Ideal Spaces Working Group

Have we become too attuned to accepting throwaway, meaningless places and spaces that don’t really meet our needs? And have we been programmed to believe that a neat place is a good place, a tidy place is a healthy place, and a pristine clean surface is a sign of a well-designed building? Podcast hosts Flora and Ulrich unpack these complex questions with the help of Ian Boyd, an ecologist based on the Isle of Wight, whose mission is to to shape better places by conserving, reimagining and revitalising landscapes, places, communities and wildlife across the Island. They discuss the role of young people and the street-level democratic voice in placemaking today, and why communities should be encouraged to allow wildlife to flourish in and naturally colonise urban spaces. Finally, Ian reflects on how we can combine built and natural heritage, to create curated biodiverse spaces and places in which people and nature can thrive side by side in the future.

Ian was born and raised in Birmingham, where he developed a passion for wildlife and city spaces that has never left. He spent a decade living and working on nature reserves around the UK learning how habitats work, before settling on the Isle of Wight and working to see it become a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve in 2019. Ian has worked in the charity, public and private sectors, running landscape restoration, urban regeneration and environmental education programmes and advising on sustainable practice in development, asset management and urban design. He is a director of the consultancy Arc Biodiversity and Climate which includes the research partnership and ecological engineering practice Artecology. He is also a director of the public realm non-profit The Common Space.

Arc Biodiversity and Climate is at the forefront of new thinking in environmental consultancy, integrating ecology, landscape, communities and development to shape better places for people and wildlife. Click the image below to read about the diverse range of projects delivered by Arc.

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In this new episode – the first of our 2023 series – Flora interviews Andreas Hofer, the Artistic Director of the International Building Exhibition or IBA’27, a company based in Stuttgart, Germany that provides advice, project support and networking opportunities to those interested in transforming cities and open spaces of the 21st century. Drawing on his rich experience in cooperative and new forms of housing and his training as an architect, Andreas does his utmost to promote dialogue between projects, experts and communities, not only in the Stuttgart region but all over the world. In this episode, Andreas describes the fascinating history of urban planning in the Stuttgart region, and how it developed into a highly industrialised metropolitan region with a population of 2.8 million. We explore the social, technological and ecological similarities and differences in urban planning in 1927 and today, and what challenges architects face today: what place do history and heritage have in architecture today, and how can architects build ‘future proof’ homes that are relevant to communities today and in decades to come?

Andreas Hofer was born in in 1962 Lucerne. He studied architecture at the Swiss Institute for Technology in Zurich. In 2018 he was elected as artistic director for Internationale Bauausstellung 2027 StadtRegion Stuttgart (International Building Exhibition, IBA’27). In Zurich, he mainly worked as a consultant and project developer for innovative cooperative housing projects as Kraftwerk1 and mehr als wohnen (more than housing). Andreas Hofer publishes regularly about city development and housing issues.

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In the fight against heat, drought, forest fires and heavy rain, every little green counts. In this brand-new podcast interview, Flora and Ulrich talk to German landscape architect and author Tim Kaysers about his vision of a world that is made up of green cities: human and climate-friendly spaces filled with plants and trees, and free from cars and concrete. With the irreversible effects of climate crisis an ever-present threat to the future of mankind, Tim explains why we must act quickly to make this vision a reality. We find out why plants are so crucial, and the practical steps involved in greening our cities – will it take a bottom-up, or top-down approach, or both? And what challenges will there be to changing people’s mentality in our technology-focused world, where convenience and speed rule the day?

After studying Landscape Architecture in London and Berlin, Tim gained years of professional experience whilst working in Ecuador and China, before putting down roots in Lake Constance, where he’s worked as a landscape architect since 2007. Through his work at Planstatt Senner, a landscape architecture firm, Tim has developed and implemented in practice the topic of climate and green as part of urban planning, environmental planning, and landscape architecture projects. This work has culminated in Tim’s recently published book “Phyto for Future – with plants from the climate crisis”, in which he explores solutions that plants offer humans, the environment and biodiversity.

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Flora and Ulrich talk to the acclaimed artist and master sculptor Romolo Del Deo about making art that stands the test of time. Taking a stand against the fast, momentary and disposable ‘now’ culture of the present, Romolo instead focuses on creating enduring, sustainable, ‘long art’ for the 21st century. He tells us how his sculpture is preoccupied with two major aesthetic sources of inspiration; a fascination with the artefacts washed up upon the ocean shores of his native Provincetown and a natural affinity with the archeological ruins of his Italianate background and training.

