WEBVTT - Michael Murphy: How Architecture Can Save Lives 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.480 Throughout the COVID nineteen pandemic, so many of us found 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:06.920 ourselves looking at the places we visit in our daily 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:10.920 lives and asking ourselves a new question, well, going there 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.840 make me more or less likely to become sick. From 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:19.240 elevators and office buildings to supermarkets and restaurants, people began 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:23.520 weighing decisions around factors like ventilation and the ability to 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:27.080 social distance. For most of us, it was a completely 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:31.120 new way of looking at our world. Now why am 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:34.159 I telling you this, because now, more than ever, it's 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.280 clear that the buildings we use every day are about 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:41.280 more than style and structure. Their design affects our health, 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:44.960 how we interact with one another, and ultimately what we 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.839 value as a society today. I'm so grateful to be 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:51.519 joined by someone who spent his life thinking about these 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:54.120 questions and trying to answer them in a way that 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:59.280 promotes healing, equality and dignity. Michael Murphy is the founding 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.800 principle and executive director of Mass Design Group, one of 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:08.000 the most innovative architecture and design collectives working today. From 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:10.680 hospitals and schools and some of the most remote places 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.800 on Earth, to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.280 in Montgomery, Alabama. His work has changed the way the 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:21.319 world looks at design. I've had the chance to work 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.200 with them many times through the Clinton Global Initiative and 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:28.600 to see some of his projects firsthand, including Central Africa's 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:33.039 first comprehensive cancer hospital, the Buitaro Center for Excellence in 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:38.319 Rural Rwanda. Michael's new book, The Architecture of Health examines 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:42.039 the history of hospitals and the simple ways they can 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:47.800 be built better today to control disease and promote healing. So, Michael, 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.400 thanks so much for joining me. Thank you, Mr President, 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:52.400 It's an honor to be here with you. Let's start 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:55.840 at the beginning. How did you realize that this design 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.520 work was your calling, both in becoming an architect and 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.520 also the specific kind of work that Mass Design Group does. 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.480 You know, the beginning is as a powerful moment for 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:11.440 me and as meaningful today. You know, the beginning of 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:17.359 the work really started with my introduction to Dr Paul Farmer, 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:27.200 who we lost yester yesterday, and um, I was, excuse me, 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.840 it's hard loss for us. All. I was a young 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:38.120 student of architecture and I think, you know, like many students, 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:42.600 was wondering, how are work had meaning and what his 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:47.440 purpose was, and was learning all around about the work 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:54.520 around the world and famous architects and influential architects, but 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:58.880 questions of architecture's purpose and who had served and who 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:02.360 deserved it. We're sort of lingering out there until I 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.640 met Paul. And I met him at a lecture. He 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:09.240 was giving a lecture on World AIDS Day December one, 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:15.360 two six actually, and instead of talking about all the 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.720 incredible work that he and your organization we're doing to 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.560 provide anti richer virals to communities that never had them, 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.560 to lower the price of those drugs, to serve so 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.280 many more communities around the world, and really fight the epidemic, 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:35.240 he was talking about systems design and buildings, talking about 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:39.520 clinics and hospitals and schools and housing that they were 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.160 building under a program the Partners in Health Paul's organizations 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.280 started called the POSER Program Program on Social and Economic Rights. 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.160 And I tell you it shook my world. I thought, 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:57.400 you know, here's a visionary doctor talking about architecture but 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:02.160 calling it healthcare. Yeah, you know, and I never heard 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:04.800 I never thought of it framed that way or heard 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:09.360 it framed so persuasively that way. And then I went 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:11.800 up to him afterwards, like so many students did, and 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.400 waited for him to talk to every single person in 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:18.000 the room as he often did, and said, Hey, I'm 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:21.000 a student of architecture. Who are the architects you're working with? 