 Okay, good evening everyone. Thank you for coming. My name is Matilda McQuaid and I'm one of the co-curators for the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial and I'm happy today to Officially the exhibition is open And it was co-organized or co-curated by myself and Caitlin Condele and Andrea Lips and Co-organized with the Cube Design Museum in the Netherlands. So believe it or not, they have the exact same show almost Opening on the same day today So if you're in Europe, I would take a stop at Cube and Kerkrad in the Netherlands Which I'm curious when I'm going next week. I'm curious to see what their interpretation of all the projects is so Today on the opening we want to celebrate the designers that are featured. So this is the last of these Salons that we've had today We're bringing them together for discussion and exploration of the themes which are explored in the exhibition as well as in their work and I think all of the designers that we that are in the show and also represented in these salons are highly Interdisciplinary so they're not just architects and just designers or graphic designers They are have many other interests and collaborate with many other people So the exhibition nature Seeks to inspire ideas collaboration and dialogue to address some of the most significant and consequential Environmental and humanitarian issues of our time so we hope to be doing that here today and I Think these series of salons has been an incredible opportunity for Many known as well as unknown designers to speak so It's my pleasure to introduce. I'm hoping it's going to be for right. Oh, yes For architects so the first two represent ensemble studio and if you have Seen the incredible monumental installation of the garden called Petrified River That is by the architects In ensemble studio and the principles are Anton Garcia, Abril and Debra Mesa and I'm just going to read their bio because it's it's really interesting in both cases Ensemble studio is a cross-functional team founded in 2000 and led by architects Anton and Debra They balance Imagination and reality art and science their work innovates typologies technologies and methodologies to address issues as Diverse as the construction of the landscape or the prefabrication of the house Anton and Debra are committed to sharing ideas and cultivating cultivating synergies between professional and academic worlds through teaching lecturing and researching She is then to then to let chair and architectural design at Georgia Tech and Anton is a professor at MIT where they had co-founded the pop lab Standing stands for prototypes of prefabrication in 2012 Now they're about to complete ensemble fabrica then Madrid based counterpart of the pop lab a Fabrication laboratory that can take their investigations even further Petrified River for Cooper Hewitt is the first work created in this new space So it was created in Madrid and then shipped to New York City cave Kabaya and please you're gonna have to correct me because I wanted to ask you before I came up here Kabaya Karanja Kabahe Karanja and Stella Mutegi Okay Cave Bureau is a Nairobi based practice founded in 2014 by Kabaya and Stella They describe themselves as explorers of architecture and urbanism within nature Their work addresses the anthropological and geological context of the African city as a means to confront the challenges of Contemporary rural and urban life The Bureau aims to develop systems and structures that improve the human condition Without negatively impacting the natural environment in this regard cave navigates a return to the limitless curiosity of our early ancestors Conducting playful and intensive research studies into caves within and around Nairobi These studies form part of a broader decoding of pre and post colonial conditions of the city Explored through drawing storytelling Construction and the curation of performative ends So I want to welcome ensemble studio followed by cave bureau and then we will have a discussion upfront after Cave speaks. Thank you See how we can share the mic Thank you for Matilda for the invitation to the salon to the exhibition and all the team at Cooper Hewitt Thank you for all of you coming And I hope you got the chance to go in the garden and and check the our work there As Matilda was saying in some less studio or work transcend say disciplines programs scales Or team is based in Madrid and Boston and for us we Design the process as much as we care for the final And actually looking at processes of transformation of the landscapes looking at processes of extracting materials has always been great source of inspiration and of course of acquiring a way of acquiring a knowledge and certainly in the first works or visits to the quarries in Galicia where these images come from where Absolutely key for a way of looking at how our actions as architects impact The landscapes from where the materials are Extracted and therefore caring very much about not taking for granted what is given but really Rethinking many times the processes in this work. For example, we were recycling a spare material of the quarry to create a structural and sculptural a facade that then we transported to the site and And this is our our first I would say experiment of Of the language that we have developed for the petrified river. This is our first I would say project that tries to comprehend and so due to the rules and the messages