# The city is alive: designing cities like living systems | Tuba Kocaturk | TEDxDeakin Uni Melbourne Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k72tcf6fXk Recap page: https://rapidrecap.app/video/6k72tcf6fXk Generated: 2025-12-22T19:31:32.191+00:00 --- ## Quick Overview Professor Tuba Kocaturk argues that cities must be redesigned to function like living, circular systems, rather than linear ones, by ensuring that 100% of the materials used in construction are reused, repaired, or recycled, contrasting this with the current wastefulness where 97% of materials are burned or landfilled, which ultimately threatens the planet's balance. **Key Points:** - Kocaturk asserts that the Industrial Revolution changed not just what we build, but how we think, leading to linear systems where waste is discarded. - Currently, 97% of global energy is consumed by the built environment, and 93% of the materials we use are burned or sent to landfills, creating massive waste. - The goal is to redesign cities to operate like living systems, where resources are perpetually cycled, contrasting with the current linear input/output model. - She highlights examples like Paris cafes, where used coffee grounds are collected, and local farmers grow mushrooms with them, which then feed back into local restaurants. - The speaker challenges the audience to consider how cities can be designed to ensure that energy, water, materials, and food circulate in closed loops, similar to nature. - The ultimate aim is to create circular cities where resources are regenerated, rather than demanding more from the planet than it can replenish. ![Screenshot at 00:10: Professor Tuba Kocaturk begins her TEDx talk on stage at TEDx Deakin Uni Melbourne, with large screens displaying her name and a visual example of sustainable architecture, setting the stage for her argument about redesigning cities as living systems.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/6k72tcf6fXk/00-00-10.jpg) **Context:** Professor Tuba Kocaturk presents her vision for sustainable urban development at a TEDx event hosted by Deakin University in Melbourne. Her talk, titled 'The city is alive: designing cities like living systems,' critiques the current linear model of resource consumption in urban environments, drawing parallels between human-built systems and natural ecosystems to advocate for a fully circular city model. ## Detailed Analysis Professor Tuba Kocaturk argues that humanity's current approach to city building, heavily influenced by the Industrial Revolution, is fundamentally linear (take, make, dispose), which is unsustainable. She points out the staggering statistic that 97% of global energy is consumed by the built environment, and 93% of the materials used in daily life (like phones, clothes, cars, and food) end up burned or in landfills, creating waste that the planet cannot absorb. Kocaturk poses two critical questions: How do we connect our cities so that waste from one source becomes food for another, and how do we redesign our systems to work like living systems? She offers concrete examples of circularity in action, such as in Paris, where used coffee grounds are collected and given to local farmers who grow mushrooms, which are then served in local restaurants—a closed loop. She contrasts this with the linear waste stream where 93% of materials used daily are discarded. The fundamental challenge, she states, is that our current systems are designed to create waste, not to maintain balance. She emphasizes that nature has no waste; everything is connected, like a fallen leaf becoming soil that feeds trees that provide shade and oxygen. Kocaturk concludes by asserting that designing for a circular future—where energy, water, materials, and food circulate—is not a distant ideal but a present responsibility, offering the choice to redesign our cities to function as regenerative, living systems. ### Introduction and Problem Statement - It is 2 AM, and while driving home, you crawl into bed, but the machine that stops you—the traffic light—does not know you exist; the city doesn't adapt to us, we adapt to it - The Industrial Revolution changed how we build and think, leading to linear systems - 97% of global energy is consumed by the built environment; 93% of materials we use are burned or landfilled. ### The Circular System Ideal - The goal is to design systems that mimic living systems, where everything is connected and nothing is wasted, contrasting with the current linear model that demands more resources than the planet can regenerate. ### Examples of Circularity - In Paris, used coffee grounds are collected and sent to local farmers who grow mushrooms, which then supply local restaurants, creating a closed loop for food and waste. ### The Core Challenge - Our current systems are designed to create waste rather than circulate resources; for instance, 93% of daily materials (phones, clothes, cars, food) are thrown away or burned. ### The Call to Action - The speaker asks how we can design cities where energy, water, materials, and food circulate smoothly, like blood flow in a body, rather than being wasted or polluting. ### Conclusion and Choice - The choice is presented to redesign our cities to function as living systems, ensuring resources are reused, repaired, or recycled, creating a future worth imagining. ![Screenshot at 00:00: Opening visual effect featuring abstract red and white vertical lines against a dark background.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/6k72tcf6fXk/00-00-00.jpg) ![Screenshot at 00:14: Professor Tuba Kocaturk is introduced on screen alongside a slide showing an aerial view of a green, organically designed urban space.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/6k72tcf6fXk/00-00-14.jpg) ![Screenshot at 00:28: A computer-generated image displays a blue car stopped at a red traffic light on a wet, dark city street, illustrating the concept of a system imposing its rhythm on individuals.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/6k72tcf6fXk/00-00-28.jpg) ![Screenshot at 01:00: A close-up on Professor Kocaturk as she emphasizes the irony of controlling every individual element but not the overall system's outcome.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/6k72tcf6fXk/00-01-00.jpg) ![Screenshot at 07:12: The speaker uses her fingers to illustrate a small percentage \(3%\), referring to the small fraction of materials that are reused, contrasting it with the vast amount of waste generated.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/6k72tcf6fXk/00-07-12.jpg)