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:25.239 Who's building these houses these clinics? And he said, funny 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:26.960 you should ask you know, none of you, none of 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.280 the architects I've ever seen how they can help serve us. 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:32.240 We end up having to do it ourselves. When what 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.279 could you do to help bring architects to rural Haiti, 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:40.200 to to rural Rerwanda's and serve our organization instead of 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:41.919 waiting for us to ask you how you can be 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.359 of help. It's kind of an amazing call to action, 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.320 you know. He gave me his email. I sent him 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.160 an email later that night. You got right back to me, 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:54.240 as he often does. And eight months later I was 0:04:54.279 --> 0:05:00.200 working with his organization in Rwanda, um thinking about what 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:02.600 it means to be in service of their organization and 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.719 what it means to build healthcare that's truly healing and dignifying. 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:11.440 First of all, since you mentioned Paul, I think that 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.640 I should tell our listeners if you don't know who 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.640 if Paul Farmer is. He died suddenly on the job 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:24.039 in Rwanda, near Butaro, where the University of Global Health 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:29.680 Equity is and where this wonderful hospital and what was 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:35.600 Central Africa's first cancer center was built with the leadership 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.640 of Michael Murphy and the Mass Design Group. He also 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.599 was a man with a million followers. Chelsea has been 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:47.720 a devotee and acolyte of Paul Farmer since she was 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:52.080 in Stanford, and he's become a very very close friend 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.760 of mine, and just like everybody else who really knew him, 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.839 we loved him very much. So yesterday is one of 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.279 the toughest days and that my family has had a long, 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:07.800 long time. I decided we should go forward with his 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:11.560 program today because Michael feels the same way, and Paul 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:16.440 inspired his work, and I know that he if he 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.760 were a little bird sitting on my shoulder, he'd say, Okay, 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:23.320 that's enough of that, Let's go to work. What what 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.200 are we gonna do? Anyway, that's the backdrop. If you're 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.640 interested in Paul Farmer, you should look up one of 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.680 his many great books, or read Tracy Kidder's account of 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:37.159 his life. He's the only guy you will ever run across. 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:39.880 I think you graduated from Harvard Medical School, but grew 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.919 up in a bus that was converted for he and 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.960 his five siblings. Um. This mom of the teacher's dad 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:52.640 was a traveling salesman and they were rich in love 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:57.279 and books, and he made it into an astonishing life. 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:02.600 So let's go back to you. You founded masses on, 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:08.360 which stands for a model of Architecture serving Society, because 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.400 you believe that architecture has a critical role in driving 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.440 social change. So for people who have never thought of 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:19.920 architect this way, give us some examples of how architecture 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:25.280 can solve social problems and micro society healthier and safer 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.560 and bring us closer together. You know, I do think 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:32.520 that question of how does architecture serve us and serve 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:37.320 our public better? UM is also about reflecting where it 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.280 hasn't fully lived up to its potential as well. And 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:45.640 UM we learned this in Rwanda. We learned most specifically 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:49.440 about how buildings are actually are making us healthier or 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:53.280 sometimes making us sicker. We learned that on the hilltop 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:55.800 and Pataro, where Dr Farmer passed away and where our 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.520 first project was because at that time, in two thousands, 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:02.160 six and seven, as you know with your work, the 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:07.400 epidemic um then was multi drug resistant tuberculosis, a disease 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:13.800 that was being transmitted primarily in hallways of rural clinics, 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:20.200 of patients with some drug resistance, transmitting through coughing in 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:24.000 the hallway to other patients, and then patients coming out 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.640 with this extremely drug resistant strand. And that was a 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.960 design flaw. That was a hallway which wasn't designed for 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:34.640 enough air flow. Here is a place that makes you sicker, 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.240 but could be designed very quickly to make us healthier, 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:41.600 to protect us. That simple lesson that if you turn 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.000 the hallways on the outside, you designed the building around 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.640 air flow. You made it a thinner building so that 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:53.240 more air movement could go through it. Simple lessons turn 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.240 out to be very prescient to what we're going through today. 