TED Talks Daily - How buildings can improve life — inside and out | Doris Sung

Episode Date: July 27, 2024

Architect and building tech innovator Doris Sung presents a compelling vision for reimagining building facades as active contributors to urban life and public health. Showcasing innovative technologies — like buildings that filter particulates out of the air and facades that react to heat — Sung demonstrates how modern architecture can evolve beyond aesthetics to address critical issues like pollution, energy efficiency and urban heat islands, offering a glimpse into a future where architecture improves life for inhabitants and pedestrians alike.

TED Audio Collective. You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Dora Sung says buildings can do more than benefit the people on the inside. In her 2024 talk, the architect points out how the public-facing outsides of buildings could actually do public good. The way facades could reduce air and noise pollution and more are coming up after the break.

Support for this show comes from Airbnb. If you know me, you know I love staying in Airbnbs when I travel. They make my family feel most at home when we're away from home. If you know me, you know I love staying in Airbnbs when I travel. They make my family feel most at home when we're away from home. As we settled down at our Airbnb during a recent vacation to Palm Springs, I pictured my own home sitting empty. Wouldn't it be smart and better put to use welcoming a family like mine by hosting it on Airbnb? It feels like the practical thing to do, and with the extra income, I could save up for renovations to make the space even more inviting for ourselves and for future guests. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host.

AI keeping you up at night? Wondering what it means for your business? Don't miss the latest season of Disruptors, the podcast that takes a closer look at the innovations reshaping our economy. Join RBC's John Stackhouse and Sonia Sinek from Creative Destruction Lab as they ask bold questions like, why is Canada lagging in AI adoption and how to catch up? Don't get left behind. Listen to Disruptors, the innovation era, and stay ahead of the game in this fast-changing world. Follow Disruptors on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. And now, our TED Talk of the day.

So, have you ever walked in front of a glass facade and see yourself in the reflection and try to check yourself out? Oh, wait, wait, I forgot. The glass facade is there not for you, but it's for the people on the inside to get a great view out, and they're probably looking at you picking the spinach from your teeth. Have you ever walked in a city,

come upon a very large commercial building, and in the very hot heat of the summer, the doors fly open, you feel that air conditioning air come out and blast you, and you just sit there and wallow in that cool air. Oh, wait, I forgot. That cool air is for the people on the inside. It's a private building. They won't even let you in to use the bathroom.

Have you ever wondered why cities get hotter and hotter every year? Oh, wait, I forgot. In order to cool these buildings, the air conditioning systems have to give off air and emit it to the atmosphere, making it hotter and hotter every year, contributing to the heat island effect. So I'm an architect, a building tech innovator, and a 10,000-step-a-day pedestrian, contributing to the heat island effect. So I'm an architect, a building tech innovator

and a 10,000-step-a-day pedestrian, and I want to talk about how buildings can not only benefit the people on the inside, but they can actually improve life for those on the outside. So if you go back into history, things were different, right? In the cave, humans had to only worry about the interior. The outside facade was designed by nature. Once leaving the cave, humans then started to stack rocks to make shelter,

and in doing so, inadvertently made some of the earliest facades. From there, culture refined, building construction techniques refined, they discovered that the outside facade that's very public facing can actually tell stories and narratives. It could be used for public service. So they can tell stories about the family, the histories, the conquest, the wealth, the status, all these types of things appeared on facades, and facades became a thing. So fast forward, we have new technologies, new materials. We're able to thin out the building so it's transparent, the facade itself.

But the problem is glass is a very poor insulator, and that glass then can let the heat in, the cool in, and we had to develop big air conditioning systems, heating systems to make the interiors even tolerable to stay in. And more recently, we want to keep that transparency. We want the glass, the view, but in order to do that and make the systems efficient, we had to expand that facade system again.

So it's highly engineered now to keep out the heat, the cold, the moisture and glare. So all these systems, in order to make it happen, even have four panes of glass to do it. It's comfortable, it works, but what do we do next? So I would like to propose that that thickness of the facade still be used to make people on the inside comfortable. But can we think about the outside portion of the facade benefiting people on the outside?

Can we actually think about those thousands of square feet of surface area? No, millions of square feet of surface area inside the city and use it for the public? Can we use it for infrastructure and for public good? So I'm going to show you a few technologies of other people that do that. We can make habitats for animals. Ecosystems like these for bees, birds, bats, all kinds of animals are even important to cities. This is a habitat for microorganisms. They're invisible, but they're essential to our livelihood, just like the microbiomes inside your gut.

Think about the probiotic and qualities of it. The same thing has to happen to cities. Water is an important resource. And so in this system, it not only collects water, but it also can purify it as well as store it in a hyper-localized way, so that places where water security is an issue starts to eliminate and reduce.

