 Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Circular Metabolism podcast. I'm your host, Aristeed, from Metabolism of Cities. And in this podcast, we interview thinkers, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to better understand what makes the metabolism of our cities more sober and more circular. Or in other words, how to reduce their environmental impact in a socially just and context-specific way. In this new episode, I want to move away from studying economic alternatives, technological solutions, and policy measures, and get back to an essential question, which is how do you plan and design cities in order to make them more environmentally friendly? In fact, there is a very intimate relationship between the territorial organization of a city and how that city consumes their resources, but also how they will reuse waste flows within the city or elsewhere. So in other terms, I wanted to discuss with one of the world-renowned architects and urbanist Paola Vigano about what does it take to plan a city. Paola is the co-founder of the Architectural Study Studio and professor in urban theory and urban design at the EPFL in Lausanne, but also at the EUAV in Venice. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the French Grand Prix de l'Urbanisme in 2013, the gold medal for Italian architecture in 2018. She has received the title of Dr. Honoris Cosa at the Université catholique de Louvain in 2016. So her studio has worked really in constructing many visions for metropolitan areas. These included the areas of Paris, of Brussels, Lille, Montpellier, and many other territories across the globe. So with all that being said, Paola, thank you very much for being part of this podcast. Thank you very much. And I wanted perhaps to give you some minutes to introduce yourselves and what do you do in your work? What I do in my life, I work. In my life, I work. Maybe this is already a first problem. So I'm an architect. I've been educated as an architect. But then immediately after school, I started to work with Bernardussechi that was already at the time, let's say, an important urbanist and also a very, very important professor. So at the same time, I started to work professionally, but also deciding very soon to go for a PhD. And then I got a PhD in Ufa in Venice in architecture, in fact. And let's say where architecture is in the walls and is always imagined as a trans color, let's say, discipline where the city is also part of what you can call architecture. Eventually, you can say architecture of the city. So at the same time, while making my research, I was experimenting and experiencing. And this is maybe what characterized my work that is always in between concrete conditions, concrete also relations with the people and with the politicians, with the institutions, but also citizens about the cities and, in general, about their future and not really about their past and also research. So research were designed. So the idea of the project, of the transformation that in any case is in front of us, because whatever is our position, let's say, about the future, in any case, we will not be the same. So in any case, that will be a transformation that will be ongoing. And of course, I'm interested in the transformation that are touching and starting from space, so spatial transformations. So at the same time, research, research by design and working in concrete context. And I think that this is a very fertile mix, very fertile mix. And I think that sometimes academia forgets about the necessity of this mix. So I'm also very in favor of a connection between academia and society and of this kind of hybrid field where you can work in an open way with all the components of society, let's say. And I can imagine, of course, in your field, this is ever so present because you cannot be teaching architecture without knowing what it is to deal with. Well, or you can, but. No, no, you're not right. On the contrary, I can say that in the last, let's say, decades for many different reasons that we are not going out to explore. The tendency has been to divide, to separate even more the professional work from the academic work. So let's say academic work is where you can know how to write a research proposal, where you can publish, et cetera, but where you don't touch, affect the ground. And this, I think, can be a big problem for academia. And I think that it is good to introduce this hybridity. Also because from the perspective of a designer, I mean, in fact, a designer really needs to touch the ground because the constraints of the ground are something that is really helpful. It's not a limitation. It's not that if you have just a blank paper or a blank sheet, then everything is easier. It's to the contrary. So in that sense, I think that is fundamental to be into the things. And I think that the present time with the enormous challenges we have are really asking for this hybridity. On one side, we need, of course, say, hard research, scientific research to nourish and to be integrated as much as possible with the spatial perspective, with the transformation, with design, the design transformation. But on the other side, we need really to experience and to have occasions to explore directly and to measure also the distance between what we think and what the collective imagery think. Because the two can be very disconnected. And to work on collective imaginaries is fundamental, I think, to understand the change that is ongoing. Because in fact, images and imaginaries and collective imaginaries are very rapidly evolving in this moment. Also, of course, almost one year and a half of COVID is helping. But there is clearly a big cultural, let's say, change. And I think that we have to be there. We need to participate and to connect and to discuss and to open up our thinking, let's say, to the rest of society. So you mentioned something quite interesting, which you said, of course, that the limitations are perhaps structuring the way that you work or that architects or urbanists could or should work. And I'm thinking, so when you have to tackle or when you have to work to do a master map or a master plan or thinking about a city and when you have an assignment for one city or a metropolis, I can imagine that there are so many limitations to think of at the same time. There is so many challenges that they either write in the brief or that you experience yourself by going to the city or something like that. So