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:59.240 You know, all of us are looking around I mean 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:01.600 all I say all of us, I mean all eight 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:05.840 billion of us around the world are simultaneously going through 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:11.320 this I would say, shared spatial awakening, that buildings around 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.959 us are threatening us and also wondering how they could 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.240 make us healthier. First of all, to give our listeners 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:22.720 a little more context. Lutaro is a beautiful little place 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:28.920 high in the mountains of northeast Rwanda near the Ugandan border, 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:33.440 and uh because it's very steep, the angles of the 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:37.600 building had to reflect that. And what started out is 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.760 people thinking about a treatment center for primarily t B 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.040 actually became a focus for how you could design a 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.960 hospital so that it was a healthy place, not a 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.719 place that made people more likely to get sick from 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:55.199 touberquet losses. Rwanda. It's like one of the most beautiful 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.200 places in the world is as you know, it's called 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.680 the Land of a Thousand Hills, is rolling beautiful, lush, 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:05.800 farmed hills um all over this very small country, but 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:09.600 very populous country. And this district does as you said, 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.600 Mr President, is on the border of Uganda. But it's 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.040 also it was one of the least served in terms 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:19.480 of medical infrastructure, so it was around four thousand people 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:23.680 in this district and no tertiary care medical facilities. So 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.240 the government, with the support of Partners in Health and 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:31.480 and the Clinton Foundation or CHAIM, prioritize this district as 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.760 as the place to invest in a new hospital. When 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:41.920 you drive there, you pass these majestic lakes nestled into 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:46.199 these hillsides with these backdrops of the Verunga mountain chain. 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.120 It is one of the most beautiful things I've certainly 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:53.320 ever seen in the world. And at the top of 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.120 a hill was was a clinic. It was really just 0:10:56.200 --> 0:11:00.360 an outpatient clinic. And those clinics looked the same all 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.520 over the countryside. They were the same design, basically an 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:08.760 open room with beds along the perimeter, you know, beds 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.960 looking at other beds, a central hallway down the middle. 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.720 And even though that room might have been designed to 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:20.080 hold let's say twenty six beds or patients in beds, 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.960 what you saw and you walked into them were two 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.480 patients to a bed, sometimes a patient under the bed, 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.920 not twenty six beds, but fifty beds, all filling the 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:36.480 entire room and the hallway. You saw an overcrowded environment, 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:40.120 which was increasingly dangerous, especially if you have something like 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:44.160 an airborne disease like tuberculosis. So there was a design 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:49.720 flaw in that, which was how do we keep these 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:54.160 rooms from being overfilled? Can we change the orientation of 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.400 the beds, can we give the patients a different experience, 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:01.880 and tried to protect against over crowding or overfilling. So 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:06.040 one of the designs of the wards came from some 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.920 studies that we looked at that showed that patients got 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.000 healthier if they had a view of the outdoors. It 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:16.400 took less pain medication, they recovered more quickly if they 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:17.800 just had a view of a window, and kind of 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.920 incredible study from the early eighties UM and then also 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:25.800 research into the work of Florence Nightingale and others who 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:30.280 thought about the war design. It's something to make sure 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:35.600 that it wasn't overfilled and could be appropriate place for 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:37.480 for the medical staff to make sure that they're seeing 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:39.920 all the patients at once and can protect them. So 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:42.960 we can we change the orientation of the bed around 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.560 a central wall that was sort of half height. Each 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.440 of the beds looks out, so instead of a central hallway, 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.720 there's two halways on the on the edge between the 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.880 window and the bedfoot, and that allowed us to kind 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.240 of have a slightly more rigid floor plans. You couldn't 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.920 fill