kept us steady and a lot of us anyway I include myself in this and so we are trying to understand what cities are doing in real time in the pandemic to make it easier for residents to enjoy that nature and to gain those benefits from nature. So these are two of our partner cities Portland on the left Edmonton Canada on the right on the left that's a forest park in Portland. You know kind of unrest precedent demand to be in that park, and the city did a wonderful thing of kind of creating these one way walking loops to maximize the number of people who could enjoy that that that parks obviously parks have been very important but the map on the right shows, I think we're appreciating all of those, the spaces all around us a backyard of front yard is a corner lot. The spaces along, you know those larger features like rivers have become incredibly important as places to, to seek solace and quiet sometimes and and to be able to recharge from this otherwise sort of stressful time that we're in. So, so we're, we are learning a lot about about nature during during this pandemic, and it is my hope actually that one of the things that will happen is that this renewed sense of importance that we were giving to nature we were recognizing about nature will will carry forward in our lives after the pandemic and it will also be a force for positive change in in our cities in our cities will become hopefully more biophilic as a result of what we've learned about ourselves. So, I've been thinking a lot about birds and I have a new book of the bird friendly city that's just then just come out in November and I have a couple of slides about it but, but it is definitely true. A lot of evidence that during the pandemic we've seen a rise and numbers of people enjoying birds and engaging in bird and bird watching. And evidence shown here that the greater the diversity, greater biological diversity generally but but the greater the diversity of bird species in a, in a neighborhood or in a place that that is a predictor of, of higher greater happiness for human beings. So, one of the things that's been really interesting to watch is how during the periods of lockdown and in many cities these are images from Singapore, Singapore is one of our partner cities from the beginning in our network. We went through a very interesting two month lockdown. And in which a lot of the usual kind of tending to the parks and the grass and the landscaping that they that they did and the National Parks Board typically did. They weren't able to do. And it's been really interesting to watch how that has led to a sense of maybe wanting the city to be wilder than it has been in the past and they say here greater appreciation for the concept of wildness and this lockdown, people were noticing birds and in butterflies and and sort of realizing that maybe it's not always the best thing to, to, you know, cut the grass and you know so frequently and that we they've got to make room actually for biodiversity and in fact they don't have a history of doing that and the two images on the right are from the wonderful story around the, the reemergence of the smooth coated otters. And in Singapore there are I think 80, more than 80 now and multiple families. This is me on the bottom. We made a short documentary film about the smooth coated otters and if I forget to say this. So please take a look at our website by afflict cities.org and there's a film page. And there are a number of places here actually where I'm going to just quickly mentioned that there are short documentary films that you could watch later to learn more about these stories. So that's one of the things that we've really been spending a lot of time doing is trying to capture these stories telling these stories in a, in a visually persuasive manner and we've finding that the five to seven short documentary film is a very effective way to do that. So a lot of these cities, a lot of our cities making room for, for wildness. We have a lot of other reasons of course to incorporate nature into cities, lots of ecological service, there's lots of things that nature is doing for us in cities. This is an image from Rotterdam, where they are very creatively using nature to address water to retain and control and manage water and there's been a wonderful story there so it's everything from subsidizing green installation of green roofs to installing things like the the water square, the water plazas sometimes called and, and the idea of creating new green public spaces where they're needed in the city but also designing them to retain and store water. And there are of course many compelling stories of the ecological services provided by natural systems when we invest in those natural systems they deliver that contact with nature that we need but they also are doing wonderful other things for us this is doing a Bishon Park in Singapore, which was a essentially a concrete flood channel, wonderful restoration project, and here it is a few months to go, full of rainwater doing exactly what it was intended to do with the water. You know, kind of passing over the banks and being kind of retained and and and preventing flooding and develop parts of the city. So, so when we speak about a biophilic city, what do we mean, and I've got a few slides to talk about that. We've certainly seen a rise in biophilic design and we say biophilic design or usually, we're often talking about the design of a building. And we have, you know, wonderful stories and wonderful examples of how we can make the places we work and live in much more natureful. This is a story we've gotten to know Tai Faro, a Toronto based architect this is his, essentially a cancer center in Toronto, which has living trees you see in the lobby but it's also has these engineered laminated wood beams that actually are in the form of a forest and you feel as you walk into this place that you're very much in a in a forest. So there's so many wonderful examples. And this is the tips conservatory in in Pittsburgh. A building low aspect, you know, the Center for Sustainable Landscapes and it's a wonderful story of a biophilic building you see the green rooftop public green roof. Using lots of native plants, every window, every workspace has an expansive view of the nature outside the landscapes and the nature around the structure. But natural daylight natural ventilation. It's a wonderful building. We have a brand new six or seven minute film about the Center for about CSL Center for Landscape Center for Sustainable Landscapes. And an interview with Richard Piazzantini who is the head of the fits