Roy Sharples and Gary Burt provide perspectives on how Metropolises inspire creativity as a space for social integration, dreaming, making, and doing, where citizens can realize their full potential to live more enriched, fulfilled, and happy lives. Combined with the chemistry of individual human ingenuity, major creative breakthroughs are a social process that occurs when a diverse community of like-spirited come together.
Creativity Without Frontiers available at all relevant book retailers
Stay in touch with Unknown Origins
Music by Iain Mutch
Roy Sharples and Gary Burt provide perspectives on how Metropolises inspire creativity as a space for social integration, dreaming, making, and doing, where citizens can realize their full potential to live more enriched, fulfilled, and happy lives. Combined with the chemistry of individual human ingenuity, major creative breakthroughs are a social process that occurs when a diverse community of like-spirited come together.
Creativity Without Frontiers available at all relevant book retailers
Stay in touch with Unknown Origins
Music by Iain Mutch
Hello, I'm Roy Sharples, and welcome to the unknown origins podcast. Why are you listening to this podcast? Are you an industry expert looking for insights? are you growing your career? Or are you a dear friend, helping display your old pal on? I created the unknown origins podcast, to have the most inspiring conversations with creative industry personalities and experts about entrepreneurship, pop culture, art, music, film and fashion. Metropolis is inspire creativity as a space for social integration, dreaming, making and doing for citizens can realize the full potential to live a more enriched, happy life, combined with a chemistry of individual human genius. major city breakthroughs are a social process that occurs when a diverse community of like spirited purpose and mission driven creative people come together. societies are a catalyst for creating influential art and socio cultural movements. This can be seen from the ancient Egyptian Memphis, classical Athens and Renaissance Florence to the French Revolution, and romanticism and Paris to post war New York and London. Historically, industrial cities like Manchester, Glasgow and Detroit have an ingrained maker and viewer ethos and port towns such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dublin, and Liverpool have a constant exchange, diversity of people and international trade. The modern day digital revolution was born in Silicon Valley, within the San Francisco Bay Area of California, with its burgeoning startup and global technology innovation scene, and its culture of openness and free exchange of ideas. Creativity is a way of living, creative hubs, and the experiences gleaned through entrepreneurship and innovation, improve people's lives. They make societies more productive, and improve the places we live, work and play.
Unknown:Setting the right conditions for the urban revolution is essential for a better life in society. Designing and operating a society is like a mixing desk that takes all the sources and attributes of a society, cultural, economic, political, and technological. And considering how to prioritize combined mix and change the level and dynamics of bringing it together into solutions that will deliver the outcome. You want the society to be based on the goals, principles and policies you set and how you operate and execute them. The bottom line is that a creative society is where people are open minded, and have broad perspectives to overcome prejudices and obstacles. They feel empowered, free and safe to express themselves and create without fear and approach problem solving openly and innovatively. By trying out new ideas and ways of thinking and doing. I'm joined by Gary Barnes to discuss creative societies and why setting the right conditions for the urban revolution is essential for life and society. Hello, and welcome, Gary, what is a creative society? And what difference do they make? What if we take creative society I think it's, it's an environment. And we shouldn't get too hung up on the words, but it's an environment where we are creating the freedom that people can express themselves, they can be who they are safely, they can, you know, whether that's in art, or work, or in the way that they live, it's about being able to express and communicate your values, things that matter to you without fear. And I say without fear not, not just in the sense of a physical fear, because there are cities where certain lifestyles are not welcome, but also in terms of seeing artists being welcome seeing music being played on the streets being welcomed. So it's about, you know, creativity. For me. It's about letting people be people about letting humans embrace that the whole range of what we do as a society and having that valued by other people. And you know, and when we look at cities, we see huge differences in this but when we look at creative cities, we see a few common threads which start to tie these together, even though the countries that they're in can be significantly different in terms of their underlying, you know, their their national culture. We can certainly see cities that take on a norm that's replicated around other places is even though they're in different countries.
Roy Sharples:I remember reading the book back in the late 2000s, the the logic of life by Tim Harford. And he made the point in that book around New York City, and the economics of migrating to New York, where the economic rationale was that there wasn't any economic rationale. And he made the point that $1 is worth 61.2 cents in New York. And what he meant by that is what costs 61.2 cents elsewhere in the US in the US, cost $1 in New York. So why do people insist on living and working there is it because they can earn more than No, this does not necessarily appear given given the rationale, and and statistically, New Yorkers only earn at that point 15% higher than the national us average salary. And he believed that the reason for people migrating towards New York was despite the higher cost of living in big cities, is the exposure to innovative ideas and being around like minded people, and really fundamentally, innovation was a key driver for people moving towards these metropolitan areas, as opposed to reciting within more rural areas, thereby offering a more enriched life experience and fulfillment.
