Transcript exported from the video version of this episode - Note that it has not been copyedited

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:04:01
John Simmerman
From a design perspective, Should our cities be fun?

00:00:05:12 - 00:00:17:20
Robert Martin
Yes. I mean, I can't imagine what it would. I just. I mean, it just it provides so much quality of life to has Sun City.

00:00:19:22 - 00:00:39:28
Robert Martin
I mean, Copenhagen is also lauded as one of the most livable cities in the world. So, you know, we're speaking from an incredibly privileged position. So, like, I don't want it undermined what it is, but it's also really enjoyable having, you know, amazing public spaces like especially in summer, just seeing how active and alive the city is.

00:00:40:08 - 00:01:05:02
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. I'm John Simmerman and that is Robert Martin, architect with Jaja Architects in Copenhagen, Denmark. And we are going to be talking about mobility and going on a mobility diet. The mobility diet pyramid that they have created. It's a fun conversation, and I'm really delighted that you have tuned in for this.

00:01:05:11 - 00:01:10:28
John Simmerman
It's a long one. So let's get right to it with Robert Martin. Enjoy.

00:01:14:15 - 00:01:19:19
John Simmerman
Robert Martin. It is an absolute pleasure to have you on the Active Towns Podcast. Welcome.

00:01:20:20 - 00:01:21:29
Robert Martin
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

00:01:22:10 - 00:01:30:19
John Simmerman
Robert. I love to have my guests to sort of introduce themselves briefly. So I'm going to turn the floor over to you and let you introduce yourself to the audience.

00:01:31:26 - 00:01:49:25
Robert Martin
Thanks a lot. Well, my name is Robert Martin. I'm an architect and currently the Head of Mobility at Jaja Architects. We're an architecture and urban planning firm based in Copenhagen, Denmark. I'm originally Australian, but I've been living here in Copenhagen for the past ten years.

00:01:50:22 - 00:02:02:05
John Simmerman
Fantastic. That's great. So what really kind of interested you in this line of work? I mean, what's that sort of origin story that brought you to doing this sort of stuff?

00:02:03:16 - 00:02:29:01
Robert Martin
Yeah, it's really interesting and almost quite organic because I grew up in, say, the outskirts of Sydney in Australia. I wouldn't call it rural, but definitely the town I was in was only 4000 people and growing up there was a train line, but it wasn't really that well connected. So it was a very, let's say, car dependent place to live.

00:02:29:01 - 00:02:49:09
Robert Martin
And then it was actually quite funny because when I moved to Sydney to study my undergraduate, I had a car, but I had sold it within a year because I just became incredibly frustrated with finding parking, constantly, being stuck in traffic. And I also had discovered cycling. So it just was a little bit organic that I kind of dropped the car for the bike.

00:02:49:25 - 00:03:17:19
Robert Martin
If you fast forward a little bit and you're into Copenhagen, the pieces started to come together on how do you create much more livable cities, much more fun cities, much more enjoyable cities to be in. If we can start to think of mobility outside that kind of realm of automobiles and start to promote more active forms of transport, because I can really say that my quality of life since moving here has definitely improved as a result of it.

00:03:18:02 - 00:03:21:11
John Simmerman
And what brought you to Copenhagen? The first time.

00:03:22:27 - 00:03:48:25
Robert Martin
I was actually lucky enough to be awarded a scholarship to the Sydney Opera House. Maybe it's not so well-known amongst your audience, but it's quite a landmark architectural project in Sydney and something that the city is very proud of. But it was actually designed by a Danish architect. And the unfortunate fact about the project is he never saw it completed because of a kind of political turmoil which saw him actually being signed off the project.

00:03:49:20 - 00:04:13:20
Robert Martin
So it's the 40th anniversary of the Sydney Opera House in combination with a lot of apartments both in Australia and in Denmark, decided to launch a scholarship that would send Australian architects to Denmark and Danish architects to Australia to somewhat rebuild that relationship that had developed in the 1970s. And I was lucky enough to receive the first one.

00:04:13:23 - 00:04:37:07
Robert Martin
So I was kind of taken on this six week whirlwind trip where I got to visit many of these kind of masterpieces within Europe that I had this feeling in the back of my head that I didn't just want it to be a six week trip. So I actually only bought a one way ticket thinking that I could probably find a job within six weeks.