of how to build With nature and in nature. We called it the truffle as a parasite and we used available materials Given from the mineral world the soil the branches all that dirt that Configured a ball of conglomerated mass a petrified almost a synthetic stone that truffled somehow Defied a lot of architectural canons of form space or tectonics. We just tried to emulate the processes of nature In its geologies and try to understand this as an opportunity to develop an architectural language that could be mimetic and could be a Sensible to what the landscape was giving us This was a decade ago as a small Cabanon and Remained a little bit dormant until we got the call of of Peter and Kathy who actually sponsored Our work in Montana and also help us to build a petrified river And they invited us to this beautiful landscape that Deborah is we try to Yeah, so so the commission here was to create an art center in in Montana in the middle of Very wild rough undeveloped place Absolutely new to us and so our effort here was how to read the landscape how to operate with the rules of the landscape more than in post-pre-established orders Into it. No, we even decided to create this art center instead of doing one Building one white box that didn't relate to the site to explode the center into a constellation of Spaces that would connect Visitors to the landscape now and here we are in the studio brainstorming working with our hands trying to understand How geology operates how the landscape? Transforms and morphs to build an architecture that could Learn from those those actions know how could we build a space through erosion through fragmentation through explosion? Through crystallization and we we created through these process different spaces that would feed in different spots of this landscape and would create a shelters and Spaces where the art program could happen in total connection with this landscape, no and then in these moments these Actions making the models where became kind of rehearsals of how we would operate on the site where we were at the mercy of the weather the elements and And where the collaboration with the local people was critical to make these Structures of landscape as we call them happen. No and we were controlling some variables like a thermal properties acoustic properties but other variables and Well left a bit and determined no so these exercise was also about relinquishing control not needing to control absolutely all the elements of the final a product the final architecture which came out also a bit of a surprise, you know, and and in a way we unearth these these structures and and there are some things like the scale and some of the properties that That we know would be there, but others like for example how these structures sound finally Are a discovery, you know for us and they become Places to host music concerts, but they become Instruments also themselves that are able to project the sound into the landscape, no and they become these hybrid Structures that can be read as art as a geology or as architecture indistinctly which takes us to New York City and or proposal for Cooper Hewitt these say petrified river that also tries to interpret the the landscape of Manhattan in its origin and Yeah, we will have to remember that before we arrived here there was a While the ecosystem full of rivers ponds creeks and Hills Manhattan is a place for many hills so When we had to think of a site a specific action over the garden in front of of central Park in this beautiful kind of canvas of of Of landscape framed in Into the grid of of Manhattan we always thought that we should revive that almost Natura morta no of of The previous nature of Manhattan so the the idea of of making an abstract composition Composition that could recreate conceptually and almost I would say spiritually the the idea of a previous existing nature took us to the to the paradoxical Decision to to prefabricate a river and here comes the mix technological and Artistical parts that we have been producing through ensemble studio. No, they this encounter between architecture civil engineering and art to To to create this this kind of narrative To give life to to to this I would say soulless material the concrete So these were the the first prototypes of this petrified river this conglomerate of concrete soil pigments and terrain that that morphologically was broken into Into Into the magmatic condition of the flow of concrete as if it was a river A river that is stiff and structurally resistant as a beam and engineered as a 40-feet spanning beam that weighs 20 ton and had to be Strictly and precisely engineered according to the prefabrication standards perfectly cut into pieces to be capable as an Sun Geological Ulysses to to to travel and to and to be compacted and delivered using the logistics of Contemporary transportation, so we were transporting and delivering like a landscaped Amazon a river upon Anna and a hill and all these kind of Delirious action Ended up in a in a Incredible maneuver where we cut fifth Avenue for six hours and we were escorted by policeman and a crew of dedicated technicians and And people from the museum and the curatorial team and and some everybody we orchestrated a very I would say audacious civil engineering maneuver a flying rivers among fifth Avenue and crossing them in giratorial Rotation through through the streets and putting together two parts of a