Climate Change and the Importance of the Urban Landscape

(bright music) - [Woman] Welcome, everyone, to the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker's Series.

(audience applauding) - Welcome, everyone, to the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker's Series.

My name is Christina Hamilton, the series director.

Today we present landscape architect, urbanist, climate activist, and a U of M alumni no less, Martha Schwartz.

I want to thank our partners for their support today.

Design Core Detroit, and the U of M School for the Environment and Sustainability, and our series partner, Detroit Public Television, and Michigan Radio 91.7 FM.

Just a couple quick announcements for everyone before we get started.

Our partner today, Design Core Detroit, has two open calls that are for upcoming opportunities.

Design Core has launched a new City of Design Challenge for 2023, to explore ways to increase community connections and unify residents in times of disruption.

So if you have a good idea about that, the open call for the City of Design Challenge is now open.

It closes on March 10th, so you've got about a month to figure that out.

Design Core also produces the annual Detroit Month of Design Festival, which happens each September in Detroit.

Providing great opportunities for designers to connect and expose their talents to national and global audiences.

So, applications to participate in the festival are also open and those, oh no, sorry, that actually launches on Monday and it will run through Sunday, March 19th.

So, both of those applications can be found on the Detroit Design Core website, which is designcore.org, very simple.

So, I hope we have, I know we have great ideas in this room, so I look forward to seeing some of those coming soon in Detroit.

Tomorrow evening, very important announcement.

The highly anticipated annual exhibition for the undergraduate juried show for the Stamps school.

This brings the best of art and design works being produced by Stamps students.

So, come out and celebrate their creative work.

There will be an opening reception tomorrow evening at 6 PM to 8 PM at the Stamps Gallery, just around the corner on Division.

So, remember to silence your cellphones.

We will have a regular Q & A in here today, there are microphones at the ends of each aisle.

So when we get to the questions, just line up at either one and ask away.

And now, to introduce our speaker.

Please welcome Professor of Landscape Architecture at The School for Environment and Sustainability, and a licensed landscape architect herself, Lisa DuRussell.

(audience applauding) - Hi.

Thank you, Christina.

Hey, everybody.

Oh, I see a lot of nice, smiling faces out here, I love it.

Lot of talent, I'm sure.

As Christina mentioned, my name is Lisa DuRussell.

I'm an assistant professor of practice in landscape architecture at the School for Environment and Sustainability, here at U of M. I thank you guys all for having me here tonight.

It's my pleasure to introduce tonight's speaker, Martha Schwartz.

Martha is a landscape architect, urbanist, climate activist, and world renowned designer.

Might also mention that she is an alum of this university, so you can imagine my delight when I happened to intercept her last fall on central campus, just strolling through the landscape architecture design studio.

I was like, "Martha, what are you doing?"

And she was happy to just sit, and hang out, and chat with our students, and they were more than pleased.

So, if there's any landscape architecture C students in here, I'm sure there are, she is so happy to be able to see you again.

I'm pleased that she's here with us today in a more formal setting, to chat with us about her work in the urban public realm and its importance in making cities, quote, climate ready.

Martha's work is really a call to action for all of us.

Especially all of us here, in this room.

In her 40 plus years of experience, she's no stranger to designing, implementing big forward thinking ideas.

Academically, she's a tenured professor in practice at the Harvard GSD, where she is a participant of their climate change working group.

Where she's advancing the knowledge of climate change, its causes, effects, and awareness of new solutions coming out of science to really bridge the gap between theory and action.

More recently, she has created a non-profit called Mayday Earth, which focuses on climate crisis and the science of solar geoengineering.

This organization educates non-scientists, generalists about global scale climate change solutions, which could be integrated into practice.

Thus, expanding the role of design in the built environment.

Martha's CB is just covered in accolades, and I'm sure that you can tell, you will be able to tell that she is truly a rockstar of our industry.

So please put your hands together, and join me in welcoming Martha to the stage.

(audience applauding) - Okay, I get it, there are a lot of people out there.

Anyway, I really am very happy to be here.

This is my alma mater.

(audience cheers) Although, at one point, they weren't gonna actually graduate me for other reasons, we can talk about that later.

But, it happened.

My daughter is here at college, she's in the Stamps School, and my sons have been here, so this, our family has actually been here quite a bit.

I'm gonna actually get going really quickly, because I have too many slides to show you.

I couldn't figure out what kind of lecture I should give.

Do you wanna learn about solar geoengineering?

That will cool down the Earth, so you'll have life for a while, so that's good.

But, let's keep on going here, and I'll start this, okay?

So, by the way, I am impossible at being able to use technology, so if I start crying, somebody come up here and help me please, all right?

So, I'm gonna start off with, kind of, my background.

Because, yeah, 'cause it's kind of strange, all right?

So, it's about my brilliant career, right?

Okay.

Sometimes I don't feel so brilliant about it, but okay.

So, I come from a family of architects, and I seem to have a DNA problem that I'm hoping bioengineering could change.

But here's how it happened, my dad is up on the upper right, Milton Schwartz.

And as a young architect, he was teaching assistant.

He was assistant to Louis Kahn.

Of you, our architects, do you know who Louis Kahn is?

Raise hands, somebody?

Three people know who Louis Kahn is?

Wait a minute, what's going on in Michigan?

Okay, all right.

As, and I assume, you know, my dad met another architect that was also teaching with Kahn, named Eugene Wasserman, and he's the guy in the white suit.

They became very good friends, and Eugene had a very cute sister, and my dad married her, and that's where I came from.

Eugene's family also are all architects and designers, so my side is really, you know, my side together, pushed both of those, all architects coming from who God knows where, and I've gotten hit from both sides.

That's my problem.

I can't do anything other than what it is I do.

So, as a child I was always doing and making things all the time, and I would spend my weekends at the art school, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art when I was a kid.

Also had a lot of time scribbling and drawing with pencils and magic markers on the floor of my dad's office.

I, then, majored in art in high school and went to University of Michigan, go blue.

And where I double majored in art and pre-med.

'Cause I also like sciences, so towards the end of the art school, I had fallen in love with the Earthworks artists and I wanted to learn more about Earthworks, but there were no classes in 101, Earthworks' hard.

Maybe I though I'd get a grad degree in that, but it wasn't possible.

So, a friend suggested I go into landscape architecture, thinking that this would teach me how to drive tractors so I could actually make mounds and shapes.

I had never heard of landscape architecture, because everyone in my family are architects.

Yeah, but I told my dad, the architect, that I was going into landscape architecture, and as a successful architect, he gave me some very prudent advice, which was, "Any idiot can plant a tree."

So, that was my dad.

So, I'll give you a quick overview of my strategy in building my practice.

And, I haven't really been thinking about this too much but lately, people have been asking me.

So, I sat down and tried to map it out.

So, this may look confusing, because it is confusing.

And from my point of view, it's insane, and I don't know exactly how this all happened but it did.

