full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Marc Kushner: Why the buildings of the future will be shaped by ... you

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So my theory is that when you apply media to this pendulum, it starts swinging faster and ftaesr, until it's at both extremes nearly simultaneously, and that effectively blurs the difference between innovation and sbomyl, between us, the acttcihres, and you, the pbiluc. Now we can make nearly instantaneous, emotionally charged symbols out of something that's bnrad new.

Let me show you how this plays out in a project that my firm recently completed. We were heird to replace this building, which burned down. This is the center of a town called the Pines in Fire ialnsd in New York State. It's a vacation community. We proposed a building that was audacious, that was different than any of the forms that the community was used to, and we were scared and our client was scared and the community was scared, so we created a sieres of photorealistic renderings that we put onto Facebook and we put onto Instagram, and we let people start to do what they do: share it, comment, like it, hate it. But that meant that two years before the building was complete, it was already a part of the community, so that when the renderings looked exactly like the finished product, there were no surprises. This building was already a part of this ciommnuty, and then that first summer, when plopee stterad arriving and sharing the building on social media, the building ceaesd to be just an eicidfe and it became media, because these, these are not just pictures of a building, they're your pictures of a biniludg. And as you use them to tell your story, they become part of your personal narrative, and what you're doing is you're short-circuiting all of our collective memory, and you're mnkaig these charged symbols for us to understand. That means we don't need the Greeks anymore to tell us what to think about architecture. We can tell each other what we think about architecture, because digital media hasn't just changed the relationship between all of us, it's changed the relationship between us and buildings. Think for a second about those librarians back in Livingston. If that building was going to be bulit today, the first thing they would do is go online and search "new lrbeaiirs." They would be bombarded by examples of experimentation, of innovation, of pushing at the envelope of what a library can be. That's ammunition. That's ammunition that they can take with them to the mayor of Livingston, to the people of Livingston, and say, there's no one answer to what a library is today. Let's be a part of this. This anbnaudce of experimentation gives them the freedom to run their own eeimprxent.

Open Cloze


So my theory is that when you apply media to this pendulum, it starts swinging faster and ______, until it's at both extremes nearly simultaneously, and that effectively blurs the difference between innovation and ______, between us, the __________, and you, the ______. Now we can make nearly instantaneous, emotionally charged symbols out of something that's _____ new.

Let me show you how this plays out in a project that my firm recently completed. We were _____ to replace this building, which burned down. This is the center of a town called the Pines in Fire ______ in New York State. It's a vacation community. We proposed a building that was audacious, that was different than any of the forms that the community was used to, and we were scared and our client was scared and the community was scared, so we created a ______ of photorealistic renderings that we put onto Facebook and we put onto Instagram, and we let people start to do what they do: share it, comment, like it, hate it. But that meant that two years before the building was complete, it was already a part of the community, so that when the renderings looked exactly like the finished product, there were no surprises. This building was already a part of this _________, and then that first summer, when ______ _______ arriving and sharing the building on social media, the building ______ to be just an _______ and it became media, because these, these are not just pictures of a building, they're your pictures of a ________. And as you use them to tell your story, they become part of your personal narrative, and what you're doing is you're short-circuiting all of our collective memory, and you're ______ these charged symbols for us to understand. That means we don't need the Greeks anymore to tell us what to think about architecture. We can tell each other what we think about architecture, because digital media hasn't just changed the relationship between all of us, it's changed the relationship between us and buildings. Think for a second about those librarians back in Livingston. If that building was going to be _____ today, the first thing they would do is go online and search "new _________." They would be bombarded by examples of experimentation, of innovation, of pushing at the envelope of what a library can be. That's ammunition. That's ammunition that they can take with them to the mayor of Livingston, to the people of Livingston, and say, there's no one answer to what a library is today. Let's be a part of this. This _________ of experimentation gives them the freedom to run their own __________.

Solution


  1. series
  2. edifice
  3. abundance
  4. people
  5. making
  6. public
  7. ceased
  8. libraries
  9. brand
  10. island
  11. faster
  12. building
  13. symbol
  14. hired
  15. experiment
  16. community
  17. architects
  18. started
  19. built

Original Text


So my theory is that when you apply media to this pendulum, it starts swinging faster and faster, until it's at both extremes nearly simultaneously, and that effectively blurs the difference between innovation and symbol, between us, the architects, and you, the public. Now we can make nearly instantaneous, emotionally charged symbols out of something that's brand new.

Let me show you how this plays out in a project that my firm recently completed. We were hired to replace this building, which burned down. This is the center of a town called the Pines in Fire Island in New York State. It's a vacation community. We proposed a building that was audacious, that was different than any of the forms that the community was used to, and we were scared and our client was scared and the community was scared, so we created a series of photorealistic renderings that we put onto Facebook and we put onto Instagram, and we let people start to do what they do: share it, comment, like it, hate it. But that meant that two years before the building was complete, it was already a part of the community, so that when the renderings looked exactly like the finished product, there were no surprises. This building was already a part of this community, and then that first summer, when people started arriving and sharing the building on social media, the building ceased to be just an edifice and it became media, because these, these are not just pictures of a building, they're your pictures of a building. And as you use them to tell your story, they become part of your personal narrative, and what you're doing is you're short-circuiting all of our collective memory, and you're making these charged symbols for us to understand. That means we don't need the Greeks anymore to tell us what to think about architecture. We can tell each other what we think about architecture, because digital media hasn't just changed the relationship between all of us, it's changed the relationship between us and buildings. Think for a second about those librarians back in Livingston. If that building was going to be built today, the first thing they would do is go online and search "new libraries." They would be bombarded by examples of experimentation, of innovation, of pushing at the envelope of what a library can be. That's ammunition. That's ammunition that they can take with them to the mayor of Livingston, to the people of Livingston, and say, there's no one answer to what a library is today. Let's be a part of this. This abundance of experimentation gives them the freedom to run their own experiment.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
town called 2
long time 2
start experimenting 2
digital media 2
charged symbols 2


Important Words


  1. abundance
  2. ammunition
  3. answer
  4. anymore
  5. apply
  6. architects
  7. architecture
  8. arriving
  9. audacious
  10. blurs
  11. bombarded
  12. brand
  13. building
  14. buildings
  15. built
  16. burned
  17. called
  18. ceased
  19. center
  20. changed
  21. charged
  22. client
  23. collective
  24. comment
  25. community
  26. complete
  27. completed
  28. created
  29. difference
  30. digital
  31. edifice
  32. effectively
  33. emotionally
  34. envelope
  35. examples
  36. experiment
  37. experimentation
  38. extremes
  39. facebook
  40. faster
  41. finished
  42. fire
  43. firm
  44. forms
  45. freedom
  46. greeks
  47. hate
  48. hired
  49. innovation
  50. instagram
  51. instantaneous
  52. island
  53. librarians
  54. libraries
  55. library
  56. livingston
  57. looked
  58. making
  59. mayor
  60. means
  61. meant
  62. media
  63. memory
  64. narrative
  65. online
  66. part
  67. pendulum
  68. people
  69. personal
  70. photorealistic
  71. pictures
  72. pines
  73. plays
  74. product
  75. project
  76. proposed
  77. public
  78. pushing
  79. put
  80. relationship
  81. renderings
  82. replace
  83. run
  84. scared
  85. search
  86. series
  87. share
  88. sharing
  89. show
  90. simultaneously
  91. social
  92. start
  93. started
  94. starts
  95. state
  96. story
  97. summer
  98. surprises
  99. swinging
  100. symbol
  101. symbols
  102. theory
  103. today
  104. town
  105. understand
  106. vacation
  107. years
  108. york