pond that each of them weighed like two parts of a nutshell Around ten tons each so all these kind of human effort all these bravery and all these artistic sublime Desire ended up Into a Natural composition that when I see it on the garden. I always think it looks like it has been always been there No, I mean we should talk to the to the creators and let it here I mean we don't need to move it again and redo all the process and all the effort and all these Nerves so I mean all this is to recreate Very human Performance of of how we interact how we force nature into our own needs The same way Manhattan was turned into an abstract grid of beautiful buildings and infrastructure and life that we all love and hate mostly if you live in Massachusetts and And all these kind of emotions that turned The the nature into an urban Where to serve our our desires and our needs and this piece somehow tries to condensate all that all that Sentiment all that Emotion and all that Logic that make it possible. Thank you very much Good evening It's good to be here all the way from Nairobi which is in Kenya, which is in East Africa We'll start briefly with Just introducing who we are as cave and then just jump into our Presentation on the Anthropocene Museum Cave was founded in 2014 We worked together with Kabagan big architectural firm in Nairobi He likes to say we were fired, but I like to say we were laid off. I was laid off I don't know about Kabage, but I was laid off and maybe he was fired, but the same day On the same day But anyway, the truth is they they were going through financial problems. So they let a bunch of people leave and We happened to be in that bunch that was let go that was in 2014 around May No February March We went our own ways And then in September we spoke and we started cave And it's been a short journey a short intense journey so far And this is you know the intensity of it all here. We are in New York. So We're glad to be here. We are a small architectural firm obviously based in Nairobi we Have an ethos of how we run The project this is the whole team there We like to take quirky photographs every year. So if you follow us on Instagram or look at our Website once in a while our photos change and one of the things cave is about is Where architecture started And the name itself is actually where architecture did start with Ali man. They didn't have buildings they Used caves as a shelter. So that's the origin of of architecture really So we run it the two of us. They are looking like tribal chiefs But Yeah, so we run this we were three founders of cave, but one of the founders left because he Followed another path. So Kabaki and I have been left to run the ship So far I would say so good, but very tough. We are still sort of in the startup space So that's been Interesting Interesting, I would say when we had a salary and then now Sometimes we don't but I guess that's the nature of Startups and just to jump into some of the Things we are about escape We Have a manifesto in which we Try and run all the projects that we get in that sort of framework of the manifesto and in that manifesto really what we talk about is Three things that we have placed Projects in depending on where they are and what they are about the three things that we talk about is We call them the origin the void and the maid the origin is Where you come from and just based in Nairobi, Kenya as you all know or may not know we were a colonial We were British colony and we gained our independence in 1963 and That is about the age Our parents were just becoming Teenagers finishing university and moving out of home and what a lot of people who are now in their 60s 70s did was they left their rural homes and Went into urban places to go to higher education and to work and the origin we call is Where they have come from and then they go to the void the void is the cities and in the cities we have a Lot of people who still come Even to this day from the rural area and come and live in informal settlements What they are trying to do is get a better life for themselves and when they're in this void They are trying to work so hard to make it out of the void to go into the maid And the maid is now I guess sort of the people who live on the street that this museum is on That's almost everybody's inspiration to be able to Live such a life. So a lot of the people in the void are Struggling and working so had to get out of this void to the maid and What's funny then is that the people who are in the maid Now want to leave the maid space because they now Have their big houses on big acreage and drive big cars and all that They now want to leave because there's not too many people who've come into the city and They're all competing for the same Resources and the people in the maid now want to go back to the origin And that's been happening quite a lot That people are now leaving the cities and they are now going out back into the rural space to to Leave a better quality of life it's Funny because there's still people in the origin Coming into the city to be in this big void to try and get into the maid and then from the maid back to the origin so in that whole space we try and when we get projects and You know, we categorize them into is this a void is this an origin and is this a maid and then try and Address the reasons why people are moving from either one of these spaces and can we address those issues In what we