So, let's go up to the upper left, at number one.

And the only good thing about this type of company is, I mean, I've traveled a lot, I've had to pull up my whole, you know, office six times, right?

So, what the fuck.

You know, what is that even about?

Anyway so, the only good think about moving around is that when countries go through economic disasters, it's always good to have another country that is still working.

So, I've actually done a lot of work all over the place, so starting at number one, I was in Boston, I had finished up my master's degree in landscape architecture at Harvard.

Which actually made a lot of people in the landscape architecture department very angry with me.

Hence, I have never been asked to actually give a lecture to landscape architecture here.

But, that's a longer story, okay?

So, okay.

In 1983, I started my own because I didn't want, I didn't like working at SWA Group because they were telling me I have to work the way, there has to be a right way.

I'm like, "Ugh, no, I don't wanna do that."

So, I went on on my own and I had my first child, Jake, 1983.

And very quickly after that, well, my husband told me that we were moving to California, and I said, "Well..." He had sold the house, "So maybe we should've talked about it, 'cause I'm not going."

So anyway, I went to New York and he went to San Francisco, and while I was in New York, that's where I really started my office in New York, and a number of years, had another baby.

But then, my husband came back and said, you know, "If you don't get back to San Francisco, I'm gonna divorce you."

So, I thought well, maybe I should go to San Francisco.

So after that, I went to San Francisco, you know, picked up the whole thing.

Went there, because you know, women doing jobs and this, that, and the other is a little complicated when you have babies.

Anyway, so in San Francisco, Pete and I, Pete told me he wanted us to work together.

I'm like, "Ugh, okay."

But, after three days or so, that was very clear that we weren't going to work together.

And I know that everybody thinks that he made me, but I mean, what can I say?

He didn't.

Okay, thank you, okay.

That's right, okay, he didn't.

I mean, in one sense he did, that's another story.

I mean, he was very, very supportive of me because I kept doing art based projects and that were not like landscape architecture, and anyway, so that was good.

But after a while, he took me out of our office and then I had to go, I decided to go to Cambridge and teach at Harvard.

And that's number four.

So then, I had to do another office change in Cambridge, and then I was there for quite some time, and then I decided, because we were getting work overseas, to go to London.

So, in London, I was there starting in another office, and that worked out well until I decided to come home to the United States because of, I mean you know, Brexit.

Also, reading about how many people are going to be coming into the northern parts of Europe because of climate change, and I thought, "Ugh, that, I need to get out of here," 'cause they're not used to having people coming in.

Anyways so then...

So, I'm now in New York City, so I'm here, I'm gonna stay here, and that's my trajectory, which is nuts.

But, okay so, let's get down to landscape architecture, okay?

After graduation, I worked for a lovely small landscape company to learn how to be a real landscape architect, but I can't because I'm super bored and decided to get back to making things with my hands.

And before we get into our projects, I'll show you the most important project that I've ever done, which is actually true.

My then husband, Pete Walker, and I lived in Back Bay, Boston and argued about what to design for our little 12 by 12 garden, and I sat there, doing nothing for years, and got so many complaints from the neighbors.

I decided to do something while Pete was gone on a business trip.

So, I created a framework for the garden which was I would only spend $100 and by only from shops on my block, in Back Bay.

And fortunately, there was a pet store that had really good colored gravel, a flower shop, and a delicatessen.

So, I bought five dozen bagels, which I dried and lacquered.

So, I cleaned up existing, the existing garden, which was a mess, and trimmed what was there, and spruced it up.

So, on the day that Pete came home, I invited a group of friends to a garden party, which was actually on the sidewalk.

Pete got home and he was not pleased.

Maybe because everybody was drunk, I don't know, took pictures and had fun, but one of them told me I should send one of these pictures to the American Society of Landscape Architects as a joke, which of course I did.

So, let's see... Why isn't this clicking?

Did it click?

No, one day, help me, somebody, help me.

Help me, (indistinct).

Why is this not working?

I hate technology, but I have a very bad relationship to it.

- Try one more time.

- Okay.

- [Crew Member] You might have to go to just using the arrow.

- Oh, use this, the arrow?

- [Crew Member] Try that.

- That's not working either.

- [Crew Member] Oh, I see.

- Oh, good.

- [Crew Member] There we go.

- I'm gonna start crying, okay.

So, in those times, landscape architecture was very white, very male, very modernist, and very boring.

And, even worse, appropriateness was very important to the profession at the time, as they were trying to win favor from architects, which we still don't have.

(Martha laughs) But again, from an artist's point of view, appropriateness is like flying a red flag in front of a bull.

So, I didn't like the idea that we were looking to be actually appropriate.

So, I did write back to Grady Clay, who was the editor of the ASLA.

We did send in the picture and then he wrote back and said, "Oh, by the way, I'm putting it on the front cover."

So, we kind of, we missed it, there it is.

He put it on the front cover, and he said, "Well, write something about why you do this."

And so, I wrote back and I made a case for the bagels being an extremely appropriate landscape material, and why?

Because they're cheap, democratic, anybody can put them in a garden, they did well in the shade, they didn't have to be watered, they were biodegradable, and they looked great.

But, what else could anyone want for a landscape material?

What could be better?

So, when this was published, there was a severe reaction and more people wrote into the magazine than ever, and there was this super hot debate about this.

I almost got killed, kind of, it's like, "I'm really, this is ridiculous!

I could pull down my pants down too!"

I mean, people really had a hard problem about it.

On the other hand, the younger people are like, "Oh, maybe this is, this is cool, maybe we can do something."

You know, it was like it was, again, young and old kind of thing.

So looking back, I turned the corner for the design in landscape architecture.

It kind of busted down the walls and allowed for more ideas and very different ways of thinking, so that actually did turn a big corner.

So, this was really an offspring of Marcel Duchamp and his toilet in the Museum of Modern Art.

Duchamp anonymously submitted a work to the Society of Independent Arts in 1917.

It was immediately rejected and became instantaneously famous, and that's what happened with the bagel garden.

The peace question, whether an artist must make an object in order for it to be considered art or whether choosing it and calling it art could be enough.

Thereby, significantly altering the role of the artist.

This changed the art world significantly, and the perception of what could be art changed, and hence the remit of landscape architecture was also widened in the same way.

So, as a quick story, when I went to the LA program, here in University of Michigan, when I asked the chairman of the department whether I could take an advanced course in art, he said, "No, there's no relationship of landscape architecture to art.

And, by the way Martha, a good landscape does not show the hand of man.

Maybe women, but not men.

And well, I sure showed him.

Anyway, I was there, so let's go to land art a little bit.

I was here, at Michigan, in late 60's and early 70's.

I had majored in prune making but because I really became a fan of land art, I was following artists and seeing what they were doing, such as Robert Smithson and his spiral jetty.

Robert Smithson's asphalt run down, Michael Heizer and his work, Walter De Maria's lightning field, his broken kilometer, which is gorgeous.