how do you not get overwhelmed by this myriad of challenges? And you say, OK, let me just pause it there and start by working. How do you negotiate or work with that? Maybe first, let's remain a moment on the idea of limitation. I think it's a very good point to reflect on the current condition. So we understand that the city of the future will be a city that has to limit its consumption, has to limit the consumption of soil, of the ground, the consumption of energy, the consumption of resources. We understand that the architecture of the city will be fundamentally rethinking, reimagining, restructuring, reusing, redesigning what is already there. So one can say, OK, then the limits are really too much. So where can we put our imagination? How can we imagine that something different? It's one of the traditional question that I'm asked to answer is how will be the city of the future? And I'm always very deceiving, because I think that the city of the future will not be fundamentally, I mean, it will not be another city, but it's the city of today. So one can imagine that there is a problem of excessive limitation of our extraordinary imagination. On the contrary, as I was saying before, limits and limitations are simply helping us. They are simply giving us some resistance on which you can bring or you can express your imagination. And to make this even more clear, I take an example that is fantastic books by Marcel Proust, La Récherche du temps perdu, that has been defined by some literary scholar as being literature at the second degree, literature au deuxième degré. Because, in fact, you find inside the La Récherche everything, everything that was already been said or written, published, is like a sum of different types of literature, probably high literature, very popular literature, common terms, way of using words, characterizing a certain epoch, et cetera. And this is, in a way, reusing elements of literature that were already there. And then you can say that this is a masterpiece. So it's a masterpiece. This is a totally new thing that has a completely revolution, let's say, in the art of writing and imagining the narrative trajectory and is made with existing things. So for me, the city of the future is very close to the Récherche du temps perdu. So it will be new. It will be different. But it will be really reinterpreting so the themes of a stratification of palimpsest, of also reduction of consumption, so really understanding that there is matters, materials that you can work with, that you can rethink the old typologies that you can give buildings, infrastructural works several life and not just one life. I mean, this is, for me, I have a sentiment of freedom, of great extension of the possibility for our imagination. Although it will be reflecting, reusing, readjusting what is already there. So to make it maybe even more clear, I feel as if we were, I don't know, in the 20s of the last century when the architects and urbanists of the modern movement of what was called the rational architecture or the functional city, they were writing manifesto about what should have been the city of the future. And they were interpreting that period, also the civilization based on industry, machine, exploitation of resources, et cetera. For them, you had to start from scratch. Without that, you could not design the city of the future. Now we are, let's say, the opposite. I feel the same sentiment of openness as if we have really a full ocean in front of us that is this future, where we can imagine to design differently from the past. And this enormous difference from the way in which we were working in the past and the way in which we will work and design in the future will make a different city. Although we will simply reuse what is already there. So this change of gaze, giving priorities to things that in the past had no priority at all, revealing things that in the past were completely hidden. And now you can show them again. You can regenerate them. You can reveal them again. For me, this is a new discovery, a new discovery of the world. And in that sense, I think that we are in a very special moment. It's a moment that is unique. It's like the one of one century ago, more or less. Although the EU calls it about the new Bauhaus. Let's see if that's... Yeah, the new Bauhaus is in fact interpreting, I think, a little bit this idea. But I would not have used the term Bauhaus, I have to say. I don't know why, but nevertheless, I think that these are really stories of the past. I'm sorry to say that. These are stories of the past. And maybe we should have used a different name. The spirit, I agree, and I share this idea that we are in the same moment of foundation, of refoundation, on different basis, on different values. And the problem or the interesting part is that the values are not yet completely revised. They are under revision. So in fact, you are not like one century ago when in fact the value system was already there. Because the evolution happened before, 50 years before, at least 50 years, even more. Not even more, let's say, more than that. But it depends on the different countries because in Europe the industrial revolution was not always in the same moment, in the same country. But in any case, there was already a certain distance and there was already an accumulation of criticism against the initial city, for example, the industrial city. At the beginning of the industrial revolution was a drama, was a catastrophic hygiene problem, hygienists, yes, healthy problems, et cetera. So there was a long period of reflection on that. And at the end of that period, architecture and urbanism started with this new type of city, that is the city that has been used to construct, the theories that have been used to construct our peripheries, our, let's say, large part of our cities. They were the result of a long period of criticism against the initial industrial city. So now our criticism, so the time to elaborate the new positions, new values, maybe start to be quite long because if we start from, let's say, the limits to growth, then in fact we start to have 50 years of criticism. The problem is that after some decay, not even decay, some years of criticism in relation with the oil crisis, et cetera, then we forgot everything. We forgot everything. We started in the 80s, in the 90s as if nothing had happened. So this period was interrupted, drastically interrupted. Of course, some people, some scientists