Gary Burt:I think I think it's it's a, it's an area of research, they've been picked up by a number of economists. Certainly, I think it's Richard Florida has written some good work on this. But you know, what we, what we try to do, what an economist will try to do is try to ultimately drill down to the financial element of this, I think it's, it's it isn't the financial element comes after the human element. So, you know, we see the prices rise. So if we pick a successful, vibrant, innovative city, you know, we're not going to, if it's matured over a while, it's not going to be some way with inexpensive property. But the expensive property came after the innovation came after it being a people hop. It was this, it was the, you know, the scarcity of the of the property, which drove the price of supply and demand. But ultimately, that attractive attractiveness came before the city. Yeah, and I think there's a really good point here is, doesn't there's a really good potential model for other cities to say, look, if you do want to regenerate, the regeneration comes from creating the space that people want to go to. That's, that's the key thing not about thinking, how can we build these amazing buildings? That's completely missing it, it's the wrong way around? How can we, you know, when we look at regeneration, we, you know, so many think about these landmark, iconic buildings, you know, with, you know, Star architect stocks, starchitects, building, you know, these these huge, iconic places or spaces, when, in fact, what's really needed is a much more grassroots change to say, how do we start to create the environment that allows the people who are going to create the space to be open, welcoming, collaborative, artistic, how do we start to attract that because it's when de successful, and we start to see that attract other people, that we then start to make the change that then starts to drive the property places, property prices up, and I think, you know, too many cities see this as something where the goal is to is to manage the physical environment, when they should be managing the cultural environment.
Roy Sharples:You cannot simply throw money at creative pursuits and expect instant results. It is a social system, made up of a network of relationships, connected by a distinguishable similarity of spirit, and shared values that gravitate toward a coherent whole between individuals, groups, communities, cities, nations, corporations and industries. societies like Dubai and Singapore, are economically LED, with significant material investment injected into their societies combined with substantial wealth creation, which is led to high affluence conservative politics, and strict laws tend to be unchallenged. With high police enforcement tends to drive a more rigid, zero tolerance approach and heightened censorship levels. Whilst these societies have comparatively low crime, there is also a lack of diversity of thought, freedom of expression, and creativity. Whilst the benefits of CCTV is an example, and constant surveillance can create a more safe and secure environment. It can diminish people's privacy creates mistrust. Whilst context, moderation and balance are important. These factors ultimately tally up to being causes for their lack of creative output, especially in comparison to more than liberated places like Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Glasgow, London, Los Angeles, Manchester, New York City and San Francisco. Yes, these cities all have their own unique quirks and flaws. Though the common thread between them is that they put people and culture first before the economics, therefore, they are not hampered under compulsion or restraint. People there take ownership and feel safe being themselves.
Gary Burt:I think the other point is, is I was trying to think of this, I can think, you know, we can think of Amsterdam, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Copenhagen, these amazing creative cities. But is that is the model that has done the opposite. Is there a model where we've thrown money at it, and it's not worked? And there are, you know, we've had superstar designed, I mean, architect designed blueprinted cities. And, you know, I guess, certainly, there's several in China, there are interesting, most of them are in Asia. But even if we think of the Middle East, and we think of Dubai, where we've had, I would argue, an economic first model. And, yes, it's been, it's had economic wealth. But when we look at what's there, you know, would you say Dubai is a creative hub? Is it artistic? Absolutely not. You know, it's it's functional, in the sense of it has nice buildings, it has great roads, it's got attractions. But, you know, is this is this a really culturally rich place or as a glorified, you know, city as a theme park? I think, you know, it might be great to visit and go skiing indoors, whilst it's 40 degrees outside, you know, 100 110 degrees outside. But it's that, is that really, where you're going to be fulfilled as a place to live? Or do you want to go and live in, you know, in Manchester, or in, you know, one of the other dozen cities that we've mentioned, that are certainly far from perfect, but they are places that are really embracing people, and diversity, particularly, let's compare a couple of cities. So it's been a while since I visited Singapore, but it's, it's, you know, it's got it certainly got better at what it does. You know, and it, it is an incredible city state. But, you know, for for the benefits of what you receive in Singapore, you know, you do have low crime, you do have an amazing economic environment, you do have very good quality, everything, because it's all managed. But like others, like, you know, let's put Dubai in this group, what you lose is you lose some diversity of expression and creativity. You know, these are places that do not welcome political challenge. You know, it's not this isn't this isn't a scale of Well, that's not don't welcome economic challenge. If we look at Dubai, they don't welcome. How do we want to fit lifestyle differences? You know, there are behaviors, or there are sexual norms that we accept in the West have been absolutely fine, and a normal part of a diverse society that are not acceptable in other countries and other cultures. So there's a lot of trade off. Now I think we go to Liverpool and Manchester, they certainly have more crime than Singapore and Dubai. And but you at a human level, you can be who you are, that's not, you can't do that in some other cities around the world that have economic growth. So I think what we're looking at a note, the way I always think about this is, is as a, almost like a mixing desk of a lot of faders, what you can't do is you can't push all of the faders up, you've got so many, let's imagine they all go between zero 10 and minus 10. You can you can have so many points. But if you push sum up, you can't push them all