Richard Long's work, Nancy Holt's sun tunnels.

These were all people who I really was like, "These people are doing such wonderful work in the landscape, I really want to do that."

So, as a kick-off, we'll start off with art installations after getting a master's at graduation from a combined program between actually University of Michigan and Harvard, so that was a little wacky, but it was okay.

So, I had been involved with art since a kid.

After I graduated with a BFA from U Mich, I wanted to continue in art but there were no land art 101 classes.

So, here are some of these things that actually, I started with.

This is the Whitehead Institute Splice Garden that I actually did.

It was a small rooftop garden on a new building at MIT.

It was a microbiology research center, basically looking at gene splicing.

There were high surrounding walls that created a dark and hospital space, overlooked by both classrooms and faculty lounges.

The lounge offered access to the courtyard, making it a potential place to eat lunch and I was told by the head of the institute that he loved nature and wanted a garden.

However, this would have to be done with very little money.

He said, "I'm not gonna spend a lot of money on it, but I love nature," okay.

So, that's typical to hear in landscape architecture.

This wasn't the biggest problem.

Their concrete floor couldn't hold weight, there would be no one to care for the garden, there was no available water source.

So actually, it would be very tough for anything to live up there.

But this created a challenge, along with lack of belief in the client's love of nature, also.

And again, all of this is a typical agenda for most clients in landscape architecture.

So, I decided to spoof the love of nature and also wanted the narrative of the garden to relate to the work carried out by the institute.

The garden became a cautionary tale about the dangers inherent in gene splicing, the possibility of creating a monster.

And actually, this garden is a monster.

The joining together like Siamese twins of gardens from different cultures.

One side is based on a French renaissance garden, the other one on a Japanese zen garden, and the elements that compose these gardens have been distorted.

All the plants in the garden are plastic, the clipped hedges, which double as seating, are rolled in steel, covered in AstroTurf.

The green colors, which are the strongest cues that this is a garden, are composed of color gravel and paint.

The rocks typically found in a zen garden, are composed of topiary pom poms from the French garden.

Other plants, such as palms, conifers, are in strange and unfamiliar associations.

This was like a protest, actually, but nobody quite saw it that way, but I did.

It's like, "Well, fuck you then.

If you don't have any money to put anything on it, then I'm gonna do my thing."

So... (Martha laughs) So, this is the next project that I worked on that had to do with the environment.

This large outdoor art installation was premiered at the Rekjavik Art Museum in 2008.

And the subject of the installation is aluminum itself.

It's entitled "Aluminati" and it's inspired by society's delusional view that there are limitless natural resources to exploit in the modern world, and the damage it will create for humans.

At that time, in Iceland, they had already started to smelt aluminum since they have a tremendous amount of geothermal energy there.

The smelting operation is currently a subject of controversy in Iceland.

Well, it was.

They actually stopped it, thank God.

So, however, not when I was there.

With the economics of smelting blowing up Iceland, it belies the price the country will have to pay for its economic dependence on this smelting process, to the loss of its beauty and its purity of nature.

The idea for the project was to simulate a geode, where the outside gave no hint of the glittering, beautiful inside.

The idea was to create a black box that had a heart of aluminum.

With it, that sparkle like a geode.

And visitors walked into the box located in front of the courtyard of the museum, and from the corridor inside, are presented with a series of frame views that look out onto a blinding central surface of crinkled industrial aluminum.

We used aluminum grade which brought up its contentious issue of aluminum.

The huge black box that sits in the courtyard of the museum has only one passageway that connects with the museum, and to the left, is one of our guys from MSP, or Martha Schwartz Partners, and is attaching the aluminum to the surfaces.

The right shows one of the windows that people can look through within the box.

And here's the box from up above.

You can see that it's enclosed.

Visitors walk into the box, located in the front of the museum.

So, this is what it looks like from inside the box.

The interior space is seemingly indescribable in shape and size, with no real reference to scale.

The blackened interior corridor is in sharp contrast to the dazzling light with the core, which is open to the sky, but not really visible to the viewer.

The aluminum reflects a changing quality of an Icelandic day.

These are two of these holes, so the only view out is into the crushing intensity of the sun after having walked in the blackness of the box.

It actually was painful to see, but people couldn't stop looking at it.

That was so interesting.

How human.

We, who lust for beauty, we do it even if it's dangerous.

But, the audience, while being attracted by its beauty, which Iceland is known for, is both feasting on beauty while destroying its nature.

This is exactly the same as smelting aluminum at the risk of degrading of the purity of Iceland's beauty and relationship to nature.

Many people also felt that it was much a kin, that Iceland was its severity, its light, its purity.

Of course, the best way to get people's attention is to create a question, not an answer.

And according to the theory that inspired the pieces, it assesses the modern view of nature, which is our disconnection from nature.

Unfortunately, as landscape architects, we hear this quite frequently.

But, now is not only bad for nature.

We are at a point where humanity's future is at risk.

I suggest you start reading about the tanking of biodiversity.

Very serious.

So, landscape architects projects.

These are real landscape project, but again, I'm just starting out here.

This is Davis Garden, The Davis Garden, and my client had been creating a beautiful English style garden for 25 years in the dry environment.

They were ready for something different.

I was allowed only to do a garden within the walls of the space that had old furniture, raked leaves, and tree trimmings, and a lot of other unloved stuff.

The walls, see that white arrow, is essentially a big gray box that defined the garden.

And what you see here is the garden.

A group of boxes within boxes, and I decided to integrate the boundaries of the garden, so instead of it just being a wall and there's stuff inside the wall, I wanted the wall to be a part of the garden.

It was about inside outside, as some of these spaces are both.

It was a sort of mini neighborhood, an ode to the environment of El Paso and a place of quiet and privacy.

This was the wall between the box garden and the English garden.

The blue glass chunks are a reference to what you often see in Mexico, walls there actually often have broken glass on top of them, in terms of kind of being safe and not having people climbing over the walls.

There are hallways, rooms, a white room that are actually a bathroom.

But, the bathroom is also the the way to get into the English garden, so that's kind of a thing I had for that.

This room is an ode to the mountains that you can see through the small windows in some of the boxes.

These are the cactus rooms, one is organic, the other not, and can be used to dry bathing suits since they had a swimming pool, and all the colors also reference the color palate of Mexico, which is just next door to El Paso.

So, I would just say that our work, or my work, is always kind of looking at the environment that I'm in and reacting to that.

So, Jacob Javits Plaza.

Okay, this is in New York City.

And because the existing plaza would be demolished during waterproofing construction, there arose an opportunity to revitalize the plaza.

And Richard Serra's Tilted Arc had inhabited the plaza as a sight-specific work, but it was controversial.

And, its 12 foot height and 120 foot length was an international obstruction, both visually and physically to pedestrians, so they tore it down.

So, when the sculpture was removed in 1989, the plaza remained vacant, except for temporary planters and furniture, which were disconnected from its context.

