My thanks to The Klosters Forum for inviting me to TKF25, this year’s get together of environmental experts in the beautiful Swiss Alpine village of Klosters.
The theme was “New Means of Urban Resilience”. There were many interesting talks, panel discussions and other events, all of which offered rich food for thought. The attendees had all done something unusual and interesting.
I gave a Q&A style talk with the brilliant help of Hannah Macinnes. We have worked together before, at the Hay Festival in 2018, and her preparation is amongst the best I have seen, which made for a very enjoyable event.
The technical experts that made up the 80 attendees drew skills from many walks: architects, think-tankers, politicians, non-profits, science communicators, charities… If I’m honest, I didn’t expect to be able to help with anything technical in any of their specific fields. I hoped my role was to help add a different perspective on the natural world and try to encourage everyone to sense nature by enjoying the process of reading and interpreting signs.
Asked about the specific value of this way of seeing the world in terms of urban architecture, I confessed that it might be for architects to take these ideas and incorporate them in any way they saw as constructive. But I did add that, although my knowledge of architecture is limited, I’m pretty sure that the embarrassing ‘solar-glare problem‘ in London’s Walkie-Talkie building would have been totally avoided if the lead architects had spent 20 minutes thinking about natural navigation at any point in their lives. (A south-facing concave wall of glass acted as a mirror and focused the sun’s energy onto the street below, scorching the street and melting parts of cars.) By chance I passed that building on the way home, see below.
I did get the opportunity to do some walking in the mountains and have added my favourite clues & signs from those excursions to The Collection.
Thank you again to Hannah Macinnes, Stephanie von Meiss, Noemi Staehelin, Sarah Ichioka, Camilla ter Haar, Clare Heaton and all the team at The Klosters Forum. And thank you also to the sponsors, Pictet.
For more information on the forum, please see The Klosters Forum.
You might also enjoy:
Why is Visibility So Good in the Mountains?
The BBC World Service Forum on Natural Navigation