up. So you can have, you can have, you know, freedom you can have diversity, you can have, you know the expression but the challenge is you're going to have some friction, you're going to have some some perhaps some poverty, you're gonna have some crime. But if you then push, perhaps pull the crime fader down for the diversity fader down, you know, you can have a different environment. So for me, it is about balancing. And I think that too often we probably step away from acknowledging that the balance is is it's a positive thing in the sense of we are accepting these problems. We may not like them and we want to challenge them and crime isn't great anywhere. But we do accept that the are necessary to be able to have the other freedoms that we have. So if we look at, you know, many of the cities that have the greatest diversity, they have some real social challenges there as well, certainly, Amsterdam does, certainly San Francisco does. London does Manchester does, you have a level of poverty and exclusion that doesn't exist? I would argue in Singapore. But so but what's the trade off there? You know, and I think what we should be doing is we should be, you know, recognizing that whilst we need to challenge this, this isn't as point of failure, it's, it's, it's almost, it's almost a cost of the benefits that we have. And what we need to do is address those in a way that doesn't discourage the positive. So when we look at, you know, an example would be, you know, one of the things is, we start to say, right, we need to, we need to reduce crime in a city, let's say creative city like Manchester, well, there are a whole, you know, be careful to look at the sources of crime, and then address those true sources, not simply ape, the, the structures that you would have in Singapore and Dubai, for how they, how they deal with crime, you know, a lot of CCTV, very aggressive policing, closing down of, you know, aggressive closing down of undesirable places, oppression of, you know, challenging thought and behavior. So I think when we start to look at settings, it is important to realize that, that, when we start to look at those designs, there is a choice. And if you start to move one of those faders, you're going to push another one down. So I think it's important to be conscious of those trade offs. So we say, look, if we if we, if we increase one benefit, we need to be very careful. If for example, if we're, if we're addressing crime, that we're not reducing liberty, we're not reducing, you know, private spaces. And so I think, you know, it isn't, I think what possibly the the interesting thing, as we think about this, it is impossible to have all of the faders up, you can't have zero crime and expression and freedom. And, you know, real cultural, human and economic diversity, it's a balancing act that's really, really bloody hard to do. The problem is that most, lots of big cities are actually formed of, you know, a number of smaller councils, which can be really diverse in their approaches. So I think, I think there are things that we can take from a whole range of places. So without picking one city, let's start to look at some of the characteristics and then and then we can jump to point. So I think, you know, what's it what's impressed me about cities, I was absolutely blown away by when I first visited Copenhagen, about its focus on design, its foot now. It's, it's a real hub of design. And you think, well, how does a city encourage design, but you think this isn't just a case of saying, right, we want to design district, we want to attack design businesses, we want to be positive towards them. It's about some of the decisions that city cities make in terms of deferred the Civic furniture, their priorities in terms of what they're allowing, the way they're approaching the promotion of the city. So there's certainly a real positive there. I love you know, for me, another so another one is I love cities that are care about the details of what they're doing in the spaces that they do control. So when they are building, you know, they're when they're putting in public furniture, they're not they're thinking about what that's used for. They're thinking about whether that's a positive or a negative contributor to the area. And, you know, what I mean by that is, you know, that there's certainly councils in London that have put in seating that is purposely designed to be so you can sit on it, but you couldn't lie on it. You know, so that's intentionally designed to be unfriendly to sleeping. You know, we've seen the negative design in terms of buildings, allowing studs to be put in public areas to stop people sitting on this, you know, a really negative design aspect. Anyway, so go into the positives, I think, what do we need to see what you know? I'll give you a tell you a city I've visited a visit few times, but certainly the first time I visited it, absolutely not. Six was Chicago, Millennium Park. So in Millennium Park, it may have changed. It was a few years ago that I went there, a city that I thought really was the the art installation and then I'm sure you can Google it and find the name for your installation in in Millennium Park right at the edge of it, which was two huge walls that have projected places onto the roof to maybe TV screens with a maybe a two foot 18 inch paddling pool. The big 100 meter 200 meter paddling pool between I visited on a hot day. And what you had was you had a public space with hundreds of families and kids playing in the water. Now, that had been designed purely as a place for people to go and positively interacted surrounded by grace space, is surrounded by very safe environments away from cars. You know, the architect of that absolutely nailed building an amazing public space. And so I think that was, that was a that was a great, you know, something that really knocked me for six has been a real positive. And another one around, let's pick another very different city, Amsterdam. Amsterdam has its flaws. Absolutely. But what does it do it prioritizes human transportation? Yeah, bikes. I mean, the whole country does. But it's saying, look, we're not saying no to cars, we're not saying cars aren't, you know, you can't use a car. But what we're going to do is we're going to make it easy, as far as we can, as easy as possible for humans to safely get around the city. So you'll see trams and bikes everywhere, you know, affordable tram systems. You know, bikers zones, everywhere, huge numbers of bike lanes. And here's a real simple one. The legislation that says bikes come before cars, if a bike hits a car in the Netherlands, it's guilty, doesn't matter if the bike rode out, your whole point is about making that norm, if you're a car driver, you're looking around the bikes, and you're going, I don't know, if that bikes works out, I've got to stop because I'm going to be liable. And that creates a really different mindset. So I think what