more beds into the to the ward and try 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:06.000 to protect against overcrowding. His subtle adjustments like that help 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.439 the care program, help the nurses and staff for saying, hey, 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.720 this is now an overcrowding problem. We need to create 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:15.880 a new award or have a temporary ward, or we 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:18.760 need to use other spaces and never to over fill 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.960 it in and you know, and trigger this other injury 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:27.440 you infectious disease transmission. Um to at second point, we 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:32.840 started to study how disease was transmitted in the airborne route, 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.800 and we found from the w h O that twelve 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.760 what's called twelve air changes prour, which means the volume 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:44.000 of the air in the room is transferred every hour, 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:46.520 and if you do it twelve times, it's enough air 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:52.880 movement to basically reduce infectious disease transmission. And you can 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:56.720 do that if you have enough open windows, enough air movement, 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:58.880 if you have a big enough room that has air 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.079 moving in the kind of upper story. So we implemented 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.160 that there on that hilltop, and um I think really 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:08.480 learned about how the building is like a living thing. 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.480 You know, it's not this fixed object, it's this it's 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:16.240 a performative living part of the care program, of the 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.959 healthcare delivery program. And if we treated it like that, 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:20.960 if we paid for it that way, if we designed 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.920 it that way as a system, we might actually have 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:29.520 better performing infrastructure serving more people around the world. Your 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.840 new book, The Architecture of Health talks about all this, 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.600 and I found it fascinating. It's it's not just a 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.520 book for other architects and designers. It's a it's a 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:45.680 book that we'll tell us how in an increasingly crowded 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:50.240 world we can navigate both peril and promise. Tell us 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:52.360 a little about how you came to write this book. 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:54.720 We were working with doctors, so they were telling us, 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:58.480 you know, proved to me, proved to me that these 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:01.040 designs are going to improve the health of our patients, 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:05.520 show us through evidence. We had to look at a 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:10.479 time when buildings were designed around their climate and their microclimate. 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:15.160 They were designed specifically around um, the places they were in, 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.240 the environments they were in, the cities they were in. 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:19.840 And that was of course the case of all buildings 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:25.880 until the introduction of widespread mechanical ventilation or the control 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.000 of indoor air environments through a heating, ventilating and cooling 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:31.960 systems in the mid century, in the in the nineteen fifties, 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.040 in sixties. So every building before then has a sort 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:39.320 of inherent intelligence. Not every building, but a lot of 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.800 buildings have an inherent intelligence that they were designed around 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.600 their climate. You go to New Orleans, you know, you 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:49.600 look at the buildings from the nineteenth century or mid 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:53.960 nineteent century. They've really tall ceilings and really tall windows, 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.440 triple pane windows, and they have these big tall ceilings 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.200 because air is hot and humid, and you've got to 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:00.960 get the air into the room. You've got to bring 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:02.440 it up into the top of the room, you gotta 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.520 ventilated with a fan, and you've got to keep people cool. 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:07.960 You go to the Northeast in the United States where 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:12.359 I'm from, Upstate New York, the buildings have really small ceilings, 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:17.760 the old Hugueno stone buildings and outside of New York 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.840 City up north and Hudson Valley from the seventeenth century, 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.600 you know, the stone buildings with really small, big chimneys 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:26.920 and short ceilings because they had to keep them hot 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:31.120 and warm in the cold climate. You know, buildings design 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.320 can tell you about the climate. That all changes in 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:38.200 the mid century when you know, technological advances allow us 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.120 to be able to control indoor air climates in a 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:45.000 much more comprehensive and a much more sophisticated way. But 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.120 it also has a sort of devil's bargain. And now 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:53.360 that we are required to have mechanically ventilated spaces everywhere 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:58.960 we go, um, it's increasing carbon offsets into the climate itself. 