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walk anywhere in Singapore and you're likely to come across a construction site. Singapore has been described as a concrete jungle and it is much like other big cities of the world and the constant building of homes and offices is an essential part of life here as the city continues to bustle and grow. But this construction produces a huge, huge amount of greenhouse gasses in the fight to stay on economic powerhouse. Can we simultaneously design buildings which help
in the fight against climate change? What's the role of the architect in this process? And what does it mean for users of buildings like you and me? Welcome back to the climate conversations, I'm your host, julie, you. My guest today is li poly sano. He's an architect and urban designer behind some of the world's most sustainable buildings, skyscrapers and districts lee, welcome to the climate conversations.
Hi Julia, thank you for well for me, it's a pleasure to be with you today.
Absolutely. Let's start with you. You know, you were born into an italian american family in New Jersey and you initially studied geology. What sparked your interest in architecture?
Oh, well I probably should have stayed in geology, but what sparked my interest in architecture was a year long visit to europe, where I was heavily inspired by the architecture there and of course I had spent my whole childhood building things at the encouragement of my mother and the fact that both my grandfathers were builders as well.
It came to me quite naturally, but never occurred to me that I should make a profession of it, but I'm very, very pleased that I did, and it's been a very, very enjoyable experience for me.
You have such an impressive portfolio from designing London's first sustainable skyscraper, A Heron Tower, the Edge in Amsterdam, that the most sustainable building in the world to revision Tokyo Cross Park and much, much more. But of all the projects you've worked on or you're still working on, which are you most proud of and has been the most rewarding for you.
So I can't actually give you an answer that says one particular project was the most rewarding. We look at projects in terms of where they're being built and we look at how our buildings can respond to that context and make a positive contribution socially, economically, environmentally, but most important for the people that are going to use the building and the future generations that we use the building.
So in London, the Heron Tower was quite an achievement for us because we basically proved that you could do sustainable tall development. I'm very, very personally excited about our park nova project in Singapore at the moment, because it takes a sort of a focus around a life centric approach to creating a residential building that will have longevity and kate too many, many generations, even as people's way of living changes.
So I don't really have one specific project that I can say, oh, that was
hard to choose,
It's hard to choose
as an architect championing sustainability. Do you have any design, pet peeves concept or design that makes you go, oh, that's terrible for the environment or something that frustrates you the most.
I think we have to do this with our eyes open, right? There are people at both ends of the spectrum of sustainability at the moment. There are the deniers in climate change and then there are people who are so passionate about it. They become very radicalized. You shouldn't use any sources of fossil fuel to generate energy and that's an extreme. And those two extremes tend to polarize the argument and they also tend to create stagnation,
Right? Because you're locked in a position I think we need to realize is that climate has changed, our climate has changed, it's no longer about avoiding climate change. We've experienced the shift, the 1.5° is going to happen and
there's no turning back from that. The question is how do we moderate that and move forward with significant change, but do it in a way that suits every part of this globe, because it's not realistic to basically assume that the economic development, for example, in Singapore is going to come to a stop to address the climate change.
So there's a balance that has to take place and our mission is to Help different societies where we work in different places, where we work is strike that balance and move the needle forward every time we do a project? 39% of all global energy related to carbon emissions comes from buildings. And there are two sides to that there's the operate
Additional side to it. That's a big percentage. 28, But then there's the other side is what do we use to build the building that's embodied energy and there's 11, of that number in there. It's a big, big number. We can do a lot to change the way we operate buildings. But the discussion that I like to have is what can we do to use less to build our building. So the edge, as you talk very, very nice comment that you made. Thank you. Um, but
the edge is carbon neutral in its operation. But we used a lot of embodied carbon to build that building and that's a first generation, very smart building. We're now working on a third generation where we're using, I'd say two thirds less carbon to build a city building now than we did before. And for me, that's great, great strides. But I think it all comes back to one big thing. We has a society and countries and all have to work as hard as we can to
dick carbonized our grid. And once we've done that a lot of these other things will fall into place very, very naturally.