And here we come, we were asked to design a new plaza in replacement to the Serra sculpture, meaning that this should be artful, but it needed to also be friendly to people.

I decided to integrate the plaza back into the parks that New Yorkers love.

Especially Central Park, which is an icon known to all New Yorkers.

I wanted to use these three specific materials that you see all the time in and around Central Park.

The homestead light pole, the hexagonal asphalt blocks, and the green park benches.

This was going to be my palate.

But, the start materials will not be used to create, will be used to create a very different park for Javits Plaza.

First, we needed to get rid of the broken fountain that had been put up in the absolute worst place on the plaza.

The park needed to be integrated back into the city, by taking down the walls that cut off people from the city.

It was also a safety issue.

We also had to design for people who wanted to meet in the plaza and allow for all sorts of situations, such as someone who doesn't wanna face someone else, or those who want to have a small group of people for a meeting, or a larger area for more people if there were a fence.

And this was designed to accommodate almost any seating condition, other than being in a restaurant.

So, the green hills gave people some intimacy, also.

So here, you see the homestead lights, but they are about four times taller than the real lights.

So, I was actually kind of taking those sayings and kind of twisting them around.

These yellow gardens covered the steam exhaust.

Of course, they weren't living, they were just yellow something that actually held the thing together, but it was a plus for the plaza.

The yellow grill has the typical New York wire loops that keep the dogs from pooping in gardens, so it was all about kind of taking language from New York.

The mist would come out of the green mountains, and this was a bit controversial at first, this whole plaza.

The lawyers across the street freaked out when they saw that the green that we painted with was day glow green.

(Martha laughs) So, yeah so, these are, you know, some of the images there, and this is the ballards that actually stop the trucks from going into the ground floor.

So, Gifu Kitigata Apartments in Japan.

And, this is a large scale public housing, and is part of an experiment in feminism and housing design.

And because of the diversity of architectural design found within the project, a strong sight imagery and geometry had to be created for the courtyard to unify the distinct parts of the project, because there were all these buildings, four buildings and they were all very different.

So we had to give the project a memorable identity.

These rooms offer a variety of opportunities for passive enjoyment or active play, including water features, children's play opportunities, and public art.

The bottom floor, here, comes out into an evergreen forest.

Now, it's actually an evergreen forest, this is fairly just planted then.

The cherry forest sits on top of the piece of land that connects way to the other side of the project.

This is built because of water run-off.

Here is the community center, an important place for everybody to gather.

And there are many different social uses in this area.

The center is surrounded by a sunken flooded area with willow trees down there, and a wetland vegetation is made accessible by wooden boardwalks.

There's the iris canal with dance floors, children's playgrounds, sports courts, and a water rail.

And each of these rooms provide a different experience or opportunity for the people who live in this community.

This is the sunken willow garden, designed so that when the trees grew, people can kiss without being seen from above.

So, that's what I call, kind of, a date gate.

In the stone garden, a circular fountain with stepping stones and rocks spit water at irregular intervals to create a fun, game-like experience for kids or grown-ups.

The four seasons gardens is a series of four miniature gardens that capture the spirit of the seasons, are enclosed by colored glass walls, blue room is winter, yellow spring, green summer, and red for fall.

And, they all have very different things that sit within them.

Now, this is looking down the park from the other end, you can see that with all that's going on, the linearity of it still pulls the whole project together.

Next one is Minneapolis Courthouse Building.

So, it's a plaza and the plaza is located in Minneapolis' Civic Center, facing City Hall and in front of the new federal courthouse, designed by Kohn, Pederson, Fox Associates.

The program required a plaza designed for both civic and individual activities, with its own imagery and sense of place.

Even though in an important place, we had a series of issues to deal with, such as again, a low budget.

Most of the city uses granite paving, but in this one, it was just concrete, and it's a platform, also, that can't hold anything heavy, such as trees.

That's a common landscape architect thingy.

So, these glacier marine deposits shaped parts of the mid-western landscape and I placed a series of miniature drumlins pointing towards the building.

These steeply mounted forms made of soil atop styrofoam were a response to below grade garage, which limited the depth of construction and weight.

So, this design refers to Minnesota's culture and natural history, and earth mounds and logs, elements of that history are the plaza's symbolic and sculptural elements.

We planted jack pines, a small stunted pioneer species, common in Minnesota's Boreal Forest, since the plaza could not carry large trees.

The log benches became a place to sit as well as a deep connection between the Minnesotans and the forest.

Great timber forests attracted immigrants and provided the basis for the local economy.

The association of timber, with Minnesota, speaks to the hearts of Minnesotans collective memory and the plaza leaves a strong emotional imprint on the people who visit it.

That's actually what you wanna look for, is to actually create some kind of emotive response to your work.

That's where we feel things.

Strong signals in the design help pedestrians move through the plaza to the courthouse building.

And, the linearity of the striped paving patterns guides the pedestrians to the lobby.

The drumlins themselves also provide a directionality to the front door.

Now, these images are many years past what you just saw, so those tiny little trees actually have grown pretty damn good in this very, kind of small amount of soils.

So, this is the courthouse, and you see little weird people like things.

It's the art by Tom Otterness, who was asked to come in and kind of collaborate.

So, here we go.

A lot more of 'em.

And, there we go.

And this is what this looks like in the wintertime.

We wanted to do something that actually, you know, would be able to hold out in winter and still be beautiful.

The Village of Yorkville Park in Toronto.

So, the Village of Yorkville Park has become a local landmark.

And while small in size, the park has played a very important role in the revitalization of this whole neighborhood since its completion in 1994.

The design is a distillation of regional ecology, along with its role as a neighborhood connection point.

It has become a landmark and one of the best known parks in Toronto.

The design response to the 19th century Victorian scale of the houses and original character of the Village of Yorkville by making sure that the park creates a more cozy feeling.

It's almost like having a series of front yards instead of one big space.

The park designs creates a series of linear subdivisions with contextual alignments to the building lot lines across the street, and connections to mid-block passageways in the adjoining blocks.

Each linear park segment is distinct in character, but related to the next, creating a park of diversity and unity.

This is the evergreen doughnut park, or bagel park, depends how you see things.

And, it's next to the forest park.

This is the same park, but at night.

This is the flower garden, you can see it sits next to the evergreen bagel garden, I would call it.

And this is the forest garden.

And, sitting at the waterfall, in front of the big rock.

The water garden turns into ice walls, you know, in the winter.

So, a large clearing creates a pedestrian plaza and provides a counterpoint to the boxed subdivisions, and sitting in this space is a huge rock outcrop that references the Canadian Shield.

Bedrock farm mission that we blasted out of a farmer's field and transported it to the park, and then glued it, or cemented it together, which has become a beloved landmark.

Everyone wants to get up on this rock, and it's become very famous in the city, after having a rough time convincing the city we should do this.

And for your information, the inside of this rock is also full of styrofoam, because we are also planning and designing on top of a, the subway.

