8 Must-See TED Talks for Architects

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8 Must-See TED Talks for Architects

Matt Shaw

Matt Shaw › 8 Must-See TED Talks for Architects

TED Talks are one of the easiest ways to gain knowledge quickly from some of the smartest people on the planet, and the field of architecture is no exception. Today, Architizer cofounder and CEO Marc Kushner will be presenting a spin on the past 30 years of architecture at the TED2014 conference in Vancouver. Be on the lookout for choice quotes and insider photos via Twitter, and while you're waiting for for Kushner's full talk to be released online, brush up on your architectural know-how with these videos from leading designers and researchers, including Architizer A+ Awards jurors Joshua Prince-Ramus, Paola Antonelli, Liz Diller, and Cameron Sinclair.

 

Frank Gehry, "My Days as a Young Rebel," 1990

Though Frank Gehry has taken heat for devolving into the "Guy Fieri of architecture," his early work was some of the most innovative and creative in American postmodernism. "All I'm going to try to prove to you with these slides," he jokes, "is that I do just very straight stuff." It's a tongue-in-cheek comment, but Gehry continues to discuss his work in a quotidian, down-to-earth manner, focusing on how he solves problems for clients and makes an effort to address context. His fantastic early designs speak for themselves from the old, musty slides he presents. There are some fun bits, too, as Gehry tells the story of a play in which he and his sons participated—Gehry's name was "Frankie P. Toronto. P for Palladio."

 

 

Liz Diller, "The Blur Building and Other Tech-Empowered Architecture," 2007

In the context of architecture as a "special effects machine," Liz Diller presents and describes some of Diller Scofidio + Renfro's most offbeat work, from theater and design to master planning. The common thread? "It challenges the assumptions about conventions of space." Their search for an "architecture of nothingness" aims to produce moments and places that make us think, instead of sleepwalking through the world we inhabit.

 

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In the Blur Building in Switzerland (above), water mist creates the architecture of nothing—only white noise and a visual white-out. Other projects discussed include the team's destructive retrospective at the MoMA, their building for ICA Boston, and their interventions at Lincoln Center.

 

 

David Byrne, "How Architecture Helped Music Evolve," 2010

Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, who dropped out of RISD, explains how architecture factors into music production and performance. "Do I write stuff for specific rooms? Is that a model for creativity? Do we all make things with a venue, a context in mind?" He explains that different kinds of music are made for different spaces. In his typical calm-yet-energetic, deadpan punchiness, Byrne traces the history of music between Mozart, Scott Joplin, and punk, and examines their relationship to both the acoustics of the rooms in which they were played and the media players that were in use.

 

 

Joshua Prince-Ramus, "Building A Theater That Remakes Itself," 2009

This is a talk about the agency of architecture. "It's time for architecture to do things, Prince-Ramus argues, "not just represent things." His theories on how to accomplish this are exemplified through his work on the Dallas Theater Center. The constraints of the project were seen as a stimulus for productivity, and the project became a multi-form building where different configurations accommodated the mission of the company, resulting in a dynamic and performative space.

 

 

Rachel Armstrong, "Architecture That Repairs Itself," 2009

Rachel Armstrong is looking to the future for a sustainable architecture that is made in new and eco-friendly ways. "All buildings today have something in common," she points out—"they are made using Victorian techniques." Armstrong and her team at the Bartlett School of Architecture are working with scientists to find new materials that can be grown; she aims to create energy-efficient materials that make themselves through natural processes, rather than employ the Victorian method of imposing mankind's will on natural materials. She describes a plan to grow a new limestone foundation for Venice, "carefully crafted around the wooden piles."

 

 

Cameron Sinclair, "My Wish: A Call for Open-Source Architecture," 2006

Sinclair talks about his work as the founder of Architecture for Humanity, a non-profit organization that uses innovative, sustainable and collaborative design to address problems in the world's neediest places. To this aim, he argues, architects should be making open-source design proposals and embracing "not just the responsibility, but the opportunity to really get involved in making change." The open call for proposals has produced innovative ideas in places as diverse as Kosovo, Sub-Saharan Africa and post-Katrina Mississippi. For Sinclair, sustainability is not just a responsible way of designing, but a way of surviving and thriving with the minimum expense (for example, using rainwater collection to provide clean water).

 

 

Thomas Heatherwick, "Building the Seed Cathedral," 2011

Heatherwick discusses growing up disenfranchised by large buildings that lacked the materiality and soul of smaller-scale design. He has run a studio in London for 20 years, and in this talk, he discusses his most famous work, the Seed Cathedral. The cathedral was completed in 2010 for the Shanghai World Expo, and the British government requested a design that would both stand out and maintain elegance. The pavilion was inspired by the Expo's theme of future cities—and by the movie Jurassic Park. "This is the only project we've ever done that looked more like a rendering than the actual renderings," he jokes. Heatherwick also wins the prize for baggiest TED Talk attire, a surprisingly competitive category in this list.

 

 

Paola Antonelli, "Design and the Elastic Mind," 2007

While this talk is not directly about architecture, the points that Antonelli brings up still apply to the profession. She gives us a glimpse into the process of curating her exhibition Design and the Elastic Mind, explaining how designers are "elastic"—they move through various fields of knowledge—and how they help us to be more elastic ourselves. Nanotechnology, physics, and other fields of science, for example, stimulate designers as they begin to incorporate the new technology into innovative designs. The products Antonelli describes are quite diverse—from new visions for growing meat to the creation of a poem with every ejaculation—and, as she quips, "designers are quite fantastic."