SciShow
How Tall Can Skyscrapers Get?
Get an engineeer's-eye-view of the tallest buildings in the world, to learn what challenges they face as they reach for the sky and wonder, how tall can we build?
TED Talks
TED: The architectural mastermind behind modern Singapore | Liu Thai Ker
Cities designed like families can last for generations. Skeptical? Look to master architect Liu Thai Ker, who transformed Singapore into a modern marvel with his unique approach to sustainable urban design. Liu shares creative wisdom and...
TED Talks
A stealthy reimagining of urban public space | Elizabeth Diller
Cities are becoming increasingly privatized: commercial real estate dominates the streets, carving up open space that once belonged to the public and selling it as a commodity to the highest bidder. Architect Elizabeth Diller explores...
TED Talks
Neri Oxman: Design at the intersection of technology and biology
Designer and architect Neri Oxman is leading the search for ways in which digital fabrication technologies can interact with the biological world. Working at the intersection of computational design, additive manufacturing, materials...
TED Talks
Kotchakorn Voraakhom: How to transform sinking cities into landscapes that fight floods
From London to Tokyo, climate change is causing cities to sink -- and our modern concrete infrastructure is making us even more vulnerable to severe flooding, says landscape architect and TED Fellow Kotchakorn Voraakhom. But what if we...
TED Talks
TED: How to revive a neighborhood: with imagination, beauty and art - Theaster Gates
* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. Theaster Gates, a potter by training and a social activist by calling, wanted to do something about the sorry state...
TED Talks
Ross Lovegrove: Organic design, inspired by nature
Designer Ross Lovegrove expounds his philosophy of "fat-free" design and offers insight into several of his extraordinary products, including the Ty Nant water bottle and the Go chair.
TED Talks
TED: An architect's subversive reimagining of the US-Mexico border wall | Ronald Rael
* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. What is a border? It's a line on a map, a place where cultures mix and merge in beautiful, sometimes violent and...
TED Talks
Rachel Armstrong: Architecture that repairs itself?
Venice is sinking. To save it, Rachel Armstrong says we need to outgrow architecture made of inert materials and, well, make architecture that grows itself. She proposes a not-quite-alive material that does its own repairs and sequesters...
TED Talks
Brandon Clifford: Architectural secrets of the world's ancient wonders
How did ancient civilizations move massive stones to build Stonehenge, the Pyramids and the Easter Island statues? In this quick, delightful talk, TED Fellow Brandon Clifford reveals some architectural secrets of the past and shows how...
TED Talks
Jessica Green: We're covered in germs. Let's design for that.
Our bodies and homes are covered in microbes -- some good for us, some bad for us. As we learn more about the germs and microbes who share our living spaces, TED Fellow Jessica Green asks: Can we design buildings that encourage happy,...
TED Talks
TED: How to build for human life on Mars | Melodie Yashar
We're going to be building on the Moon this decade -- and next will be Mars, says space architect Melodie Yashar. In a visionary talk, she introduces her work designing off-world shelters with autonomous robots and 3D printers and...
TED Talks
TED: Bridges should be beautiful | Ian Firth
Bridges need to be functional, safe and durable, but they should also be elegant and beautiful, says structural engineer Ian Firth. In this mesmerizing tour of bridges old and new, Firth explores the potential for innovation and variety...
TED Talks
Angelo Vermeulen: How to go to space, without having to go to space
"We will start inhabiting outer space," says Angelo Vermeulen, crew commander of a NASA-funded Mars simulation. "It might take 50 years or it might take 500 years, but it's going to happen." In this charming talk, the TED Senior Fellow...
TED Talks
Thomas Heatherwick: Building the Seed Cathedral
A future more beautiful? Architect Thomas Heatherwick shows five recent projects featuring ingenious bio-inspired designs. Some are remakes of the ordinary: a bus, a bridge, a power station ... And one is an extraordinary pavilion, the...
TED Talks
TED: 7 principles for building better cities | Peter Calthorpe
More than half of the world's population already lives in cities, and another 2.5 billion people are projected to move to urban areas by 2050. The way we build new cities will be at the heart of so much that matters, from climate change...
TED Talks
Débora Mesa Molina: Stunning buildings made from raw, imperfect materials
What would it take to reimagine the limits of architecture? Débora Mesa Molina offers some answers in this breathtaking, visual tour of her work, showing how structures can be made with overlooked materials and unconventional methods --...
TED Talks
Xavier Vilalta: Architecture at home in its community
When TED Fellow Xavier Vilalta was commissioned to create a multistory shopping mall in Addis Ababa, he panicked. Other centers represented everything he hated about contemporary architecture: wasteful, glass towers requiring tons of...
TED Talks
Mina Bissell: Experiments that point to a new understanding of cancer
For decades, researcher Mina Bissell pursued a revolutionary idea -- that a cancer cell doesn't automatically become a tumor, but rather, depends on surrounding cells (its microenvironment) for cues on how to develop. She shares the two...
TED Talks
Alex Steffen: The shareable future of cities
How can cities help save the future? Alex Steffen shows some cool neighborhood-based green projects that expand our access to things we want and need -- while reducing the time we spend in cars.
TED Talks
Liz Diller: A new museum wing ... in a giant bubble
How do you make a great public space inside a not-so-great building? Liz Diller shares the story of imagining a welcoming, lighthearted -- even, dare we say it, sexy -- addition to the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. (From The Design...
TED Talks
Peter Haas: When bad engineering makes a natural disaster even worse
What did the world learn from the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010? That shoddy buildings and bad planning can make a terrible situation even worse. "Haiti was not a natural disaster," says TED Fellow Peter Haas. "It was...
TED Talks
TED: How Syria's architecture laid the foundation for brutal war | Marwa Al-Sabouni
What caused the war in Syria? Oppression, drought and religious differences all played key roles, but Marwa Al-Sabouni suggests another reason: architecture. Speaking to us over the Internet from Homs, where for the last six years she...
TED Talks
TED: New ways to understand life in a pandemic | Aaron Maniam
Poet and policymaker Aaron Maniam describes how the language we use to explain COVID-19 shapes the way we think about it -- whether it's as a "war," a "journey" or, as he suggests, an "ecology." He encourages us to explore a range of...