So, have to be careful about how to build on top of these not very strong places.

So again, this is a chat in the forest garden.

Winslow Conservancy, okay now we're getting to doing some things, really for nature.

This is a 600 acre large scale agricultural project that's designed as a marriage between art and the practicalities of a large land reclamation in ecology.

The property is an estate, located within New Jersey's pine barrens and it contains a diverse range of landscape conditions, including dense forests, gradually rolling topography, and a 75 acre abandoned clay quarry that holds mineral rich turquoise water and served the community's dump.

The objective for this project was to reclaim the spoiled and polluted acreage of the clay quarry, so it could once again serve as a habitat for local flora and fauna and to create open fields for organic architecture, and to serve as a retreat for artists who are interested in sight-specific landscape scaled artwork.

And lastly, as the training grounds for the client's champion Labrador field dogs.

The aesthetics were derived to combine the landscapes of nature, agriculture, and culture into a unique mix of these three typologies.

Natural landscape, the formal gardens, and agricultural land.

So, I'm just gonna click through some of these pictures.

I love the quick ones.

Quick topiary elements run across these agricultural fields, conflating the image of farms with latter day broke garden.

This was the Trompe-L'Oiel garden.

The left image looks like the green walls are parallel, but the right page shows that it is not.

It's a trick from France.

You gotta watch those guys.

So, in the end, this site has provided a new life for once a very degraded area, and given that there are thousands of such sites in New Jersey, this site has provided a template for cultural and ecological regeneration for others to follow.

Okay, this is MESA Center for Performing Arts.

The master plan for this project was done through a close collaborative process between architect and landscape architect.

We were a very good team.

The Mesa Arts and Entertainment Center is literally at the central access of the city.

And, our team was directed to create a visually and socially appealing city center in Mesa.

A city that had previously lived without a central core, and was rapidly developing sprawl without a center or an identity.

So, this is sitting within the middle of a square block and that's kind of what this block is looking like.

This area's known to be dry and very hot in Arizona, and in spring, there can be fierce floods that come down from the mountains.

The water gushes through gullies that are called arroyos.

Again, were starting to take a look at what the environment is of this place.

What we jointly developed, after exploring at least a dozen different schemes, was to create a city wall for the city that had a lack of density, and needed spacial definition and urban density.

The major building sat house events were in back of the street wall and created an elaborate linear open space that would include civic space that functioned as a street and an entry space for the three theaters.

We called this space, basically a linear park, The Shadow Walk because we knew we would need to shade the area, due to summer heat.

This is looking into the entrance from the north.

The blue walls define the outside and the inside, The Shadow Walks runs down the middle with the educational and galleries to the right, and the performance buildings to the left.

As you walk into The Shadow Walk, you first see the art gallery.

The art school is to the left here, and the performance building to the right, The Shadow Walk in the middle.

This is a small seating area to watch extemporaneous shows.

Here, people are watching the extemporaneous shows.

And, here are the people doing the extemporaneous shows.

So, it was kind of, you could do whatever you want at any time you wanted.

It's there.

Also, this is the steps that kind of light up at night, so it kind of becomes a place where people like to sit out.

And freestanding structures of woven strands of stainless steel arches through these spaces.

Translucent colored glass screens walls define smaller, more private parklets, or small garden-esque areas where people can sit, talk, and generally separate themselves from the crowds.

And these gardens create more intimate areas within greater public spaces.

The colored glass, backlit by the afternoon sun, will hold the shadows of the cacti and other distinctly textured plants in silhouette.

Again, placing the shadow cast by the planting on stage.

Another motif running through The Shadow Walk is out of the banquet table.

An element that appears several times throughout the plaza.

The banquet tables are very long and skinny.

They're thin, stainless steel tables topped with marble.

The blue comes from a layer of blue marbles, which have been actually glued together, and are underneath the water, and are lit at night.

This is an ode to the Italian Garden of Villa Latte.

Here's another one, another one, and this is our people who are looking.

So, I am getting this green light, so what I'm going to do, I'm gonna go run through really quickly, is that there was a wonderful river that was an arroyo that went down the whole thing.

Okay, so I am going to... No, hold on.

Okay.

I need help to be able to actually, I need to get to the back part, 'cause I wanted to talk about climate change, but... Can you help me?

- [Crew Member] Let's see.

- [Martha] Thank you.

- [Crew Member] All the way to... - Oh, five now, that's it.

Okay, we don't have a lot more time and I'm ending this with a project that we have been working on and will be working on, I believe, for some time.

But I wanted to share it with you because I think that some of this is going to be very important.

So in 2016, this is the day I quit landscape architecture, in 2016.

My sister, Maggie, sent me a YouTube video about the melting of the permafrost on the eastern Siberian shelf.

Methane has at least 84 times the greenhouse potency of carbon dioxide.

The second most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide.

And the issue is that the more methane is released, the hotter the atmosphere gets, which creates more melting of these ice shelves where it's been trapped for millions of years.

We are at the fringe of a possible negative feedback loop.

That day, in 2016, I felt that what I was doing as a designer was not relevant.

And, I stopped and I spent a good year teaching myself about climate change, reading all sorts of books.

And, actually, after having spent a few years really kind of, basically looking at geoengineering and what's going on there, I realized how important the land is and that's our profession, is about the land.

So, after understanding how important the role of the land is in climate change, I now know that the profession of landscape architecture actually is the go-to profession within the built environment and climate change.

We naturally take down carbon dioxide, we cool the Earth, we support biodiversity, we provide food and water, and so many other benefits created through ecological systems.

So, a number of months ago, we were notified by the Planning Department of Bilbao.

The Bilbao Metropoli-30 is an organization that runs Bilbao.

They were about, they contacted me about collaborating with them on an important new master plan for Bilbao's riverfront.

And of course, it's like, "Hell yes, definitely, I want to do that."

And Bilbao is at the northern border of Spain and France, that's where it is.

It's known as the Basque country, it says Bizkaia up there, which is a sunny, independent country within Spain.

Now by the way, this is where the famous Guggenheim Museum that Frank Gehry designed.

Fabulous.

And, this is the river and the focus of the new master plan.

The river is connected to the ocean, therefore it a port at the end of the river.

Bilbao was a highly industrial led city, but now has a lot of remediation of the immense amounts of pollution.

The metropolis is an area, about one million inhabitants, which is considered the main economic engine of the Basque country, and that it has transformed itself from its industrial past to become a modern, cultural region.

Internationally known, thanks to the Guggenheim Museum, as an icon of this transformation.

But, what was on my mind?

Did this master plan take in the impacts of climate change in the future?

And if not, the framework that I was looking at would have to be thrown out.

So, I decided that before we jump in, we better do some research to get an overall picture where Bilbao will be in the future.

And, if you take a look and go into the websites of climate change, it's usually measured by 2050, and then by 2100.

So, our team got to work to put together a small booklet for the politicians to consider.