give to them as the end product so that you're not trying to jump around All these places because in all these spaces. I think we can still get quality And be satisfied with where you are you're not all trying to move about and one of the projects then that we Have is what we have presented to the museum and I'll just let Kabaget talk a bit about that. Thank you Stella so My task this evening is to introduce the Anthropocene project Before I do that just to lighten up the room a bit Me feeling tense here Probably is So we we brought a bit of an artifact from Nairobi Well specifically the rift valley and it's it's obsidian and what we want to do is Offer it up to a as a gift to one audience member Who will ask the most interesting question? The judge for that I will leave it to Cooper Hewitt if you don't mind you can So yeah, that's a bit of it's as close as you get to dragon glass So let's see how it goes So begin this quotation or rather this presentation in the court from Relatively controversial, but extremely influential philosopher Martin Heidegger who coined The term and said we only begin to understand technology when we cease to notice it I think You could flip it and bring in architecture in between there and We're not the first to do it. I mean it's been done before that replacement of Technology with architecture and for the longest history. I mean Technology was not just something you hold it was a window It was you know a flooring how you do your flooring and it it was quite quite straightforward to do with how we'd progress as Mankind So in a way, what's interesting at least what we've taken out from this is Martin Heidegger had an interesting perspective of technology a view of technology as being a reflection of who we are just sort of My perspective of it where we look at the things we've created the materials and energies. We've extracted from the world as actually being us a reflection of who we are and Quite problematic in many senses But what's interesting in this age and time, which is the Anthropocene as it's been proposed should we say It's it's quite Quite seismic to reflect on how much impact we've had on the world and in a way Our project sort of begins with that This as many might know is Well, what should we say was in 1945 a nuclear test the Trinity project and This is one of the sort of Signals to do with our impact as humans in the world Flipping it entirely looking at it from the African perspective this is a clip from a video During a struggle of post for post Struggled for independence you'd we say in Nairobi and Kenya in general and these are people who would hide in caves to struggle and fight for independence and It was round about the same period should we say when Colonialism was extracting so much from the continent as well as other continents and Caves were being used to be that point of resistance If we look at the Anthropocene, it's quite a technical Term should we say technical investigation It began should we say and described first coined by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoma Who defined it? this slide quite simply is A chronostrack fig. Sorry. I always have a hard time describing that or rather pronouncing it chronostrack graphic chart and It's basically Defines the age We are in and should we say the geological stage That we find ourselves in the Anthropocene is not a Should we say it has not been ratified yet? and it's something that Is yet to be Identified formally within the whole chart Repetition is the consideration of the past not as a static event Know as a chronologically fixed date, which we can bring to our own age by mere visual or formal invocation But of searching the possibility that would have been in the creative work of our ancestors Araya at the end of now Again this a reference back to Martin Heidegger here Where he looked at our past and futures and What we're trying to do with this project is trying to bring the two together our histories as well as the present and specifically looking at our Habitation of caves now what we have here is Is a bit of a chart and description of the position and time in space that we find ourselves to do with The Anthropocene as a proposed time and epoch and as you can notice here 1950 and 1945-1950 is the proposed period when that should actually commence Seems like the image got slightly corrupted, but Makes sense. So what we've basically done we've overlaid obviously the Trinity project and the cave and Specifically during the Mao Mao uprising if you don't know Mao Mao are Basically the freedom fighters Sorry the freedom fighters who assisted us to gain our independence and And this cave which we've exhibited at the museum is One such cave that was inhabited by the Mao Mao and For us in many respects we Unfortunately, we don't take it as as a museum, but in many ways it is and Should be read as such and so what we did was to survey it Using point cloud technology to actually analyze each and every space each and every surface 3d print it and effectively model and cast it in bronze To actually represent the museum as it is So if if you don't mind I'll just go into Some some poetic narrative. It's not very Sophisticated but hopefully it makes sense So we read the origin as one a Singularity of architecture and nature when it all began See the baboon parliament in its true stature Flowing through lava tubes fashioned in power caldera of Steam and struggle