continue to work on those things, but say the public opinion forgot practically about those things. And then now since, like we can say, I don't know, 20, 25 years they are back together with the climate change, with all the new challenges. And so it's not exactly the same position. I think that our old colleagues, they were a little more settled, more clearly settled. They knew what they had to do. The industrial machine was clear. It seemed to be something destined to last for a century. In fact, it lasted for some decades, in many cases, but they thought they were solid. Their ground was solid. I think our ground is not as solid and maybe it's better because they had, they were too much sure of themselves. And they made a lot of mistakes because of that. I mean, it is enough to read some text of Le Corbusier to understand how much Le Corbusier was sure of what he was saying and the kind of truth we are not. And I think this is very good. So I prefer to have a less solid soil on which we can work. And of course, there is this problem of value change, but it's a problem that, say, you can revise, you're not immediately into the construction of a new dogmatic plan. We are, on the contrary, in trying to understand. And I think this is very healthy. Let's say in being in the situation to decide for the future of cities and territories. But I think you very well put it forward that we had some challenges in the past, like in the early industrial area, there was this, let's say, hospitalization of Europe where they kind of cleaned neighborhoods and destroyed neighborhoods to make boulevards and infrastructure and all of that. And then we had another period, let's say early 20th century or mid 20th century, which was, or just after the Second World War, where we just had the massification of buildings and all of that. And today, there is something different, but in all of these periods, there was always a societal challenge, an economic justice challenge, there was an environmental challenge in one way or another. And so these are always there. It's not as if it's a new word and it's the first time that we have to juggle with these problems. No, absolutely. But now they're, I mean, now it's almost you don't have more space to move. They're all touching each other. Before, I mean, you could always go from one to the other, let's say. You can more or less increase social welfare back in the day, but you destroyed the environment or I don't know, the economy, I'm making this up. But today, everything is so interlinked, not only here, but at the global scale, that, well, there's no more space to move. You have to address the challenge. Whereas in the past, you could, yeah. I would say the challenges are different also. At least we perceive them as very different. There are some continuities that will be interesting eventually to go deeper because for example, if you take one element important in the city of today and it will be even more relevant in the city of the future is the presence of green and open space, for example. This is not a new theme at all. This is a traditional theme because in fact, the modern city was exactly the city where the idea of air, of sun, of a more healthy condition immediately brought into the city, parks, the big boulevard, but even at a smaller scale, now the idea that the access to the open land had to be guaranteed. Sometime we forget this because maybe we think that we have to densify that it's very important to make the city as compact and dense as possible. But then we are forgetting that in fact those open spaces are absolutely crucial. And today, on the basis also of the more recent research on the urban soil, on the urban biodiversity, we know how important is to have this empty spot that are not empty at all, but that they can contribute with their presence to a well-being that is not only our well-being, but is also the well-being of the system in its entirety. So we have to be very attentive to the loss of these spaces which are always under threat, in fact. And this is not a new theme, but it's a very traditional one. And the modern city has to be reframed and reread, maybe selecting some of the interesting aspects that nevertheless are still present and to maybe update them or to reframe them in our moment. While there are other aspects that are for sure to be abandoned and that we are not interested to bring them into our... But for example, if I take the question of the regeneration of nature in the city, there are very important projects of the 30s. So almost one century ago in Sweden, for example, there was this School of Landscape Architecture in Stockholm in the 30s that was clearly working on this regeneration of nature. So where nature inside the city was not present before, but was reintroduced or reinvented. So I think that this question of working with life, I know that I have to be very, very prudent in using these terms, because we are so used to the abuse of working with life. But nevertheless, when you make a public space, when you design a park, you are working with life in any case, because you are, let's say, establishing new dynamics, you're working with existing soil, you have to select some soils, you have to evacuate eventually because there is the pollution, you have to regenerate that soil, and then this is starting a new life, maybe a dead soil that become a living soil. These aspects are not only aspects for pedologists, these are aspects for designers. And I think that it also shows how by reworking on what is there, in fact, the margin is very high, it's very large, that is so much you can do, simply reworking on what is there. For example, from a dead soil, you can pass to a living soil, which is a revolution in a way. And so do you have like a small voices that tell you, look, there is a social challenge that you need to take into account? Or is an environmental one that you need to take into account? And then on the other side, you have someone else that says, well, will that create jobs? And what about, where are our kids are gonna go to school? And so do they all have one vote? Or how does it work? How do you... Well, I think that you have to imagine yourself, I mean, the designer of cities, territories, landscape, it's always, it's never alone, of course. First of all, we have to abandon the idea that we are creating, we are simply, I don't know, the way guiding a conversation and this conversation is very rich. Sometimes it's conflictual. And