TED Talks
Teddy Cruz: How architectural innovations migrate across borders
As the world's cities undergo explosive growth, inequality is intensifying. Wealthy neighborhoods and impoverished slums grow side by side, the gap between them widening. In this eye-opening talk, architect Teddy Cruz asks us to rethink...
TED Talks
Paul Pholeros: How to reduce poverty? Fix homes
In 1985, architect Paul Pholeros was challenged to "stop people getting sick" in a small indigenous community in south Australia. And it meant thinking way beyond medicine. In this sparky, interactive talk, Pholeros shares his work with...
TED Talks
TED: Buildings that blend nature and city | Jeanne Gang
A skyscraper that channels the breeze ... a building that creates community around a hearth ... Jeanne Gang uses architecture to build relationships. In this engaging tour of her work, Gang invites us into buildings large and small, from...
TED Talks
TED: 4 ways to make a city more walkable | Jeff Speck
Freedom from cars, freedom from sprawl, freedom to walk your city! City planner Jeff Speck shares his "general theory of walkability" -- four planning principles to transform sprawling cities of six-lane highways and 600-foot blocks into...
TED Talks
Michael Hansmeyer: Building unimaginable shapes
Inspired by cell division, Michael Hansmeyer writes algorithms that design outrageously fascinating shapes and forms with millions of facets. No person could draft them by hand, but they're buildable -- and they could revolutionize the...
TED Talks
Bran Ferren: To create for the ages, let's combine art and engineering
When Bran Ferren was just 9, his parents took him to see the Pantheon in Rome — and it changed everything. In that moment, he began to understand how the tools of science and engineering become more powerful when combined with art, with...
TED Talks
Takaharu Tezuka: The best kindergarten you’ve ever seen
At this school in Tokyo, five-year-olds cause traffic jams and windows are for Santa to climb into. Meet: the world's cutest kindergarten, designed by architect Takaharu Tezuka. In this charming talk, he walks us through a design process...
TED Talks
TED: A smog vacuum cleaner and other magical city designs | Daan Roosegaarde
Daan Roosegaarde uses technology and creative thinking to produce imaginative, earth-friendly designs. He presents his latest projects -- from a bike path in eindhoven, where he reinterpreted "The Starry Night" to get people thinking...
TED Talks
Frank Gehry: My days as a young rebel
Before he was a legend, architect Frank Gehry takes a whistlestop tour of his early work, from his house in Venice Beach to the American Center in Paris, which was under construction (and much on his mind) when he gave this talk.
TED Talks
TED: The warmth and wisdom of mud buildings | Anna Heringer
There are a lot of resources given by nature for free -- all we need is our sensitivity to see them and our creativity to use them, says architect Anna Heringer. Heringer uses low-tech materials like mud and bamboo to create structures...
TED Talks
Julian Treasure: Why architects need to use their ears
Because of poor acoustics, students in classrooms miss 50 percent of what their teachers say and patients in hospitals have trouble sleeping because they continually feel stressed. Julian Treasure sounds a call to action for designers to...
TED Talks
Liz Diller: The Blur Building and other tech-empowered architecture
In this engrossing EG talk, architect Liz Diller shares her firm DS+R's more unusual work, including the Blur Building, whose walls are made of fog, and the revamped Alice Tully Hall, which is wrapped in glowing wooden skin.
TED Talks
Magnus Larsson: Turning dunes into architecture
Architecture student Magnus Larsson details his bold plan to transform the harsh Sahara desert using bacteria and a surprising construction material: the sand itself.
TED Talks
Kent Larson: Brilliant designs to fit more people in every city
How can we fit more people into cities without overcrowding? Kent Larson shows off folding cars, quick-change apartments and other innovations that could make the city of the future work a lot like a small village of the past.
TED Talks
Thom Mayne: How architecture can connect us
Architect Thom Mayne has never been one to take the easy option, and this whistle-stop tour of the buildings he's created makes you glad for it. These are big ideas cast in material form.
TED Talks
Janette Sadik-Khan: New York's streets? Not so mean any more
In this funny and thought-provoking talk, Janette Sadik-Khan, transportation commissioner of New York City, shares projects that have reshaped street life in the 5 boroughs, including pedestrian zones in Times Square, high-performance...
TED Talks
Marc Kushner: Why the buildings of the future will be shaped by ... you
"Architecture is not about math or zoning -- it's about visceral emotions," says Marc Kushner. In a sweeping — often funny — talk, he zooms through the past thirty years of architecture to show how the public, once disconnected, have...
TED Talks
TED: When I die, recompose me | Katrina Spade
What if our bodies could help grow new life after we die, instead of being embalmed and buried or turned to ash? Join Katrina Spade as she discusses "recomposition" -- a system that uses the natural decomposition process to turn our...
TED Talks
Alastair Parvin: Architecture for the people by the people
Designer Alastair Parvin presents a simple but provocative idea: what if, instead of architects creating buildings for those who can afford to commission them, regular citizens could design and build their own houses? The concept is at...
TED Talks
Ron Eglash: The fractals at the heart of African designs
'I am a mathematician, and I would like to stand on your roof.' That is how Ron Eglash greeted many African families he met while researching the fractal patterns he'd noticed in villages across the continent.
TED Talks
Alejandro Aravena: My architectural philosophy? Bring the community into the process
When asked to build housing for 100 families in Chile ten years ago, Alejandro Aravena looked to an unusual inspiration: the wisdom of favelas and slums. Rather than building a large building with small units, he built flexible...
TED Talks
TED: Why glass towers are bad for city life -- and what we need instead | Justin Davidson
There's a creepy transformation taking over our cities, says architecture critic Justin Davidson. From Houston, Texas to Guangzhou, China, shiny towers of concrete and steel covered with glass are cropping up like an invasive species....
TED Talks
Daniel Libeskind: 17 words of architectural inspiration
Daniel Libeskind builds on very big ideas. Here, he shares 17 words that underlie his vision for architecture -- raw, risky, emotional, radical -- and that offer inspiration for any bold creative pursuit.
TED Talks
Bjarke Ingels: 3 warp-speed architecture tales
Danish architect Bjarke Ingels rockets through photo/video-mingled stories of his eco-flashy designs. His buildings not only look like nature -- they act like nature: blocking the wind, collecting solar energy -- and creating stunning...