Ted Talk

Alastair Parvin recently did a TED Talk called Architecture for the people by the people. He starts of saying that “Almost everything we call architecture today is actually the business of designing for the richest one percent of the worlds population.” He goes on to say “ The times in history when architecture did the most to transform society, were those times when actually the one percent would build on behalf of the 99 percent for various different reasons.” When I started to think about what he said I realized he was right. Average people can’t afford to build there own skyscraper. It is usually someone from the one percent for a corporation. His goal is to design projects for people that are not the one percent. He believes the 99 percent should be able to design architecture projects for themselves. Alastair goes further and talks about the idea where anyone can download creative common blueprints to anything and make it for themselves. His example was a CNC machine which cuts wood so you can build your own house with just two people. Alastair says its like a big Ikea kit and the house can be built in a day. My favorite quote from his talk is “Don’t reinvent the wheel every time. Take what already works, and adapt it for your own needs.” I feel like that can apply to anyone. This idea if it became popular would mean a new industrial revolution which would change the way we look at design.