TEDxTalks Summary Reviews

The Edible City: Shawn Harrison at TEDxSacramento City2.0

[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS1tT5_lunY#t=552 ]

To create Edible Cities, as resolution to the ever-growing population and dwindling land area to accommodate both residential and farming quarters. Cities are sculpted and created on the best of lands; and for this case, it’s Sacramento, California. It present lush soil, abundance of water and suitable climate allows it to grow the freshest and sweetest of produce. Such movement would eventually move a city to a sustainable and effective state, where civilians live and grow with the produce they sow. Efficiency and food security levels goes up, as now residents will always be ensured with food just round the corner of the block. Such practice rejuvenates the health of the individual and the place, as no more setting aside for extra land for growing and harvesting crops. As now it can be done at one’s doorstep. It builds character, as children who grow in such a society learn to have a deep appreciation for the food and land that has been given. A sense of identity and respect is created when one can feel and see the produce of their hard labour. To know what your grow ensures that you are getting the best and only the best.

Making urban planning urban: Gregor Wiltschko at TEDxVienna

[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-0p8ZpBq04 ]

A break down is done on how to create an effective urban planning. When approached to plan an urban space, there is much lucrative opportunities and reasons involved, hence it becomes important that deals and agreements have to be set with such investors/stake holders before the start of any plan or movement to take place. One must question correctly about the space, what it needs, what is lacking, its pros and cons, etc. All of these help create a conceptual phase, an analysis before the solution, something seemingly aimless to getting a design but rich in fulfilling the characteristic checklist of a site. Once viable, further conceptualisation and degree of thought can be put in to the design of the site. Everything plays into the present architecture and recreational activities, to form and integrated and workable system. What is to make urban planning urban?; to develop a healthy interaction and engagement of being to spaces to site with sensitivity and homage to the growth of the culture of the site?.

The neighborhood -- the original social network: Sarah Leary at 

TEDxSacramento TEDxCity2.0

[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqmzhaX6Srs#t=89 ]

The video talks about the formation and presence of tight-knit communities in small neighbourhoods or towns. A real community is where everyone has a mutual trust and understanding towards each other; to look out for one another and to create a conducive and liveable environment for everyone. This  however is becoming a dying trend as cities get bigger and people get more ‘modernized’ as they are busy with their technological devices and problems from the corporate world. Hence a social experiment was created in aim to bring together a particular community; the root of the experiment was a singular social network for the neighbourhood. This was a success as the experiment tapped on the right medium, the online network that everybody was so busy with. In a matter of time, people engaged with the network to engage each other for aid or safety, thus the formation of a community. With more communities like these, this could spell for a more effective future in urban design.

he Blue Trees: Can Art Save the World?: Konstantin Dimopoulos at TEDxSacramento

[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsFQtYw0wtQ#t=280 ]

Art has been a strong form of self-expression in conveying of messages to others around. For this instance, trees are being painted blue, something unnatural in the world. Something so simply done, but it enables the product [for this instance it’s the tree] to be noticed and somehow appreciated and glorified in the moment. As the trees were exhibited in a common park, a little girl with her mother who passes by the park everyday went up exclaiming and gave the tree a hug. Such a simple change of colour has even alerted and engaged the interest of a child who would usually stray shy from the things around her. This project was done in reaction to the artists’ dismay and fear when he saw many preserved trees that no longer exist in the world. It is apparent when you turn a normal product of life into art; it creates a deeper meaning for individuals to look and appreciate, hence all creating a protection of the product of interest, as it now becomes an object of imagination and consideration, rather than an output or raw material. This could be a slow solution to the depleting marvels of nature.