 We're really excited for today's speaker, Shwango Schetz, who is a towering figure in urban design in the past decades. We're thrilled to have him join us. The concept of the lecture series is really to have a global perspective and to have urban designers in practice from many generations, different generations. And so you've heard so far from figures like Dirk Simons of H&S Land at Holland, PK Das, Mumbai, and coming up Sudak, Interjente, and others. And so really getting a truly global view on forms of practice and contexts of urban design practice. So Professor Busquets is an architect, urban designer, and professor in practice and urban design at Harvard GSD. And for some reason, Columbia and Harvard have not so much interaction, but here we are breaking the firewall and I'm so thrilled that you would agree to join us today. And so, so thankful to have you. And his urban practice encompasses strategy in all realms. And he works primarily in a European context and I really enjoyed his lecture title plans versus projects. And because it's really, you know, suggesting that cities are more than physical infrastructures but reflections on society and transformations over time. And I believe he has a book with the students out called Urban Grids handbook for regular city design, which encompasses the work of his students and his, his teaching in the GSD and past years. So again, yeah, I do feel like we'll hear through his, his lecture and his slides but John has really advanced a mode of practice in urban design in the past decades that has really sort of stood as an incredible model of thinking urbanistically and integrating design and design practice into this form of city making. So with that, I will turn it over to you and just say welcome again we couldn't be more thrilled to have your voice and your perspective as part of this global lecture series. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much Kate for the for the invitation and also for the introduction. I would like to just start sharing the screen to show that. Could you see my screen now. Yes. Yeah, okay. Well, as, as you already presented case, I want to develop this idea. In terms of designing the city and the perspective of the urban designer. What is better that we do plans for the city or we do actions that we sometimes will call that projects is the way that is something that they want to put them on the table and to start the discussion about this type of things because it is very, very important to see what the role of the urban design today in our society, which is completely different than the one that probably one generation ago. It was learning at the schools and the way that also still, we can say that the presence of these type of paradigms that they were also created by the modern architecture we can see in this image to the left. The idea from the curve is here the real radius in Paris. I mean that was the idea that you have a plan and by having the plan you solve all the questions of the city. But we, when we compare the left with the right, we can see that our cities has been always in a very big transformation you can see on the upper on the corner at the top. The city of York like it was 150 years ago and probably like, like it was 20 years ago but anyway we can see that dramatic change that it took 100 years in New York but in other cities if you make the same exercise in Shanghai or Mumbai or many of the cities we can see that these changes are done in 3040 years in few decades, you can see our cities moving. But the same time the form of the city we can see on the bottom down the form of the city is very difficult to, to find one form. And usually the urban designers that they are trained, they are coming from the architectural background like myself, we tend to imagine that the things always get form. The form could be the form of the pencil could be a bottle could be anything that we want, but everything has a form. But sometimes when you see a city and on the corner down on the right, we can see Milan. Milan is a city that is probably presented many times like the capital of design and the capital of design is this lower part which is very beautiful city. But the real economy of the city is outside in all these gigantic sprawl of many activities, many economic activities and many different sort of housing. And that is the real city and that is the real economy that makes that the center of the city that is called design, the capital of the design is also a very successful city. What else? What is the problem today? Probably we need to create, we have to fight for defining new paradigms that probably cannot be like the one that it was proposed on the left by Le Corbusier. Or even with the idea of the projects you can see on the, on down, you have a complete project which is beautifully done in the north of Africa. It's very well designed anyway, but you can see the real cities behind is around it. What is the real paradigm? Is that, are they designing the outskirts or are they designing the center or the tour together? Otherwise, this industry, this company town cannot work. What is the ring that I think and I, what I'm proposing is more than just the fixed system, I propose an attitude and I like this image, probably you know, is the image that I like the attitude of this is called a school girls in Shenzhen. They are looking at to this gigantic city that all this information should be happening only two decades and they are looking at that. And I think what is important is that they are approaching from, from the right angle, they are searching the top of the building, but they are also trying to find the proper tools and that is what probably urban design should be. We have to get the way that we can understand this complexity and we can, we must be able to dig and to work into this complexity with the tools with the purpose we may have with the power that we can have because sometimes we feel urban design is only following the established power is not true. There is always a gigantic amount of a scope of contested terrain where we can work and we can make different proposals for the city. I think this is what I like very much to stress. Our job is a very interesting and very difficult job but we have to have and I think this is what the first thing I'd like to do is a technical job because we have to prepare for that but it's also with the social commitment. I think it's very important in what side of the table are we sitting and what are we aiming for that particular reality and I think this is what probably is very, very important. At the same time, our field, urban design is something that needs theory. I know it's not so easy to talk about the theory and urban design, because in fact we have to address the physical reality and sometimes we feel that only by solving these physical problems, we are doing a lot. And it's true, but what is the frame, what is the aim for that and that I think is what we should call theory. We already touch different scales. I think that is probably what we are going to see along my lecture today is this idea that we have to, we're crossing different scales. Sometimes we start from the larger scale and we are zooming down or sometimes we are bottom up and we're creating a new reality from a very small portion of the city. And in this context, in this discipline, I would say relatively new discipline that we can call the urban design is where we need also a continuous research, but also the research must be applied because in a way it's not a research from a laboratory. Sometimes we feel and the chemistry has these advantages that they can be isolated in a lab doing that, but our lab sometimes is the reality that we have to understand and only by understanding the reality we can probably make the proposals. I'm going to make my speech divided into parts. The first is I'm going to use material that some of you perhaps are familiar is this research that we did 15 years ago. The GSD it is called the city's 10 lines. I thought when we were doing the research that everybody will understand the X, then I discovered is not true people feel we're talking about the X forms of the X cities. This X means 10 in the Roman, the Roman alphabet and I was, I was studying Latin and that's really I like to stress this idea 10, 10 different forms that we are designing the city today. I'm not going to repeat that because this book is quite well known. But today I'm going to read these approaches in four different conditions. Hopefully we can imagine or we can agree that our cities are facing different questions. I'm going to select four of them. We can enlarge and we can make six, eight that doesn't matter, but they are different conditions. We, as the urban designers, sometimes we have the chance to decide if a city needs more, the second model is the way that the city is better that the grow is decentralized as the way, or if the city should grow continuously extending, we can go. Or some other times we have to say not the priority of the city is not extending the priority of the city is to retrofitting the city in itself. That could be another, another pattern. And the fourth that I'm going to develop is when we have an existing city and the city needs a certain transformation or requalification in some parts that that should be many times is related to infrastructure, that they are oversized or they need to be rescale or whatever I mean the event that is what I'm going to show. Let's take a first example extending the city. The way that it's a project that I want to show you is the project in Portugal in ever is a midsize cities in that country, where they have a project to make an extension because the city has is prepared for the growth, but they didn't know exactly what is the purpose of this area and, and they have, they, they have prepared a project for expansion of the city like this type of what we call a housing estate for that theory. The project is done by Alvaro Caesar, and Caesar was proposing doesn't make any sense to continue making more city done by