A diverse society in the city
The way cities are used today is very different from the past; they are no longer organized in the same way by one single type of inhabitant. Cities today have a wide diversity of ethnic experiences and influences, as well as a different agenda for living. It is very interesting to examine how people encounter each other nowadays; the established hierarchy in the way people use these spaces has been superseded. As architects, we have worked hard to liberate the city, to open it up, to make it more porous, more accessible; creating public spaces that everybody from the city’s diverse cultural communities can use as their own.
All cities need to have a cultural component; it’s important to have different civic programs, to create spaces where people can meet and connect. I believe cities must invest in these public spaces, and that cultural programs are particularly important: gardens, art institutions, sports facilities contribute to creating an urban life and a cityscape. Of course we need housing, schools, offices and retail buildings as well. Therefore, hybridization (multi-use) is the means for a major shift away from zoning –you live here, work there and play somewhere else. Civic spaces and cultural programs help to tie all these uses together. An opera house, an arts centre, a swimming pool, a museum, a dance school: they activate the street level, and by the nature of their cultural and civic importance, they are accessible to everybody –which eliminates the segregation found in the single-use urban development of previous centuries.
I feel architecture is a vehicle that can address some of today’s major social issues. Contemporary society is not standing still –and buildings must evolve with these new patterns of life. The greater level of social complexity of our generation should be reflected in its architecture. By collaborating with engineers, working with new materials and investigating better ways in which people can use a building, we are able to address very important issues in a meaningful way that contributes to a more ecologically sustainable society.