It all sounds great, but there are those who believe like sustainable buildings or eco friendly residences, those initiatives are costly, more expensive. Do you have a hard time convincing or justifying to your clients or investors about how much they need to pay? I mean can it actually be cheaper? So
it's really, really interesting topic and we could spend all day just talking about this because they are more expensive right now but There are a lot of forces now that are helping to rationalize this and I used the example that 25
years ago I wanted to buy recycled rubbish bags. So I went to the store and there were four of them, a pack of four for $10 and for $10 I could buy 60 non recyclable rubbish bags and the reason for that was is that there was no commodification of the biodegradable rubbish bags at the time, there was
no market for them, nobody wanted them. So as time went on there was more and more demand for them as people started to care about it, the price came down and you created a market for these products and what we need to do is to create and ca modify products that basically cree sustainable development, solar wind, things like that. The various recycled components in our studio here were growing structural components out of Mycelium at the moment, testing the capabilities of things
like that. So once you ca modify these things and they become readily available, the price will drop and the applications will become more and more common, but at the moment to do a lot of these things to build in timber or to do a lot of low energy solutions or to use ground, wouldn't do all these things. You are making a more expensive building now as energy prices go up in some countries, it's not that same everywhere. The cost of opera
buildings offsets, that cost. The edge payback was seven years at that time, so it offset the cost within seven years, which is not a long time in the life of a development, but it is a discussion we always have, it's not an easy discussion investors now are very interested in E. S. G. So a lot of the money now that's going into real estate development is ca coming from E. S. G. Sources and people that occupy buildings want to feel like they're in a building that
is sustainable. So that's also a big driver for people in development,
would you say the demand for eco friendly, sustainable buildings are growing at the rate that you want?
Yes, I think in certain parts of the world it is growing and it is considered to be a value add, particularly here in europe, but that hasn't creeped in at the same rates in other countries. We're having these conversations in Singapore at the moment, we're having them in Japan, we're even having them in the Middle East, we're working with people in India who have basically decarbonization construction processes. So it is happening at different rates and what is helping it is legislation,
right? Governments are legislating and things to happen. That's both good and bad in my opinion it's good because people do it. It's bad because it only lets you do the minimum to pass the legislation. My own opinion is government should be incentivizing people to make these changes as opposed to punishing them if they don't because if you incentivize you get more innovation you create change quicker and you facilitate new products that come on the market
that can be used globally in a faster way. Right? Simple economics up
next. You'll hear li poly sano share. What's the one thing he would change about Singapore's built environment? Are you looking for ways to make your money work harder for you or need tips on saving, investing and making financial decisions. Join me Sarah Al Khaldi on money talks, CNN's top personal finance podcast from investment basics too. The fire movement and legacy planning. I look at financial
trends and new stories that matter to you. Check out our complete playlist on the C. N. A. Ap Apple and google podcasts or Spotify. You can also follow us or subscribe for new weekly episodes. If you could change one thing about the built environment. What would that be?
Well the policies to create development in Singapore are very good and very interesting. I think the move to creating more usable public spaces is something that the U. R. A. Is working on I think to help that debate how buildings create frame and create public spaces. And of course we have a climate in Singapore that isn't always conducive to staying outdoors. But there are lots of environmental strategies which can move that needle and create comfortable places
even in extreme climates. And I think there's real opportunities there. You know we talk about moving to what we call a sort of life centric approach to urban design and basically that has to do for us around how we connect the social the economic and the environmental principles together. It also has to do with moving away from designing spaces that have a broad broad agenda that force people to use them in a certain way and therefore they're not adaptable.
They're not flexible and they're not heavily used to designing spaces and creating buildings and places that you or me as an individual can find a way to be very very comfortable that suits our life. So the building or the place doesn't force you to basically adapt to its environment. It allows you to create an environment that suits you as an individual in your life. And that's a big big change to the way we have approached the design of buildings and
places and homes. So a lot of that comes out of some strong thinking that people did during the pandemic. But a lot of it also comes out of stronger environmental concerns that not everybody is comfortable in an air conditioned environment or in a very warm environment. And if you can make buildings that are flexible that adapt to those things, that begins to create a narrative around this life centric movement.