conservatory. Another good one to to watch have to give a lot of credit there are lots of folks, you know, working and biophilic design and I don't want to spend too much time talking about on biophilic design elements and attributes these are the. This is a system actually Stephen Keller from Yale, who is one of the heroes and in the area of biophilic design one of the early proponents of it and these are highlighting some of the features that make up a biophilic building. It's obviously living nature it's it's water and air and natural ventilation plants but also shapes and forms of nature I mentioned fractals before, but in natural light all kinds of light and space. So in these relationships, we want places, you know, and buildings that are unique and different and avoid the sameness of that we see in so many places, and I'm going to maybe circle back around and talk about the idea of a wonder in a in a city and a biophilic city is one that maximizes, we would say moments of possibilities of, of, of law. Another new film on our web page is a I think a five or six minute film about the Frick environmental Center, another Pittsburgh building wonderful biophilic features with an emphasis on wood, what is a, you know, considered a really important biophilic feature, our material, and also sequesters carbon really interesting story here, both the C cell and the Frick Center are living building certified building so they are required to produce as much energy as they need, and so they have zero energy net zero energy and net zero water, and the image on the right is really interesting story of how this portion of the building has been retrofitted to make it make the glass bird friendly so actually working with some high school students. They've been trained and installed these paracords these are sort of parachute cords that that draped down from the top of the window and basically allow birds to see that glass and not strike it and so birds safe design is certainly a key element of biophilic design and biophilic cities. This short film, relatively new one on the web page is the retrofitting of this. This building, this now become the headquarters for the inner interface carpet company it's known as the interface base camp and it's really interesting for a lot of the, the interior elements, but the most dramatic feature is this glass facade these 300 plus panels of glass. Upon which are, is this she that creates the image of a sort of mid Atlantic forest, and it's really quite dramatic and again a biophilic feature. This is the idea of actually integrating spaces for nature into every every new structure this is a new building it's in Toronto not been constructed yet, but we've gotten to know Brian Brisbane is the architect there and, and this is sort of a basketball version of a vertical forest improved a little bit he would say Brian would say, incorporating into the into the floor plates of this building growing, growing space for these trees and the sort of plug and play approach to trees but several hundred trees actually in this vertical, vertical forest essentially really interesting story that Brian Brisbane has tells us that the proponents, the strongest proponents for this building before the city. When it was being considered going through the permitting process for the neighbors, and surrounding neighbors are often is often often a nimby is that they object to buildings like this but they actually came out strongly in favor of it seeing the forest as a, as a sort of this almost a hill town forested hill town that was going to add a nature full amenity to to their neighborhood, rather than than detract from it. So really interesting a story there. So, we certainly embrace biophilic design and and every building should be designed to be biophilic and and a biophilic city is a city with lots of biophilic buildings, but obviously it's more than that. So, biophilic cities are cities that think about nature everywhere right and all those spaces beyond the buildings between the buildings from room or rooftop, all the way to region or bio region and all of the scales in between. It's certainly buildings and parks but it's all these other things mentioned here and and an emphasis on on actively working to connect us to to nature it's connecting us to nature, but also connecting us to each other through nature. And it's also our vision of biophilic cities also includes a strong conservation element we recognize that cities have to help to address the global conservation challenge the global loss of biodiversity we know that cities harbor lots of biodiversity and we can actively design and plan to accommodate more. We have to think about how cities can share space with many other forms of life and so we're frequently are arguing for coexistence and care and so there's an ethical dimension to this as well kind of to our vision of what a biophilic city is. So, just a little bit more about the vision. It is a place that immerses you in nature. Singapore again is probably our best example of this they have officially changed their motto from Singapore a garden city to Singapore a city and a garden, which is a sort of a powerful change. But more recently, as I've mentioned they've been going through this, this discussion about, you know, how much tended, you know, nature do they want maybe they want to be wilder. And so actually in parks and proponents of the biophilic cities vision there are now frequently talking about Singapore, a city in nature. And a bunch of policies, different things the city is doing to bring this about this is the building you see here is an example of that at the Park Royal Hotel it's a loa. Loa is a Singapore based design firm. They do wonderful work. And it is a requirement now that when you build a building like this you have to at least replace the nature lost at ground level with nature in the vertical realm and this building does it more than 200%. And now there's sort of a friendly competition between developers and builders and architects to see to see, you know how far how much nature in the vertical realm. So here's just another image to show that idea of multi-scaled room or rooftop to region or bio region. We sometimes talk about this as a whole of city approach. And that's something again that makes us a little bit different as a vision and as a network it's about all the remnant nature but it's also about all of the things constructed and all of the things designed and built and all this things hopefully begin to lead to this vision of immersive nature and by the way, just to go back to this for a second the idea