we draw here to scramble For an Africa in architecture built on protest and geothermal The my cave is ready for visitors As we point in cloud Against a mapping the settlers chose to obscure and shroud it was a stone age cave Filled with obsidian tools and not too long ago a refuge against those dreaded colonial rules Opening falls watered doors and a nave with burnt up my walls So we unlocked the double helix on the left side To see it in chromosome Mighty sections etched on leather hide of zebo cow grown I'll see the incline to an epoch We narrative we natives resisted in Spiritual space shaping being and time so on the right You see the museum And its repository We trace it on contours of dormant drawings showing volcanoes and lava tubes a pent up geology So what we did was to draw it in scale and built to shell Tracing habitation that shaped this abstract nation jail the red spots as you can see mark habitation of the Mao Mao's at different points of the struggle so So much for this struggle and so much for these glorious journals Not much for the depository When it isn't architecture we look at but ourselves and obsessed putrid technology So we have a short film It's playing in the in the gallery It's online and we hope we can actually get to see it so we had three characters one zero and we have This young boy's husband Sirma and an artist Jackie, thank you very much Thank you very very much amazing presentations and It's funny when I was when we are curating the show. We didn't absolutely know what we were going to include and also receive from our designers and Specifically, I know we had a lot of back-and-forth with cave about what they were going to present We kind of knew with you, but What was interesting is when we finally kind of installed to see the model of Petrified River and to see the cave Right across from each other and it was like wow this is It couldn't have been planned and it wasn't planned But it was just amazing in terms of the similarities, but yet the kind of the the methodology Getting there is completely. It's very different. But what I loved is Spatially how you you each treat space whereas the void becomes You know Very important part of your work and I'm talking about the void not as part of the manifesto but as kind of a spatial quality and Where the solid becomes, you know a very important part of Certainly your work and sort of that Placing the solid in space and I'm just as architects, you know, we're always talking about or I'm not an architect But you're always talking about space So I'm just curious like how You know what your thoughts are about sort of space how you work in space specifically, you know with those two projects and I mean, I'm dying to know more sort of how you Decided on a cave as your kind of source for Both your name and your kind of what you do. I mean, it's it's it's pretty remarkable so dive in So I think for us the cave was quite quite An obvious choice having at least Bostell and I were probably the first of our family to have studied abroad and We came back home by our choice we could have stayed abroad But with a very reflective perspective of Architecture and what it can be and that you can actually question what architecture is and so for us We began to look back at our history to think about okay What what did we hold on to what did our ancestors really hold on to and in more recent times? You're talking about the 1960s. We had the Mao Mao freedom fighters actually using caves as a space to hold resistance and and actually find communion together as a community so We realized there's a lot of value here Let's just try to unpick it and look into a bit more detail. So We use technology to sort of unravel a space that's formed by lava. So they're lava tube caves and What you're seeing. I mean what you took us back to be honest because that's the first time We're seeing that cave or seeing the void of it because when you're in it, you can't perceive it at all so Yeah, it's quite important for us in a way. Yeah but in terms of the in terms of the space inside, I know you've you've Done what GPS not GPS, but what do you call it the cloud point cloud scanning scanning it Are you thinking kind of again going back to this the question about space? Are you thinking about because you mapped where they live the freedom fighters sort of took shelter? Live slept. Are you mapping those out as kind of? As you would program a building in a sense Do you see it in that kind of in that kind of way? I? Think it's reading of program definitely, but the fact that there wasn't very much Documented there's a lot to read into it There are parts of walls where you'd have fires that are burnt and you see the sort of blackened walls There were areas which was smoothened out where they would sleep and it's over time the rock started to smoothen out And so we we are just beginning to get into that, but there's a lot to read from it Because it's it's a history a very complicated history a lot of which was also partly erased and It's problematic for us to remember or at least very accurately so it's Interesting an interesting question actually yeah, and in terms of ensemble. I mean here you create something that Looks I mean it's completely artificial but it looks like it's been you know around for millennia and And what was the inspiration for that? I mean was it the landscape was it nature itself or was it? Something else that kind of