you start to see is you start to see these jigsaw pieces of learnings that have that highlight excellence, that start to make cities gray. And when you look at what a really creative cities, you start to see similar sorts of criteria, you start to see that we've made, we've started to make places where people can can safely travel around. So it's not about being anti car, but it's about saying that there are ways that we can integrate transport into cities, they can be very people positive or less people positive, you know, we need to create an embrace open spaces, you know, I can imagine that, you know, you know, when if we look forward, we can go well, you know, we should build a public space, and we go, Well, we need to build the public space. Would there in many cities be a debate about whether we have CCTV and active monitoring of that? Or do we need to look at that and go, you know, actually, we do have CCTV, but we make it passive, it will record but we're not going to monitor it. Why? Because you don't want people sat behind the camera monitoring it. I'll tell you a really simple. Another example of a city that for me, thickness city now. I think it was, I think it was Seattle. Or maybe it'd be in Atlanta, so apologies that blur, but actually, instead of having that, that traffic, so if I look at where I live, so it's it's the northern northwestern part of the UK, the traffic wardens. So the traffic enforcement people, their uniforms are like police, they've got elements of military in there, they really have, you know, they were stab vest, they've got cameras on, they've got like utility belts with all of their, you know, the phone, actually water bottle, and all that their ticketing parts and cameras on there, you know, and that by design that's intended to look like an official, intimidating or authority. I could then think of another city, and I might even see, I think it was because you you live there, so you'd be able to tell me, but they instead of having this, and and this Actually, no, it's it's a number of cities, I'm thinking of coming together. But instead of having this what they had was people in bright yellow t shirts and shorts or, or, you know, blue slacks. And their job is to be tourist advisors, and to help people now they can give tickets. But the whole point is very different that their function is to help people be positive, and to try to help try to have a conversation with the guy parking the car, that he's not in there. But they can issue the tickets. The point is, though, that their primary function, their primary purpose, is not to intimidate it's to help. Yeah, but they have to ultimately the same power that they can issue the tickets. The difference is that they can do a dozen things 100 things more than the guy does the tickets, because when you've got a guy who's got a uniform to be frightening and austere, and I would argue it's not just, it's almost paramilitary, certainly beyond the police, and it certainly beyond a friendly police outfit. He's designed to be not approachable. He's designed to be a position of authority. So when you say someone's in a bright yellow t shirt, we know with city of x helper who's who's That belt, they're not carrying a ticket book, they can, they might have that in one pocket, but they've got city guides to give out free. So they can help people find spaces, that starts to excuse me, say a very different thing about how they're approaching their environment. So you see these these little clues. And it is it is often really little things that have massive differences on how you want to, you know, approach the city and how you want to do it. The whole point of this is, what's going to make this city great is not one or two mega things. It's not one or two mega plans. It's actually a mindset and hundreds of small actions, which are very carefully thought through about what it is that you want to achieve. And what it is you want to communicate at a human level. So, you know, we built public spaces, we've built it and you go, Well, if we build it 18 inches deep, that means children can drown in that. Yes, it does, it also means they can run around splash and have a brilliant time. So make it 18 inches and not, you know, not six feet, don't put a mesh over it, because that defeats the whole point. Don't put studs around it that people can't climb into the water. So I think, you know, what is what is making creative cities. It's it's not about one or two things. It's about hundreds of these tiny micro changes to create almost a combination of things, which is imperceptibly different to other places and imperceptibly attractive. You know, I think even even, you know, another really simple one is about how you approach parking charges are a real pain of mine. So are you approaching parking charges with a view of people will be like they might be shopping, so we're never going to take it for more than 15 minutes after the time because you know, you've got a family my you know, it's been a while since my kids were in nappies or diapers, but if they were going back to the cart, that's five minutes on the car, that you need the toilet. Oh, my God, well, I need to get back to the car. And you go, No, Daddy, I need the toilet. Okay, we've got to go to the toilet to the shops to three minute walk away. That's the nearest public toilet. Because in most cases, you know councils and towns have cut back on any public amenities. So all right, there's a McDonald's five minutes away, we can go there. We know they've got a great clean toilets are going to McDonald's, you come back, you've got a ticket on the car, because you're five minutes late. What is that is about these values in the city. When we met last year, at Lane street train station in Liverpool, there was a queue within the car park, which delayed us from exiting by a few minutes, which resulted in us exceeding the 20 minute free parking curfew. And as we approached the parking attendant to underwrite the fee, caused by no fault of our own, he refused to cave in, and we had to pay. Now this sets the wrong tone and image for our city, making you less likely to return because it creates a negative impression that mushrooms after all, you're going to share your experience with your friends and network. And that force multiplies.
Roy Sharples:Unfortunately, people with an axe to grind can sometimes gravitate towards these types of professions. For example, some of the North American border controls are particularly polarizing and pointlessly bureaucratic and obnoxious. They treat everyone with suspicion, a chancer or a prospective criminal, unlike cities like Johannesburg, or the airport customs officers are affable and pragmatic about getting you in and out of the facility as quickly and painless Lee as possible, certainly from my experience. Similarly, t five at Heathrow is well designed to get you in and out of the terminal as quickly as possible.