Think about areas that have drought. And we can also modulate the surfaces, perforate the different types of materials in order to reduce the amount of noise pollution in streets. So think about garbage trucks, sirens, honking hordes, that type of stuff can actually diminish with new technologies. And now back to the episode. In my own work, I look at architecture as something that can contribute positively to sustainability, to equity, and to wellness.

I'm going to show you two technologies at different levels of development that I use and apply to public health issues. So the first one is a smog-eating panel for architecture. And in this case, it actually starts to filter particulate matter and noxious waste in cities in urban canyon areas. So an urban canyon is when a street is lined by two very tall buildings on both sides, right, forming a canyon-like scenario. And what happens is in these areas, the air movement is very predictable. It comes from prevailing winds, from thermal convection, from the movement of vehicles in there, and it moves in a circular pattern

where it makes it very difficult for the heavy particulate matter to escape. So therefore, it just keeps going through and accumulates in the bottom over time more and more. So what we're trying to do is modulate the surface so that the surface can allow those prevailing winds to flow into these tubes to filter that smog and move out as fresh air. We pack the tubes together so that we can maximize the efficacy of it as well as minimize the material it takes to make it. And we put them in such position of where that wind flow is actually going,

and so that it would have an easy time going into the tubes, cleaning the air, and coming out as fresh air. We also use a thermal convection model, where in the case the pavement is heating the air, that hot air wants to rise up the face of the building. They can go into these tubes also to filter and then send out fresh air. So it's done in a very passive way.

And not only do we try to apply this to building facades so that the facades are doing the cleaning, we want to actually design these bus shelters that can use this kind of technology, bringing the freshest pockets of air to the people who spend the most amount of time on the streets breathing the worst air. Another technology that I'm working on is a self-shading window system.

Basically, what it does is it shades the interior automatically so that you can use less energy on air conditioning. The idea came from using these thermal bimetal material, which is a material that curls when heated, and we make these very low-tech robots that we do for fun in our office. So from there, the idea was that we use this thermal bimetal on the facade of a building so that it actually can react to the outdoor environment. And through the course of a day, through the course of a year, as the temperature changes all the time, the building would also change to follow that. And if we can animate a building, then possibly we can get people

to also feel more connected to the building like their pets. And if we do that, we can make people smile more, they can cherish their buildings, and they could even feel protective of their cities. So therefore, the happiness level of the city can go up, as well as mental health. So we embrace this idea of putting bimetal in the facade, and we allow these little critters, again like butterflies, to flutter around and flip. So when the heat comes in,

these pieces will flip over and respond to any changes outside. What happens, too, is when they flip, you can still see pretty well through the system. It doesn't block your view so that it turns like into a blackout situation. And then when the sun goes away, they go back to their original position. So, you know, what happens, too, is because it's a pixelated system, we can put graphics on it. It opens and closes whenever it wants to, so that you can start to see the graphics. The result is it's awe-inspiring, it's biophilic, and it's magical.

And I'm happy to say that it's also safe for people who are not used to seeing the images. inspiring, it's biophilic, and it's magical. And I'm happy to say that it's also safe for birds, right? Birds on the outside. So it's actually a great thing. We're hoping to put this technology onto buildings as soon as the end of this year. So stay tuned for that. So how can we get a lot of these cool technologies on buildings? This is the big question. I have three suggestions. The first one is change policy. Can we require owners and contractors and real estate developers to spend a percentage of their construction cost on public-centric technologies for facades. Can we do that? Two, think entrepreneurially. Can owners actually rent, lease, sell this facade to others for infrastructure?

Can it be to agriculture? Can it be to even not-for-profit situations? Can it be for utility companies? There's a lot of possibilities that can happen. And three, advocate for change. Renters inside the buildings must start to demand that their building facades are much more magnanimous, because think about it.

Everybody in these buildings must come out to the streets too, and together we can actually enjoy the improvements to our society and public health. So next time you go out into a city and you're walking around, look carefully at the buildings. They don't have to be just a pretty face. They can serve a bigger purpose. Thank you. Support for this show comes from Airbnb. If you know me, you know I love staying in Airbnbs when I travel. They make my family feel most at home when we're away from home. As we settled down at our Airbnb during a recent vacation to Palm Springs, I pictured my

own home sitting empty. Wouldn't it be smart and better put to use welcoming a family like mine by hosting it on Airbnb? It feels like the practical thing to do, and with the extra income, I could save up for renovations to make the space even more inviting for ourselves and for future guests. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host.

That was Dora's song at the TED Salon Big Bets event in 2024, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Autumn Thompson, and Alejandra Salazar.

It was mixed by Christopher Faisy-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner, Daniela Balarezo, and Will Hennessey. I'm Elise Hugh. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening. Looking for a fun challenge to share with your friends and family? Ted now has games designed to keep your mind sharp while having fun. Visit ted.com slash games to explore the joy and wonder

of TED Games.