00:04:38:00 - 00:04:59:27
Robert Martin
And I was I was lucky enough to find a job with the Danish architecture firm Henning Larsen. The only kind of catch was is that job was in Saudi Arabia. So I kind of had I had kind of made the plan to move to Copenhagen and then had to call home and say, actually, I'm moving to Saudi Arabia.

00:05:00:17 - 00:05:12:18
Robert Martin
I was there for six months. Yeah. If you want to talk about a lack of Arctic mobility at least back in 2014 and Saudi Arabia, Riyadh is definitely one of those places.

00:05:13:00 - 00:05:14:15
John Simmerman
Wow. Fascinating. Yeah.

00:05:15:20 - 00:05:22:05
Robert Martin
Anyway, I hopped out of that. I kind of was able to go back to the Copenhagen office. Right, Right.

00:05:22:19 - 00:05:23:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah.

00:05:24:00 - 00:05:25:07
Robert Martin
So that was.

00:05:25:15 - 00:05:46:07
John Simmerman
So talk a little bit about that. You know, that it sounds like, you know, at least from the the town, the city that you were, you know, raised in. And I also was in a small city of I think our our town population was like 4000 people. And I actually lived on a small ranch outside of town. And, you know, but it was only like two miles outside of town.

00:05:46:07 - 00:06:14:01
John Simmerman
If I really had to, I could walk it and or write the bike in. But what was that like, you know, going from that environment to, you know, sort of that car free environment, you know, the college, you know, active mobility introduction. And that's not uncommon to you know, to get that here that of that. Oh, yeah, when I went to college I sort of adapted a car light lifestyle, active mobility, lifestyle.

00:06:14:01 - 00:06:32:13
John Simmerman
But then you know that culture shock of actually making that move to Copenhagen and having the active mobility be so central to everyday life, what was that like culturally for you and was it a shock or was it like, welcome?

00:06:33:19 - 00:07:02:11
Robert Martin
Well, I think I've been cycling in Sydney for about five years before moving to Copenhagen, so it was actually quite natural to adopt it. I can reflect more on the transition and from kind of where I grew up to Sydney and little bit more because it was first of all, incredibly fun and incredibly free because, you know, being somewhat dependent on like a vehicle and then unpacking ended on traffic and money, you know, it was a little bit limiting.

00:07:02:16 - 00:07:25:21
Robert Martin
And then all of a sudden I had the freedom, especially with large groups of friends, to kind of move without the city being spontaneous. And that wasn't what we wanted to do. Maybe be a little bit more freer with socializing. It was incredibly amazing. And I think moving to Copenhagen, actually, what I what I experienced is it became a lot more relaxed actually.

00:07:26:12 - 00:07:46:09
Robert Martin
So I had this like single speed kind of racer. And when I was in Sydney, because I was kind of used to battling through traffic, having to avoid busses, right. Being constantly aware. And then all of a sudden when I moved to Copenhagen, I bought this somewhat Amsterdam style, you know, heavy steel bike because I thought, Oh, I don't need to go anywhere quick.

00:07:46:20 - 00:07:50:10
Robert Martin
You know, this can be relaxed. You know, it was really it was really, really nice.

00:07:50:26 - 00:08:29:15
John Simmerman
Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, too, because that's one of the common themes that we talk about here on the Active Towns podcast in on the channel in general. Is that difference in sort of approach to active mobility in North America? We kind of get caught up in that same sort of rat race sort of theme in in certain areas in the UK, the same thing of where, yeah, it's like, oh, this is a race, you know, it's like this is like urban warfare sort of thing in terms of being on a bike in that environment because it seems like you're doing battle, but then you sort of really have to shift gears and downshift

00:08:29:15 - 00:08:47:17
John Simmerman
and like take a deep breath and relax and get on that upright bike and maybe even a step through frame and, you know, just realize that, oh, yeah, you know, it's not a race. We don't have to race off the line to to try to, you know, position ourselves in front of the driver in front of the cars.

00:08:48:03 - 00:09:05:08
John Simmerman
It's it really is a much more comfortable environment where you can actually dress for your destination in your normal clothes and you're not having to get on, you know, donning cycling gear. So, yeah, it's it's an interesting thing.

00:09:06:01 - 00:09:27:20
Robert Martin
But I think it's it's also a little bit I would find the drivers in Copenhagen quite respectful of cyclists, which makes the experience much more enjoyable. And this is also, you say, represented by series by who you see cycling race is like it's it's not just mammals as you might experience in many places around the world. But go.