that you were shifting from a city where we have some nature some places and a park or street trees or some place you have to go to visit the nature is somewhere you walk to. We want to reimagine the city as an ecosystem. It is an ecosystem that we want to, you want to live in the park in the garden in the forest, not have to visit it. So we want this kind of immersive nature. It is definitely a matrix of urban nature. And there, you know, there's we're interested in indoor all the way to outdoor all those spaces and places in between. We want to work continue to work on overcoming the barriers to end from between indoor and outdoor. We want to move from a vision that just sees a discrete elements of nature to something that sees that city again as an ecosystem and and those discrete features become connections and pathways. This lower right is the ravine a map of the ravine system and Toronto, for example. Pittsburgh has been a partner city from almost the beginning, and they're doing some wonderful things. This is an image just to make the point that nature is all around us in cities and it and it may be that we find nature in places that we didn't know, but that that bridge harbors a lot of nature may not be always obvious but there may be a peregrine Falcon nesting and and you know that the nature that in Pittsburgh. A lot of it isn't water and the idea that we bring more people down to the edge of that water and we create designs like the south shore waterfront park a floodable water floodable park but also enhances that connection to nature they're quite proud of the forest canopy cover which is 42% in Pittsburgh. So we started this network again in officially in 2013. There is a protocol for joining for cities to join the 24 cities now officially in the network as partner cities. I don't have much time to tell you more but there's a lot more information on bio folks. Or including the, the requirements for joining there, you have to sort of develop a narrative of, of how your city is already biophilic. What goals and aspirations you have for the future. We ask that you choose a certain number of indicators, certain metrics for judging. So over time, and then we ask that that we asked for a city council adopted proclamation or resolution usually I show up. This is Mayor Paduto the mayor of Pittsburgh getting the certificate. As they've entered the network and they're usually a celebratory event we did a big one at the FIPS conservatory here. You also often get lots of good press, just some evidence here. This is a map of where the network stands at this moment in time you know a lot of cities that are queuing, we hope will be joining. And we have hopes of, of expanding in places like Africa and, and we want Chinese cities we want more Australian cities, more Indian cities we have just one Indian city now on the network. So about half the cities are North American or European. So, just really quickly now I'm, I think I'm going to just quickly transition, show you some slides and not tell you very much about any one slide. This is really to make the point that there are so many different things that our cities are doing so many different ways to give expression to this vision of a biophilic city and, and it's from, you know, new programs for sidewalk gardens to, you know reconnecting to rivers and water. The marine realm is really important in many, and many cities. And so just to quickly give you a few more seconds of that, a few examples. In San Francisco wonderful story here's Jane Martin, an architect actually who had a lot to do with helping to create a special sidewalk landscape permit that lets residents take up hard surfaces and plant plants and create these wonderful buildings and they're now more than 2000 of these permits that have been issued, Victoria guest as the capital of the best country in Spain, what famous for its green ring that circles the city. And this very compact walkable dense city. This is a river day lighting or stream day lighting project, a small river that was underground in a pipe, bringing it back to the surface and bringing that nature into the core of this dense and creating a wonderful public spaces as a result of that as well. We're very much interested in cities becoming wilders I talked about but bringing more biodiversity in into cities, and, and that can be done in really creative ways this is a story from Perth in Western Australia. We have a five or seven minute film about this one as well. This is a story of a very sterile sterile energy intensive chlorinated water feature typical sort of urban water feature converted to this wonderful, a beautiful native forest wetland in the middle of the city that's become this place is backdrop for lots of events and a really, a really different kind of green feature in this city. Richmond Virginia, wonderful story of how the city is attempting to reconnect to its wild rivers class for rapids the James River, just a few hundred feet from from downtown. And here's the undulating bridge that hangs from a highway that leads you guide you out to Belle Isle was beautiful wild island. But Richmond like a lot of cities has a long history of segregation and discrimination and and and red lining. And, and so not everybody has that connection to particularly neighbors that neighborhoods of color don't have that same connection to the water. So in their new plan rich and 300. They have incorporated some wonderful nature targets I failed to mention Richmond is now in our network as well. And it can be covered for all neighborhoods. And steering those nature investments to those neighborhoods that need it the most. And that are the hottest and around around a goal of racial justice and social equity. And it's a really positive story. And that is moving forward pretty quickly in real time so this is the bar stony the mayor of Richmond who has already created five new parks on city owned property and underserved neighborhoods it's a really wonderful story so so social equity. The idea of just biofilia is a key aspect of our vision of biophilic cities. So we fair distribution of nature we believe that nature is a birthright and every at everybody is entitled to that beautiful nature. So another story and another film is the story of Collie Park in Portland Portland is one of our, our partner cities as well. This was a park in a in a neighborhood that didn't have a park of this size and a wonderful park of not not simply planning apart from on high but rather giving the neighborhood. The ability to design and plan this park and express ownership of this park over time and really