you have to guide also through the conflict and that's part of the story. In some cases, you have also simply to retreat to abandon because maybe you don't share any more certain directions. So I mean, everything is possible. But I imagine this as a table. So we are around the table. Around this table, I see, of course, the politicians, so there is politics around the table. There are citizens, there are the stakeholders. So there are also the big actors and there are also other things or let's avoid the term things. So there is the soil, there is the water, there are certain landscapes. And I think my table, at least the table where I sit is made like that. And even if certain individuals are not really present, I think that there is a kind of responsibility of us to represent also those that are not around the table. Because around the table, there is never everybody. Someone is always out of the table and they can be human or can be not humans. But in any case, the table is never complete. And I think that you have to make an effort as designer to bring at the table, let's say implicitly or explicitly the different individuals that we know because we look at things, we look at landscapes, we look at housing, we look at infrastructures. We know that they are inhabitants. So we know we are the inhabitants. And I think it's our responsibility to bring these subjects around the table. And maybe this is a moment to introduce what I think is a fundamental shift in our perception of the world where we live. Is for me at least it has been very important that the shift in looking at the territory as an object or try making the effort to look at the territory as a subject. When the territory becomes a subject or let's say is made of subjects, then things change radically immediately. Then every single, let's say square centimeters of ground, of city is something, is a subject. And I think that this of course is not simply, I don't know, a change of perspective, but it's really a kind of ethical change. I can say the things differently, that the modern city was based on a different ethic and that the city of the future, if it will be the city of the future, the city of the transition, the city that will try to give a solution to the problems we now perceive and we have, it will have a different ethic. So of course then we are designers, we are not philosophers, but we simply know that there is a relation between ethic and design, between the shape you give things and the reason why you give and the conviction that are guiding towards that shape. And this is an evolution I can measure in my own life. So I mean, it's something that is not so ancient or maybe it is ancient because I'm not so young, but let's say I perceive never that certain passages. For example, I give you an example. We designed a park in Antwerp, Spore North Park. This park was a great success. I mean, socially was absolutely very much used and appreciated. This park was in a part of the city that was the poorest part of the city. It was realized thanks to also funds from the region, the Flemish region, but also from Europe. So there was a kind of, there was an ambition to bring an equipment and infrastructure, a social infrastructure for the neighborhoods that are around, social housing, railway lines. I mean, it was really not the best part of the city. There was a conflict between the other individuals. For example, biodiversity. For example, I don't know to give more space to certain dynamics because the social aspect clearly got to the priority. And today after almost 13, 14 years that the park has been realized, each time I see this park, I tell myself, okay, but here, in fact, the priority was the social priority. I still feel a little bit of problem because in fact, I see that the other are not so well represented in this space. And, but I hope that nevertheless, you can always put your hands on this park and while maintaining because nevertheless, it is a centrality in the city. It has given this quite marginal neighborhood through centrality than also many other operations were developed around the park. But maybe today one can try to make a coexistence between this social, very strong social aspect, the densest part of the city where there was a lack of green spaces and then the need of such a big park. But on the other side, I think that maybe we should be more attentive today if we were designing this park today to this coexistence also with the others that are also important. That's just a small element which measure a little bit the shift, I think, that this shift is really complicated because it's not that we have solved the social challenges. Not that in this time, because we have nevertheless, we had a clear set of priorities, not so the social, the redistribution of facilities, of wealth, et cetera. No, because the problem is that in the last 40, 50 years, we really back, how do we say here? Yeah, yeah. It went worse. We went in the wrong direction. We went in the wrong direction. So today we have at the same time and that's also very, very fundamental for the project of the city. That's why we speak of socio-ecological transition. So the transition is both to the truth is socio-ecological and economic transition. So I think that our projects, our design today has to be, is confronted with the three dimensions. And of course, this is not so easy because we are simply architects and designers. So we can solve all the problems of the world. But I think that for sure there is an attention also to the mechanism of the new type of works. So how space should be adapted to living and working in the same place or having different rhythms between working at home and working eventually somewhere else about the future of cities where if the remote working will continue, you will have less city users. And the city users have been fundamental for the economy of the centers of cities in the last decades. And this economy has been even very much emphasized. I mean, this economy that means a kind of spectacularization also of the city where you have city users, people that are there to consume the city. So the way the consumption of the city is one gradient of the urban economy. So now imagine that the people will use the cafe, the different services that the city has provided much less than what was in the past. Then you have a problem with the center of the city for example, and you have to imagine how different type of uses for the