Gary Burt:Yeah, I'll give you another example. So you know, Blackpool which for those who don't know it's a seaside tourist destination has several million million visitors in the UK each year. So if you depend there's a couple of main ways in it off the motorway or the freeway to come into the town. Now, if you go in one way, you'll you will, you know be able to get to the city centre without problem. If you go one of the other ways. Then you'll pass I think two speed cameras going into the city. So you could in theory by the time you get to the center, maybe past two cameras on the way out I think this for now. Now clearly the speed cameras are put in because there was a problem with speed is typically maybe cars are exiting quickly wanting to get out and want to get to the motorway. So they put four speed cameras in. So here's the question. So what is the goal is the goal the goal is to reduce the speed at the speed. traffic. Okay, that's okay. So the decision then was right. So there, we put a speed camera. So what you find is the speed clearly happens outside of the area of the speed camera because we know people slow down speed up. So they put in another speed camera. So what happens is you have these four, I think it also speed cameras on the way over town. Now, what no one ever thought about is I bring my family to to Blackpool, I have a great time, I'm not going to come there without spending a lot of money. You know, he's not an ex. It's not a rich place. But you know, by the time if you've got kids, you've bought ice creams, you've gone on a theme park, you've got to get a ride, you've got an attraction, you've bought fluffy toy, you know, you've spent money and you've contributed, you're not going to be able to go to a tourist destination, not spend some money, you've got to eat. So but then you come out, and you're driving out, you're thinking about the day, what a great day, we've had fly slash, what. Then your day is instantly ruined. Because what you've done is you've instantly massacred that, that thought with the fear of a ticket and points. So instead of thinking that was great, I've got 100 quid fine, potentially three points arising my insurance, perhaps, if I'd speak to before, perhaps I could be putting my job at risk if I'm a driver. Yeah. And that's there are four of these that you've got to pass through. So golfers if you get another one. Yeah. What is the point of this. So what we've done is we've gone The, the, we've taken the opportunity to take some revenue, because I'm sure these these, you know, net positive, but also destroy the day, if you want to slow the traffic, use your design, you can put trees in the side of roads, you can put you can narrow the roads, I'm not going to traffic experts will tell us there's a whole range of things, which you can do in terms of the urban design of the road, to slow the traffic naturally down. So there are certainly things that could do that are not speed cameras that that naturally slow traffic down. So all of those were either not discussed or were rejected for the one thing that you really wouldn't ever want to do, which is to risk in the last few minutes of a family leaving a town that you could destroy the memory of that place. Because you go whizzing past the speed camera, and you get a ticket. I'll bet you're gonna bloody remember that in the future. So what you have is the you have the subconscious negative drive to revisit. And this was by design. And it's not a case of speeding cars were a problem. No, no. Speeding cars may have been a problem, your solution of putting speed cameras in that was an active design. You know, and I think when we start to go back to this set is this is this is ultimately the issue that no one if no one ever thought of the quality of experience that we wanted to give the visitor because if they did, they would never put a speed camera there. You know, Disney has Disney's a masterpiece as a master at doing this. You know, there's a whole range of fantastic design aspects in there that are designed to elicit the right behaviors from you without being negative or without you even realizing that that's happened. But in cities, we often fail, we revert to a terrible view of humanity, you know, traffic wardens that have to be paramilitary, you know, speeding that has to be it has to be enforcement. If you misbehave in a in a theme park, someone will very quietly come up to you and have a word and remind you that you're you're being there, you're a table, it's a privilege. Yeah, they're not gonna walk up and find you. You know, they do want you to come back. So they will look about how that can be managed. But the other thing now they really subtle, they're not going to allow you to get drunk, or you can go and have a drink, or you can't do his job, so they don't get steaming there. So there's a lot of these really subtle measures to start to influence behavior in a really positive way. And I guess coming back to the topic, that's what we need to start doing and cities. But where does it start? It starts with humans. It starts with people and going, what do we want people to experience? What do we want to encourage Amsterdam in particular, you know, it's got very liberal bohemian culture. And many of the people there, you know, live in high sports and they use bicycles to your point as a primary source of transportation, and so and that they really are capitalizing or making good use of the natural environment.
Roy Sharples:Ideologically, it's not a 100 miles away from what Frank Lloyd Wright did. He built an architecture that represented the vast American landscapes, unique identity, its diversity of people and its democratic ideals of freedom. He did this by harmoniously connecting it all together through his organic architectural design, or form followed function, so that the building's furnishings environment and surroundings became part of a unified and inter related composition. This was most famously manifested, and falling water are designed from which its inhabitants could see, hear and feel nature and the quote, unfolding, like an organism from the seed within, which exists in the continuous present to satisfying social, physical and spiritual needs. I'd also add, Glaswegian architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh to that mix as well, where he puts Scotland on the architectural map, as a Center for Creativity, for art and design. And that was manifested through his redesign of the Glasgow School of Art, which is an absolute architectural masterpiece.