There is, here is a quick look at what we sent.

I just sent, I'm basically showing you what we sent to them.

There were three important topics that we actually looked like, in terms of research.

The impacts of climate change in the future by 2050.

The opportunities of climate change, there are many opportunities out there.

And then three, understanding the role of the site itself and what it can provide.

We suggested to the politicians that the following issues must be addressed to create a framework for your master plan to ensure the Basque country is prepared to face climate change head on and secure the research that's necessary for its people.

So, each one of these topics contains research information on two things.

Future climate change impacts on the city and key takeaways.

I will go through these climate issues and key takeaways that we came up with.

So, this one is southern Europe up there.

And, southern Europe will be particularly hard hit by climate change.

Rising temperatures, increased flooding in seas, less crop yields, climate refugees from Africa and south Europe will put pressure on the quality of life in Basque country.

These issues will also lead to decline in tourism and the cities of Basque will need to prepare a new economic model to plan for sustainable futures.

A master plan to project the city of Bilbao needs, for at least the next 50 years, will need to tackle these climate issues.

Next page is a framework issue on sea level rise.

Bilbao's port is at risk for permanent inundation due to sea level rise.

Storm surge from stronger storm events will batter the city's ability to conduct trade.

Next one.

Framework issue, flooding.

Also, Bilbao will be vulnerable to floods as water's coming down from the mountains, will contribute to flooding and will impact agriculture and cattle raising.

Be prepared for this volume.

Okay, southern Spain.

This is about extreme heat.

So, southern Spain will be hit harder by extreme heat and climate refugees will be migrating north to find cooler places to live.

That's why, actually, I came back to the United States from London, honestly.

Bilbao has an older population on average who are more at risk for a heat stroke and heat exhaustion.

This compound says climate change heats the planet.

Bilbao needs to focus on cooling.

Okay, lack of urban parks.

It's an issue.

As cities experience more severe and long heat waves, new urban parks will be needed to cool the city.

A comprehensive network of connected green spaces will ensure Bilbao can keep its citizens cool during extreme heat events in the future.

Green spaces can also absorb storm water, which will be a serious problem for the future.

Well, key issues?

You have to start finding more open land in our cities.

Yep.

Okay, this is about current energy resources.

Bilbao's energy is primarily based in imported fuel fossils.

Renewable energy production accounts only for only 16.2% of the energy demand in the Basque region.

Further investment in research into renewable energy sources can also create a new economy.

So, more research on new renewables.

This one is framework issue, desertification.

Southern Europe will be facing severe droughts.

Spain will turn into a desert due to the loss of vegetation because of industrialized agriculture, and there will be major migrations to Bilbao.

Key?

Desertification can be mitigated through targeted irrigation and reafforestation of certain parts of Spain.

Framework issue, food scarcity.

And basically, you know, we're gonna be facing this too, by the way.

But by 2050, most countries, including the United States, will have to be self-sufficient and produce food for their citizens.

Even cities will need more open land in the future.

So, one possibility is high rise agriculture will likely be an actor in the future.

The site, the Estuary of Bilbao.

The Estuary of Bilbao has long time been a lifeline to the economic prosperity of Bilbao.

The waterfront must act as a piece of climate armor for Bilbao, adapting to protect its sea level rise and serving as a layer of defense in storm surge events.

This one is the site, still the estuary.

The Bilbao Estuary is extremely polluted due to its industrial history.

There must be a remediation strategy, this is the key, to contain the pollution.

This should be one of the very first steps this city should take.

Nature-based solutions is the core for how landscape architects can work to address climate change.

Such as cooling cities through urban reforestation.

Something that I'm actually working on as a Harvard grant to the city of, the Springfield, Massachusetts.

Wetlands can be protected, enhanced, restored, or created along the river, and in urban spaces to reestablish a defense system comprised of natural, biological, living materials that act as buffers and retention areas to rising seas, and to prevent inland flooding.

The aim of this concept of nature-based solutions is to integrate ecological networks along with technologies and urban infrastructure.

So to expand multi-functionality and connectivity.

This, we need to actually tell to our planners and the architects.

Nature-based solutions can provide urban agriculture to generate local floods and social cohesion, green roofs for climate change mitigation, regeneration of abandoned industrial sites through afforestation.

Rain gardens for storm water management, green and blue spaces for promoting health, and utilization of permeable surfaces and vegetation in urban areas.

In terms of providing socio-culture benefits, nature-based solutions supports health, security, education, place-based values, visual quality, and social relationships.

So, opportunities.

Theses are opportunities.

Mobility systems will drastically change over the next 50 years, and cities will need to rethink their infrastructure to adapt to these shifts.

With inevitable transition to automated vehicles, existing roadways can be narrowed to include linear forests and increase permeable surfaces.

This is this thing that I'm working on.

Yeah, and it's this grant, and public transit systems need to be future proofed to adapt to sea level rise and extreme storm events.

If you start looking into the future, you're gonna actually come up with some really interesting ideas that actually may happen, and I cannot say more than this time is the most creative time that I have seen in my entire life, because there are so many people around the world who are coming with ideas.

So, get on that website and just ask any questions you have and it comes up.

It's very valuable, it's the only thing that's gonna save our butts.

So, following our opportunities that climate change can offer cities.

We can expand an energy economy through the development of green hydrogen, though it still creates a lot of carbon dioxide.

Creating partnerships with Bilbao's universities can become a generator for a new economies, retaining talented workers and testing new innovations.

We can reduce use of single-ownership cars, reduce traffic and carbon dioxide, and create a walkable 15-minute city.

Has anybody learned about the 15-minute city?

Few people?

Okay, yeah, it's very interesting.

We could talk about that.

And decarbonizing Bilbao through direct air capture can help the region shift away from fossil fuels and bolster its green energy manufacturing economy.

That's a geoengineering idea.

Actually, it's happening.

Finally, this is a final note I sent to Idoia, who's in charge of it in Bilbao.

She's the head of the project.

What I said is, "This report is a quick look and assessment into the future of the Bilbao waterfront and the city of Bilbao.

Climate change will be the driver for how we must plan our future, as the natural systems are changing now, and perhaps impacting other natural systems that we don't know about.

Climate change will continue to change for a long time.

The science and the societal outcome of COP26 is that there is a high unlikelihood," that's how the scientists would say it.

I would say absolutely, we're not going to make that 1.5 degree goal.

That's not going to happen for many, many, many reasons.

We could do another lecture, I could tell you about that.

But, as such, we have to plan for the likelihood of passing that 1.5, if not before 2050.

So, given the quickening rise of global warming, science tells us that temperature and sea level rise will continue for at least decades, which will create much more severe impacts than we are facing today.

I don't know whether I can pull this up again, no.

Okay so, guess what?

That's it.

(audience applauding) Done, thank you, yeah.

- Okay, folks.

We will have a little bit of time for Q & A for anyone that wants to come down to the microphones, here.