blocks, because we don't know exactly the programs and the needs of the people coming into the city. Why we don't prepare a system where depending on the needs, then the housing can be adjusted. I'm not saying that the housing, the, the houses are going to be a squat or build by themselves, but they are going to be managed under the direction of the families that they could be interested or needed to live in that place. That's the reason that he is proposing a very interesting a scheme. And I think it's what sometimes when we take the, the terms of these 10 lines, we said a minimalist approach could be very interesting in some cases, when we don't know the program we don't have a lot of budget, but we have a very important urgent need to solve, and like the housing in this case. And perhaps it's better and that is the hypothesis of Caesar, that by defining an element is that is a sort of an equity that is an infrastructure line, and then putting the service along this line. Because we have a small group of people that they want to, to build or to have some housing in that place. We can just build one of these pieces, and then plug in and connected into that system by making this linear service develop and then plug in the scheme. And then you can see here the way that is developed, along the time, and the way here you can see the, the service line is very simple, it's just like a bio look, it's like an equity, sorry. And then you put the services and then, as soon as you have them, you can imagine a cooperative that organizing 1520 of group of dwellers, and then could be by system of two families. And then you can build something that could follow this very simple, minimalistic type of architecture that has no other ambition that the one of producing something that you can very well imagine that if they need later another layer they can add and they can put easily some other rooms if needed. And that would be the type of street that they produce, which the means and you can see the way that the people are reacting into that system and they produce something. This image is already 15 years old but now this space in the middle is quite nice space, but what for me is interesting is this idea that in place of creating a nice mega building. Many times the housing estates are produced, which we don't know exactly the program the needs the priorities, the time of that makes a gigantic investment many times from the public sector, and they are, they are always not properly used or sometimes they, they are empty or they are empty, and that's the way that they can be. Second point of discussion. In other cases we can say that the territory needs to be expanded because otherwise everything is very much growing continuously and then the decentralization, it makes sense. It's interesting now that decentralization in itself is good or bad, but we can say that in some cases, the cities, the gigantic cities and the megalopolis, they cannot stay continuously growing by a continuous system. Sometimes you need to prepare to reserve certain natural space and then you, you have to find other strategies for the growth or to balance perhaps in other conditions. When we look at these different models, and you can see if you compare London, which is the most typical example for decentralized, they were doing this system of relatively autonomous new towns. That has been quite repeated in many different places. We can say that there is no any big city that doesn't have any new town model that you can see in in Shanghai when they decided to make nine different new towns, but the touch from the existing city just to produce a sort of decentralization of the economy but also to people related to this economy can be placed in that place with the services and all these elements that they are probably considered in the base of the decentralized model. I like to straight the third model which is here on the right is that this is in in the Netherlands. You can see that in place of making nine or 12 like in London, they make more than 100. Yeah, are they they need that. No, but what they did is more system a plan for it. The cities that they need to expand, they can apply and they can develop that in place of making an abstract model like the one that we see in the middle. They are more considering that these new parts are going to be according to the needs and according to the model of the different cities. I think that was very interesting as a way that they are not even calling new town they call Phoenix that is the program that was developed in the 80s as a general plan, a general master plan for the whole country, a general strategy, and then allowing that every piece can have its own autonomy. I think that is what they tried to develop that we had the chance to to participate in one of these discussions that was in the outskirts of Rotterdam, where the strategy in this project is, it is creating from an existing lake, creating the land to avoid that the city was based on agricultural agricultural domain is the way in place of then reserving the agricultural land and creating by digging you can see the section here where you can take. You can change the depth of the of the lake, and then with the land that you can get then you can raise the land and you reduce the impact and increasing the density you can do that that could be the model and the scheme for that. What is the subject in that case the decentralization, it will respond, not only to the locating the housing but also allowing that some new economy that that was already decided to be related with some of these phoenix will take advantage of that and then the idea of the address the public address of the place could be created by the existence of the lake. The lake becomes deeper but also is like that is relatively small, and then they decided that all the sports activity in the lake will be allowed except anything with engine is the way then you can do whatever you want in that place but. Because otherwise most of these model about the decentralization probably the Center always is a shopping mall know as a way that then you make the shopping mall and around. You have some facilities to school and then housing and some industry Larry that is the model, why we don't take something that belongs to the geography of the place a per reinforcing that you can imagine that you can develop. The other consideration this project is the density, we feel that we want to save land, we have to rise a certain level of density, even that the overall density is relatively low but is above one square meter per square meter. You can see here from the distance is a that the town has an image like an existing town, we can say today this image for me, Rotterdam is a city with with towers that is what probably belongs to the and then the rest from the part from the tower is the idea of the urban block. You build the blocks in a way that then different sort of housing. Can be contributing a creating the concept of certain hybridity. I know that when we are building a place like that there's a place for 20,000 inhabitants and the economy around attracted on this proportion but also are people working that they're coming from from the city of Rotterdam. Then the connection by the subway is the way that then you have a link with the public transportation into that that becomes part of this network around Rotterdam. And then the other important point is how can we build blocks that they are creating a real mixed use. Sometimes we like the mix use but we don't have enough commercial activity or we don't have enough ground floor. Then we can see in that place where we don't make also the mix with the housing, then if in every block, you have affordable housing social housing market housing, but you have also housing for the elderly people and perhaps normal families or more conventional families, then you produce a social mix that works quite well. According to discussion with the population we come up with this principle that in the end it is been quite successful in the way it works and then you have the towers and then you have the lower blocks, but also the important thing is in the land that is recently created is very very difficult to stabilize the land because then you rise the level of the and how you create a permanent in front of the, in front of the water, and that then probably is a technical issue very important. How could you make the permanent in terms to make it stable, because always we know and in the tradition, the permanent in front of the water is a place where you have the people that they are engaged with the people that they are using the upper part of the premonate, because they are looking at the water but they are also watching what happened on the people that they are pathing or they are doing a sports activities into that. I think this is the way that then you create a place where that can be reflected is the change between the new land that is created and the land that in fact corresponds to that and that could be just an image of that is the way that then all this is done with this idea that the hybridity is about the functions that the economy can create but also how different sort of housing can be mixed and creating this idea. The third condition is when we have the chance or we feel the most important thing is to improve the city. That is an example in Toledo. Toledo is a very beautiful city is at the top of the rock in the middle of Spain. You can see the situation, the city how it was, and the two images differ some 60 years. But the city is not changing because everybody felt that at the top of the rock of the rock. This is a monumental place that is the place of the maps of the history. I mean this is the Greco interpretation of the that is very beautiful painting. And then we come up with the idea that the city has been always this way. The fact is that the people living remember doing this project with the city and the city was very proud of that. That's attention Toledo is always very beautiful. It's been this way. Okay, okay, you're right. But