wonderful story these raised by gardens you see in on the lower left were actually designed by kids in the neighborhood. And there are some metrics as like I'm quickly running out of time. I wanted to sort of make the point with this slide that it's not just the presence or absence of nature that defines what a biophilic city is it's a lot of other potential a lot of other things how how much do residents care about that nature around them how engaged are they are they able to identify common species of flora and fauna. What about the institutions the local government how how how committed are they to protecting restoring connecting to that nature and and so you know what percentage of the budget goes to to nature in a city. So we see some of our cities doing lots of creative things again, not just to increase the nature, or to protect the nature but rather to, to facilitate that contact that connection that caring about the natural world so rest in Virginia. One has been in our network, and they recently created this rest in bio for the pledge, where they're actually challenging residents to do things to engage the nature in that, in that place in that city. There's a lot of stories about how our cities are making room for other forms of life this is Edmonton Canada has become a bit famous for its ecological network approach to planning. And it's constructed now I think it's 27th wildlife passage, the idea of designing and imagining a city so that it's a city that a coyote or birds can can move through. And the city as as habitat. I like that idea. A lot career devote is one of our members cities from Costa Rica, and they have been engaged in a wonderful program they call sweet city which is about planting pollinator plants, alongside walks and parks and to bring more into the center of the city. One of the really cool aspects of this though you see it in the headline of this guardian story is this idea that the mayor there, who talks about giving citizenship the bees plants and trees what a wonderful idea. And even our only Indian city so far. Wonderful story here of thinking more holistically about the other forms of life that a bioflex city wants to nurture and accommodate here. They have shoreline where olive Ridley sea turtles come, come and nest, they also have a challenge of stray dogs. So, a wonderful story of the Humane Society there, working to train the dogs to actually protect the turtles. Anyway, a great story. I mentioned this, this bird book, and I'm coming to the end I promise. And if you're interested. This is the cover bird friendly city, and a lot of stories about cities that are that are making room for birds and doing lots of things from from adopting bird safe design requirements to stories like the one on the left in London where this is a former industrial building where they've rebuilt this, this, this chimney essentially to incorporate swift on roosting sites and as a way of actually compensating for the loss of roosting sites, nesting sites for the common swift in, in the UK. So, we, we believe there's so many things that both cities can do we're trying to keep kind of trying to monitor the best practice. Here are examples from San Francisco first American city to mandate installation of green roofs under their better roofs ordinance first American city to have adopted mandatory bird safe building standards. We have a special interest as well and how cities can begin to pay for and fund and finance the investments in in nature. And cities like Washington DC is in our network the first city to have used this really interesting tool of environmental impact bonds where investors actually get a higher return the, the better the environmental performance and so in the case of $25 million raised for investments and stormwater in natural stormwater elements and increasingly cities like Austin Austin Texas has a wonderful initiative where they're, they've set the goal of being carbon neutral. And so, carbon credits are being purchased and planting of trees and moving that city slowly in the direction but the idea of funding the restoration habitat, the planting of trees through, through carbon for the purchase of carbon credits is one one technique by the cities are engaged in. Okay, I really am coming to the end. Take a look at our webpage we do lots of things on the network. We share insights that we have monthly partner city calls, wonderful spree to core between the cities. There is this bifurcities journal that Lola mentioned, all the issues can be found online on bifurcities.org wonderful content. And it's really been interesting to watch how the cities have been working together through city exchanges like this one, a group from Singapore coming to San Francisco to learn about it for friendly design standards mentioned the films and the film making. This is the making of a film short film about Edmonton Canada that's also on the webpage. You may have a new film about Gotham whale you may know about that in New York City. That's, I'm quite proud of that film, it's maybe seven or eight minutes but a wonderful story you all know the story of the whales that have returned to the waters of New York, and we have also online a sort of crowdsourced global cities pattern book built on this idea of the language Chris Alexander's idea, and that was sort of collecting these unique patterns from cities all over the world that you can add to. Then finally we have again lots of resources if you're interested we we've published a number of books about the cities and our network and the innovations that they are implementing also full length of films like this one the nature cities that was playing on PBS for a while our newest book about the Belfix these network is this handbook of Belfix city planning and design and it's just recently been translated into Chinese and that is it. I'm going to stop and we can have some discussion. Question and answer so do please take a look at both bio philipsities.org. I've been talking a lot about partner cities but you can join the network as an individual. And you just go online and you sign a pledge and or as an organization we have several thousands of people now that have joined as individuals it doesn't cost anything and then, once you join, we you get all the, you get all the emails and all the things that we're doing webinars and conferences and whenever a new issue of Belfix cities. Journalist comes out you hear about it. So, Lola, I'll stop there. I'm sorry that was. And we should definitely have New York City registered as part of the Bible. We're, you know, there are some, of course, some