 Hurricane Sandy wiped out thousands of homes, businesses, and city infrastructure. In the aftermath, the Department of Housing and Development set up a task force to rebuild the city. A Dutch water management expert joined the force and launched a contest called Rebuild by Design to promote innovation and provide resiliency with the hope that the winning designs would make the city less vulnerable in the face of the next disaster. So water management is very complex. Water does exactly what it wants. It goes everywhere. So you can protect, let's say, your own house, but then the water just goes to your neighbors. When I started working in the U.S., the first question I got from a reporter was, okay, Mr. Oving, are you going to save New York by building a storm surge barrier next to the Verrazano Bridge? And that idea was, I think, exactly the problem we all face all over the world. We want simple solutions. We want the silver bullet, which is the wrong approach because there is no silver bullet when it comes to water. If you would embrace water as part of your life, as part of the economy and the culture, you will come up with a multitude of solutions that altogether form a comprehensive plan. The competition invited designers, scientists, engineers, thinkers and leaders to reinvent solutions and safety measures for the New York, New Jersey region. Out of 148 entries, the six winners balanced local needs with aesthetic and functional value. The first thing we said to the teams in their design phase was, stop designing. The first thing you have to do is build a coalition. And don't design for them, but, you know, work with them to get to a design that's inclusive of this community, that also builds in the needs and the understanding and the capacity of the neighborhood and informed by the process your design. One of the most ambitious projects is the Big U, a protective system designed for lower Manhattan which was hit hard by the hurricane. The team proposes to shield the low-lying region from floods and future storms with elevated beams and pavilions with folding doors. The Big U will stretch across 10 continuous miles and provide social and environmental benefits to a high-risk region. So the idea is that the Big U is almost like a chameleon, that it changes character and color every time it encounters a new neighborhood. In the East River Park, it's really like the park terrain races towards the highway, protecting the park from the noise of the highway, but also protecting the city from flooding. Then as you move down and you get under the FDR, the elevated highway, in some places we have placed pavilions with galleries or marketplaces. Inside them they have these sleeves so that they're always open, there's always space between the pavilions, but in the case of a flood, out of these sleeves giant doors can come out and create a continuous flood barrier. Through our dialogue with the local communities, even though the Big U is one continuous effort, it really changes character all the time so you'll never be able to see it as a big piece of infrastructure, rather it's the social infrastructure of that community that really changes its character and its appearance. We owe it to these communities, we owe it to ourselves and our next generations to make a better place. I think in the end if you look at what a city is all about, is a lot of different people from a lot of different cultures, a lot of different nationalities coming together in a restricted space to try to maximize the possibilities for each and every individual to unfold themselves, to express themselves. And what we try to do with the Big U is to really in a way turn this public participation process into something that actually improves the design, something that generates design, something that generates diversity, something that generates surprises. We are in a very intelligent, smart, competitive region. We have the minds here, we have the hearts here, we have the understanding here. We don't have an excuse not to create a better region. There's only one way forward. Thank you. Thank you.
 Hurricane Sandy wiped out thousands of homes, businesses, and city infrastructure.
 In the aftermath, the Department of Housing and Development set up a task force to rebuild
 the city.
 A Dutch water management expert joined the force and launched a contest called Rebuild
 by Design to promote innovation and provide resiliency with the hope that the winning
 designs would make the city less vulnerable in the face of the next disaster.
 So water management is very complex.
 Water does exactly what it wants.
 It goes everywhere.
 So you can protect, let's say, your own house, but then the water just goes to your neighbors.
 When I started working in the U.S., the first question I got from a reporter was, okay,
 Mr. Oving, are you going to save New York by building a storm surge barrier next to
 the Verrazano Bridge?
 And that idea was, I think, exactly the problem we all face all over the world.
 We want simple solutions.
 We want the silver bullet, which is the wrong approach because there is no silver bullet
 when it comes to water.
 If you would embrace water as part of your life, as part of the economy and the culture,
 you will come up with a multitude of solutions that altogether form a comprehensive plan.
 The competition invited designers, scientists, engineers, thinkers and leaders to reinvent
 solutions and safety measures for the New York, New Jersey region.
 Out of 148 entries, the six winners balanced local needs with aesthetic and functional
 value.
 The first thing we said to the teams in their design phase was, stop designing.
 The first thing you have to do is build a coalition.
 And don't design for them, but, you know, work with them to get to a design that's inclusive
 of this community, that also builds in the needs and the understanding and the capacity
 of the neighborhood and informed by the process your design.
 One of the most ambitious projects is the Big U, a protective system designed for lower
 Manhattan which was hit hard by the hurricane.
 The team proposes to shield the low-lying region from floods and future storms with
 elevated beams and pavilions with folding doors.
 The Big U will stretch across 10 continuous miles and provide social and environmental
 benefits to a high-risk region.
 So the idea is that the Big U is almost like a chameleon, that it changes character and
 color every time it encounters a new neighborhood.
 In the East River Park, it's really like the park terrain races towards the highway, protecting
 the park from the noise of the highway, but also protecting the city from flooding.
 Then as you move down and you get under the FDR, the elevated highway, in some places
 we have placed pavilions with galleries or marketplaces.
 Inside them they have these sleeves so that they're always open, there's always space
 between the pavilions, but in the case of a flood, out of these sleeves giant doors
 can come out and create a continuous flood barrier.
 Through our dialogue with the local communities, even though the Big U is one continuous effort,
 it really changes character all the time so you'll never be able to see it as a big piece
 of infrastructure, rather it's the social infrastructure of that community that really
 changes its character and its appearance.
 We owe it to these communities, we owe it to ourselves and our next generations to make
 a better place.
 I think in the end if you look at what a city is all about, is a lot of different people
 from a lot of different cultures, a lot of different nationalities coming together in
 a restricted space to try to maximize the possibilities for each and every individual
 to unfold themselves, to express themselves.
 And what we try to do with the Big U is to really in a way turn this public participation
 process into something that actually improves the design, something that generates design,
 something that generates diversity, something that generates surprises.
 We are in a very intelligent, smart, competitive region.
 We have the minds here, we have the hearts here, we have the understanding here.
 We don't have an excuse not to create a better region.
 There's only one way forward.
 Thank you.
 Thank you.