Gary Burt:I think it's a brilliant point that about there. So I think, you know, Fallingwater gets a huge amount of attention, quite rightly. But, you know, and he did, he did certainly build some design some amazing places. But if you look at one of the houses he built, that I was fortunate enough to visit last year to loosen. Yeah, which is built on built on a shoestring. It's not a it's not a, you know, beautiful, marbled place, it was built in places it was built, and funded by him having students study with him on on the plot of land that he bought. And I think for me, that's a really great example of this, that, that what he did was, it was all about creating the right place for people to live in. You know, it is amazing, you know, and two quick points to pick up on, and I'll come back. So, first one is your point about airports. And I'll give you two great examples. So I come into, it's gonna say, Seattle, but I've been there so many times. And you're absolutely right. Yeah, huge number of desks. vast majority of them always close, you know, a small number of them open at any one time. Until recently, the US has been really slow to adopt electronic check ins, you know, electronic passport scans, it's insisted on people, not the reason for that, but the pros and cons. I then compare that to Palmer airport in New York. So a small, small tourist island that has a high number of visitors. So, you know, I go there, and I'm not I don't walk in with, you know, hugely high expectations of a tourist place. One of the slickest airport operations I've ever been through, why? Because it was designed to not provide friction, they have a lot of people passing through. So what do they have, they have very clear signage, they don't have clutter, they it's designed for people to flow through. But when you come to the, the immigration desk, there aren't, as you'll find in Manchester, half a dozen machines for you know, when a plane lands of whatever, two 300 people, a couple of planes land, you know, four or five 600 people and six machines, you can work out the matter of that, or even worse Liverpool airport with like three human desks. So you look at New Yorker, they have something like 40 and cute cue cue points are 40 machines where people can go through and process. Now anyone without going into the details of queueing theory, you don't need to be a genius to realize that, you know, six or 1040 machines that are taking maybe less than 10 seconds to process, each applicant, you know, you put in, you put your passport on, it scans it, the door opens, you walk out the next door 10, maybe 15 seconds. Now compare that to the time it takes, certainly at many us airports to go through the immigration and arrivals process. You know, it's a world of difference. So what happens is the plane lands, I'm through the airport in minutes, it really is minutes. They also put the effort into the baggage so that they're really fast about unloading the planes. Why? Because that creates a great experience by the time you've been through their work and I might get the bags out onto the carousel so you can get out of the airport and enjoy your holiday. Now, when you don't see that experience, we need to hold people to account this is by design. You know, it is you know, and coming back to the Frank Lloyd Wright thing. Frank frontloader are absolutely brilliant about putting people first. But let's take that back to you know, modern housing where we see houses that PILT for people, you know, you know, in the in the UK, I think anyone who's been recently will see that a lot of the green space that was between housing developments is closed has been filled up, why lots and lots of housing. And you know, similar thing in many other countries as well. But all of the houses are, broadly, the same designs as they were 20 3050, even 100 years ago, they haven't massively changed in 50 years. But let's highlight some of the real points. We're building housing estates with no parks, we've no shared space, we, if we build any, any shared environment, it's a park that's designed for children up to six, but we don't put anything after that, because we don't want all the children playing there. Now, the thing is, they've got nowhere to go. So when older children do start to congregate there, what do we do we stick CCTV and tell them they can't and chase them off. But we build garages that have that are too small for the average size of the car. So well, why is it a garage, instead of making it a garage, which is, you know, for a house build a really cheap, and you can say it's got a garage, it's completely useless as a car space, you know, so why not make it a functional space? Why not actually go? How can we start to make this a usable space, we've got places with, you know, tiny bedrooms, but no moving walls, you know, completely on adaptable houses that are designed to be you go to a housing, and then pick the number of bedrooms, and then pick one of two or three designs, well, out of, you know, an estate of 600 houses, the best we can do is pick one of maybe 10 models that you want to live in the best, you know, you can pair, Frank Lloyd Wright trying to express and the very best of enabling humans and enabling people and their modern buildings, which are just, you know, they don't reflect modern life at all. They're completely inflexible that they don't, you know, many of the buildings don't function in terms of how they should because you know, that they're either too big or that this the footprint of the house is that small, that we then try and cram far too much into that. But we don't do that in a way. That's great design, we do that in a pace. That's that's actually trickery. So we build houses that are, are actually functionally scaled down, they look bigger. But when you look at the measurements, it's it's a much, much smaller three bedroom house. But by design, bad use of clever design, what we've done is we've made it look bigger than it is. But when you start to measure the ceiling, smaller, the wall smaller, but we scaled down the windows, you know, we can do better. And I think the core point is to start calling this out and holding people to account because I look at this and no 200 houses, no shared space, no paths, you know, no walking areas between buildings that are not roads. And we have discontinuous pavements. And what I mean by that is, you'll have a pavement and then the pavement or stop where there's a drive, or the pavement just ends in you have to sort of cross over and walk down a bit. Before you get to another payment, we have, you know, discontinuous payments, you know, is this, is this gonna be something that we're proud of? You might be nice to live there. But is this going to be something that's going to be sustainable? Or is it is it something that's just going to really limit creativity? Yeah, I can't help thinking we're just missing something.