ground floors, also for the public spaces and the public space of the city. I see this now during the COVID, where are the people? People are not in the center of the city or very few, a small part is there. People are wherever there is an open space especially if it is connected with let's say territorial open spaces. Especially when you get out of your house and you enter for example, a 20 kilometers long path that brings you, people are there but the mass of people are there. So there is a totally, there is a movement, very, very big sort almost of abandon of certain areas of the city. So the city space I think after the COVID and in rethinking the way of living. Probably we'll have to be with thought. On one side, I think we will have to connect clearly every single open public space of the city with the outside, with the geography, with the landscapes, with something that give you the possibility to use a larger space and not to be confined into smaller spaces. People are getting used to walk, to stay outside. I mean, exactly also maybe as a reaction but I think that these reactions will probably remain because people feel better and say simply because they live in a different way. So for example, we should stop the center of the city or practically only based on commerce, so consumption. If we want... It's also the political elements, you know, I mean... Absolutely. Like the cities, as you said before, the city center was where the commerce was, where the guild were exchanging and all of that or where the democracy was. And then there was, let's say, the social welfare city and now we're in the neoliberal city and we, I don't know, as you said, our values change especially during shocks. And so we want to rediscover what the political value of a city should be as well. Absolutely. And the political value of the city cannot remain mainly or practically concentrated on consumption, for example. The crisis, I mean, the crisis that the close all the shops clearly show that you can live also without shops, no? Yes, there are different other logistics at the other forms of shopping but nevertheless there has been a reduction of consumption in this period. And I think that apart from people that really needed certain things, of course I'm not talking of that but I'm talking of the great mass that was not really need to have new objects. And I think that this has been a clear social experiment, very cruel but at the same time really very clear. And I think that there is also a discovery of a richness of the environment apart from the practices of consumption because we were reducing all the environment, all the cities just to a practice of consumption. Yeah, a little bit of culture but also culture transformed into just a... A commodification of culture. So in that sense, I think that there is really a lot to rediscover in our cities and to work in the space of our cities in this area of really make a continuities and go beyond the actual fragmentation of cities. But to react on what you were saying before, I think that it's also very important to state that inside the actual conditions, the actual neoliberal economy, there will not be any transition. The ecological, the socio-ecological transition is in need of a different organization. And we can tell each other that, I mean, we can do everything because we are able to tame everything because the technology will help us. But this is not true. This is not true. And I'm not saying that technology is not important. Yeah, of course. Aristide is an old debate we have about... I must say that it's not important. I'm saying it is important, it's fundamental but it's not able to solve everything. And then it's clear that a technological, a pure technological approach is not enough. We need a thick and political approach that has to compose with the technological innovation. So this ethic and political approach, I measure this approach in space. I'm not a politician, I'm not a philosopher, as I would say. I am only one person speaking and thinking in any moment of her life about space. And for me, space is also the mirror where I can see certain effects of politics, of choices, et cetera. So it is there that I think is my field where I can grasp and I can see, I can read things. And I can also, of course, imagine to design something to change direction. So the transition of space, the ecological transition in space will not be possible without some reflection of a larger order. And I think that there are so many people today that are thinking the same. And the question is that are we enough or are we the majority or not? In any case, my position in this moment in all the cities in which I work, I propose to consider each occasion a kind of laboratory. We need laboratories of the transition. So all the, it's not important to have the most important city in the world. It's not important to have the most crucial or the most even contrasted. It's not, it's every single place can be a place where you can test in space the transition. You start with the mobility. You start with revising the way in which you inhabit a building, in which you can mix things. You start with rethinking also the logic and the structure of the public space and the open space. And you work also on the different forms that work is now assuming. So in fact, this work in the past work was related to certain forms. So the activity zone, for example, or the center or the commercial district or the tertiary district, the office district. I think now all this is like melting in the air like other things were melting in the air in the past. So it's melting in the air and we have to reconstruct the relations. So in fact, I think that in this moment that the true novelty is that we are reconstructing relations that are different from the relations that were established in the past. In the past, we established certain distances, certain separation, certain buffer, certain way to organize the things. And today we revise all that. And this is special. This has to do with space. So this is something we can design. You, I think what's very interesting is that you said that we need more or less to leave the current system or the way that we think of a city or the political values in order to get to a new system in order to make any transition. So we need probably a good idea or a good something appealing to get to. Because that's also what's missing as well something appealing to say, let's go towards that