Highlighted reSITE Talks of the Week

Adam Greenfield on the Dangers of Smart Cities

Adam Greenfield challenges the popular concept of “smart cities”, warning against the danger it posses of strictly central planning. He argues that as a discourse, smart cities have nothing to do with cities, treating our urban environments as a market commodity.

How Lisbon Magnetized the World

10 years of Lisbon's evolution in 10 minutes: Rui Ramos-Pinto Coelho, Executive Director of Invest Lisboa, shared his expert knowledge and practical experience at reSITE2017.

Marianthi Tatari on Building the Smartest City in the World

Associate Director and Senior Architect and UNStudio, Marianthi Tatari believes that technology can play a role in creating more sustainable cities and applies an optimistic approach to its role in our public spaces in lieu of the growing controversies.

Cities Aren't Running Like Computers

Nicolas Buchoud is an entrepreneur and co-owner of Renaissance URBaiNe, the strategic urban advisory agency focusing on the management of complex urban systems.

Talks on Sustainable Cities

Leona Lynen on the Collaborative Regeneration of Haus der Statistik

Haus der Statistik, a prototypical concept turning an unoccupied former administrative complex into mixed-use, affordable housing in the heart of Berlin. It is raising the bar for how we regenerate neighborhoods in ways that are equitable, sustainable and accessible to the local community.

Chris Precht on Connecting Architecture and Agriculture

Chris Precht, Studio Precht, believes that architecture has always been driven by fictional stories that subsequently have had a detrimental effect on the natural environment. He imagines a world where cities are designed to give back space to nature and reconnect our lives back to our sources of vitality.

Enric Batlle on Building Biodiversity into Urban Infrastructure

Enric Battle, architect and partner at Battle i Roig discusses the integration of biodiversity and infrastructure in urban spaces by looking to biodiversity, connectivity, and productivity to shape urban green spaces.

Vienna Makes Peace With Its Waste

"In/visible city? That’s my point!” says Martina Ableidinger at the reSITE 2017: In/visible City conference.

Janette Sadik-Khan | Making New York City Sustainable

Keynote lecture by Janette Sadik-Khan, former Commissioner of the Department of Transportation, The City of New York, at reSITE 2012 conference.

Talks on Designing Equitable Cities

There Grows the Neighborhood with Emmanuel Pratt

MacArthur Fellow and co-founder of the SweetWater Foundation, Emmanuel Pratt discusses the deep-rooted inequalities of Chicago's western and southern neighborhoods and how SWFs model of urban regeneration integrates sustainable and circular community development.

Ravi Naidoo on Creating a Better World Through Creativity

Ravi Naidoo, the founder of the South African "think-tank, do-tank"- Design Indaba - brings about the idea of a better world through creativity with the fundamental belief that design has the power to enhance democracy, elevate cultural identity, improve the quality of life, and act in the service of people.

Alfredo Brillembourg on How We Can Tackle Urban Poverty

Alfredo Brillembourg, founding partner of Urban-Think Tank in Zurich, discusses incomplete urbanization and service deprivation in poor city areas and what can be done to tackle urban poverty.

Enrique Peñalosa on Why Equality in Cities Begins with Sidewalks

In order to create equitable urban spaces, citizens' ability to move freely and safely throughout the city is paramount. Enrique Peñalosa, the former Mayor of Bogota, Colombia discusses the important of learning from the disastrous mistakes of 20th-century urbanization.

Talks from Global Cities

Paris Reinvents Itself

Rising star of Czech TV journalism Linda Bartosova moderated the keynote discussion of Jean-Louis Missika, Deputy Mayor of Paris, at reSITE In/visible City conference.

How Lisbon Magnetized the World

10 years of Lisbon's evolution in 10 minutes: Rui Ramos-Pinto Coelho, Executive Director of Invest Lisboa, shared his expert knowledge and practical experience at reSITE2017.

Copenhagen­izing Warsaw

Marlena Happach is the director for the Department of Architecture and Planning for the city of Warsaw.

The Diversity Matters in Vienna

Ursula Struppe is Head of Municipal department “Integration and Diversity” (MA17) in Vienna since 2004.

Alexandros E. Washburn on Building Urban Resiliency in New York

Alexandros E. Washburn is the founding director of the Center for Coastal Resilience and Urban Xcellence (CRUX) at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Talks on Architecture's 4th Dimension: Sound

Sound is Always There with Elizabeth Diller

Elizabeth Diller, founding partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, speaks on ithe mportance of sound in architecture and the evolving role of the architect in an increasingly multidisciplinary world and contemplates how to design buildings that transcend time, accommodating the continuous evolution of the activities and art forms that will exist within them.

The Art of Prepositions with Snøhetta's Kjetil Trædal Thorsen

“Architecture in many ways is the art of prepositions.” Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, the founding partner, and architect at Snøhetta talks sound, space, and the benefits of a multidisciplinary approach, going beyond out thinking of architecture visually and not ignoring how our other senses interact with the built environment.

Foster & Partners, Meyer Sound: Sound as Invisible Architecture

The creation of spaces that take people into environments that they’ve never experienced comes with the technological advancements in sound engineering. Hear from Meyer Sound and Foster + Partners on how they manipulate and shape spaces through invisible architecture.

Pioneering Sound Art with Bernhard Leitner

Viennese artist Bernhard Leitner talks about how he uses sound as a building material to create new worlds, and as a tool of design itself. He has worked for the New York Department of City Planning and researched how three-dimensional movements of sounds shape new architectural spaces, with physical-acoustic analyses of spaces.