really exciting by flick attributes in the city and also to make a commitment to a more by flick approach to building an urban. This was wonderful. Thank you so much. I'd like maybe to start with a kind of a expanding the conversation, and then having room for questions from student participants. So, your work really expands notion of by field design that you know, according to Keller and previous scholars of evolutionary biology perspective. You know, human physical and mental tendency or we need natural environments to be physically and mentally healthy, and you're spending this to the most challenging context to cities to the urban dance core that require you to structure roads systems, all that is not so much by a feeling and I'm really curious to hear from you about by flick cities and infrastructure and materials and energy, because you know, of course by a flick city planning increase and ecological values, therefore promote, you know, social values. But what about the potential for materials and material connection with nature and urban infrastructure. And I'm really interested, you know, in natural and bio based materials in urban systems. There would bamboo round earth that mimics sedimentary rock creation, fiber based materials recycled materials, how do they come into account and were been. Yeah, well I think, yeah, in, in lots of ways. I mean mentioned just briefly, you know that it's been really interesting of course to watch how would. And, you know, tall timber and that that trend and, and I think it makes complete sense that we can find a way to build new things that are beautiful, connect us to nature, biophilic but that also sequester carbon right or that. And, and many of the materials I think, and many of the design strategies that we talk about are going to do multiple things for us I think that's the answer right that it's that we want to do we want to create materials use materials and design techniques that do that help to cool buildings and that we know, you know, Jacob Javits center using bird bird safe glass huge step that they took. But it turns out it also reduces their energy consumption and their carbon emissions so we can, you know, dramatic like 90 something percent reduction in bird mortality. But it's also something, you know that makes sense from a carbon reduction and energy conservation point of view and almost everything that we advocate whether it's green roofs or, you know, urban tree planting all those things that they do multiple things for us and I'd love to know more. I'd love to explore more about the, you know, the, the material innovations because I think that would be be really interesting and so we have a you know we have a lot of work around the idea of architecture and you know rethinking building facades as as habitats for birds and insects and butterflies and all that and it seems like the more we reimagine those the building materials as as something that as things that are living you know that are that are inherently nature full and biological, you know, we're better we're better off. And I've been really intrigued in this bird book, you know, they've the idea of a, you know, a building a brick that's designed from the beginning to be a place for, you know, a swift. And I mean why don't we do more of that why don't we be kind of thinking about building, you know, building materials that that that, you know, are that allow us to have all this all this wonderful life around us. It's a long, longer story but I'd love your thoughts and you know we need help. Right and the relation to energy of course is critical here and I would assume that there's a lot of evidence about the effect of, you know, but I feel like the design on perception of users. So as to be more environmentally conscious as citizens of a city. Definitely. And all that evidence in the beginning that I showed about how in the in the presence of nature we are, we are more likely to be generous human beings I mean this is experimental evidence but it's also true that we are that there's a connection to the association between nature and and pro social behaviors that that the more we have nature around us the more likely we are to care about that nature more likely to be volunteering for that stream restoration or tree planting or that getting a birdwalk or something. So there's definitely a connection we want if we want to deeply ecological citizens. Investing in nature is a good way to start that. It's really exciting. Maybe we can open room for more for students questions I bet. I think students would love to interact and ask questions. And if not I have so many more questions. Sounds good. Please. Yeah, go ahead. Max, do you want to do you want to ask something. I was just trying to get my camera on to the chat box I can't look to the chat box but anyone from the audience. This is a this is a great opportunity to maybe. Ask your question. Or react or comment about anything that sounds to you like it's crazy or not, you know, Well, how do you get to implement a change on such a big level as a city doesn't happen when you have many different parties interested in achieving something or is it like a certain organization that pushes for it usually happen. Yeah, yeah, that's a great question and I think about reflect on how cities get to our network and how they join the network. It is often the case that it takes a champion, you know somebody, often in local government who who really sees this as important and then kind of rallies everybody around it. So in these cases that there is a look there's an organization. And we think actually, you know, one of the most effective ways for a city to embrace these ideas and to join our network into, and to kind of advance the agenda is through a grassroots push. So in Washington DC for example there was a group called bio bio biofilling DC is about to tell you about biofilling which is a group in Philadelphia. But biofilling DC then lobbied every city counselor. Everybody on the city council in Washington and educated them about this and advocated for for the network and you know embracing the concept of biofilia. And they got the resolution passed and it happened it happened that way there's always, you know, work. And pushing that you know pushing it forward and making sure things get implemented. So it's it's a lot of grassroots but it's also, you know, it can also be from the top down having having a mayor, you know, who embraces this idea can be really important from the perspective of answering your question from kind of more a policy or, you know, what do we need to do to move