got you started I I think that what we share with with our cave colleagues is that And By intuition We are not looking to disciplinary architecture or technologies to to get inspiration or a vocation and we still think that The manantial the source comes from from the correct interpretation of of landscape a contemporary That means that we can still use the The technologies that we have available could be 3d scanning laser scanning mapping or civil engineering or finite a structural design to make this decoding because the source is still the same so I think this this approach to the natural as As a still a mystery as an unexplored territory that requires every I would say every generation or even every Era no has to Reinterpret that the code again almost starting from scratch is something that in in architecture is is going on And And I think we're not alone in this research and And the more the better because they're like This kind of a citizen cane scenario. No, there's everyone's looking for a different perspective But I think that we're pretty much looking to the same place And these are the the Challenges of of our of our Time Some of some people call them environmental others call them Energetic or energy-based others come call them how to process our Residues and I mean it's pretty much the same what we're talking about We just have to tackle it in in a different perspective an architecture has a lot from from taking I would say in inspiration in the in the in the object over as a cave or as a Or as a landscape know that that really could be Transforming to that origin that cave explained so beautifully to to a complete Reinterpretation of transformation of the of the language of architecture, no escaping a little bit of the our Systemic methodologies to our kind of academia that have ruled how we design for Long time. So I think this this might be the Confluences rather than the differences Interestingly enough in the in the projects that we showed like the truffle or the projects in Montana And where the petrified river is a continuation of that research, but without Being an intention we ended up building Kind of caves know a cave-like spaces as these shelters in the landscape No, trying to follow or read the landscape the canyons know the the topography and all the kind of geological Mathematics we ended up creating Of course with an artificial material mixing it with the soils and the and the social set that up But the the kind of given a form relates know with this idea of the cave as a very primary Form of architecture know that no matter Whether you're an architect or or not, but I think we all as humans Relate to in a in a way know we feel connected with Understanding where it comes from or not. We read it as a second of shelter or No, I think in both of your works There's this really emotional and visceral response, you know to it Going I'm sure going into a cave or going underneath the domo or Bear-tooth portal. I mean there's just this immense kind of feeling of connection with nature and so I'm curious in terms of You know nature itself. I mean do you think there's Sort of a a shift happening. I mean an Architecture, I mean we're seeing it somewhat in design where there I mean this was one of the kind of observations in the exhibition is that We're seeing many more Collaborations happening between designers and other disciplines Because of you know the situation that we're in in terms of the environmental and ecological situation but I'm just curious if you see that in architecture specifically that architects are feeling and Wanting to connect more with nature and and how that's sort of affecting Kind of the process in which you are working with you know in architecture and You know ultimately what the the outcome is Yeah, I mean I'd say that Especially in the US there is a tendency to detach the architect from From the construction on the outcome and even the making of things no because There's a tendency to divide everything into parcels and liabilities and no and you get all these different players who have a very specific Responsibility and they don't speak to each other and I I do think that You know as architects and as a city sense as human beings Especially knowing what the impact of our actions are in You know we we need to to fight against that no because we need to to have more responsibility and and more Capacity to decide on on how things play out no and and therefore be able to instigate change No, otherwise we are fighting against In the current yeah, I mean in terms of Kenya, do you feel like it's Really siloed sort of what Deborah was saying or do you is there is there kind of a hands-on sort of? More hands-on experience with you know an architecture I Think there's a lot of Architects now that are aware that they need to be aware of the environment as They do their design, but one of the and there's goodwill in some of those Architects, they are not very many unfortunately in Kenya that are Observing nature as they do their design, but there's few that do that However, one of the big challenges also is awareness of the community and Even the developers because those people are not aware of Nature per se so they don't even know that what you might be designing has might have a negative impact On their lives until something's built and do you realize all? This was built on top of a river unfortunately that does happen in Kenya because