Romolo shares with Ideal Spaces an interest in creating spaces that work for the people, and express important and essential, historically tested ideas: something that speaks to long art’s interest in the historical record of how art is made and used. We discuss an upcoming collaboration between Studio Romolo and Ideal Spaces for “The Heavenly City and Paradise”, an Ideal Spaces event held in the Evangelical Church in Karlsruhe, Germany in September 2022, which explored through the medium of drawing, graphic design and video projection, the many forms a heavenly city can take. We also learn about Romolo’s sculpture “The Tree of Life Which is Ours”, an artwork recently installed at the Venice Biennale, whose part-ancient ruin, part-driftwood sea wrack yet distinctly contemporary appearance tells an interesting story about the fast-paced and often destructive world we live in today.

After completing a distinguished career at Harvard and the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Romolo turned away from his early successes and the artistic trends of the late 20th Century. For several years he isolated himself on a mountaintop in Italy, where he created a blueprint for an alternative future art. He foresaw that there would come a time when we would be saturated with disposable and ill-made things, While everyone else was racing to define the moment, Romolo dedicated himself to an art that expressed the eternal. His labor-intensive, thoughtful pieces have become a refreshing counterpoint to the ever faster, more trendy, more transitory art of his peers. Romolo envisioned a future where society as a whole would move beyond disposable consumerism, which was drowning the planet in waste, to re-embrace the value of thoughtful, skillfully handcrafted masterworks created over time from the noble natural materials the ancients used. This manner of working creates artworks which focus an artist’s creativity, into less wasteful use of resources. Romolo calls this enduring art for the new millennium, “Long Art.”

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Flora Loughridge speaks with Delhi-based architect, urban designer and educator Tapan Chakravarty about building with true community impact. Tapan describes how traditional, vernacular housing in rural India mirrors the characteristics of the local environment, climate and natural materials – and how the lifestyle of villagers and their ways of using domestic spaces have been culturally inherited over many generations. Amongst other themes, Flora and Tapan explore how being curious about the past is key to understanding the built environment of today – this is a mindset that Tapan encourages in his students at the Pearl Academy’s School of Design in Delhi.

Tapan completed his Bachelor of Architecture and Masters in Urban Design from School of Planning & Architecture, Delhi; and PG Certificate in Higher Education from Nottingham-Trent University, UK. Professionally engaged since 1984 with a number of Architecture/Urban Design firms in Delhi and prestigious organisations such as UNDP and INTACH, Tapan has run his own architecture practice and worked on several interesting & innovative projects in Residential, Industrial & Interior Architecture, City Architecture & Public Precincts and Furniture & Architectural Products. He also had an award-winning entry in a national level Urban Design competition for a commercial urban infill.

Academically engaged since 1986 with a number of eminent Institutes in Delhi-NCR and in various capacities, such as Academic-Coordinator (TVB-SHS), HoD (Pearl Academy) and Dean (Sushant University), Tapan’s academic career covers many aspects of Architecture & Design Education including teaching & mentoring, curriculum development and pedagogical practices. He is also Visiting Faculty,Mentor & Examiner at several Institutes of Architecture & Design; including SPAs, IIT, NIFT, GGSIPU, DITU and ANU.

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In this brand-new episode, Flora and Ulrich speak to Ed Finn about the complex world of algorithms. Ed tells us about the ever-increasing role that computational systems play in the 21st century. We discuss the threat that our increasingly technology-focused lifestyle poses to imagination and creativity, and what the future might hold in a world where Apple and Google determine, and often dominate, our every move: from dating and shopping, to securing good A Level grades or choosing a film to watch on Netflix. What’s the difference between a useful algorithm and a damaging algorithm? And what responsibility do we have when it comes using algorithmic and computational systems?

Ed Finn is the founding director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University where he is an associate professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the School of Arts, Media and Engineering. He also serves as the academic director of Future Tense, a partnership between ASU, New America and Slate Magazine, and a co-director of Emerge, an annual festival of art, ideas and the future. Ed’s research and teaching explore the workings of imagination, digital culture, creative collaboration, and the intersection of the humanities, arts and sciences. He is the author of What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing (MIT Press, spring 2017) and co-editor of Future Tense Fiction (Unnamed Press, 2019), Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers and Creators of All Kinds (MIT Press, 2017) and Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future (William Morrow, 2014), among other books. He completed his PhD in English and American Literature at Stanford University in 2011 and his bachelor’s degree at Princeton University in 2002. Before graduate school, Ed worked as a journalist at Time, Slate, and Popular Science.