a city quickly in the direction of this holistic vision of a nature full city pilot projects and incremental steps are all good. There are a thousand and one ways that you can start. If you can quickly ramp things up and and bring bring policies, you know, citywide policies bring things to scale. That can make a huge difference. So I gave the example from San Francisco of, you know, a mandatory green roof. I mean they have a standard that lets you either have to have a green roof or a solar roof or a combination of greens and solar and and mandatory, you know, bird bird safe design requirements that I'm a big fan of of codes we want flexibility we want incentives we want to, you know, we want to do things that that are conscious of of of the potential that they have on on on housing and the price of housing the price of construction but we also want to quickly, you know, move a city in that biophilic direction. I don't know if that answered your question at all but you know, different actors can play a role and so many different departments in a city can can play an important part so it's you know it's and it's rethinking everything from the sort of standard infrastructural things to just everything about that city that would it vary a lot if the city is in a developing country. Yeah, that's a really good question. And I often get that that sort of skeptical view that these are all wonderful things that you can do in cities like New York and London and Sydney Australia, you know, and in richer northern cities for the most part how is this going to work in other parts of the world and where you're having to deal with a large percentage of the population living in informal settlements, for example, and dealing with kind of, you know, levels of poverty, maybe that. And I think it's a really important question my my answer is, is, is usually that, you know, the ideas of connecting to nature, biophilic urbanism biophilic cities are just as relevant in those places if not more relevant and more important actually about how to reimagine a an informal settlement. What are the things that would improve the quality of life in those places and it's, it's, it's connections to nature it's, it's planting trees and creating food security where it didn't exist before and it's treating and and, you know, producing fresh water. And nature does so many things that are needed and necessary and can can really profoundly improve the quality of life anywhere. And so, every city will be different this is true, you know, New York is not London and it's not Sydney and what can work will be different in each of those places and I don't think it's any, any different maybe in the global south. So with that, you want to make sense or we have a few examples not as many as we, as we, we need of success stories of wonderful kind of biophilic urban scale initiatives and, you know, in other parts of the world that's why we really need to expand our, our network. Amy, there's someone Amy, no, I'm looking around to see who I have a question. Okay. There's a question about between the density of city and the applicability of the biophilic design and the city, because when we imagine by a city, imagine a density density, but in the city, for example, like, LA that is not dense at all. Amy, your videos. Yeah, I didn't catch all of that. But this connection between density and, and, and biophilia, I think is a really important one to think about. Lots of, of not very dense cities that are not very biophilic, right. And, and it's often because they've committed so much of the landscape to cars and roadways and, and gray, you know, hard surface kind of things. The places where you might think there'd be more, more opportunity to incorporate nature, it doesn't necessarily the case. Singapore I think is a really good example of, of how you can have that that dense that density, and also nature, and they've done a really wonderful job it's not a perfect story. And by any means, but the, you know, the, the land set set imagery shows that, you know, over the last 15 years or something, they've added a couple of million people to an already dense island. And instead of going down the green cover has actually gone up. So it is possible. And particularly when we reimagine in this post in a post pandemic or pandemic and post pandemic period where we want to our cars and more nature more Wildness. I think there will be opportunities everywhere to convert and everywhere to make you know this, there's lots of room for nature. And we just need to be creative about finding and even not so creative maybe, but we need to be committed to doing it. So I think that's what's interesting about what will happen after the pandemic. This combination of a, hopefully a renewed commitment to nature, a renewed realization of how essential nature is to leading a healthy life, at the same time that we've, we've done all these slow streets and, and, you know, up up eating areas and things that maybe will be will be permanent, perhaps, so we haven't, we're going to have an unusual opportunity maybe if there's any silver lining from this time we're in. I don't know if that got at your question or not, but. Yeah, thank you thank you. I was also thinking about the walkability. I don't know if you hear me. Yes. With the walkability of the city and the effect of having the. I feel like hear me. Not really. I hear you a little bit walkability and nature. Okay, you have a book and you have sidewalks and natural. Yeah. Yeah, I mean one of the if the city is like to and not walkable and mostly made for cars. Right. How much. Have some sidewalk plans. So do in this case is do you do we have any direction that we're taking for this kind of specific cases. Yeah, I'm not sure I cut all of that but we feel strongly that you can't can and must you know part of what our vision of a bifalic city is is a, an outdoor city, a city that propels us outside. We recognize the reality that 90% or more of our day is inside right that's, but we'd like to create a city in which you want to be outside, and, and that means places where you can be, you can walk and and stroll and and hike. A lot of our cities are exemplary cities are cities that have created pathway systems and trail systems this idea of hiking the city. San Francisco is a wonderful example of that actually sing Singapore has this network of pathways it's really quite impressive as well connecting density points of density with parks and bigger nature. And so, yes, it's easier if we can, if we can repurpose space from cars, we can even reduce, you know, small percentage of that