I know there's a shuffle and a kerfuffle.

People who have to leave, please do so quietly.

Thank you.

Martha, we only have about 20 minutes, maybe 18 minutes, so.

- Well, I have to wait for somebody to have a question.

- Oh, that's true.

Here comes somebody right now, I think.

- Any questions?

- Yeah.

- There, thank you.

- Couple of students, here.

- Students.

- Over here, too, so just go center.

Okay, folks.

We only have a brief time for Q & A, so please folks leaving, save your chatter for the lobby.

- I have three kids, I know what it's like.

- Hello, I just wanted to say thank you for the amazing talk.

I learned a lot from your presentation and I'm really inspired by it.

I'm a pre-admin to architecture, so I just really love what you're doing.

It's super cool, I just wanted to say that.

- Well, thank you very much.

And there's one thing I wanted to say is that in our company, the best designers are architects.

Architects are kind of shifting away.

If you ever wanna work for us and you're really good at designing, let me know.

We're looking for good people, I'm serious about that.

Yeah.

Hello.

- Hi, I'm wondering how did you start so many different firms in, like, different places?

- Yeah.

I'm not exactly sure how that managed out but I think, I mean I very quickly, because I was doing such crazy things and they were colorful or strange.

During that time, the magazine economy was going up and they were looking for all sorts of cool things to look at, and I mean, I actually got more work in Japan than in the United States.

So, that happened.

But I think that the work that we did was strong enough that people recognized it in some way, and just kept asking us to do work.

- [Student] Yeah, amazing.

- I think so.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

Thanks.

- [Student] Thanks.

- Hey.

With your current and, with your current knowledge and awareness of the environment now, how would you approach past projects that you've worked on differently?

- Oh, a lot.

Definitely.

Yes, but I'll tell you something.

Because, we are working now, on projects in a very different way, but it does not mean that we would not design, because the idea that, "Oh, is it going to be about science and climate change, and what is the relationship to design?"

Design still is so important.

First of all, because if you do things that people like, it will be sustained.

Otherwise, it gets out.

But, we very much always look to what is going on in climate change, and what we do is when we're meeting our clients, we just did this last week, it's like, "Hey dude, have you thought about climate change for this big project?

Because, if you are thinking about doing things business as usual, you are probably gonna lose a lot of money."

And you sit down and you explain.

We actually have to teach our clients about this, 'cause most people really don't know what's going on.

So, you gotta teach.

And then, you know, to start out you have to understand the infrastructural issues first.

I mean, it isn't about what's on the ground, it's about what's underneath.

And what we can do, as landscape architects, actually is quite a bit.

That's what I'm saying is that I really think that landscape architecture is the go-to profession because we're going to be able to, you know, manipulate the land, figure out infrastructure, figure out how to deal with water, figure out how we're gonna keep the water, how to get rid of the water.

I mean, water is everything, but we have a very good hand in being able to figure out how to protect whatever is being built, the building.

So, yeah.

They, I'm sure they would be different.

I'm not sure I would be using plastic.

(Martha laughs) - [Student 2] Thank you.

- You're welcome.

Hi - Hi, thank you so much for your talk this evening.

- [Martha] You're welcome.

- I am also in the urb school and have no experience with landscape architecture but it's something I've seriously considered going into, and you are someone who became a landscape architect with no undergraduate experience, and I was just wondering what pointers you might give to me or someone like me who is really interested in that world, but doesn't necessarily have the sort of professional entry point.

Like, I designed a garden, I've worked on farms, but I don't know any landscape architects.

- Okay, yeah.

Well, I can't really say that my graduate school experience taught me a lot.

(Martha laughs) It gives you kind of a background.

It's a good thing to do but you don't know jack shit until you go out there and start building.

So, don't let that stop you at all.

Just do it.

Just do it.

- [Student 3] Yeah.

- And also, I mean, I really, I mean it was a fight for what I was doing.

I mean, people, I was a bad egg.

I was, you know, a black sheep.

I mean, I was very controversial.

People blah, blah, blah.

So what?

You know, just do, do it the way you think you need to do it.

I mean, it's a pretty, you know, open profession.

- [Student 3] So you think that lack of professional experience in that area wouldn't necessarily be a hindrance if say, like, I'm graduating this year and maybe I'll be moving to Boston or New York and I would love to find, like, a firm to work with.

- Didn't know anything when I graduated, I knew nothing.

When you, I mean, it's only until you actually go into an office and go like, "What the fuck was I learning over at?

I spent so much money."

No, you know, it's a background but you learn as you go, you learn from other people, that is just the process.

So, just because you don't know anything doesn't mean that you won't know a lot over time.

- [Student 3] Thank you.

- You don't come out knowing everything, I swear to God.

For two years, I really didn't do anything within the... Yeah.

Anyways, so.

- [Student 3] I'd love to get my hands in the dirt.

- Well, do it.

(student laughing) Absolutely.

Sorry, yeah, thank you.

- Hi, this is kind of unrelated but do you have a favorite, like, plant or flower that you've worked with in your designs?

- In my designs?

No, but I do have a favorite tree and that's a white oak.

Go figure, I don't know.

That's the white oak, that's, yeah.

Okay, time, time, yes.

- Hi, Martha.

Thank you very much, I'm Noah.

Thank you so much for coming today.

- [Martha] Noah?

- Yeah, yeah.

- [Martha] Oh!

- Good to see you.

Anyways, the question.

I'm curious when you think, and what some of the limits are, for these 15-minute cities.

When are we going to be able to see hexagonal tessellated city blocks in the future.

- I know what tessellated means, I'm working on it actually in my graph.

Here's my thought about it.

I mean, you know it came from Oregon.

- [Noah] Yeah.

- Yeah, okay.

Wow, you know everything.

But, I think that there are parts of it that are useful, and I think the idea, I mean, I think you have to take what you think works for where you are and go from there.

I don't think, you know, this is what you have to do.

But, you know, Paris is doing it, Barcelona's doing it.

People are trying to do it, but I think the most important part of that is that we have to start to organize ourselves as neighborhoods, where we have more ability to rely on other people, as opposed to you know, waiting for blossoms to come up, or this, that, and the other.

I mean, I really think that it's, there are some very good things.

Like, we always work together.

I mean, we used to build barns together.

I think given where we're going, it would be very good to be able to, able to kind of have a group that were working together.

So, that's my feeling about it.

- [Noah] Great, awesome.

Thank you.

- Okay, yeah, thanks.

- I really appreciate the way you have the diversity of cultural, all the different backs in stuff that you did, and you really brought in a lot of things.

I study natural resource management, and one of the things that I helped to write about was the, the role of disturbance in our natural ecosystems.

And this is something that people don't really think about.

The evolution of plants and all the biodiversity that we have, disturbance is a really large part of that, and we can take that part and when we try and mimic nature, it's all about biodiversity.

Mosaics, gaps, all those, I don't know what that word he used, I just, we called it mosaics.