Talks on Creating Public Spaces

Michael Kimmelman on Democracy and Public Spaces

Can we design public spaces that represent us in our diversity? Can we design them specifically for protests? Who controls and shapes public spaces? What do protest spaces in different parts of the world have in common? In this inspiring lecture from New York Times, Michael Kimmelman about politics, public spaces, and how progressive democracies depends on vigorous public debates about public spaces.

Why Public Space Belongs to People with Michael Sorkin

Michael Sorkin shares his views on what constitutes public space and what is its role in our lives. Do we have the right to the city and what does it mean? Sorkin argues that it is not just about access but about imagining what kind of city we want to inhabit.

Superkilen and Multicultural Public Spaces with Martin Rein-Cano

Landscape architect Martin Rein-Cano discusses the integration of migrant communities in design for multicultural cities, highlighting his Superkilen park in Copenhagen. By incorporating physical items from local immigrant communities, Rein-Cano sough to develop a built environment directly reflecting the neighborhoods that surround the public park.

Leni Schwendinger on Nighttime Design for the 24-Hour City

Leni Schwendinger, the founder of NightSeeing™ and the International Nighttime Design Initiative, discusses the role of lighting design to create a 24-hour city, aiming to utilize lighting design to activate after-hours urban spaces, where people in public feel safe and included.

Talks on Smart Cities

Marianthi Tatari on Building the Smartest City in the World

Associate Director and Senior Architect and UNStudio, Marianthi Tatari believes that technology can play a role in creating more sustainable cities and applies an optimistic approach to its role in our public spaces in lieu of the growing controversies.

Bianca Wylie on the Power of the Collective

Bianca Wylie has made waves in the urban design world for speaking out against digital surveillance by casting a spotlight on the implications of the mining of that data by private corporations and the commoditization of the data gathered from citizens in public spaces.

Illuminating Cities After Dark with Leni Schwendinger | reSITE Small Talk

Leni Schwendinger discusses the 24-hour city, and the reality of an urbanism that utilizes nighttime hours. Through lighting that makes public spaces both accessible and emit a sense of security, the potential for activities in the urban to span throughout the night can become a reality for a wider portion of the population.

Adam Greenfield on the Dangers of Smart Cities

Adam Greenfield challenges the popular concept of “smart cities”, warning against the danger it posses of strictly central planning. He argues that as a discourse, smart cities have nothing to do with cities, treating our urban environments as a market commodity.

Talks on Architecutre

Sou Fujimoto on Reinventing the Relationship Between Nature & Architecture

Sou Fujimoto, founder of Sou Fujimoto Architects in Tokyo, doesn’t see nature and the built environment as opposing forces, but seeks to integrate and learn from the environment as much as possible throughout the design process. Most notably, Fujimoto was selected to design the 2013 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London, and in 2019, as one of the 23 architects to reinvent Paris.

Winy Maas on Why Dreaming About the Future of our Cities is Essential

Co-founding director of MVRDV interdisciplinary studio, and leader of The Why Factory, a global think-tank, Winy Maas dives into an exploration of infrastructure as the “public realm,” and the possibilities for cities of the future.

reSITE Small Talk with Lukas Feireiss

“Architecture is almost like a virus; once we start thinking about architecture, it is very hard to let it go or get rid of it because it connects to all fields of society.”

Talks on Landscape Architecture

Landscape is Everything Around You with Kathryn Gustafson

Kathryn Gustafson is a landscape architect and co-founded the landscape architecture firm Gustafson Porter + Bowman, based in London. Gustafson’s projects include Gardens of the Imagination in Terrasson, France, Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam, Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in London.

Hiroki Matsuura on Prioritizing People in the Shared Landscape

Hiroki Matsuura, CEO and founder of MADMA urbanism + landscape, ideas of shared development, shared space, and shared office, which they see as linked to urban design, landscape, and architecture, respectively. He emphasizes the importance of designing to maintain as much green space as possible, rather than retrospectively adding it after other steps of the design process.

Designing the New York High Line as a Shared Landscape with James Corner

James Corner, Founder of James Corner Field Operations, talks the future of landscape architecture beyond parks and waterfronts. He begs the question of how to consider the natural environment at the scale of the urban, and in the interests of ‘green’ urban public spaces, how to cater to the interests of diverse public bodies.

Enric Batlle on Building Biodiversity into Urban Infrastructure

Enric Battle, architect and partner at Battle i Roig discusses the integration of biodiversity and infrastructure in urban spaces by looking to biodiversity, connectivity, and productivity to shape urban green spaces.

reSITE Small Talks

Why Public Space Belongs to People with Michael Sorkin

Michael Sorkin shares his views on what constitutes public space and what is its role in our lives. Do we have the right to the city and what does it mean? Sorkin argues that it is not just about access but about imagining what kind of city we want to inhabit.

Caroline Bos | reSITE Small Talks

We spoke with Caroline Bos at DOX, Prague's Center for Contemporary Art, about her perception of the architectural profession.

How Border Zones Became a Physicalization of Fear with Teddy Cruz

Teddy Cruz, professor of Public Culture and Urbanism at UC San Diego, and co-founder of Estudio Teddy Cruz discusses the potential he sees in border zone communities that thrive on creativity by acknowledging the role of architects play. It is not simply about constructing new buildings, but to creating positive change by reorganizing the existing socioeconomic relations and their spatial aspects.