let's look at the what happened in Toledo. Toledo was empty. It was beautiful, but empty. Nobody was living in most of these places. Why? Because the people prefer new dwellings outside in the valley. And they prefer to have new toilets and the kitchen and the facilities and your houses doesn't have any of these service. You have the problem that you have a city with beautiful monuments, you can see on the left, and you have a lot of housing that is quite empty in a situation where you can see that the river is really isolating the almost the rock. The city is like the rock and then the lower parties were the new housing being located. But you can see that the city is beautiful in a very hot climate is the way and then all the protections, but is a city that is very difficult to imagine how you can make modern use of that part of the city. And we said perhaps in those cases, perhaps it will be very nice if we consider that the building, either that they are empty like these huge containers, or the parts that could be redeveloped, but those should be put in one document. We can say that the drawing is the plan of the city, because anyway, we tend to imagine that the plan is something that we draw over a blank piece of paper. And it's not true. Always there is certain reality that it could inform a lot. And in the case of the historical towns, it inform us a lot more than than the other places because you cannot imagine that those buildings cannot be recycled. A great deal of the discussion with the population and with the with the city responsible is going to be what are the uses for that then is what we can learn from other cities and in that case we learn a lot from Italian cases. And we said that perhaps a good strategy that in place to make the campus of the new university in Toledo outside, like that was the pattern to make in the new land. Perhaps some of these buildings that they are beautiful architectural containers can be reformished as a library a certain departments of the university and that that was the model that was really taken. But the other thing it was, they were saying the buildings in Toledo, they are always been like this and how they work that that was our question how works the city because the streets, you have seen are very narrow. What happens is that all the buildings has a courier and is the courier the way that these buildings are working. If you understand that that point that is what we discover that the system. After that, we were safe because meaning that then the city can be refurbished. Eventually, if one building falls down, you can rebuild because then you know the logic of the construction of the city. And certainly that sometimes we have to be very keen in our research, discovering what are the real rules of the of this urban form. Then by using that we can really probably imagine how we can refurbish the buildings and the buildings can be retreated with modern contemporary architecture, but they should follow the morphological pattern that belongs to the to the city to the tradition of the city because the real is not the style the city, you know, there are certain reasons that there are those are the, the one that form the city in itself. The third important question it was the, the access to the city. As we saw the streets are very narrow, they don't have capacity. And we should get rid of the cars. And this project was done 20 years ago, it was not easy to pass this discussion, because also the people want to return to the city center but what I will do with my car, if I have a car or with my motorbike or whatever that that was reason to say perhaps a city like that they need to create a sort of silos outside for the people that they are they need to get by mechanical vehicles to the city and only the residents has the capacity in a smaller locations to be reserved into the city center. We study other cases and then we come up with this idea you can see here outside the wall this is the wall of the city there is a parking underground here. And then from this parking you leave your motorbike or you need whatever you have the car then you pass under the wall and then you take the escalators and go up until the top of that. The city has a denibulation between 40 and 50 meters which is quite a tall building if you have to reach the top. That could be the way that you are approaching and that I think we discovered and we studied that carefully. The people, when you compare the escalators with the lifts because at the beginning, the city administration, they don't like the escalators, educated escalators, they said is more for the department stores. But we come up and we study that in Italian cases and then we saw that the lifts the people are a scary of the public lifts and the escalators. If they have a natural light and ventilation, they are really working quite well. Every day, approximately 20,000 people are moving up and down to the city for studying for visiting other people or for the culture. And that's the reason that after the first, we did the second intervention also like this one that you can see in that which is behind this existing wall of the city. It could be the way that you come up. Then you can see in the historical town, the way that the architecture can be deployed is really could be contemporary. What is very important is that the morphology of this intervention, like you can see here you is a building doesn't have a facade is just behind that in embedded into the mountain and then from the lower part you take that and then from the escalators up, you reach the top of that. I think the idea of the retrofitting the historical town is something, of course, that is not also only a European commitment. I think all over cities across the globe, the people like to keep and to reuse to modernize the city and the parts of the city and to make out of it a real identity for the city of the future. That's another example that we did that is in France in Toulouse, that is a city very dynamic economically, but the city center is huge. That is more than 300 hectares. And because the economy of the city is good is good, meaning that then there are a lot of cars. There are more cars than any other city and it is amazing. How you can struggle with a place that is so beautiful in terms of the architecture, then you, you can imagine that you can start dissociating and understanding what are the different types of that and the way that those areas and the public space into these areas can be reorganizing in terms of the mobility. Today, the mobility is something that everywhere is how the public sector, how other forms of movement can be deployed, how the electric car, but we should not imagine that we insist on the car because now it's going to be not polluting is electric is not only that in the city centers. We should walk. We have other means and only a few people probably they need to use other other systems. That's the reason that here, because it was very difficult to deal about this subject because you have the cars and everything is going fine. How you in a democratic context, how you can get that and probably we decided that perhaps it makes sense just to make certain projects like a pilot projects. Then we said perhaps it will make sense if there is the central spine in the middle of the city that is the north south axis that links the most important monuments and places into the city. And the river is very beautiful, but it was really neglected. Why wouldn't make the link between that and then by reformishing some of these streets, the people can see that to get rid of the car in the street can be a benefit for everybody. And the way that that is, you can see the quality of the street, the buildings are very nice, but the street is very poor. And why is poor is because it's a lot of space dedicated for motorbikes and cars parked on it. If you make this exercise, easily you can imagine that it becomes a friendly space and you can see that. Then you discover that and you show that and everybody can can see what you can get and what in the end you can you can produce out of it. And introducing then certain elements that addressing this place towards the water and towards the river. That was a strategy and then by doing that you can go one piece after the other. The river was extremely beautiful, but it was neglected because it was floating. But today, in the last 20 years, the rivers in these type of urban conditions are safe and they are controlled. And then you can imagine that those places could be places that the people enjoy as a meeting places and that was probably the strategy and then you have to try to find the way of rediscovering that you can see the lower part of the river and the upper part. What's the reason this wall, it was the floating, but then you have to touch the upper part of the city and the lower part. And if you do that, you can very well imagine that by doing a very simple intervention, you make easily to move down and the top, and then you can get that as a way that the way that then after that you can imagine that the people are creating the use that the car can be used for other type of trips, but the movements into the city, you can get rid of the of the car, which probably is what could be the conclusion of this simple exercise but done one piece after the other in order to produce this idea that retrofitting the city is not something that we can do overnight and probably all the urban design projects takes a lot of time and all the projects I have shown you. They take at least 10 years because they need the time they need to be implemented they need to be adjusted. I think probably that is another important consequence of the urban design. The four condition, the final condition is about when the cities has problem with infrastructure, this is the city of Delphi in Netherlands, beautiful city. No point about that. The train arrives in the middle of 19th century and was placed next to the city, but today is in the middle of the city. It's a beautiful city, fantastic, but you have in the middle