Diane Hoskins and Andy Cohen: Design for a Radically Changing World

Note

Diane Hoskins and Andy Cohen of Gensler focus on sustainability in architecture and urban planning, aiming to mitigate the environmental impact of buildings through innovative material science and design. They advocate for a more sustainable approach to architecture, emphasizing the importance of addressing climate change and promoting diversity in leadership and ideas. Gensler is working on transforming cities into 20-minute neighborhoods, repurposing office buildings into housing, and advocating for flexible zoning to create more livable and sustainable urban environments. Design and architecture are about hope and envisioning the future, offering a profession that can make a positive impact on the world. The purpose of design is crucial in addressing global challenges like climate change, COVID-19, and geopolitical issues, making design a catalyst for positive change. Design is not just for designers but for anyone who wants to make a difference in the world, emphasizing the importance of design in creating a better future for all. The book by Diane Hoskins and Andy Cohen can be found on Amazon, and more information about Gensler can be found on their website.

Highlights

• 2024-11-02 20:19 I was super strong in science and technology in high school, but I also was a French horn player in All City Orchestra in Chicago.

• 2024-11-04 09:29 It’s so important. What most people don’t know, and probably on your show don’t know, is that 40% of all CO2 creation is buildings. More than automobiles, more than industry is buildings. So we, as the most impactful and largest firm in the world, we feel like we have a huge responsibility in making sure that we secure our future for our children and our children’s children. And so we have developed for the world and for our firm an idea around trying to push towards net zero on everything we do on all our buildings by 2030.

• 2024-11-04 09:31 So you’ve just been x’d out of 1.5 billion square feet of opportunity because your product doesn’t meet this standard. And We’ve had other architects now adopting the Gensler gps. So that kind of lateral influence that we talked about. And then also we have suppliers who are now saying, we don’t have something that meets it now, but we’re going to work on bringing a product to market that meets the Gensler standards. So influencing the supply chain, influencing suppliers in terms of what they’re doing next is to create products that meet that standard.

• 2024-11-04 09:30 So that’s also about how do we influence the suppliers and even the folks that make the H vac systems and so forth, so that there’s multiple suppliers, that there can be competitive costing on all of these. Because just like we saw with photovoltaics, they were very expensive at the beginning. Now they’re like the cheapest thing out there. Or the light bulbs that now, you know, you get a box of 100 for like $10. Any time we can get these new products that are low energy and decarbonized materials, creating a larger demand, you’re going to have more entrance into the market and you’re going to drive prices down, you’re going to see them use more. That’s what we’re trying to do at Gensler.

• 2024-11-02 20:32 Check out in the Making from Adobe to learn more about how to build a creative career and a creative life.

• 2024-11-02 20:47 And for the first time in human history, more people live in cities than not about 53% of the population. And by 2050, 75% of the human population will live in cities.

• 2024-11-04 11:10 But one of the areas that is really, I think a really active and important conversation today is really the reuse of buildings. You know, the most sustainable building is an existing building.

• 2024-11-04 11:10 But we have an overabundance of office space in most of our major cities and then we also have a shortage of housing in those same cities. And this new calculus that is going on that is all about how do we transform those office buildings into housing. And you know, it’s happening in New York and D.C. and Los Angeles, Chicago, Calgary, Toronto, you know, cities across the US and globally as well, we actually have come up with, and we’ve been working on this for a while and started bringing it out in the market probably about three or four years ago.

• 2024-11-04 09:32 And I would say that the opportunity is immense. We bring in this idea of mobility in cities. So in the next 10, 15 years, we’re going to have the opportunity to have autonomous vehicles and the idea that we won’t have parking in cities. Just think about all the parking stalls that exist in cities and the ability to take those spaces over for people. Space, park space, amenity space.

• 2024-11-04 09:32 Think about COVID and how all the al fresco dining occurred on our city streets. But there’s even bigger opportunities. For example, there are 175,000 gas stations in the United States. So what’s going to happen with all those prime properties? And we think we can create more public parks, more amenities for users.

• 2024-11-04 09:32 But also, obviously, some of those potentially become battery stations or community centers. But we really believe in the next 10 years, 15 years, that we have the ability as urban designers and architects to take our city streets back for people. And so, Eli, what you’re bringing up, the idea that, you know, whether you’re in the suburban location or urban location and urban locations, our cities are going to radically transform with the advent of the autonomous vehicle. And it’s already starting to happen already. And we’re seeing codes being changed and our clients coming to us saying, why would we build parking structures when we know in the future we won’t need parking?

• 2024-11-04 09:32 So city codes are transforming. Combine that with the whole sustainability push in the codes towards net zero, and the cities of the future are going to be very, very different than they are today.

• 2024-11-04 09:30 I’ll just say that I find myself. I have a book that’s like on my desk over here, and it’s called A Century of Chair Design. And, you know, there’s something about the chair. Right. That is just so fundamental to being human. And it also tells this amazing story of kind of the history of humanity, of civilization. And it just kind of reconnects me back to kind of thinking about the history of design and where we are in the history of design, but where we’ve been as well. And it always strikes me as so profound when I look at modern design. And again, you see it with the chairs that were designed in the 20s and 30s are some of the most modern designed chairs ever. And how we not had that same era of kind of a design renaissance since then.

• 2024-11-04 11:10 I love the writer Simon Sinek, and he really inspired me. This book about the why behind what we do and the purpose. And now I’m reading his book on true leaders and how you optimize people’s performance. It’s unique because he has a different take on the way to motivate and inspire people. And it’s something Diana and I constantly focus on. How do you motivate and inspire the next generation of leaders in the firm? That’s what I’ve been focused on.