space. And I don't know what it is in New York but you know a typical American city it could be as high as 40 or 50% of the urban space devoted to the car if you start to repurpose that. And as we have seen, we start to emphasize bicycling and and walking and other modes of transport. Then it opens up huge possibilities and the nature is really going to be an important design element and making that city more walkable. And I think that, you know, we don't want, we don't want to walk always in the hot sun. We need those trees and we need the cooling effects of that of those natural elements and it's self reinforcing right with the more biophilic the more natureful that city that neighborhood will be the more we're going to want to be outside and the more walkable. So these are, these are really, you know, closely, very importantly reinforcing goals, if you will. Earl you look like you were, you had a hand up maybe. Don't want to put you on the spot but. No, no, I joined a little bit late but I was going to ask, you know, solutions for these kinds of things always are dependent on the obstacles. So what are the big obstacles that seem to be standing in the way right now I mean you mentioned some of them in terms of transportation and issues of use in the right of way. Me was talking about density what else have you come across as obstacles to this in terms of mindset or policy or other things. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think they're maybe the obvious ones are economic and political. I mean the economic ones. I had that one slide about creative ways to fund biofilia. And I frequently get a question some some version of a question that asked well how can we pay for this or how can we pay for this and how do we pay for the maintenance of this over it's great these green and blue design elements but aren't they more costly and what you know that some version of that and I think we have answers to those things. On a, on a city scale, it is an obstacle I think that we don't fully, we're not able to fully calculate what the economic value is of the of the benefits provided right. Bill Browning has been has been working on this. He has this wonderful report the economics of biofilia. It's really remarkable you start adding it all up, you know if you if you green schools what does that mean in terms of test scores and happier teachers and all these things that in the crime and the gun, you know all the things I mentioned, have huge potential economic benefits, economic value if we could figure out how to monetize and how to capture, at least even estimate those benefits. So that's it, that's a kind of an obstacle. So let's start talking about it in terms of of social equity and racial justice and when you start pointing out that these, you know, that life expectancy is 20 years greater, and I'm in a white affluent neighborhood, you know that that does sort of get begin to get an attention. And so there are arguments that can be made so there's economic and then political, and having the will having the leadership, having groups like, like the one I mentioned in DC that are going to be supportive, arguing for working on this agenda is really helpful. I think sometimes our one obstacle is our lack of imagination, you know we still, I don't think that we see cities quite in this way. One good reason to kind of show pictures, you know photographs and renderings and that to, you know, we don't see, I think we're still dealing with a kind of mental bifurcation that nature and cities are kind of separate. They're opposites and, and to find the real nature, you know you have to go out to that National Park or you have to go to some far away, a distant place. And we want those we want those places and we love those places and we, we want to care about them but we also want that nature we want, we want to begin to cultivate this a sense of urbanism that that understands nature is and wildness can be all around us like that. So I think James River, next to the downtown Richmond. That's, that's wild that's not wilderness, but it's wild and wildness. So I think that's part of it. And I don't know, there are lots of, I'd be curious to know, Lola you probably have some thoughts about whether we're teaching the right things in, you know, in design schools that's another worry that I am an obstacle. I can't get a lot of architecture colleagues to think about bird friendly design, for example. Yeah, I can definitely, you know, when you mentioned that obstacle, I thought immediately, maybe not necessarily strictly you know design education, maybe architectural engineering, or, yeah, you know, building science education that can really provide that correlation and metrics between by field design, health productivity. Right that eventually affects developers and have financial impact. So, you know, as to how design solutions can provide economic benefit on the long, on the long run. And there's the bids tool by Carnegie Mellon, that takes all these case studies of biophilic and nature driven interventions and buildings, and how they can affect, you know, in the long run, you know, health insurance, costs, workers, and productivity, you know, hourly productivity of workers and of course, you know, being in satisfaction and all these financial correlations can then make an impact on decision making. When you work with a client, whether it's a developer or a client in building or in city, so Yeah, that's, that's true. Good, good comment. I think it's critical that we make this, you know, relation between qualitative and quantitative correlations. Yeah. Good. This is, this is so exciting to hear about your work, Tim, and your perspective and it's your deep profound and about this, this really important topic and it's obvious that you have spent many years and you know, and you have this experience and understanding so it's really great. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah. You know, I'm happy to keep going. Earl I don't know if I answered your question about obstacles. But was there one that you think of or one that occurs to you as being a. You hit on the ones I suspected were the big ones you know the, the operations and maintenance and expense in terms in my experience when I've tried to lean our clients for our municipalities towards softer and greener solutions economics is usually the number one. But it was great to hear you mentioned that perception and imagination were also an obstacle and I think as designers that's where we have a real shot at tipping the scale a little bit because we're capable of allowing others are creating, creating the kinds of materials that allow others to see beyond what they know. Sometimes just getting out of the way is part of it too. You know the example of that permit that sidewalk gardening permit in San Francisco where the residents just wanted to plant things they wanted less pavement and yet there wasn't a city permit that you know there was a kind of a permit that cost a lot it wasn't really the right thing took a long time to get it. You know, and we see a lot of that kind of stuff. And so, I think if we, if we give folks the ability actually to create green spaces sometimes that, you know that that's a, that's overcoming an obstacle I guess. Other other questions. I want to be mindful of your of your time. Yeah, do. I'm willing to hang around forever but not quite forever. Maybe one more, one more. Okay. Feel free to send me some, you know, questions by email and do, you know, I frequently say start presentations by saying that, you know, your, your, your task is to find a way to work biophilic cities into a conversation with your family. Later, family member or something read the word. Point our network if you like it. Rory, did you have something to say. Yeah, I had a question. I think maybe an obstacle, not so much on the, on the, how much does this cost but thinking about affordability. I think any, any of us that have looked for apartments in the city and you know that the closer you get to water or a park, the price you're going to be. I'm just wondering how that plays into the conversation. Obviously, yeah, whole cities aren't going to become as biophilic as possible at once and I can see it happening where the more you increase nature the more you're driving people. They can't afford it out of that area. Right. Yeah, that that's an excellent question. And one that we've been thinking a lot about. And, you know, we've, we recognize that increasing nature investing in nature investing in parks. We know there are unintended consequences eco gentrification this is sometimes called me miss barely remarkable in the, in the sort of span of my, my professional life, how our view of projects like the Highline. So celebratory and so you know I still I still like the Highline a lot, but you know tempered by the unintended consequences of, of displacement and, and raising the price of housing in that neighborhood display and gentrification is often, you know, what happens when when we invest in more nature. So, there's no easy answer to that. Some people, you know, this is this idea of just green enough. You know that you, you don't want too much green and neighborhood too much that it will gentrify will attract people coming in from the outside but you want it just enough that, you know, residents who live there. And have better lives. I have, I have trouble with that. I just, I think that we need to this immersive model of nature means that we want nature everywhere. But I do think that we need better tools. We need, we need better institutions to help us deal with those unintended consequences. We have some emerging models that are are really promising. I don't know if you are aware of the 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington that's an example that's frequently mentioned there. They're actually part of the Highline network, this network of larger urban green projects that are, you know, trying to figure out how to address this. And there they've done some really creative things ahead of even the bridge park the funding for the bridge park isn't even complete doesn't even fully finished. And they're already doing many things in the community, everything from job training so that you know local residents benefit from the employment generated by the park. Local businesses are benefited. They have a they've created a new community land trust actually, which will help to secure a certain amount of housing will be in theory, you know, protected or affordable over a longer period of time. They have a buyers club that they started for local residents all kinds of things there's a there's a a kind of equitable development plans actually the what they call it that they've prepared very detailed plan again ahead of the project. Years ahead of the project plus the the the surrounding neighborhoods are have been involved in designing the project from the beginning which is a big part of the equity agenda. So I think we need to be, you know, developing better tools or applying the tools that we have in better ways, and models like the 11th Street Bridge Park I think will be will be really helpful. It's a really important thing to talk about think about every city just about that we interact with is having this issue having this problem. Atlanta, for example, has this new, this new park that's been it's being created out of a from a former landfill or former open pit landfill that, or I guess a mind landfill. And, and it's going to be a beautiful park already a beautiful park and they are very much worried about what this is going to do to the, to the affordability of the, of the older neighborhoods around it. And I think, again, we just, you know, we're going to have to, in the case of Atlanta they've basically put a moratorium on new, new permits for new construction around, you know, that I don't know it's, it's not an easy problem to solve. What do you, what do you think I mean I have to give a lot of credit Chelsea the sort of the, the highlight story is really what got us, you know, what really helped us to think about this issue in a big way. Yeah, go ahead. I don't I don't know. Those are those are great examples and I'm happy to hear that it's part of the conversation. Yeah, it's a big, big part of the, part of the conversation and I, again, I just as a as an urban planner I think we, we, we need to kind of work on our toolkit there and definitely a good, a good question. Tim. Thank you so much. And thank you everyone who who attended the lecture, and we'll need to continue the conversation. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Well, thank you for inviting me and I look forward to future interactions and, and if you can help us get New York into the network that would be great. So many conversations with many, with many different people, and many different colleagues. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So far, no avail, but it's such an important city. And so many wonderful inspirational things going on there and so so much. So much good work and so much, you know, innovative projects. Yeah, let's, let's, let's talk more about this. Okay, great. Okay. Thank you everyone. Bye bye.