It is possible to improve life in a city.
A lot of people, I think, don´t believe that.
During my life I have met many mayors and governors, that always say:
"Well, my city is very big, it is not possible, in my city we don´t have the resourses"
I tell them: Let´s see that. After working in cities for almost 40 years
I think that a city can improve deeply the quality of it´s life, in less than three years.
Yes, it can!
But, it is needed, of course, political support, solidarity, estrategy.
But, most important: find a good equation of co-responsability.
I would like to start with some characters from a book I wrote
twenty years ago, trying to teach to the children the city, also to teenagers and people of all ages.
The best example of quality of life, from my point of view, it is the turtle.
Because the turtle it is to live, work and transport, together.
Also, the carapace of the turtle has the design of a city.
What can happen if we cut the turtle´s carapace?
Live here, work there, entertainment there. The turtle will die.
That is exactly what we are doing to our cities.
Live here, work, ghetos of rich people, ghetos of very poor people. We are killing our cities.
And, the city is a living organism. The more mixed the income, ages, functions are, the more human the city is.
Another character in this book is Otto, the car.
He is a very selfish guy, that won´t like to go when the party comes.
He drinks and coughs a lot. He is so selfish because he transports only one, two or three people.
Lately, I say that the car is like our mechanic mother in law.
We should have good relationship with our mothers in law, but we shouldn´t let them command our lives.
Using other expression, if the only woman in your life it is your mother in law, you have a problem.
In my opinion, the most solidary guy is the bandoneon. He is a friendly bus that transports three hundred people.
Swedish rules would say two hundred people, of swidish people, which means three hundred brazilians.
Each city has it´s design. Lineal, radial. Curitiva, Río, Oaxaca, San Francisco in California.
And the city is a structure of life and work, together.
Every time that we separate life from work, it occurs a disaster. That not only applies for cities, but also to a state, to a country.
Deal with economy without the people, it is a disaster.
Here it is the structure of life and work in Curitiva. I will show fastly.
It is a structure of life, work and transport, all together.
And here, there is more density, with more supply of public transport, with buses going in exclusive lanes, you know that.
There are three issues that are very important in every city of the world.
Education, health, security, child attention.
But, there are three points that are becoming key, not only to our cities but to the whole man kind.
One problem is the movility, the other is sustainability, and the last is the social diversity.
We can deal with the movility. Sometimes, people expects a system that is too expensive. A lot it is expected.
And we started in a very simpe way, with buses going in exclusive lanes.
We started with 25.000 passengers a day. Today the system transports 2.300.000 passengers a day.
It is equal to the number of passengers of the metro in Sao Paulo. And more than the metro of Rio together with the train of suburbs.
But, what is it? It is a little pipe that transforms the bus into a metro. That gives to the bus the same performance than the metro.
You pay before getting into the bus in the ground level. And you don´t wait more than a minute for the bus.
Like that, made of glass, it is how it operates in my city. Few metros around the world can give the service of movility to handicapped people.
Although I am against that the future is in the surface, this shows that the future is in using all the systems.
With an intelligent metro, an intelligent bus, an intelligent taxi, an intelligent bicycle and an intelligent car.
The secret in movility it is to never dispute the same space. It means, to be complementary.
Here, the french transformed the bicicle into a public transport
Here, this is the smallest car in the world. I am designing it now. We are in the fourth prototipe.
I am not a car designer, but it has the concept of a car that doesn´t have any owner. It is a docking car, it is dock dock.
It has one fourth of the Smart´s size, and I can fit inside.
It is dock dock, it is docking. And here it is how it works. Dock.. dock.. dock.
This is the system that we are designing for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. And here it is the integration of the bus with the metro.
The system is the same, only the vehicle changes.
You can imagine it with the glass in the landscape of Rio de Janeiro.
Well, the other topic is: Is it possible to have a city without the periphery? Yes, it is possible.
This is the study we made for the future of Sao Paulo, where we took the outline of the train
And designed on top of the outline, to connect all the different kinds of income.
The resulting area equals two times the Central Park in New York.
And the people can connect in bicycle, go walking all over the city.
And all the people has access to the public transport, because the suburb train is bellow. We can connect all kinds of housing.
What is a sustainable city? I have been in many conferences and meetings. A lot of people think: "sustainability is about new materials". Which is very important.
"It is new sourses of energy", very important. "It is recycle". "It is green buildings".
All of that it is very important. But, we have to think in the most important: 75% of carbon emitions are generated in the cities.
It is in the city where we can be more effective. And how? Using less the car, separating the garbage and living more close to the office.
Recently, we have just finished a movie that teaches the children how to turn the city more sustainable.
Here, you can see how it was changed from half square metre to fifty square metres for each citizen, in Curitiva.
See how the quarries were turned into sceneries. The university, the environment, the botanic garden.
Here there was a quarry, which in two months was transformed into a theatre.
We have to be fast, and there are many reasons to be so.
One, to avoid our self bureaucracy. Two, once the political decision was taken, we have to start.
Third, we sometimes have a good idea and we think: "This is not possible, is just my idea, this might be not possible"
We have to start, because to innovate it is to start
We can write an essay about how to swim. "Move the arms at the same time.."
But the moment you dive into the water: "Oh, it was so easy"
I remember, when I saw young, I read essays about sex, and then I realised that I only needed to start. It is not so hard.
Here, you can see some quarries that were transformed. Here, the change about the garbage. And we started all the campaigns from the children.
It is very important. During six months we taught children. And the children taught to their parents.
Today, 70% of the people in Curitiva separates the garbage at their home.
Identity, and how we can tansform. How it is done such a quick change. Creating places that respect our identity.
The ucranian park, the polish park, the japanese park, the german park.
Then the USSR collapsed, and people came here from Tayikistán, Kazajistán, Uzbekiztán, Turkmenistán, so we had to close this program.
I want to tell you the importance to understand that a city can change inmediately.
It is what I call acupuncture. It means that new energy can be created with some focal actions, and it can bring new energy to the city.
Here we can see some examples of magnificent acupunctures, simple ones. The small park in New York, 13x32 metres, the most beautiful.
The museum of Oscar Niemeyer in Curitiva. Here, we can see the Pavilion of the Bosa Nova in Rio de Janeiro.
The museaum of the Movility. The museum of the Sustainability. And here, a acupuncture that we proposed to the city of Buenos Aires, to renew La Bombonera Stadium.
It was Macri the president (of Boca Juniors Club), later he had take over as mayor of the city. And the new president didn´t approve the project.
In my opinion it was good and kept the Stadium´s spirit. Sao Paulo and the portable streets. How to bring some life.
How to plan the urban agglomerate in Brazilia. And to bring life to the decadent places.
And here, we created in a very simple way, with some bambu bouquet, a park with shadow.
It is not necessary to spend as much as the did in Valencia, which is wonderful, but really expensive.
And here, some acupunctures we are making all around the world. How to save a river in the Dominican Republic.
How to occupy an island in Mazatlán, Mexico. And how to improve the shape of a landscape.
Here, you can see the portable street that we are developing. And the turtle man, which is me, and takes his home in the back.
To finish, I will invite you to sing with me the tango of the sustainability.
You make the rhythm, because you are the ones that know about it (tango).
Bandoneon, bandoneon, bandoneon, bandoneon.
Use less the car, follow always the Bandoneon.
Bandoneon, Bandoneon, Bandoneon
Separate the garbage in your house.
Bandoneon, Bandoneon. Live close to your office, follow always this script.
If we can, great! Thanks!