Into the age of creativity and innovation
UP College of Architecture
Commencement Exercises
25 April 2010, College of Architecture Complex Building 1, UP Diliman

Senator Edgardo J. Angara
Guest of Honor

You're leaving school for the world of work at a time of great social and economic transformation.

Only a century ago, the world shifted from the agricultural to the industrial system.

Today, we're undergoing yet another same revolutionary shift -to a new world that values creativity and innovation above everything.

The psychologist Daniel Pink puts this series of changes this way:

We have been moving from an economy built on people's backs to an economy built on people's left brains. What is emerging today is an economy built more and more on people's right brains.[1]

By this he means that the 'Information Age' of the past couple of decades--which was built on the superiority of left-brain skills--is now turning into the 'Conceptual Age,' which calls for a whole-brained--or holistic-- approach.

The shift taking place in our time is to an economy built on the inventive, empathic, creative and holistic--subtle processes that use more and more the right side of the brain.

The core elements of human society in our time are creators and empathizers: pattern recognizers and meaning makers.

Into a New Age

And this new age calls for skills and talents that, historically, have been largely discounted in the workplace - creativity, empathy, intuition, and the ability to link seemingly unrelated objects and events into something new and different.

Artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big-picture thinkers will reap society's richest rewards in our time.

Carnegie Mellon Urban Planner Richard Florida agrees that the creative class will be the primary generators of economic development in the future.

This is evident in today's labor market. The creative sector has exploded over the last few years. Worldwide, one-third of all the workers in advanced industrial countries are employed in the creative sector: science and engineering, research and development, arts, music, culture, design and aesthetics, or in knowledged-based professions like health care, finance and law.[2]

In the United Kingdom, the creative sector already produces goods and services valued at $200 billion each year. In another 15 years, this sector will be worth nearly $6.1 trillion internationally.[3]

The number of graphic designers alone has increased tenfold in a decade. More Americans now work as artists, entertainers and designers than as lawyers, accountants and auditors.

Writers and musicians alone now earn 30-50% more than they did in the 1970s.

The Creative Class

You, as graduates of architecture, belong to what they call the creative class.

You are among the so-called design thinkers of our time.

'Design thinking' involves the use of creative skills to solve human challenges through available technical resources.[4]

Good design and good thinking can transform the world by inspiring innovation. The best designers match necessity to utility--barriers to possibility--and need to demand.

Design is no longer confined to making things pretty, as was the traditional connotation.

Design thinking is now being applied to a vast range of fields--to solve society's biggest problems, from health care delivery to climate change and disaster mitigation.

For instance, our recent experience with Ondoy and Pepeng--and unprecedented flooding in Metro Manila--is a good exercise for innovative thinking.

How do we disaster-proof our cities? How do we make sure that natural disasters don't turn into human tragedies and wreak havoc on our economies?

Archaic and orthodox thinking that leads to mediocre design will suffice no longer.

Heavy waterfall from the Sierra Madre could not be contained in the Marikina River and could not flow into the Manila Bay, which is its natural reservoir.

Pasig River was blocked by siltation. The first solution to flooding, therefore, is to de-silt Laguna de Bay and open up Pasig River so that water from Sierra Madre would not overflow Metro Manila. That is the sensible solution to the problem.

Turning constraints into potentials

Today's challenges require design thinkers, good builders and architects.

People with vision and foresight.

People who turn constraints into potentials.

People who can do more with less.

People who look at ordinary things and make them extraordinary.

Design and innovation give birth to new processes, services, interactions, entertainment forms, and ways of communicating.[5]

'Design thinking'

'Design thinking' was employed by industrial designer Yves Behar to make a laptop computer that works better than most models--but can be sold for a quarter of the usual price.[6]

American inventor Dean Kamen used design thinking to make a prosthetic arm sensitive and delicate enough to pick up a grape without crushing it.[7]

A recycle-able car

Gordon Murray used the same innovative thinking to design the world's first wholly recyclable car.[8]

Computer science students Larry Page and Sergey Brin used their creativity to invent Google in their dorm rooms in Stanford. Today it is a billion-dollar industry and the number one search engine on the web.

The rise of the Force

Similarly, architects are key the rise of the creative force. Architects are the physical designers of our world. Architects build cities, which are history's laboratories of creativity and innovation.

In many cities today, culture and creativity are the main recipients of urban investment. Cities regarded as having the highest quality of living are those where culture, art, architecture and urban design thrive.

Cities like Barcelona, Bilbao, Amsterdam, Tokyo, and New York are all examples of creative cities.

Iconic cities

People want to be in cities that are memorable, iconic and powerful.

In Bilbao, for instance, the iconic Guggenheim Museum designed by architect Frank Gehry has given a new, creative breath to what had been a decaying industrial city.

Bilbao now bustles with tourism and commerce. It attracts investments that have made Bilbainos richer than the average person in Spain.[9]

The Creative Class

Clearly, there is a relationship between creativity and the level of urban development. There is a connection between cultural and creative activity and the drive for competitiveness and economic growth through the much valued "creative class".[10]

We Filipinos are a naturally creative people. Already, Pinoys around the world show off their talent and creativity as performing artists, musicians, singers, dancers, composers, choreographers, designers, architects.

The creative arts are one of the Filipino economic niches in the global economy. It is high time we as a people cultivated and nurtured our artistry and creativity as an economic asset.

Vibrant cities as magnets for progress

In conclusion, I urge you - architecture graduates - to put your creativity into good use. I challenge you to help build livable and sustainable cities propelled by extraordinary technological innovation, whose vibrancy and resilience are a magnet for investment and production.

Our country's drive towards progress will be powered by good thinking, good design, and innovation.

Thank you and good morning.

NOTES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind (2006)
[2] Richard Florida, Cities and the Creative Class (2005)
[3] Pink, op cit
[4] Tim Brown, Change by design (2009)
[5] Brown, op cit
[6] Warren Berger, Glimmer: How design can transform your life, and maybe even the world (2009)
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] The Basque Autonomous Community is currently the wealthiest region in Spain, with gross domestic product (GDP) per capita being 40% higher than that of the European Union and 33.8% higher than Spain's average in 2008.
[10] P. Costa, J. Seixas and A. Roldão, From 'Creative Cities' To 'Urban Creativity': Space, Creativity And Governance In The Contemporary City (2009)