You're a huge proponent of research and innovate. In fact under your company you have a separate research group called PLP Labs. Tell us some of the technology or projects that you're most excited about,
right? So we set up PLP Labs a number of years ago because, as you say, which is really a big important informer for us. It's very interesting when you set up a research group because when you talk to people about doing research with them, you become a collaborator as opposed to a competitor offering that form of collaboration has opened the door for us. Really worked with some very, very interesting people who have nothing to do with architecture,
urban design thinkers. So we have ongoing research projects with the University of Cambridge around sustainable materials and the use of timber and recycled materials and things like that. We're working with a neuroscientist to look at Euro diversity and how neurodivergent e plays a role in the way you design.
But we're doing other things. So we're doing pieces on the importance of culture in cities, on what makes a city a fair city for everyone because Singapore is not a good example of this because it is reasonably fair in terms of its city and people there are well looked after. But there are a lot of cities where there's quite a big disparity between socioeconomic groups, A lot more needs to be done to make cities more fair for everyone. So there's work that we're doing
on that. So we look at people planet and technology, that's a broad range of things that we're doing.
And in fact, your company is working on one of the largest and greenest Postwar urban redevelopment project in Japan. That's set to complete it by 2037 because you tell us more about that.
So this is the Tokyo cross project that it's called. It's actually in the Habia area of Tokyo, just opposite Habia Park where the current Imperial Hotel is. So, it's one of the largest master plan in Postwar Japan. A lot of the work that we're doing is both master planner and lead designer to create for place making and for the creation of a series of very interesting spaces and places
and narratives within the building. So there's a lot of two dimensional work as well as three dimensional work going on the project. Tokyo is an interesting place. It has a lot of green, but a lot of it's very private. It's not accessible to everyone. So, as part of this seven hectare site 2.5 hectares of it will be open space spaces for
Co creation and for people to come together. It's connecting the Ginza area into Habia for the first time in hundreds of years, it creates elevated urban spaces and parks connect into the public realm around. So besides the buildings there's a very big which has us really, really excited, very, very big public place making contribution. And I think for us that's the greatest part of the master plan. The buildings are all going to be delivered using sustainable sources of energy.
We're in conversations with some very, very innovative people in Japan to use new sources of the way you generate energy for the project and I think it will set a benchmark for sustainable development in the future. But it's got a long way to go
2037. Yeah. Looking forward to it. Leave before I let you go tell us your vision for buildings in the future and how do you hope to impact the next generation.
So that's an interesting question. We talked a little bit about currently, how you build buildings is an extractive problem. It's taking taking and never giving things back the work that we're doing on the future of buildings and the future of cities and the sort of nature of smart cities is to get to a point where our urban development is a closed system where generating the energy that we need to operate the building itself, We're never using new energy.
In fact we reach a point where our buildings our net plus provider of clean energy and they use that to plug that into a whole ecosystem within society that funds the manufacturing process, funds the farming process and things like that and provides surplus energy to create clean manufacturing and therefore lower carbon products, clean transport and things like that. So we have a closed system and so that even our buildings become sources of energy and surplus clean energy that can
be used elsewhere in the urban environment. And for us, that's what we're really working on at a large philosophical level now, going to take a while, but I think we'll get there.
Yeah, full of opportunities lee, thank you so much for sharing your valuable insights, solutions and strategies and sustainability. Really appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you julie. It was a pleasure meeting you and speaking to you.
Well, thanks to my guest lee and all of you for tuning in the team behind the climate conversations is Jacqueline, chan, Joanne, chan Tiffany, young, Danieli Christina robert and me julie, you do like and subscribe to this podcast. Thank you for listening. Bye for now.