the train that was filling the river. And as the way then you have something like because Delphi is in the middle of the country, 300 trains per day, which is impossible to live in nearby this area. The hypothesis here, the city and the region, the authority said perhaps we have to get rid of the train and we place the train outside the city, we make a new town, we make something very nice out of it. But we realize that if they do that, they lose the quality of the people living in the Delphi, quite high density city, beautiful, you can see from Vermeer and that the city is still like that and that is the famous touch painter. You can see that when at the beginning it was the windmill and that you have the river, the train comes in, they fill the river, but nothing happened because it was one train a week, that's not a problem. But then after they start intensifying the train and then what happened and then they lifted in a bio-dook the train. When you do that you break the connection between one part of the city and the other, you are in the middle of the city. The solution it was to create the train, to place the train underground, because the train, it was not enough, they have to be double the number of tracks because of the, is the north-south access in Europe. That was the situation before, you can see the windmill building here, in the middle of the picture, you can see under it was a parking, you know, it was really a mess, but it was a cut like a knife in the middle of the city. That was, then we have this capacity of rendering, doing an image of how it could be, is the one, because that is difficult and then if we can put the train underground, perhaps even we can return the river in its own place. Because the elf is a polder city, the water is not just for make it nice, the water is something that you need to make a stable, the land of the city, and that is the condition of that. Then we developed this strategy, which is a project where you can see that it's based on a system of layers. It's very simple what I'm describing, because the way you understood immediately, if you take at that, you put the train below ground, you place the water and then it's it, just do that. But we know, and I think this is what the tools that we have today, that if we start a project like that and we don't control exactly each layer, I know that the last layer, what is the last layer, the trees. If we do that, probably in the end are going to be only a few trees. And then in our team, it was one responsible only for the trees. And this person in any discussion has to save these 13,000 trees that are going to be in this project. Probably in the developer project, we lose 100 trees, but it's 1% of that. But any layer has its own value. And I think today is very important to do. And we have to design, for instance, even the things that they are going to happen in place of these rail tracks, how the buildings are going to the urban design has to make the form of that, even that we don't know the program. We don't know who is going to leave who is going to build that. But we have to start getting in producing images, real images that they create the feasibility that is the river how you can rescue the river how you can cross the river to make the continuation of the streets. That is under construction you can see, you can imagine the construction of this place like that is not easy. And that construction wise is, it was four years, 24 hours, seven days a week, and that is the only where you can see the model when that is built you can see the river, you can see the station. The city decided, assembling together the station and the new town hall in one single building that is done the building by mechanic. And we took care of the organization of that and the public space, then new housing is under realization. You can see here, the all station that is today, done as a as a civic building for the population, it looks like a station, but it's not any longer the station is on the lower part you can see here under where is the town hall. And then under you have here the gigantic parking for the bicycles, 10,000 parking places in that place, and there is no a single car only the tram and the buses, everything is organized like that. And the parking is 150 meters on the south on the other side, you can park, you have to pay chair, expensive. If you, if you, if you park there but nevertheless you you get this and that is a current image like it is today as a way that then you, you make the connection between both sides, and you introduce other users that you cannot imagine because today the river is not any longer both they are getting boots into the city but they are other users that they are probably making possible the way that this project can be developed. You can see that then urban design in those cases has a lot to do with this idea of crossing and touching different scales but also addressing this question of the public space the large public space and the infrastructure. I think today to rescale the infrastructure is a main job and we have to to put all of our efforts into that. As I said, in place of these four examples we can expand and we can find other examples that the problem but I think what for urban designer is important is that we must be prepared to understand these different conditions. If we have a problem of any given city, we have to imagine if after studying and diagnosing the city, we know if that city needs more this type of approach or the others, or others that we can discuss later. I was really very much trying to stress this idea of the complexity of the projects but the same times, the capacity of the projects I think urban design today in terms of definitions sometimes there is urban design is urban architecture is urban landscape is landscape is what what is it this way. I don't feel that we should struggle in the question of names, we should struggle in the capacities of creating ideas and theory for making these things happen and making the interventions of our cities, better cities and better uses for the citizens I think this is our goal and that I insist in our social commitment is very important. So far, I like to address this question of the theory how we can create ideas of the theory that can be also developing practice theory that touches the question of your own practice, like the one that probably series of lecture is addressing. We devote something like eight years of the research and some seminars and some studios at the GSD on this question of the urban creeps. The main question is why the city is regular, most of our cities are regular. Then we did the studios on Manhattan, and so Barcelona, Chicago, and then trying to get from real cities. What are the conditions and what are the differences into that we can take other cities and but anyway we have the chance to approach the cities from different points of view different context, and to to look at them, and that produce these four books that they are available if you want to see, but those are books that they are test about this hypothesis on the urban Greeks. So from the seminars, we approach 101 cities, and that it produced what Kate was presenting before the urban Greeks book that now is already translated and published it will be presented. One of these weeks after the pandemic period that they spin translated to the regular and because the way the idea of regular city I think it's clear but not all the cities are regular in the history. So that they are always this fantastic debate between Camillo city on the left and auto Wagner on on the right probably in ideological terms will be the other way around that doesn't matter. What is important is Camillo city did a fantastic job. Depending the quality of the plazas in center Europe and in Italy and and drawing them and discovering the reasons that say okay, here is the pedagogy of the city what we discover and that is what we have to apply in the development of the city of the future Camillo city has this idea. Wagner was in in Vienna. Proposing another type of approach you can see here, both on the same time period and the beginning, probably, beginning of the 20th century, where you can see really the modern approach for the city already even that. Wagner is considering that the, the new city has to be a lock with the historical city. This debate still today is present when we have the discussion about what new urbanism is proposing or what sort of extension we can do in the cities. I think these two guys are essential. And this position is something that we have to, but perhaps today, when we are going into them, and we are entering into that we discovered that most of our world is greeted. We did this exercise in 101 cities that they are here, and then you can see that they are from different cultures from different latitudes I mean the way that then you can start studying. What are the regularity based on. That is something you can you can visit in the book and you can you can come out with your own conclusions but now I want to develop two main arguments one is what are the reasons why the cities are regular. I'm not in what sense, are they regular or are they following the same geometry, I'm not talking about the patterns, if not the reasons why, because I think it's very important to understand when we are designing one fragment. What's for why we do that, and who is backing this project and what is the social conflict that we can may not solve but we may address and sometimes we can help in solving. When we look at the history and just passing briefly into that, you can see that it was this very powerful argument to say that the cities were based on the translation of ideas that was the ideal city. Then we study these examples from Europe, and then we map them. And then you can see this beautiful extremely beautiful from the Renaissance period, most of them were the design of the city was based in one idea. With this idea you can develop you can deploy all the elements, the streets, the center, the protection, the way that the city can be