Roy Sharples:You triggered another insight Gary, modernist architecture pioneer that could have Boosie reinvented industrial housing, into tenement buildings that mirror streets at ground level and maximize space. Stanley Kubrick use these principles in his movie A Clockwork Orange to create a futuristic world asteroid Park Hill, a public housing estate in Sheffield, South Yorkshire in England. What inspired by locker boosey A streets in the sky. The spirit of this was captured sonically within some of the Adelaide recordings of the city's local synth pop band, The Human League and also home crescents in Manchester and quarry Hellerstein in Leeds are similar. brutalism followed the modernist blueprint, but Form follows followed function to design buildings that resemble what they are, such as the Barbican in London, which is one of the finest manifestations of the brutalist utopian design for inner city living. Another architectural and design marvels of industrial Britain was a spectacular Battersea Power Station that dominated the London skyline, and has been an endless source of inspiration such as featured in Pink Floyd's animals, as well as many other music videos, films and television programs.
Gary Burt:Absolutely. And I think, I think, to give, to give Sheffield its credit. So, you know, it's Park Sheffield, for those who don't know, go and go and have a look and see what it was like. But we've seen that what we've seen the last few years, we've seen it rejuvenated. We've also seen that when we start to recognize the failures of some of these, and there's actually some really good examples of the regeneration of failed housing on the outskirts of Manchester as well. And some of the Manchester boroughs as well, and suburbs as well. So we've seen again, these these areas that were failing, that were failed public housing, that actually when they went to private housing, what they've done, is they've gone, what are the what are the failings here? And how do we start to address these not condemn them? But how do we start to evolve these? And I think, one of the good thing, you know, one of the things that, you know, if you I'm not an artist, I would certainly never, never go down that road. But one of the things that, that certainly you would hear is, is about using what you have making the best of what you have. And I think there's something that's really good here to say, Okay, how do we make this work with what we've got, rather than a leaving it and condemning it and doing what we've done with, you know, many tower blocks, which is just believe that we can't fix it, there's very little we can do. So we let them become. And actually, again, by design, we put we put troubled families together. So they become trouble tower blocks by by saying, actually, how can we fix some of these things? We have these limitations and the design not may not be brilliant, but how can we make these better human spaces? And I think we've seen with parkhill, that things can be turned around. But again, it has to come by putting people at the center and going, how do I there's actually a really good test here. How would I make this? How would I evolve this and that's the right word, which is evolve, it's to move it forward and to adapt? How do I move this forward into somewhere that I would live or I would be happy with my family living? And so you know, even when we've made the mistakes, and in some of those were were mistakes in how we did it. What we should have done was going okay, let's evolve it Don't leave it as something that's either working or not working, but evolve it. And, you know, a good example of that bit that evolution being right is around the Barbican in London, again, brutalist, but now highly desirable, questionable at the time, you know, why? Because the architecture, at least it actually supports, okay, any the photos, you'd actually support people to have many gardens almost in a tower block. Now, it would have been very easy for the owners to go, that's a really bad idea. Because it holds water and it can damage the concrete. And on know, this is what makes places Great. So trying to fix these things they can evolve. So when we look at when we look at areas that do have problems, the right answer, I think too often we see the right answer is just to completely bulldoze it, rebuild it again. And what you do is you build the opposite. So again, in other parts of Manchester Salford, we've taken the tower blocks down, and which is they were, they were, they were floor, they were built on the cheap, there was no consideration, really given to a lot of the human human quality of life there and replace them with really small cookie cutter. And, you know, small houses now, they're better than they were, but you've got a you've got houses that are all completely identical, hundreds of them. Now, they're better than what they were. But then, okay, that's a starting point, how do we then start to evolve this and start to not think of this as housing, but as communities and vibrant areas, and that means that somebody needs to go on the ship of the of that design and start to make some of those bigger changes of going right? Well, these areas here, we need to allow bikes to go down these areas, we need to make them you know, walk you know, pedestrian, you know, but you go back to the tower blocks and you go and I just I just staggered so you think Well, okay, it's um, let's think of a you know, a suburban tower block like we saw in the UK built in the 60s and early 70s. So 1820 storeys, maybe six to eight dwellings on each floor. You know, a lot of them had had very limited opening of windows and things that needs to be quite limited, and or a balcony that was unsafe, so you could never open the Because it was intended to get, but then, you know, what do we do about what do we do about public spaces? Well, there's a park down, that if you think of this is a square building or you know, a, an oblong building up in the sky, that at any one time, every one quarter of the built a one quarter of the side of the building can say, and it takes 15 minutes to get there. So the idea is that what you can you can go there and go in that park and your children can safely play that What rubbish. And it could have been so different if we just said, how's this going to work for families? How are they? How is that actually going to work? You know, this was designed to be social housing, and you've only got to start thinking of really simple questions to go, you know, to start to start seeing real problems here. And, and I think, you know, how do we start to do things, so we evolve, we recognize the challenges, we start to invest in those. But again, we do need to, we do need to just ask honest human questions about and this, you know, something you and I have done many times about putting your self in the mindset of the non expert, not thinking, I'm an