We are a corrupt nation but and just recently there's a building that was Pulled down because it was built on top of a river. Everybody knew it was being done on top of a river But because you pay city officials the turn a blind eye and the building goes on and then what happens is when it rains The river needs to go somewhere. Yeah, but you put this building in front of me. So I'm going to find You know the river is going to find its own path its own cause and that's the negative impact then it has on people But slowly because of this awareness and a lot of buildings that are being pulled down now people are aware are starting to become aware of What? Needs to be done correctly because we must respect nature. We are using Nature we are Borrowing from nature. So at the end of the day, we really do need to Observe it. We can't ignore it. We can't go against nature because if you do go against nature It will come back ten times worse on you. So We are not probably where the West might be in terms of being aware of nature in your design But I think we are sort of getting there. I Don't know if we're necessarily the West's throw model, but I Don't know. I mean, it's like I it seems like there's a Whole nother kind of new system that we should be sort of striving for. I think we can be over Too many requirements and you know So it's I know there's you know issues there, but I think we have other issues here What were you gonna say? I? I was trying to to explain before and What you mentioned of this connection that? We have to have with nature and how architecture role plays and We have to remember that we humans are nature also. Yeah, and And architecture has to connect with ourselves and sometimes as architecture has been Silent to ourselves making our own Spaces and systems soulless to ourselves not connecting to ourselves not really reserving to a the main purpose of sheltering of of Being part as an as an extension of of ourselves. So Part of what? Ensemble has been doing in the its research and I think that this installation is Is a shot of these? Intention is trying to to make this kind of deep and I would say emotional connection to a To matter that ultimately is what architecture provides. No these kind of transformation in in into of matter into something that serves and Connects a spirit and I always Make this comparison with the art world where Art has been able to evolve and transform culturally the last big well, maybe not the last demo about One of the most intense moments culturally of this city Leading the art world was in the 50s through the abstract specialisms where all these artists Connected with nature with their own human soul nature to break all the prexisting disciplinary rules of of art and trying to Recreate them and suddenly the lines or the geometries became strokes and stains suddenly the forms and shapes became maps and and the fields and now almost More than half a century after that's part of our cultures part of our I would say a spiritual connection to to a to to the abstractness of of art and Architecture has not yet arrived to that and I think The source is The same the same way the extra expressionist looked and to some aspects of nature know to to to recode everything and Transform culturally the society I think architecture is not the yet there yet. No, we are still I would say we are still in the 30s in a in a post cubism figurativeism playfulness colorfulness you know and thing and We have not yet found the language the tectonics and and the forms that could connect our human soul to nature through space and I think that's something that I've just admired of your work in a in a very kind of analytical way and in a completely different way, but I think Following a similar path. Yeah, we are we are trying to to find that that language that tectonics materiality and that that expression to connect Thank you. Okay, maybe just to add on that briefly Because within our industry we're in a huge dilemma we're responsible for Probably the most pollution the most consumption of resources and as architects. We are the helm of that and Some of us yes, we reflect on it more deeply than others but we are still burdened with that immense power of Creating a situation where we are destroying systems on the planet depleting its resources and perpetuating sort of gross growth of economies In a really negative way, you know, I mean you just have to just look around and realize We're really messing up and As for in front of you actually we are the helm of doing that and I guess in a way what we are questioning is How should we continue, you know our reflections on material and we also love the work you guys do Reflections of how you build and respond to nature respond to the process actually being part builder part Conceiver Vital and in a way where we're sort of going through huge pains To come out of as you said this sort of baggage of how you produce architecture to be in a space where we can Almost arguably say we need to actually go back and reverse a lot of these impacts And so part of what we are talking about is saying a return to the cave to to literally almost return to the cave And if we don't do it consciously it will be done for us by nature and in in an interesting light There's some poetry in that But also some really hard truths of where we're actually taking ourselves So yeah, it's complex space Okay Thank you. I wish we could continue