developed can be implemented all these things. And then you have Palmanova, which is a beautiful example. But then we said perhaps today, our exercise is not only to repeat what the Renaissance books are telling about the city, but how do we interpret Palmanova today. And that probably is when we start our exercise of redesigning in urban design terms, how this example being implemented, how probably that doesn't mean that this is exactly like the book of Palmanova is telling us. But the way that we can understand perhaps some access are more important, how you make a city with with three elements and five entrances. And there are certain geometrical questions that they are asking us the way you can organize or reorganize the neighborhoods that compose that or the example of Nancy, extremely beautiful city in the north of France, where you can discover that the city is always following certain type of decisions in the history but also certain patterns that we can discover and perhaps we can reuse today. This exercise explained us about something that was very important. Do we have a simple idea to design the city probably not. But probably we can learn from the cities and we can reinterpret the idea that perhaps the cities can be also base with what quite simple ideas and when we have the chance to do a city or company town or city like that, then probably these examples can help us a lot. One important idea for building a regular city in the history has been colonizing a territory, controlling a territory. I think that was in many, many cases. But we took this example and we tried to research and to map and that is the south of France. This is the pittiness. When you look at that and then you place the cities in that period, then we discover that the colonization of this place it was done through cities by the best ideas. This is the French term that they are using. The funny thing is that the question is that you build the city and then the surrounding. This is for agricultural uses, most of them. This is the I'm talking about the 13th century. Then, when the range is over, then you build another city and other and other. But that was the way that the French, from the north, they start occupying and controlling the territory. But attention, the British were coming from this site and they were doing the same. The cities, the regular cities was the strategy. And that is the product today. When you visit the cities, they are beautiful. They are amazing. But for instance, it's very important to understand what are the design final strategy of these options. Some of them are a wallet. This is a beautiful city next to the sea. It's very close distance to the sea. And that could be the way you can understand that in a certain moment the colonization was used as by cities. Similar we can say if we make the discussion in the book you could find the Latin American cities, the way that certain parts of the eastern North America was also based on that. Then we can see that there are different reasons why the colonization takes a single model or not. That's the way there is a design model for it or not. The third important reason is when we use the formal regular city for organizing the territory. I think this is very important. It's not colonizing because the territory, if you take one of the most external examples is the Roman Centuriazione. That is quite well explained. But when you map that then you can discover how important it was. It comes from England until Middle East, the north of Africa, all that was control. But it was organized. They were not able to control that but organize them all. That probably by making a system of the water and the roads. They create this system that is operating that you can see that to do the exercise of mapping those elements and discovering where still the Roman layout is operating. Then you discover the tools and then you can see this territory is not by chance. The geography never produced this type of territory is human effort that make it. Then sometimes we tend to imagine that the Roman cities are explained like the main reason of the Romans. We don't believe after the research is more to organize the territory and the cities were part of this organization. It was the place where they were settling the army and was like a camp in a way of this immense system operating into that. Then you can see still today and the map, this very powerful idea. And some people imagine that the Jeffersonian idea to organize the United States, the great part of the western United States, it was following the Roman. Perhaps even you feel that way. Our hypothesis in the research is that is not true. When Jefferson did this operation, this beautiful extraordinary operation in the United States, the Roman Centurion was not known. Why? Because sometimes we lost the history and then we recovered the history and that was really discovered when already the Jefferson was in place. We are rising if you want, still you have the chance to look into the book, but we feel that Jefferson was the American Ambassador in Paris. It was a discussion in France to organize the whole system in France, and then they make something that was quite similar what Jefferson applied in 1784 in the United States. This is an amazing system. You know very well and there are a lot of books about that. It's a very precise system and I think it's an amazing exercise. It's amazing. We can say urban design, plan, whatever you want to name, but it's amazing. I liked the hypothesis that Corvus was writing about that. He said, this is the most impressive urban design project ever made. Why? Because they were designing without a map. When Jefferson made this proposal and it was adopted, it was not any information what was happening in these lands. There were mountains, there were a lot of water, but it was implemented. It's very precise the way that this, all these elements, you can see here the distortion, in a way that because of the length of the lines into the curve of the year. To reason then you have this fantastic operation, very precise, any fragment that you take. This is in Urbana, nearly noise. My final, I mean we can continue with that, but another very important is the question in the 19th century, the Greek, the regular city was proposed the way of expanding the cities. It was probably the case of this beautiful project that most of you don't want that you are studying at Columbia. I'm sure you are studying is a beautiful project. 1811 is the extension of Manhattan. And the construction of this system into the territory it makes a fascinating exercise. I think for me is amazing. And then when you compare like we did in this studio, when we compare the proposal on the project and the existing reality. I think it's amazing to see how real and how loyal the plan and the reality were meeting, meeting quite well together. And then talk about the distortions and why the distortions can be explained all these are the elements that we like very much in the way it was implemented into the topography. It's not easy to get this reality like that. We again can come up with the conclusion that without so beautiful urban design plan that we can name this way Manhattan perhaps was not what wouldn't be like, like it is today so powerful interesting rich and variety of city. This is a similar discussion that we can do in in Barcelona. You know that I'm, I'm based in Barcelona, I think, Barcelona was small like that that was the wall of town and further in 1859 make a proposal of extending the city 10 times bigger. The same scale that Manhattan, the people of that period were thinking that for that was crazy. They said this guy must be mad because nobody can imagine that. But if you do the same exercise you you can see how important. And, and I think I like to stress that these urban design projects are so well followed because they are very simple very precise and very smart in the decisions that they are taking. Sometimes we do the projects for the city and we tend to put too much on it. It's like when you are cooking, you want to put everything that is in the freezer then is a disaster, you have to be very selective what you, and what, what is the order of these things and I think this is what is so extraordinary about that and sometimes. A good urban design project is the one that intervenes in only some actions, and those actions are the one that everybody can understand, or almost everybody can share and they can continue. See the way of opening the streets in that reality and producing that that has nothing to do with Manhattan but has the same rigor the same way of developing and making that. And we sometimes we tend to imagine, well, Manhattan and Barcelona are special. No, it's not true. Like Manhattan they were developments like that in Boston in many other cities. Oh, those are the cities that we study in Spain, you know, like the ones that you go but we did the same exercise in Italy is Scandinavia, I mean all these places you have in the 19th century, the expansion of the city is done by this type of projects urban design projects, and they are all different. I think that is what is very important, because there is a different designer behind each decision, and I think is our responsibility to make an also now, as a research, we have to evaluate why Milano is more or less interesting or sorry Madrid, the Barcelona what are the values of that this is Madrid, I mean so the way that then we have to evaluate that and we have to to come up with this idea here you have Italy, you have Sweden, and you have a Spain and the way that these elements are compare or we can compare. The second part of this discussion in favor of the regularities, how we can discover the logic of that because the same times we can agree that most of our urban grid sometimes are very simple, we can say even very banal. They are sometimes done just to sell off pieces of land. But when we start looking at them carefully and we start overlapping, you can discover that they are certain strategies about the hierarchy, about the