direction. Today we're a bit stuck in the mud and it's hard to see what's the next step. Where do we are gonna leave? And you have developed such concepts yourself such as the poorest city, the horizontal metropolis. And I'm wondering how they can help to, for us to transition to a next state. So I don't know, can you spend a moment or two to explain these metaphors and then how they can help us to move to the next state? Yeah, and also I want to nuance, I was not saying that in order to do whatever step we need to change all the universe. I'm saying that without that, it will not be possible to transform in deep, let's say our planet, which is evident, which is logic. But I, on the contrary, I'm very convinced of the capacity of every single project to transform every single occasion. That's why I'm not speaking on the laboratories of the transition. And I work more or less at that scale, of the laboratories of the transition, not at the scale of the geopolitical questions. You are still you're working on the metabolism in a planetary way. But I start, let's say more from the specific situation, of course contextualizing them. So in these situations, how you move? I think that there are two different approaches that in fact for me are very coherent, one to each other. The first is you need to use your eyes, your gaze, eyes in a, not just physical eyes, but so it's a question of gaze. So first you structure your gaze. And I think that in this moment, we need, let's say in short, a new handbook of the gaze. We need to look at things in different way. And I'm putting a lot of energies in understanding what is different in the way in which we describe, for example, the city. From the past and also what are the continuities because there are things that are still very useful in looking at cities. On the other side, we need really kind of, we need abstraction. We need to set an abstract condition, an abstract space or a space of abstraction where you can, in a way, reconceive the situation. Because otherwise you get completely prisoner of the limits that you were probably talking of at the beginning where you have the impression that everything is so heavy, but the city is heavier. To change the city is not something you can do in a light way. You can make some light things, but to change the city needs time and needs in general, also investment infrastructures and transformations. So from the need to reorganize your gaze to the need of maintaining a space of abstraction where you can reconceive situations, I think that the two really work very well together. So in this space of abstraction, for example, we have put certain concepts. These concepts we have worked out together with Bernardo Secchi, especially the Poros city and the isotropic territories. Let's say first the isotropic territories and then the Poros city. There was no time at the opposite was coming out of our common discussion because it stemmed out from the work on Brussels, but then I prolonged, let's say, and probably also reopened a little bit at this concept. So this trilogy of concepts, so Poros city, isotropic territories and horizontal metropolis, they propose three big conceptual figures or rhetoric figures. But the porosity is about our body relations because porosity is something fluid that is percolating through a mass. So there is this contact between the fluid element and the mass, so there is really a friction, you pass through. And this is a concept that is very interesting because you can speak at the same time of the physical permeability of the city, the connectivity of the city, but you can also speak in a more metaphoric way or also social way of relations among people, among different groups inside the space of the city. The space of the city act as a sponge or as a stone. It depends. In some cases it's just a stone. You cannot go through. Today I was showing to some students the representation we did of the space of Lucifer in a great Paris. So that was related to this kind of narrative in which Lucifer came one night to ask us to construct the map of its properties in great Paris. So we make this map and we made a collage together with the students. And Lucifer is what, sorry? Lucifer is the angel from the sky. Finally he's saying that it's not the devil. Yeah, let's say. So Lucifer came one night and because we were there thinking about great Paris, how can we make, how can we understand the great Paris? And then he came or he, it's not the he because it's an angel, so it came and it asked us, can you please make the map of my properties here in this great Paris? So then we thought about what are the properties of Lucifer in great Paris? And of course we understood very easily that the properties of Lucifer are those spaces you don't like to have close to your house, to your home. Is what is disturbing you? What is annoying you? What is fragmenting the space? What makes things impossible to cross? But not only, not only physical, let's say physical spaces, but also imaginaries. So where the frontier is made because you think that there are people you don't want to see. Where the wall is not a true wall, but it's an imaginary wall, but nevertheless it acts as a wall. So then we added not just the bigger, the highways that are segmenting the great Paris, but also the big airports, the railways, the polluted areas, the industrial areas, industrial and polluted areas, but also the city. Also the Grand Ensemble. Because the Grand Ensemble, they are like stones in the great Paris. And unless you live inside, you are not entering there. So they are like walls around them. I mean, this can be made very, very long. But in fact, I think that this working on this imaginary and merging this also with the physical, how rigid space can be also physically. So physically and in relation to the social imagery. For example, produced this two, one collage and one map that was then put close to the map of the rich and of the poor, where you could see that there was a clear correlation between the space of Lucifer and where the poorest of the metropolis live. Because there is this correlation or even this relation. So porosity was the occasion to think about all these kind of things and to work on strategies, five strategies. Five strategies that were also very much in connection to the ecological transition. Because we were thinking to drastic reduction, for example, of the consumption of a radical recycle. I think that it has probably been