The city is alive: designing cities like living systems | Tuba Kocaturk | TEDxDeakin Uni Melbourne

Key Concepts

• Machine Logic: The dominant design philosophy prioritizing efficiency through individual control and predictability, leading to disconnected systems.
• Living Systems: Natural and biological systems characterized by interconnectedness, cyclical resource flow, and adaptability.
• Circular Cities: Urban environments designed to mimic living systems, emphasizing resource circulation, waste reduction, and community connection.
• Linear Economy vs. Circular Economy: The traditional “take-make-dispose” model versus a regenerative system where waste becomes a resource.
• Regenerative Design: Designing systems that actively restore and enhance the environment and communities they inhabit.

The Illusion of Control & The Machine City

The speaker begins by illustrating a common, frustrating experience – waiting at a red light in an empty city. This seemingly minor inconvenience highlights a fundamental problem: our cities are designed for machines, not for people. We adapt to the city’s rigid rules and rhythms, even when they are illogical, because the systems controlling them don’t recognize our individual needs or presence. This disconnect stems from a shift that occurred during the Industrial Revolution, where efficiency and control became paramount. Cities were subsequently planned like assembly lines, compartmentalizing functions (housing, work, shopping) and connecting them with roads, prioritizing neatness and predictability over responsiveness.

This “machine logic” results in inefficiencies – traffic lights operating unnecessarily, sprinklers watering during rain, air conditioners contributing to urban heat islands. The core issue is that while individual components may function correctly, the system as a whole lacks integration and care for its inhabitants. As the speaker states, “everything works right individually but nothing works together.”

The Wasteful Linear System

The speaker extends this critique to our broader economic system, highlighting its inherent wastefulness. We extract resources, manufacture products, use them briefly, and then discard them. A staggering statistic is presented: “out of every hundred things that we make, fewer than seven are ever reused, repaired or recycled.” The remaining 93% end up in landfills, representing a massive loss of resources. This is likened to a bakery discarding 93 out of 100 loaves of bread daily – an absurd but accurate analogy.

Despite cities covering only 3% of the planet’s surface, they consume 80% of the world’s energy and generate 70% of global emissions, described as “a machine overheating.” This demonstrates the unsustainable impact of the current system.

From Machine to Living System: The Promise of Circularity

The speaker proposes a radical shift in perspective: designing cities not as machines, but as living systems. Nature provides a powerful model, characterized by interconnectedness and cyclical resource flow. “In nature, there’s no waste. Everything is connected.” A fallen leaf decomposes into soil, nourishing roots, which support trees that provide oxygen and fruit – a continuous loop of regeneration. Similarly, the human body functions as a living system, directing resources where needed and striving for balance.

The key differences between machines and living systems are outlined: machines burn through resources, isolate, and repeat; living systems return resources, connect, and evolve. Applying this to urban design means envisioning transport systems that flow like blood, distributing resources efficiently, and buildings that share energy and resources. The speaker asks a compelling question: “How would it feel to live in a city that gives back as much as it takes?”

Circular Cities in Practice: Examples & Implementation

The speaker’s research focuses on “circular cities” – places where energy, water, materials, and care circulate in loops, transforming waste into resources. The guiding questions for designing these cities are: “how does it connect and contribute to life around it” and “what does it become next in its next life?”

Concrete examples are provided:

• Fremantle, Australia (East Village): A neighborhood designed for collective solar power generation and sharing, utilizing a community battery for cheaper and cleaner energy.
• Paris, France: Cafes are diverting used coffee grounds to local farmers who grow mushrooms, which are then supplied to local restaurants, creating a closed-loop system of waste-to-food-to-jobs.

While these examples are currently “outliers,” they demonstrate the feasibility of circularity. The speaker acknowledges that fully circular cities may not be realized within our lifetimes, but emphasizes the urgency of the situation.

The Choice Before Us: Collapse or Regeneration

The speaker concludes with a stark warning: the current systems generate more waste than the planet can absorb and demand more resources than it can regenerate. We face a critical choice: proactively redesign our systems for circularity, or allow nature to impose a solution through collapse.

Designing for a circular future is presented not as a distant ideal, but as a “responsibility of our lifetime” and “the only choice that gives humanity a future worth imagining.” The speaker’s final statement underscores the gravity of the situation and the imperative for transformative change.

Technical Terms & Concepts:

• Efficiency (in the context of machine logic): Maximizing output with minimal waste, often achieved through standardization and control.
• Linear Economy: The traditional economic model of “take-make-dispose.”
• Circular Economy: An economic system aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources.
• Regenerative Design: A design approach that seeks to restore and enhance the natural environment and human well-being.
• Urban Metabolism: The study of the flows of energy, materials, and water within a city.
• Closed-Loop System: A system where waste is minimized and resources are continuously reused.