Marcus Horning , A city for our senses compliments digital knowledge
Marcus Horning is the director of City Planning of the city of Lund, Sweden. A city famous for it’s top 100 ranked university with 42,000 students.
FILMED IN MALMÖ, SWEDEN 2018
EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.
A city for our senses compliments digital knowledge
I think we’re looking into a quite interesting future. Regarding knowledge and how we perceive knowledge. Where the importance of the physical space will increase even more than today.
I’m thinking a lot about the new generation growing up. It’s the first global, digital and networked generation that is growing up. Where knowledge is not only something that you can find in books or read about. You can use your global networking, when you solve a problem in a video game. Or when you solve a mathematics problem. Or a relationship problem.
It’s just as easy having friends in Mexico City, as it is going to the neighbor knocking on the door and see if they want to play. You can play now 24/7 with your global friends.
We can see how the new generations uses the city and the space is a bit differently than we did. I really don’t have that much knowledge about it. So, if there’s anyone out there having any study looking at the new generation. How they use the city. That would be quite interesting!
But in a totally non-academic observation. They use physical spaces less than we do. When we were younger we explored the city. Because we didn’t know where people were. So, we had to explore. To see and explore the spaces we didn’t knew existed.
Today they hang around in different locations but together in the digital world. If we then try to see what that means in the in the physical environment. Then we need to figure out, what does the physical world have as a unique selling point? Compared to the digital.
I read a few weeks ago an article from “The Institute for the Future” Where they looked at 2030. To see and what skills would be highly regarded and what skills would be not as valuable.
They were talking a lot about the emotional intelligence. I think that’s there’s something in there that’s interesting. To be kind of going back to the real basics of human beings. In regards to our nature. Where our senses will probably be even more valuable.
Because if you look at the smell and the textures and our inner emotions. That will be hard, at least in the future 20 years. How that will be solved in the digital world. So that would be probably quite unique for the physical world.
I therefore think that the physical spaces and how we design our cities. Will be quite interesting. That the qualities of the room. Where you can use your senses.
In smelling.
The sounds.
The textures.
Just looking people in their eyes.
That would be the unique attribute. Compared to the digital spaces. Therefore, I think that, what we work with quite hard with today, to create a tempo. An atmosphere. An inclusive city and spaces. We were on the right track!
I think we need to squeeze it up a little bit more. We still have the functionality of the city quite high in our in our agendas. Where the traffic system and other functional ways of approaching the cities, is still quite dominating.
That’s quite opposite to create a city where the senses can be explored.
I would like to see:
A greener City.
A more sitable City.
A walkable City.
These will be even more important, for the future cities to be competitive. To be attractive. Because if you can learn mostly anything at home or in a digital university. Why should you visit a space or a place? Then it needs to have some unique attributes. Compared to the other ones.
If you choose from a city where the senses will be able to get you that treat, compared to other ones that is more functionalistic. I would say the cities including our senses will be even more interesting.
That relates to the universities and the schools. What role they play in the city planning? They need to be an integrated and inclusive part of the city to be able to absorb the positive attributes of the city.