So, when you have the big over story and then the gap is made, it provides more biodiversity.

You know, and so, incorporating the role of disturbance is a really, I think, an important thing because this is what's happening on a world scale.

More disturbance, but disturbance has always been a part of the natural features, and biodiversity comes from that mosaics, those gaps, those boxes.

All the little, smaller pieces that make up the bigger pieces.

So, I just wanted to bring that up.

Because, we're talking about disturbance on a big scale, but it's an integral part to biodiversity.

And if we can learn from that, and I just love, with your art and your designs, you have that, because you're incorporating all these different pieces, you're not just making one big...

I mean, there's unity there, which is important artistically and collaborative, in collaborations and stuff like that.

But, as a species, we can learn a lot from the role of disturbance.

- Well, I mean, maybe you should teach us in landscape architecture what that's about so we know what to do.

We'd be the closest people in the built environment who would be able to do something about that.

I think, yeah.

We're taught ecology.

Now, we have to, actually have to learn about Earth science, in order to really, truly understand climate change.

Well, I wish I understood everything you were saying, but you know, keep working on biodiversity.

- [Student 4] Biodiversity and disturbance is a big part.

- Yeah, exactly.

Hello.

- I was just gonna ask if you had a, or like a favorite or most important piece of work that you think you've done?

- Probably the bagel garden.

Seriously.

- [Student 5] Okay.

- I mean, it's kinda dumb but I mean, it was so impactful.

And, people are designing much more interesting things and they don't have to do it this way, and you don't have to not show the hand of man.

You can even show a hand of woman, I don't know.

You know, things did change.

Grady Clay got fired, I mean, that's okay, you know?

But, I really do think probably that is the one that actually made the most impact.

And, I didn't give a shit about what I was doing, actually.

So, it was a joke.

- [Student 5] Thank you.

- Oh, question, sorry, yeah.

- Thanks for coming to talk.

So, I'm an art and engineering student but I'm really interesting in urban planning, and, you know, through your career and living all over the world, you definitely have a really, like unique and interesting perspective on the built environment.

I'm curious, we're seeing these like new cities kind of popping up around the world, funded by like billionaires or governments and they're like touting themselves as like new, sustainable cities that are going to be more adjustable to climate change, and you're rolling your eyes.

I know, I kinda roll my eyes at that.

But I'm curious, you know, over the next 100 or so years, as like we really start to experience the tolls of climate change, if you see populations shifting to these new, sort of like safe havens from climate change itself, like the Midwest or different parts of northern Europe or if you think we're more likely to sort of have to hunker down and like engineer our ways into keeping the places that we already have built working for humans and nature as well.

- Well, that's a heavy duty question.

Yeah, I do know about these cities.

We're doing a lot of work in the middle east right now, and I did lectures, and the city is boasting about all the technology and oh, all of the global north countries think that technology is actually gonna save us.

It's really great, new, improved.

It's like, not really.

Not really, it's not.

It will help, but if we don't get biodiversity kind of more, kind of working better, if we don't regenerate the Earth, if we stop putting emissions in the air.

I mean, the oceans are changing, and the oceans are changing other systems within their systems.

Those systems are starting to actually impact each other, and the scientists don't really know that much about it.

So, it's actually, right now, we can get the heat, global warming, under control now.

And, global warming is the cause of most of all the impacts.

So, that's why I was looking at solar geoengineering, right?

And, now I'm like, "Oh, this really is gonna happen now."

I mean, the guy who's in front of it just got a huge amount of money for research, and what I'm talking about, everyone, is that they, the scientists have figured out how to cool down the Earth, by putting sulfate aerosols up into the stratosphere.

And sulfate is a very, very reflective material.

That's why Venus is so bright.

It's the brightest body in the night sky, except for the moon.

And, they can do it.

You can put it up, it's not that much of a technology, even.

It's a method, but they can put those aerosols up into the stratosphere, and because of the reflectivity, it will cool down the Earth.

And so, geoengineering, half of it is about how do we actually make the albedo of the Earth greater?

An albedo is a measurement of how reflective a material is.

So, if we can make the Earth, or everything, more reflective, we'll be able to cool down the Earth.

So, it's not that difficult a thing.

So, that is going to happen.

But, if we don't understand the importance of the Earth's system, game over.

That's the crazy thing, is that nobody, we are so far away from understanding nature itself, or understanding why it's so important.

We don't know about it.

And that is a thing that now is scaring me the most.

That, that's what scares me the most.

So, I mean, I think that you know, there are gonna be people who suffer terribly.

I mean, as the Himalayas are melting now.

2.5 billion people depend on that water.

What are they gonna do?

I mean, just migrating some place isn't gonna help if you don't have any water.

I mean, there are just things that are happening around the world.

I mean, I think we will make it through because of cooling down the Earth, but I don't think everybody's gonna make it through.

And I think that, I really feel, it's one of the things I really am working on, is that the lack of equity, the inequity of it all is really terrible, because we caused it.

We caused it.

I did, you do, but I did.

And, those countries who are not up in the north, where it's cooler, and have the money, have all the, you know, wealth.

They're really suffering now because, you know, climate is irregular, you don't know when it's gonna be nice, it's gonna be cloudy, it's gonna be hot, it's gonna be cold.

Agriculture doesn't work like that.

That's why we have to be, we can't actually be thinking that this is just gonna be just like it always is.

You better start making your own little gardens, and just having something that you can depend on.

It's gonna be different.

- So, I guess with that, how can a young person who might not have, like, the experience or the degree in landscape architecture or architecture, anything like that degree, you know, get involved and help?

- Yeah.

You don't need a degree to help.

You really don't.

It's a good question.

But, there's so much that needs to be done.

It's an ocean of things that need to be done, so again, you know, looking into what's, you know, there are different websites to look at, and there's so much happening in there, and there are a lot of opportunities that are going to happen.

I was just thinking, you know, because they're gonna be putting these sulfate aerosols up, I'm gonna start to invest in companies that actually get those things.

(Martha laughs) I mean, but it's, you know, if you told everybody they'd say, "Well, you're crazy."

Say, "Ah, just wait."

But, look around.

I mean, you're young.

Read books by yourself.

I mean, I didn't go to school to learn about geoengineering.

I mean, fortunately the guys at Harvard were right there for me, so I would go talk to them, but reading books is really, you can do that and then you can teach yourself.

I mean, I have a book list, I'd be happy to send it to you.

Reading.

Just read, and you learn.

But, there are so many parts of climate change.

There's agriculture, you know, there's...

I mean, there's a lot that is going on.

Soils that are, you know, energy.

There's water, there's you know, renewing soils.

I mean, there's a ton of stuff you can start to look at.

So, for sure you'll find something that you feel passionate about.

- [Student 6] Thank you.

- Okay, you're very welcome.

Okay, everyone.

Thank you, guys.

(audience applauds) Thanks for hanging out, thank you.