00:09:27:20 - 00:09:31:14
John Simmerman
Ahead. Go ahead and go ahead and define a distance. That's an acronym. Go ahead and define it.

00:09:31:14 - 00:09:45:08
Robert Martin
Exactly. Yeah, I didn't know how to do it, but I think it's middle aged men in Lycra, Right. Like, you know, the Sunday morning kind of groups of men dominating the roads that often causes conflicts, I would say, with motorists.

00:09:46:10 - 00:10:05:23
John Simmerman
And we're in we're agnostic here on on the out of towns channel where you know if hey if you're getting out on your bike, that's awesome You know go for it It's that's that's great that's the key thing is more people riding more often and if that's what you love to do, that's great. So we're not criticizing at all I.

00:10:05:23 - 00:10:18:29
Robert Martin
Way lycra like on weekends I have multiple bikes so I will not Yeah I will not use it in a derogatory way, but maybe to identify a certain group that cyclists are often kind of created with.

00:10:18:29 - 00:10:41:16
John Simmerman
Yeah. Good stuff. Okay so your current firm you. So I love this too. And I'm very fascinated by the fact that you're an architect. But you're interested in mobility and you're the director of mobility in your current firm. Let's let's talk a little bit about that. And how does that happen? How does the architect become a mobility person.

00:10:42:20 - 00:11:14:24
Robert Martin
And it was quite lucky for me, actually, that year we're already thinking about mobility because back in 2016, I would say that they were somewhat of a traditional architecture and urban planning company, and I think their is to kind of keep projects that made them reconsider the way that transport works in cities. The first is actually this parking house that is in the background of our Web page or web page, just them.

00:11:15:12 - 00:11:45:04
Robert Martin
And as you can see, maybe from the top of it, it's not your own reporting house. It's it's actually like an active roof scape as a way to kind of create new types of public spaces in cities. That's the other project, which is maybe more like systemic thought that they had, was that they were doing a master plan in Folsom in Norway, and there was a lot of kind of ambitions for this to be a sustainable urban development.

00:11:45:18 - 00:12:15:25
Robert Martin
And there was somewhat of an experience that even though the initial masterplan say, you know, had little cars integrated into them once, it kind of went through planning processes, brought in the road authorities, Traffic Engineers Alliance, they kind of standards that you would find in in kind of city development such as like parking norms, minimum wage growth with discussions about capacity and flow of vehicles that eroded a lot of those ambitions in the project.

00:12:16:09 - 00:12:42:18
Robert Martin
And that's was frustrating in one sense. But it also there was a lot of discussions at the same time about, say, autonomous vehicles, mobility as a service, you know, micro-mobility in the kind of expanded view of lightweight and lightweight electric vehicles. And there was a frustration that, okay, we're designing this masterplan now and it won't be ready, you know, fully implemented for 15 years.

00:12:42:18 - 00:13:11:12
Robert Martin
And yet the tools that we're using to plan transport within it, you know, based, you know, 50 years ago right. And so there was a little bit of this, you know, frustration, that inability to actually join that conversation and kind of argue against it. So I've decided to kind of sound this mobility team. And they invited me to lead it, which was initially through research, then through an industrial Ph.D., which I'm sure we can touch on a bit later.

00:13:11:27 - 00:13:19:16
Robert Martin
And then from that, the knowledge kind of gained out of those projects. We were able to launch like a consultancy team within the company.

00:13:20:11 - 00:13:24:29
John Simmerman
Fantastic. Yeah. So go ahead and dive into that industrial Ph.D. as well.

00:13:25:23 - 00:13:49:01
Robert Martin
Yeah. So I mean, it's a it's an interesting idea that we have in Denmark. I think it's also in other countries around the world that essentially what the setup is, is that it's co-financed by a company. But in exchange for that co-financing, I don't have any teaching obligations or I didn't have any teaching obligations. And instead of teaching, those hours was spent working at the company.

00:13:49:12 - 00:14:08:14
Robert Martin
So the idea is to kind of have a greater dissemination of the research straight into kind of commercial practice. And that's just generally an idea that Denmark is trying to do to kind of, you know, bolster kind of innovation by actually having that great a tie together between industry and academia.

00:14:08:14 - 00:14:30:11
John Simmerman
And I'd like to dive into a little bit more details about the idea and and in really the different areas that you're interested in. But before we do that, I just have to comment that this is really cool. This image with the activity centers on the top of the structure. It's what I would call in my terminology, an activity asset.