one of the first occasion in which a document was not a plan, but it was a vision. It was clearly said 100% recycle. So as a kind of future in which the reuse is 100% of the operation. So there is not so more than that. And also about the energy reduction. So there was a long, long work on some with the specialist energy expert, et cetera. So that was porosity at the same time speaking of ecological, social, and also special physical porosity. A porosity is a city where you can flow through. Where it's not transparent. We have to be careful that the porosity is not the city of the modern. It's not the modern city with the infinite space, a ground that is 100% completely open. No, porosity always considered that are some resistances. Nevertheless, you pass and each time you have to negotiate maybe how you pass from one point to another, from one part of the city to another part inhabited by different people. But porosity is a fundamental concept that we brought from Benjamin writing about the Naples as a porosity. The second isotope is the same conditions in all direction. So you have to imagine space and the urban space where in all part of the city you can access to the same quality of life. So that's in short the idea of isotropic territories. Why this isotropic territories? Because this concept is very much related to the explorations we need in the diffuse city. Different type of diffuse extended urbanization where in fact what makes this type of urbanization work in the best case, let's say, is this isotropic distribution so that you can live everywhere, but you're not the periphery, you're not the periphery of anything. You are just put in the same conditions as the rest. Of course there can be a bad interpretation of the isotropic territory as a kind of again infinite expansion, this is not the point. The point is the urban territories are inhabited and the condition of inevitability should be the same everywhere, it's very simple. This doesn't mean that everywhere you find a museum, you find a station of a TGV, it's not that this is the point, but there must be a careful understanding of using space to bring the same conditions everywhere. And this is a project, for example, that has been known also under terms of decentralization, for example, where for example it has been decided a certain moment in France, in Switzerland not to bring facilities, to bring also outside of the main core of the main center, but at the same time not so much as being done. If I go back to an old conflict that now seems very old because we had the COVID, but the Gilles Jaune was in fact this type of idea, so the protest was related to the fact that the conditions, were not in fact conditions acceptable to have work, to have the possibility to work in your territory and not to be obliged to commute for 100 kilometers or say 50 kilometers to go and to come back 100 every day and that in fact there was a kind of abandonment of territories that is still a fundamental problem not only in the world but also in Europe and I think to be, and we are in fact richer now with more possibilities, but even in Europe there are so many interior peripheries that is amazing. There are so very large parts of Europe that are peripheries or as I call them in some exercise made also in other continent servant territories, territory that are just serving the other and this is where the metabolic aspect could be an interesting entry to revise for example this dependency of territories. So this is isotropic territories and the third one, the horizontal metropolis is probably the most political one because horizontal refer to horizontality or refer to an idea which no, there is no hierarchy there is no differences in hierarchy. Relations are horizontal, say a distribution of power that gives all the different parts in that case of the metropolis, the same rights, the same presence around this imaginary table of decision and the horizontal metropolis assume also the contemporary part of the city so this very wide and strange and chaotic and not clear as a part where you can improve especially working on space horizontal relations among the different parts you can work on mobility, you can work again on facilities you can work also on organization of production that can be coherent to that idea of having horizontal metropolis and I think it's a very difficult concept in the sense that again there is the risk of banalization you want to save the disaster that was produced in the last 60 years it's not that I want to save but I think that also from previous arguments about energy embodied energy etc. that is fundamental that we take care of that part of the city or of the extended city but it is also not just taking care of that existing part of the city but it's really imagining that there are consequences in the governance of those territories and in the way in which choices and investment are made and I think this is a little bit difficult in the sense that many occasions by bringing this hypothesis I really understood and felt the kind of fear to be a little bit scared of this idea of horizontal metropolis as something that is engloving or that eventually is flattening existing privileges for example so these are three concepts could be, are three tools I think among others to reframe the project of the future I want perhaps to conclude some elements with you as you have seen the evolution you said also as to what cities the ambition of cities into reducing their impact and to reframing the questions I guess from Paris which was already 15 years ago something like that, the Grand Paris to today do you feel that the cities themselves as administrations are considering themselves as subjects as people that need as responsible subjects and actors that are here to change something or how do they position themselves? I think that you are speaking now of the administration and the political level of cities yes of course and again if I speak of laboratories of the transition is because I propose to the cities which we are working that after you make a plan guide or say guide plan or you make a master plan or you make a vision etc something should continue in the sense that you have to imagine that from that you have to restructure the way in which people are working for example in different sectors very simply mobility with ecology with the housing they should work in a different way together for example not separated that any single occasion when you