architect. So we'll talk about this, I'm a designer, but thinking I'm a mum, how's this going to work? Not because the architecture is great, and the the blueprints and nowadays, the 3d fly three looks amazing. But how is a mum? Is this going to work? How is it? How is a, you know, an infirm pension? Or is this going to work? So it comes back to some core principles? And I think, you know, going back to your first question about the buildings, I, I, even the ugliest building, you know, there's a real, there's certainly a push in so many cities to want to pull down all the buildings. Now, you know, they have challenges by today's standards, we look at them and think they're ugly. But typically, this is a point in time. At one point, they were considered, in many cases beautiful, or, you know, visionary in a week. Certainly look at the brutalism movement. And, you know, the view, not that long ago was that these were ugly can be torn down? Well, we hold back on doing that and think, how can we evolve them to work, and then what happens is, we go forward, we have this rich tapestry of architecture that's evolved. You know, what, when we look at failure, and, you know, kudos to Manchester, for really embracing the evolution of existing buildings, what is that's that's how to do it, how not to do it, is to raise those buildings, and then put up, you know, really cheap and nasty, you know, concrete and steel structures that are just physically and emotionally hollow, and actually have a lifespan of perhaps 20 years, rather than when we look at Manchester and Liverpool, we're seeing these Mills that are two 300 years old, that are now the most desirable flats in the, in the city, most desirable apartments in the city. So I think, you know, in terms of how we evolve cities, we need to, we need to resist that temptation to tear things down, see things for the longer term, but then put this human lens in front and go, Okay, we have these issues, how do we work past these? Because, you know, it's not that long ago that the default approach to any large building that was, you know, had problems or Mills have in they need fixing, they need a lot of money spending on them. But once that's done, you've, you've not only protected that old asset, you've reimagined something that becomes an asset, the future. So, you know, the the old buildings in certainly in Manchester, and Liverpool, the apartments in those can be worth way more than the new ones. Why? Because the old the older buildings have higher ceilings, none of the new buildings have high ceilings, why? Because we want to stack as many floors in as possible, and as many apartments, so we're never going to have them sort of a double high or high and a half, you know, architectures we're not going to have we're not going to have those big windows overlooking the city. Why? Because, well, that's, you know, it's not necessarily the most economic in terms of heating. So we'll have smaller windows that are cheaper. So I think, you know, there's certainly a core point here, that when we start to look at successful cities, it's no coincidence that many of these are old, you know, they've got heritage. And they've evolved, you know, London, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Copenhagen, these are cities that there are a lot of old buildings there that have evolved, they've lived, they've grown, they've grown old, and they've adapted. So I think, you know, certainly if you were there was ever a town planner, you know, really resist that temptation to want to tear things down, because I think evidence would show that that's certainly not the way to build a highly creative human city.
Roy Sharples:I wanted to provide a nod towards a couple more creative societies. Despite its renowned, solidity, and organized society, Germany has transformed itself four times throughout the 20th century. From a monarchy to fascist dictatorship, then communism, then democracy, fear builds walls, and the Berlin Wall separated East and West Germany, both physically and ideologically from 1961 to 1989. Currently, Berlin has become one of the most liberated and influential creative societies on the planet. My point being is that Germany is a resilient and adaptive society. That's philosophical logic, and reasoning to rationalize, combined with its disciplined pragmatism, has made it a formidable force throughout time. Asia is a mystic, erotic and spiritually enlightening civilization. East Asia, specifically Japan, is particularly unique, and its culture and traditions. Partly because historically, Japan has been isolated as a nation, which is reflective in many aspects of its culture. And these characteristics have been developed without outside influence. The Japanese have a supernatural capability as systems thinkers, which is reflective and their precision and making products and offering services and experiences. Tokyo has been particularly influential in animation, arts, automotive, electronics, fashion, manufacturing, printing, publishing, robotic engineering, and its transportation system is second to none. It is clean, reliable, punctual, and uncomplicated. Most people use it Shinkansen, trains, subways, and buses, to commute to school and work. And finally, many artistic influences were enthused and diffused throughout the Silk Road. Most notably, the melding of Chinese, Buddhist, Greco, Hellenistic, Indian, and Iranian, where art was symbolic of religion, and used as a currency for trade across the network of land based trade routes that connected the east and west, from the second to the 18th century. Travel is a catalyst for inspiring innovation and creativity. Because you experience different cultures and diverse societies, learning to appreciate and respect the differences in lifestyle and behavior that unite us. Traveling forces us to depart from the familiar and take on a new world of new experiences, cultures, languages, architectures, foods and lifestyles, influencing our mains bodies and souls by shaping us into better, more well rounded people with a more integrative worldwide view. We get exposed to and understand people's dynamics, life cultures, subcultures, customs, religions, languages, governments, economics and the arts. Of course, idiosyncrasies exist, that fundamentally, people are the same everywhere, and that we are all born live and die. We all have logs, pizza and passions. we possess the same fundamental structure, brains, organs, nerves and skin. We must eat, drink water, eliminate waste, and breathe to stay alive. We become unique when we explore and self identify by discovering and finding our own strengths and capabilities and manifest and express through our personalities, qualities, talents, and achievements. You have been listening to the unknown origins podcast, please follow subscribe, rate and review us. For more information go to unknown origins.com Thank you for listening