00:14:30:20 - 00:15:02:07
John Simmerman
It's a it's a it's a piece of of hardware, you know, an actual park, something physical in the built environment that you can point to and say, yeah, that's something that is is out there that can encourage healthy, active living a culture of activity, if you will. And that's kind of the hardware, the software side of stuff from in my terminology with activity assets are the policies and programs and incentive initiatives that help to activate spaces like this.

00:15:02:07 - 00:15:19:21
John Simmerman
But I think this is super cool that, you know, that you have that innovation and that the firm literally has this as the landing page image to the website. Very, very cool. Exactly. So so tell me more about your Yah and really the main areas of business that you all are in.

00:15:20:18 - 00:16:00:28
Robert Martin
Yeah. So I mean, we're a company of about 25 people and that's a mix of kind of the founding partners, architects, building constructors and landscape architects and planners. Right? And so we kind of have a broad portfolio of resources that we're able to tapping into in our projects there. There are three kind of what we call pillars of sustainability that have somewhat naturally emerged for us, but also is a way for us to define ourselves as a practice because I think all kind of companies throughout the world should have a sustainability agenda, especially in the current climate crisis.

00:16:01:08 - 00:16:40:16
Robert Martin
And I think architects generally have that ambition to do good in the world. But maybe as you come into working life, you realize that our agency where we're actually able to kind of create impact is is limited in some scope. So we kind of defined our three as biomaterials where as much as possible we try and utilize timber bioengineered products, you know, the reduction of steel and concrete because of that effect it has on resource depletion and CO2 and energy costs transformation where the most sustainable building is the one you don't build.

00:16:40:22 - 00:17:12:27
Robert Martin
You know, there's a extremely large amount of, you know, built fabric within the world that we need to better utilize instead of simply tearing it down and rebuilding. So, you know, also in terms of saving CO2, but also preserving a lot of those like spatial qualities that we find in buildings that, you know, we won't find anymore. And then the third being mobility, which is my baby, I guess, and that is more of the kind of larger systematic view that cities are kind of comprised of their mobility systems.

00:17:12:27 - 00:17:38:20
Robert Martin
And that's what kind of makes them work and provides like the kind of living quality. So the nice thing about us having these three pillars is it means that we're able to kind of work across scales in terms of impact. We can go right down to the small kind of detail of of like a joint between two pieces of structural timber all the way up to advising cities, regional policy on mobility and everything in between.

00:17:39:07 - 00:17:49:14
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. And it looks like on this particular project that I zoomed in on here, we've got the construction of sort of a whimsical activity asset. Is this like a school setting?

00:17:50:20 - 00:18:17:22
Robert Martin
It's actually a conference center and like event space. I think what's actually not shown in this image is that it's part of a new bus rapid transport line in Albo, which is a northern city in Denmark, and it was actually to reorientate the entrance to the to the building to kind of align with the bus rapid transport. So actually this kind of running track actually like directly kind of links that bus stop into the center.

00:18:18:02 - 00:18:30:17
Robert Martin
And then what's kind of cool about that is it's not just simply kind of a wayfinding exercise, but also how do we create spaces for people to use, How do we activate an otherwise back side to a building and create those spaces for people to inhabit?

00:18:30:29 - 00:18:52:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And it's whimsical, too. It's it's kind of fun. Well, hey, just to keep things fun and interesting, we decided to change your background. You were actually being chased by the sun. So. And as as you mentioned off camera, the you know, you can't complain too much because if you if you have sun, you want to you know thank you very much for for for shining.

00:18:53:03 - 00:19:29:18
John Simmerman
So I did want to talk a little bit about the mobility work that you're doing. And one of the things that that you have been really presenting about publicly recently is this concept of a mobility pyramid. I'm thinking it'd be fun to sort of introduce this concept with a short little video that you did. And and I'll be sure to include the video link in the show notes to this interview, to this video, as well as in the show notes for the audio only version of this podcast.

00:19:29:29 - 00:19:47:19
John Simmerman
But it is that okay, you want to give that a try and play that video that'll give our voices a little bit of a break here and and we'll have some fun. Let's get this cued up here as we're doing this. Why don't you give a little context behind what we're about to see here?