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:03.760 It's uh making us more and more reliant on buildings 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.040 that are mechanically run, and it loses some of the 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.080 inherent intelligence of building themselves. So we learned that on 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:12.480 that hilltop because we didn't have the money to pay 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.600 for a big mechanical system, and we had to look 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.879 backwards and design something that was naturally ventilated. So this 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:24.720 book is that journey. It's looking backwards to see where 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:30.240 were the design examples that really showed how buildings are 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.280 directly addressing our health And turns out so many of 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:37.080 them are hospitals because that the hospitals are designed with 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.840 that healthcare outcome in mind. So they give us a 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.200 kind of roadmap, you know, roadmap for how we might 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:46.720 emerge out of this pandemic and think again, Um, we 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:49.639 think differently about how we might design the buildings around 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:52.200 us to serve us better. Yeah. I think that's so 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:56.840 interesting that because of the financial constraints, we might actually 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.920 wind up designing healthier buildings. One of the lessons Paul 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.680 always taught us as a resource limitation creates incredible resourcefulness, 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:07.960 you know. And in that condition where we didn't have 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:11.560 access to massive supply chains, you know, Rwanda is still 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.840 rebuilding from the genocide. UM, we had to make do 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:20.000 with what was available locally, which you know, forced us 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.680 to think or or search out for examples which um 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:28.240 have universal applicability, which is what which drove us to 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:30.520 look at people like Florence Night and Gale and her 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.720 work in the eighteen fifties, Look at Albert Alto in 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.840 Finland in the thirties, look at the incredible work of 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.280 hospible designers for less century and what they were trying 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.560 to solve for. And so this book is that kind 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.720 of uh, you know, we're using use it as a 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.800 my own research project, but also a sort of defense 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:55.560 in some way of why why architecture matters so much 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.160 to our own ability to live, you know, a healthy life, 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.480 keep us protected. So yeah, we're excited about the book. Also, 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:05.879 we have a show at the Cooper Hewitt which I'm 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:08.960 ball plug now, but the Cookie Hero Design Museum, which 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:12.560 is related to the show, which is how design and 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:17.080 designers have responded to epidemics historically and to this epidemic 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:19.520 that we're in the middle of. Our world is defined 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:21.520 by it in many ways. You know, I think you're 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:26.080 a fan of incredible book Ghost Maps, which Dave Johnson's 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:30.000 book Ghost Map, incredible book, Steve Johnson's book. Yeah, and 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:34.880 you know the story of John Snow's map of Soho, 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.199 his cholera map of Soho in the eighteen fifties. And 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:42.080 for the listeners, it's a there's eight fifty John Snows, 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:46.960 he's a scientist before really epidemiology emerges. He takes out 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:48.760 a map of the Soho district where there was an 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:53.240 outbreak cholera. He makes a tick mark at every household 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:56.439 where there's a case, and he sees that there's a 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:01.560 concentration of cases around this one part of the street. Um, 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:03.639 it goes and looks at that part of the street 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:07.680 and there's a water pump. It takes up the manhole 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.080 cover and sees that there's a waste of human you know, 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:14.400 like a sewage pipe broken and putting basically sewage into 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:18.840 the water source famously or you know, So the story goes, 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:21.639 takes off the handle of the water pump and the 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:27.760 epidemic subsides, and hence cholera is not, let's say, morally born, 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:29.639 but as water born. I think is one of the 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.679 great statements in the book that the whole way in 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:39.159 which we thought about the solution for solving this scourge 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:45.199 cholera was transforming cities across the world for and huge 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.080 pandemics from the beginning part of the nineteenth century into 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.479 the mid part of the nineteenth century and threw up 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:53.879 into the end of the nineteenth century, just completely ravaging 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:59.160 cities and countries around the world. And this changed everything, 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:03.840 and interestingly enough, an incredible movement of design emerged called 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:10.000 the sanitation Era, where people's governments and city plants started 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.560 to plan their cities around health outcomes, about separating waste 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:17.439 and water, about getting air movement into streets and buildings. 