dimension, and that is when these research start providing a certain values and how these values can be connected with certain climate conditions or certain cultural values. I think this is what, in the end, we have to learn and we have to start taking into consideration. The same about how the construction of the urban form can be done, what are the models. After the research we come up with the idea that today is a rich variety because we, when we discovered we research 101 city, we could see that along the history, the blocks were becoming bigger and bigger. Similarly we can see that we are struggling with big and small and sometimes they are blocks that they are multi blocks is the way that they are. We have in a situation that is very interesting. Other dramatic and extraordinary moment is the idea of the multi layering city like we saw in this example in Delphi. The idea that most of our cities they have this type of special notes are produced in places where you have a lot of public transportation together. And those are places probably that make sense to get bigger density and to make better use of those spaces like could be these examples in near the stations in London these skins cross, or you can see this example over the train in that is a beautiful these more humble high line and you have the, you have the paradigm, but anyway these places connected to infrastructure that could be also used for the people. And that is a very popular area is not like probably the district in the Manhattan but anyway that all examples where you can see with these the way that examples like. You can see in this example in in Paris, how this public transportation not can also implies and can produce also parks and facilities that they are primary users in our cities on the city centers. And then when we have a sort of image of what type of cities are they producing. There are many things like that, I think it is very important sometimes is not the image that we have perhaps of the beginning of the Manhattan plan. Today, great part of the of the grid, sometimes is a green grid, in the way that is crossing over cities places where the water and the green and the spaces are together as places like that I think there is a new dimension that we have to introduce with that. I think I like just to to conclude to summarize and to say, well, we have seen that when we were talking about retrofitting the city, and that is the example of Toledo you remember very well for us is quite important to consider that perhaps the most valuable dimension of the of the project is not only that that you solve the mobility of that no is the idea that you set the beginning. Remember that I mentioned today that topography, the geography of the place and the quality of the buildings is the most important dimension of the plan. You hardly see here but you I can point it out where is the plan, you could find on the red smallest spots were the intervention and some green. And you can see here this going up, this element is drawn here, and the other is drawn there is a way that then is the city and I feel that's very important that in our city sometimes the plan is the drawing of the city and then in this drawing is where we can feel and we can discuss. And then after the negotiation and the discussion with the citizens of this area you can come up that this green has a priority that the other green because it's more central I mean those are the ways that the cities can produce. And then this idea that the infrastructure that was very damaging over cities can be refurbished and make the new life for the city and create a new center into the center in a way recovering this idea of the past. Or this idea, even the plan that is a strategy that we did in Barcelona when the city was fighting and struggling for the Olympics in 92, which you can see that the plan is done by pieces that has no any special form. Those are the centralities that they are proposing for. After 25 years, they are built them all. But it's not a nice plan, you can say well doesn't have any beautiful shape. No. Because the shape is the shape of the city. The only thing is that we discover that in the city that was fully built. They were some empty spots, mainly connected to the rail or all industries or deadly clan that can be reactivated. And you can see here at the top 85. The space was the waterfront of Barcelona. Industrial deadly clan without any any work already because the industries were already abandoned because they were out of the cycle. Then you can put is this one, the Olympic Village, which is there. And then you can clean all these waterfront and making space for the beaches and that is the way it looks today. Then with this my initial question about are we more in favor of the plans of the project. Probably, I would say that my answer today is that we need both. We need plans and projects. We cannot in and then will be asked to you after the discussion with the city with the citizens with the people interested in the improvement of the city. What are the best mechanics? Do we need a strategy that considers the whole city? And you have the chance for that because you are planning the transformation, allowing the Olympics to do these type of things. Or you don't have this capacity. And then the only thing is that we want is to solve the problem of the cutoff of the infrastructure and then we want to make it a real action for the city. The action today I feel in most of our cases is about reinterpreting the infrastructure. Our infrastructure are still damaging a lot of our cities. We must also select the critical not the places where there are a lot of people using those places because by improving that you are creating comfort and better quality for the people using those places. In general, I think we have to avoid this idea of the zoning of the city that is done by different users. I think mixing users, even that sometimes we don't have very creative and different users, but we have to struggle how we can get it done. And finally, because integrating the public space. I think public space is also we can see that everywhere. We can see the improvements done in Manhattan improvements done everywhere is not the only a question of Europe because no, you're not a question of the south of Europe because we have good weather. No, the north of Europe. They are enjoying also using the public space, but I discover last year visiting Shanghai also they like it and going to the north of Africa. They like it. I mean, it's the way the public space is the element probably is the clue of the the civic condition of the city probably then by typing together infrastructure, the mix use selecting the critical not and mostly using the public space, we can fabricate probably good strategies, either at the level of the we can call the overall city or large fragment of the city that I, I call that plan. It doesn't mean that we saw all the problems of the city, we have to avoid this idea. It was wrong, it is wrong. The plan sometimes could solve certain dimensions of the city about the public space about the mobility about the way that nature can be more embedded into the city. Again, I feel, again, our school teachers will look at our reality today our reality is changing in the dimensions and the way that the, the governance is organized, the mobility changing the form of the maps and the shapes of the map, you can see that how the high speed train is changing the geography of the map. We know that the planes, very soon are going to be friendly in terms of the energy that they are using on there is a gigantic change in the way to mobility, and we have to consider that the mobility is doesn't change the movement. The mobility doesn't means what a friend of mine is calling the mobility is the way the capacity that we have to make choices and I think that's very important. The people don't like that we decide that they have to take the bus, or they have to call the taxi or they have to use the car. I want to make choices I want today to use the bicycle and tomorrow I'm going to walk and the next I'm going to to use whatever I'm going to share the car with my friend. Anyway, that's okay. And that I think is the way that I like to do and that this talk with the idea that probably our cities that there's another image of Barcelona, a recent exercise that we did. Sometimes we feel that the city's ending, and then is nature there. Perhaps today we have to stress more or capacity to imagine that these two elements are matching together and they are defining elements that they are sometimes we can name more city like but the nature is part of the city and then the city also can be using certain parts of nature. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. And for time I'm going to turn it over to Professor David smiley to help moderate Q&A. And, and if you have a question or if you'd like to turn on your camera and now would be a great time to do so so. Professor Busquets can see as well. Thanks again for this extraordinary lecture. David. Hello everyone. Thank you, Professor Busquets for a wide ranging lecture. There's both important ideas about strategy and techniques and a great history lesson for for us that would, I would love to teach that class. And, and the great kind of consideration of the difficulties of, of what we call the city or you could also call the extended city as I think you're also inferring, or the city that requires some kind of transformation or. And so, I guess I want to. You mentioned, you talk about the plan. Not merely as a kind of architectural plan, but the plan as a kind of survey device. That's not your words those are my words. So to look at plant to use the plan as a, the plan of the city essentially is a vital instrument to understanding the questions that might arise in the city. The plan as a kind of, I think of Gettys thinking of the plan as a survey, as I say, and so I wonder if you could say a little bit more about other ways or which, or just your thoughts on to help the students understand what we mean by what Gettys said survey before plan, or in your case survey is plan. David no, no, honestly, I feel that with the tools we have today is easier that probably it was before but sometimes the tools we have referring to the GIS and many of these open source map I mean we have many of these elements, but those are there. But what for me is very important is that those elements have to be our tools. And sometimes we have to reshuffle we have to redesign we have to and then we make our own interpretation of that place. And that then is when I feel a very dry survey, it becomes perhaps a strategy, what becomes something that you can show the problems or the diagnosing of the city in a way that they are, I think a great deal of the, our work as a research but also as a professional. We have to try always to discover new dimensions. If not, if we cannot make a clear analytical conclusion. I feel that we should not be authorized to make any proposal. I have a couple of specific questions that kind of follow some of my own interests I might add, which in particular the venex plan in the Netherlands. And, and also your discussion of, well, the venex plans, which I think, if I understand correctly is a is kind of better version of the new town idea, as you said, it's a way of spreading population it's a way of dispersing jobs as well as housing. And I wonder, is that a strategy that you can see as a, as a more global strategy, a kind of a suggestion for not focusing on centralization so much as, as almost making of smaller nodes that would contain certain kinds of growth potential. I think, I think you're right, your interpretation is correct. I think probably this model cannot be, I agree is a sort of reinterpretation of the new town because it's a decentralization idea. But the Netherlands is the densest country in the world. The way that they are, as a way, then they need these strategies to avoid that otherwise the population can come together and produce a gigantic megalopolis. And then it's a network. There's a network of cities, in a way, then adding pieces into that. But now, in my answer to you, and David, allow me to say I'm not evaluating that the Phoenix is positive or negative. I'm just describing that and using that and that that is not the main theme in my lecture. The discussion about the, how the growth or how the dynamics should be placed that for me is another very important story in a way that I think is a key important. I think the four models that you presented to us is it kind of opens the door to a whole host of other models. Going to forward a question by Graham Shane, who asks, what about the vertical dimension of the grid, skyscrapers in the grid, super talls in the grid. Does that change the grid? Does that stress the grid? You know, are there limits to the grid? That last bit was me, not Graham. Graham, hello. How are you? Very nice to hear from you. Thank you for your question. No, I think your question is pertinent. It seems to me I would suggest that the vertical discussion about the grid has a lot to do with the special knots. But I was describing in my last part of when I was saying probably the place where we discover very interesting is what I was describing like the multi-layer city. In the multi-layer city probably the vertical grid makes sense, but that is more. Today I was more talking about the way we can address, we can understand, we can see more dimensions into the idea of regularity. That was my idea, but I fully agree that the vertical should be in itself another type of discussion. In the end, Graham, I think and probably all your research is very much in this direction. The power of our theory is that it shows that when you open one window, you discover many things to research into. Sometimes we feel and in our schools, sometimes we tend to imagine too much about the design for the design in itself, for the sake of designing. I think it's very important to understand why and to understand the logics that they are behind the design then our design will be stronger. And only when the design is strong is capable of giving answer to many questions. I think that is the difficulty of the urban design and that is the difference between the urban design and the architectural design. The architectural design produce one thing to be built. Urban design produce one thing that addresses many things that could happen within that and I think this is the lesson of Manhattan in the end that makes almost everything possible. It's interesting you put it that way. Because that takes me to Barcelona. Where you are right now I take it. Image of Serta's plan and one thing that's always important for me. It's just not the Camford or Chamford street corners, but in fact, the morphologies of the blocks that Serta wanted to create. That there was different ways of opening sides, opening corners, creating different uses into the center of his different blocks. I think that kind of flexibility in the idea is more than as you say it's more than a grid it's a kind of kind of this kind of taking iterations of the grid in different parts. And so given that that start, which I think is often under acknowledged in the Barcelona plan would be what is your what are your thoughts on the current new super blocks. That are kind of being created in Barcelona, the kind of nine block idea I think it is with whole changes to pedestrianization to automobile routes to public safety to quality of air, etc. I'm assuming you're following that to some degree out your window perhaps. I think the my, I think this is an important question David I think that the grid system in Barcelona or Manhattan or Boston has its own logic to change the general logic is not easy. Then, for me the question, the key question is that when we do this type of exercise, we want to do this type of exercise we have to test seriously and to see the pros and cons of that. Because we cannot imagine that we are re shuffling the city only according to one dimension of course pollution we are against is very clear the question the question of the car I mean all these things needs to be addressed but that needs to be addressed for the whole city in Manhattan in Mumbai in Barcelona everywhere that and that takes certain time but we have to put energy for that. But if that implies a change in the model I'm not so sure. Honestly, and then, of course, you, the advantage of a grid is that you can try and you can dismantle and you can do that easily in a way that way then it's good to do that and to see what is the implications about the users about this. Of course, one thing is the, the way that there that was planning the city and the others how the city has been executed it's like in Manhattan is the way that, and you cannot say that my hat and today is against the original plan no because the original plan. It was impossible to imagine how we are living today and the subways and all these things away that then is a project that is always continuously read on. But I would really advise to take very much into consideration this idea of the test, testing and looking what what happened and that test like that it will take you a few years because then you are going to see how the ground floor works. Anyway, I remember I was working personally involved very much on the idea of opening the couriers of in Barcelona in the in the blocks, because originally that was proposing that. But of course speculation and you know that they feel air all the block and then by opening that and that it took a while and today they are more than 40 that they are open. But I'm not, again, I'm not so sure after opening 40 blocks that they are very successful quite successful. I think now is it will be the right moment of discovering what are the ones that they are working better than others. Because some are safer than others and why this type of thing. Always urban design is continuously questioning new things, not just to say that everything done is wrong, not but just improving. I think this is something that. But at the same time, I think in this exercise about the urban grid and regular city, we have to keep in mind what is the the overall picture and how we are improving. I mean, we have to work the different scales. Yeah, I think we'll be following Barcelona to see how it's growing and continuing to experiment as you say, I think it's really a great kind of continuation of the morphology of CERDA. I think another question comes from Dilip de Kuna, another faculty member. And he's asking us to. He says that cities are receiving immigrants. And there's a lot of pressure and conflict over that. No, especially in European cities, but all over the world. And he's wondering how this situation impacts what you think about defining public and private space, which is clearly a key aspect of things you the way you describe the city today. No, I think that's a good point. I would suggest, of course, now. Perhaps our cities are suffering also because of the change on the rim because of the pandemic and all these things are very difficult in general, I think all we are still crossing but going to back to the real wall and we hope that very soon into that. I think the question of how immigrants must be part of the part of the system. I think that is is an issue that, of course, is different in a big city that big size city but that should be addressed properly because otherwise to imagine that that doesn't exist. I think is not the is not giving a good solution, we can see that in in some cities in Europe is the way I think that that should be like immigration has been always part of the cities. Like our cities been always receiving new people. I mean the question is that to finding the way that these people can be integrated doesn't need to be a plan for it, but to make reasons for that because in some cases are posing some real housing question. What sort of housing should be transitional housing or is definite housing, are they coming with the family or they want to, I mean, this type of thing. In general, in Europe, population is aging is the way that then I think, I mean, there