this, but I'm gonna throw it open to the Q&A and remember There's a prize for the best answer and Kara One question. No, no, we okay Kara. You're gonna have to decide. I'm not deciding who has the best question. Okay Hello, my questions for all the open to all the panelists But particularly in cave because what has was said in the presentation like I hear about channeling the past I hear about like thinking back to the ancestors and how art has Transformative transformer powers, especially particularly that your projects are essentially interactive art thing is that what what have you noticed in terms of Response from the public particularly in children how How they are interacting with your projects because they're learning They're learning to tap into their internal nature and learning about the past but is there any way to to do like to Explore how your projects are influencing Viewpoints, it's like from the young from the youngest to the oldest and how your work is Shaping communities and neighborhoods and how they're going to re react to nature in the future I'll just partly answer that. Maybe I won't fully kids are complex beings but That's their gift in a way But what's great is when you see children in nature in space, they just feel natural. It's like This is where I belong this way. I'm free, you know, and We are trying to tap into that when you take kids to caves It's a mix of fear intrigue and you know, this is Where I want to be, you know, and they have memories that are in green and everything and so At least for us. We're trying to tap into that space And Unfortunately within our industry It's almost trying to get that childish appreciation back to it where we really Look at these simple experiences of echoes of darkness of vulnerability and You know liberation back to it's almost that childishness that we need and for us what we try to do at least with at least our own children is literally take them into to those spaces and Help them relieve that And not disconnect how a kid experiences with what we experience almost say that they should be a shared Experience of nature in that manner and so we're bringing back ourselves into that space because yeah, we're all kids in a way Don't know if that answers it Thank you very much. Really great evening. What do you think? Large developers in urban centers can learn from your work or you would hope they would learn from your work. Thank you I wish I would know that one Well Yeah You know there was a Spanish architect that has a quote I'm trying to translate I said architect is either Popular or intellectual everything in the middle is just business okay, so How to connect business with the popular the intellectual and landscape that's that's the I mean Magic triangle, I think nobody has done Nobody that I know of Because the business has its own set of rules its own timing and But I'm very very optimistic that as soon as The human and market desires and trends follow What we've been discussing There will be a path that will be already Trace how to trace it is the challenge and we are all working on it It has to has to start with an Ethical position. I think we're pretty close as a society even though we I think a lot has been changed in the last decade and as a society we have at least The impulse or the inertia Not to go against what we are doing and to look forward in a in a clear path I would say an horizon in terms of architecture is very very difficult to to honor all these aspects with with design even though there's There's the technology and there's the craft and there's the professionals and there's the attitude to to fulfill it But yeah We don't know because every time we do this kind of work We look at each other and we say like we've ruined our career because I mean as architects We want to make Projects that have an impact in society We want to be making those spaces that people inhabit in their everyday life and that you know inspire them and make their life better but unfortunately, we're not the kind of architects building all the buildings that you know are You know our feeling know the cities and you know and you know we we really believe that we would do an amazing job, you know, but You know, it's it's this difficult cycle that we are optimistic like we really think that There's a space say for us that we are fighting for Who is the brave developer that will trust those who are actually trying to get things done differently? You know, there might be some I I'm positive that there are probably some good news is that Real estate and developer industry that you mentioned. It's completely obsolete And it's It's I mean is the only is the last maybe industry by the way moves almost a third of the wealth of Humanity and accumulates it And but we still do buildings pretty much like The renaissance like putting parts together in a side crafting it I mean, there's there's no there's no technological improvement enough in the in the process of building a building that could be a really really let's say Technological Advancement yet. Okay, so that's it. That's the good news that I think technology will help To achieve this mission Unfortunate we're gonna have to end the discussion at least formally You can certainly come up and ask questions afterwards, but thank you ensemble and Kay for a credible discussion and Presentation and thank you all for being here and please go up and see the exhibition another time