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:21.440 Central Park and Frederick law Olmstead is a big part 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:23.959 of that movement. Many of our cities in America are 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:26.560 driven by those ideals, and they really in a lot 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.000 of ways, began with John Snow's map, which was this 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:35.720 perfect intersection of epidemiology, visualization, visualization tools, and design all together. 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:41.399 To a large degree, tuberculosis and cholera were solved diseases. 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.399 At the end of the nineteenth century, you know, we 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:48.280 had figured out a way to design our buildings, design 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:50.280 our cities to address it. And that's not doesn't mean 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.320 that it was gone. It was still endemic in certain areas, 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:55.680 but we knew how to solve for it and could 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.320 implement it with enough resources. But that starts to change, 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:02.679 and increasingly more and more places start to see cholera. 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.560 More and more cities are emerging in unique ways, like 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:10.239 you're mentioning, Mr President, which the cities were designed for 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:11.800 quarter Prints, I think it is designed for about four 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:14.040 dred thousand people and has you know, three or four 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:19.119 million in it, So the density, um, it's just completely overwhelming. 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:21.800 The systems that they have to separate waste and water 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:25.600 very specifically, and old Port of Prints does have a 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:30.760 wastewater treatment system, has piped waste in water underneath certain 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:36.560 streets in the kind of gritted historic city. But it's 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:40.399 the new parts of the city, the neighborhoods that have 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:44.239 emerged on very very steep inclines of hills, or this 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:48.080 neighborhood called City of God, which was built on the 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:53.600 runoff of the big the big drains that were coming 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.760 down from the mountains and bringing kind of runoff like 0:22:56.880 --> 0:23:00.600 loose ground into the water's edge, kind of extend the beach. 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:06.159 Seventy people live in this largely informal part of the 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:09.720 city which has no piped waste and water infrastructure, so 0:23:09.800 --> 0:23:12.000 it is a perfect breeding ground for something like cholera 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:16.439 to take hold and create the kind of epidemic that 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:22.560 we saw. So you know, when the design UH request 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:24.720 was put out there, we had to ask ourselves, Okay, 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:29.199 how does the building address that systemic problem? And the 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:31.800 most simple answer as well, if people with cholera are 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:35.080 coming to this place, how do we create a building 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:40.199 that separates that waste and doesn't recontaminate the ground soil 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:43.720 into the city itself and actually collects it, decontaminates it 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:46.919 on site and shows as an example how a building 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:49.639 can actually cleanse the water it's collected and cleanse the 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:52.000 waste it's collected. One of the things you did was 0:23:52.040 --> 0:23:56.640 put the water treatment above the ground and then put 0:23:56.640 --> 0:23:59.640 a grass cover on it. Correct and you actually might 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:03.800 have like a stylished part of a new sort of design. 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:06.159 Talk about that a little bit, because that was the 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:10.719 key to to making the place safe. How did you 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:13.359 do that? Yeah, well, I mean I think understanding the 0:24:13.400 --> 0:24:15.520 problem was the first one. You know, what's not just 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:20.400 the issue of contaminated water, but what are the kind 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:23.840 of social conditions of the disease. Dr Bill Pop was 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:27.400 bringing patients. Here was a concentration of of sick patients, 0:24:27.480 --> 0:24:29.760 and we knew that we would have a lot of 0:24:30.160 --> 0:24:33.159 contaminated waste we'd have to deal with so big. The 0:24:33.200 --> 0:24:36.080 way to deal with that is to actually use one 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:38.240 of the lawns or in that case was a parking 0:24:38.280 --> 0:24:40.959 lot and turn it into a grass field that's lifted up, 0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:44.760 which has the um. The waste that's collected goes through 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:47.440 a series of chambers. Each chamber cleans it a little 0:24:47.440 --> 0:24:52.560 bit more. Nine chambers and what's called anaerobic biodigester, that's 0:24:52.600 --> 0:24:56.160 the technical term. And then it uh you know, puts 0:24:56.160 --> 0:24:58.720 the water that that waste water back into the ground. 0:24:58.920 --> 0:25:02.280 So distributes back into the ground and if it's decontaminated 0:25:02.320 --> 0:25:06.359 at the ninth chamber, that water is totally clean and 0:25:06.440 --> 0:25:10.159 able to be put back into the groundwater. That's the 0:25:10.200 --> 0:25:12.520 way in which your septic system works, of course in 0:25:12.600 --> 0:25:14.800