are many questions that should be addressed seriously, not the question of imagine that I think now Europe has to do a gigantic exercise on to that. And perhaps, again, is more a question that perhaps certain type of immigration should be promote more meat size cities were probably job are more easier. I mean, these type of things needs to be discussed, and probably that is different in Denmark that the Spain or Portugal, I mean, this is, but this discussion, I think it's a very important because has urban design implications. Very serious. Philip, thank you for your question. I know your books and I'm following your work. Thank you. Yes, this is a, that's an issue that we deal a lot with in our international and New York based studios so Another student Ahmed asks, we're a little clarity on how you deal with the edges or the or the kind of outskirts of cities. And what kind of boundary, if any, is something that fits into the kind of format that you're you're discussing today. No, I think it's an important question. I feel that them for me, we have to avoid the idea of the edges. I think the last diagram I show. In general, we all we tend to imagine that the cities has an an edge because that was the medieval concept that the city has a wall and then outside the wall is the countryside that was sometimes we as designers we tend to imagine like that and and from the modern ideas we were what what do we they were doing they were making a line around and they put a boulevard they call a ring road just to bypass and that was the idea many plants are done since the world war two with this model with the way then what happened, you do this line and then the city start building outside this line that that is because infrastructure attracts growth is the way that the way then the idea of edge for me is an idea that has to be incorporated into the idea of the city in a way that I feel that is more the idea that nature and the city has to meet each other has to enter each other. Sometimes that looks more difficult but it's not difficult because you have always lines of water, you have creeks, you have many elements just make them reveal and make it more I think that way, then you have cities that they are more open to the territory, which is against this idea of that closing is against the medieval model in the way that I feel is completely out of the idea of the ideal city I was showing from the Renaissance, because in those days they were thinking the cities wall because it was a fortress way today, our cities doesn't need the fortress any longer fortunately. The edges are no longer edges, you know, they're there. It's, it's a gradient always now for better or worse because it has a whole array of complications. One other question that is here has to do with them. I think a really interesting observation by Lucas that's on one hand you present a history of layers, a history of of the kind of building up over time of how cities take shape and are experienced. And he's wondering also therefore about the link to the kind of generic logic or replicable logics or morphologies. And he's looking for you to kind of clarify the relationships between what he sees as two different ways of thinking and working. Probably the idea of the layers means it's a good tool for understanding complexity. But then probably as far as we start dealing and understanding these different layers, we discover that some layers are more relevant than others. And here is where probably the natural layers, the geography and the natural layers are extremely important. Another that sometimes we are because if not, we tend to imagine very much that infrastructure is the key layer know that is the tradition because the way the roads are very much demanding and they are establishing many many rules, but probably we have to give priority to the geography and nature to make it to make it more effective. Then there are other layers that sometimes are that could be sometimes very simple housing but some type of we cannot call monumental but certain type of elements that they are very much identifying the place and they are creating the important of the place. I think this is the way we can then balance and then by shifting the layers you start making your own interpretation of the city, then you are privileging certain layers. But usually the projects that we do in the city the intervention the actions within the city, probably they are merging, and they are linking different layers that probably is the way. But I think is a is a quite important pedagogic effective pedagogical tool that not only in the school but also to to be able to explain what this city of this neighborhood can reach out. And to that what are the priorities as well. We have to make and I think this is something that we can do but we have to create new sort of new paradigms. If you imagine a public participation session, and we set this project that we are that we are discussing now, the a solution has 50 dwellings, the B solution has 75 dwellings. But sometimes we have to discover that perhaps 75 can can be beneficial for other reasons. And then our cliche and that we are responsible we are meaning the people that they are working on this field, we create lower density better than higher density. We have to prove it, because that comes from 50 years ago comes from other generations that they were establishing this idea and just go to the suburbia lower density, enjoy your garden and so on. Okay, is that what what we are proposing. No, if we are talking about certain patterns of mobility we need to to change all these cliches and we have to invent new logics and we have to communicate that also with the media with. We have to make our an effort to introduce other type of values. And those values, of course, should be shared by community. Of course, today I feel there is an important trend about about environmental issues about all this climate change. This is very important is very important, but we don't know yet the translation into the urban design issues. And that is something we have to work hard on that, because not everything is very is too simple. You know, following up on that, and I think this will be wrapping up, but to me, you raised the question of politics here. The, the, the morphologies that you've shown us today are a fascinating kind of narrative of urban design. And the students, at least at Columbia, don't hear the word morphology very often for better or worse. And I like the idea of keeping a sense of the material reality of cities, but you yourself as you talk about values. It's to me that that you're you're introducing the role for some kind of political tension political contest over decision making. And that's actually something we stress much more at Columbia and I'm wondering how you, how you would envisage these kind of two realms of let's say morphology and politics just for lack of a greater vision right now. Does that, would you see us moving going forward or how does that affect your own research, as you, you mentioned the need for attention to such things. No, I think that the two for me that two things are essential. The question is that sometimes I'm a little bit critical when we said well, urban design is always about following what politics decided. I don't buy exactly that in the democratic condition there are many different platforms where our ideas and our contribution or research can help in rising certain platforms that they can also make better cities or can change the policies into the city into the visual cities I think, and that is something that our research at the university has to, to make it clear, is the way and and our young professionals are the ones that they are able to reveal other other readings and other strategies. We don't feel that we as designers, if we want to keep our role as designers, we are going to change society, but it's not true that we cannot influence the change in society. We are influencing. And then, because we must be aware that we are influencing, we have to act properly in that in that respect. And then we know and I tend to imagine that any one of us and probably some of the young people that they are attending your lectures, probably, they don't know if they are going to be working for a city or working for a community or working as an independent designer. I can tell that most probably they are going to do the different things along his professional life. I think that's very important that then we must be prepared and in any site of the table that we are going to be sitting, we have to be responsible for what we are advising. Because when we are advising with the public authorities, that doesn't mean that we have to follow. We have to advise them about then they will follow or not is their responsibility in a way. But I think we have to be very clear and very neat about that. That's the I feel that is our social commitment as a designer. If not, it's better that when we don't do urban design, we do other jobs. There are many other jobs in a way. That doesn't mean that we are always fighting against everyone. No, but we have to be very clear and very responsible about these things. Okay, the students have a few minutes to take a break before the discussion sections began at which time. And we don't attend it's the students own discussion about what they've heard today and what they've read. And so thank you so much. I really appreciate the kind of large scale view you offer us and I for one still think that we need to join the kind of morphological understandings with social and political ones. And I kind of like to remind myself that you know Aldo Aldo Rossi and his morphological kind of finesse was also deeply a political thinker. And I just think that we have to struggle with that still in probably utterly new ways but this is a great guide to thinking about the connection. So Kate back to you. Thank you so much for being a thanks and hope to hear from you again soon and and being close contact in collaboration. Thanks again everyone for joining at best wishes. Thank you.