have to remake a piece of the road this is something really the normal everyday transformation of the city should be used as an occasion to transform and cities start to have very high ambitions they have a lot of now of them have a climate plan that are really bringing also this perspective in a more clear way because in fact there are engagements that are taken of course there is in the case of Europe which is not still for the moment in the case everywhere but there is a clear agenda from Europe so cities are also in a way pushed very strongly to go in that direction so I think that cities are all now entering the idea that the transition is a serious moment and that you have to transform your practices still this is not easy because there is a problem between the time horizon of the politician and the time horizon of the transition the two things do not really match and this is problematic because when you touch the concrete situations of course the conflict immediately are there starting from the most simple one for example the one around the car the position of the car nevertheless for example now we work in the idea that those curves that are showing that in 10 years we will be really lower in terms of use of the car we have to take them seriously it's not just a rhetoric it's not just an image that you put there so if you make a project we make a project that maybe we need 5, 7, 10 years 15 years to be realized then we can use those curves as arguments in favor for example of the liberation of certain spaces of certain soils and so on so I think that taking seriously the transition and making kind of good relation between the data elaboration and the design because again a design is done today but the time to be implemented is long normally is often too long so these things can really work together and working together you have the space that is really coherent with the data for example or the position where you want the curve to be and that's fundamental because this makes very concrete what is the transition you can fix certain goals you can design coherently to those goals and you can imagine that when you are there the space is the good space that you are expecting while today we are making projects or we are realizing projects that are old projects and the big operations especially the big urban projects that although many many people think that urban projects do not exist anymore but they exist there are so many big areas that are going to be transformed in the future on which you have very big plans that have been discussed for 20 years they are old today they are old they are outdated but this is a problem because they were the result of negotiations but negotiations were around the table not all the actors were present only few actors were present that could really negotiate so that's a fundamental point where we see the inertia of the city our work is not only work of imagination of the future but is also a work in which you have to never forget the inertia that is not only in the physical space but it is also in the previous projects in the previous discussions in the images that were used to speak about the city you work with this inertia and you try to move a little bit to bring some shock let's say inside this inertia I generally finish the podcast with two small questions which is what's the very exciting project that you're now doing in 2021 until the end of 2021 is there something that really is very interesting or new or for me all projects not really all but almost all projects well we are working for example on a vision for a small city but with a big imagery that is small but bigger because it's very present in the collective imagery we are working in a very complex and also some way disturbing condition that is to work on top of a very big infrastructural project on top of which there will be public spaces green spaces etc this is very heavy for me because I recognize that this project is not exactly up to date but it is a project that is strongly socially wanted I mean there are thousands and thousands of people as big associations of citizens that want to have that project so again we go back to the question of Sporemore it is between society and ecology I mean the balance you have time to understand exactly where it is but we are trying to make of this project something interesting eventually innovative considering that we are working on this new nature that is and the new social space at the same time and what else I have a book that is almost concluded but again it's not easy to enter and this book want effect to deal with what I think is a fundamental hypothesis to work on that is that the transition is a new biopolitical project so the transition the ecological and social transition brings will bring us inside new relations between life and power that I think is becoming more and more evident at the beginning when I was starting to think about it was more but more and more I think it's becoming clear crystal clear so this change of course I can always remember that the modern city was inside a different biopolitical project and I think that today we are entering and my question is always space what space has to do with that what space can contribute so I think that this is for me the most intriguing and important point for the moment and the last question and perhaps this can be linked to what you're writing do you have any inspiring books or films or articles that are inspiring to navigate through this biopolitical exploration of space about the biopolitical space for sure of course Michel Foucault I think that Foucault also writes such magnificently that you can say everything you can read is fantastic but I'm quite attached to one book that is one before they found La Société I think that is very important work by Foucault but maybe I would suggest something a little bit less heavy lighter that is a fantastic utopia of the 70s and its title is Ecotopia and I think this book is quite extraordinary because you understand that 50 years ago because it was published I think in 75 or 76 it was already very clear what were the challenges and they are there, they are mentioned there are strategies that are very similar to what we are doing today so I think it is really a very interesting book Thanks so much again for all of your time Paola Thank you for your passions Thanks everyone as well for listening until the end and we'll see you in the next episode Thanks very much