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Flora Loughridge and Ulrich Gehmann welcome artist-game designer Chris Solarski onto the Ideal Spaces Podcast in this brand-new episode on Experiencing Space. We explore how Chris’s sensory design approach Interactive Empathy and Embodiment (IEE) to interactive media heightens the player-audience’s physical experience of gameplay, making them feel totally immersed in the virtual gaming environment. Chris explains how his sensory design method relates to architecture, interior design and classical painting (as well as acting theory, neuroscience, psychology and disability aesthetics), with the atmosphere of a game similarly created through the careful placement of objects, colours, music and movement. We also learn how exactly video games succeed in evoking a wide range of emotions in their players. Along the way, we discuss fail videos, the rubber hand illusion, The Simpsons and Game of Thrones.

Chris Solarski started out in video games at Sony Computer Entertainment’s London Studio as a character and environment artist before making a career-defining detour into figurative oil painting. The unusual mix of game art and classical art eventually resulted in Chris authoring Interactive Empathy and Embodiment (IEE)—a sensory design methodology that adapts traditional craft to interactive media with the aim of heightening kinaesthetic empathy and embodiment. Chris has authored two other books on game art and storytelling in games that are endorsed by the likes of Assassin’s Creed founding member Stéphane Assadourian, and Cyberpunk 2077 level designer Max Pears. Chris’ work has been described as gaming’s equivalent to Robert McKee’s screenwriting classic, Story, and compared to Joseph Campbell’s universal storytelling structure. Chris has had the pleasure of presenting at the Smithsonian Museum’s landmark The Art of Video Games exhibition, Disney Research, SXSW, Google and FMX, to name a few.

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In this episode, Flora Loughridge and Ulrich Gehmann welcome Manchester-based architect Jateen Lad onto the Ideal Spaces Podcast to explore how good, thoughtful design and ethical practice can be a force for social change. Jateen tells us how he set up his practice in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami – his experience helping those impacted by the disaster resulted in a dramatic career change: away from designing corporate and luxury buildings for models, rock stars and business executives, and towards working on sustainable community development projects with maximum impact. We discuss how processes of design and construction of a building can be set up to enrich people’s lives by addressing important social, economic, and environmental concerns, using Jateen’s recent Sharanam Centre for Rural Development for the Sri Aurobindo Society in Pondicherry, India as a key example. Working at the grassroots, Jateen’s projects encourage community involvement and the training of local workers, upgrading long-term skills and improving livelihoods.

Jateen studied at the University of Cambridge, MIT, Harvard and the Architectural Association and is regularly invited by major institutions and universities to speak about sustainability, alternative practice and the social value of architecture. He is a chartered member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, a UN-Habitat consultant and in 2013 was appointed Technical Reviewer for the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

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In this episode, Flora Loughridge and Ulrich Gehmann welcome San Francisco architect John Marx onto the Ideal Spaces Podcast to explore the importance of emotional meaning in architecture. We discuss the role that architects play in bringing poetry and beauty to our daily interactions with buildings and urban spaces – in giving form to ideas and emotions, rather than falling into the trap of designing banal and purely functional, soulless Modernist buildings. John shares with us how architects and communities can achieve buildings that are sustainable, aesthetically appealing and function, and which fundamentally, stand the test of time – just like the great Doric Columns in Agrigento’s ancient Greek temples. Along the way, we discuss the Brutalist Barbican complex in London, the difference between beautiful, pretty and cute and The Temptation’s 1966 hit single ‘Beauty is only Skin Deep’.

“Like the design process, the best buildings are a balance—contemporary yet enduring, rational yet provocative.”

– John Marx

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In this episode, co-founder of Deep Blue Institute and expert in green, clean and smart cities Greg Delaune joins us on the Ideal Spaces Podcast to speak to us about the multi-scale regenerative marine infrastructure projects that Deep Blue Institute is leading in the Bayou region, Louisiana. Greg explains why the transition to a “blue economy” is so critical: he outlines the benefits of a more sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystem. Greg also shares with us the challenges that the institute and its partners face in their work to preserve and restore at-risk aquatic ecosystems most impacted by climate change and other human-caused damage. We learn about Deep Blue Institute’s ‘three legged’ approach to building a blue economy and how this will allow the Bayou region to become a global leader in the deployment and scaling of critical marine infrastructure solution sets.

Greg Delaune is an internationally recognised consultant, teacher, speaker, and writer specialising in public-private partnerships (PPPs) for green cities and smart cities, regenerative floating cities, sustainable economic development, and innovation ecosystem design. He is the Co-founder and CEO of The Urban Innovation Exchange (UIX Global), Co-founder of Deep Blue Institute, and founder and editor of the blog IMPACT URBANISM (www.impacturbanism.org).

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