00:19:49:02 - 00:20:13:20
Robert Martin
Yeah. So this was a video shot by Urban Next, which is kind of online platform run by the publisher actor. And it was while I was at the Smart City World Expo in Barcelona. And as you can see here on the screen now and I was there presenting as part of the idea of mobility, and they caught up with me to talk about the work that we do it.

00:20:13:20 - 00:20:14:00
Robert Martin
Yeah.

00:20:14:20 - 00:20:34:24
John Simmerman
Fantastic. We will play the entire video. So again, I encourage everybody to click through to the links to be able to see the entire video. But we'll play like the first minute or so because I think it's a good introduction to what we're about to talk about in terms of the detailed work that you are currently doing. So let's play.

00:20:40:16 - 00:21:08:01
Robert Martin
My name is Robert Martin. I'm the head of mobility at Gaia Architects, where a small architecture and design firm based in Copenhagen, Denmark. One of the ways in which we try and talk about the future of mobility is through mobility diet. And the reason why we use this analogy of a diet is because we think that the discussion around mobility is often very black and white.

00:21:08:02 - 00:21:34:02
Robert Martin
It's very much a car versus bike versus public transport, and there's not much in between. Right. As soon as we hear, you know, removing one parking space, a lot of people get very angry and that's the end of the discussion. But we don't think mobility is black and white. We think it's much more like a diet where we understand that you can have certain levels of car use in cities because we know that some people need a car, but that shouldn't be the majority, you know, just like a diet.

00:21:34:02 - 00:22:03:23
Robert Martin
It should be in moderation. And if we actually treat mobility in cities like a diet and kind of focus much more on the green modes, the kind of the cycling, the walking, the shared modes of mobility, our cities can be much more healthy as a result. What I also like about the analogy of a diet, and especially in relation to the food pyramid and the food pyramid is something that we've all grown up with.

00:22:03:23 - 00:22:21:26
Robert Martin
What we would have seen over time is that we grow up as that food pyramid has actually been changing. You would have seen like meat was probably at the bottom with vegetables as kind of a key element of our diets. But now it's at the top because we've kind of had an understanding that it's not good for our environment, it's not good for us to kind of have that as a foundation of our diet.

00:22:21:26 - 00:22:44:28
Robert Martin
So it's moved around and we think that's good about mobility, died as well. We have a plane on it, which we obviously get criticized about in terms of its CO2 impact. But, you know, this technology can change over time. And so it might appear off, we might discover a new biofuel and it comes down. You know, it's a much more kind of dynamic way to think about it, both in terms of time, but also in terms of context.

00:22:45:07 - 00:23:08:22
Robert Martin
I live in Copenhagen and we have a very rich cycling culture, but we also have a very flat, small city. So that's why cycling works there. And you can't expect that to necessarily be replicated in other environments. So that's why that mobility diet can look different in different places. You just need to understand what that context is before you're starting to think about what the diet should be.

00:23:08:22 - 00:23:43:09
John Simmerman
And we'll put press play at that at that point. And I encourage everybody to watch the rest of the video. It's a tremendously a fantastic video. And so everyone should do that. Assuming we were able to show that video, Oh, this got introduced. You were referencing mobility as a diet and introduced that concept of a mobility pyramid. Talk a little bit more about this work that you're doing and and and why this is relevant for cities around the globe from a sustainability perspective.

00:23:44:01 - 00:24:10:06
Robert Martin
Yeah, and that is actually quite funny because we, we made it quite quickly because they recently rereleased the food Pyramid here in Denmark. There's like a supermarket chain called Co-op, and that's the one in Denmark that people grew up with. And we just thought it was a nice analogy, this idea of a mobility diet. Now there are other kind of mobility pyramids floating around.

00:24:10:18 - 00:24:31:21
Robert Martin
There's also this one, which is the inverted mobility pyramid, I think, which tries to discuss it more in terms of the level of hierarchy. Whereas what we're not trying to talk about in terms of hierarchy, what we're trying to talk about it in diet, right? We're trying to say that it's totally fine for people to drive, but that is not really what should be the default.

00:24:32:07 - 00:24:57:24
Robert Martin
You know, it's totally fine to accept that there are groups that rely on a car, but once again, that should be the kind of default if we can start to think about, you know, more multimodal systems, which are much more focused on active mobility, public transport, and then, you know, cars, planes where those systems don't necessarily work, you know, we can start to create cities which are much higher in quality.

00:24:57:25 - 00:25:21:25
Robert Martin
It's really taken off. I think people it helps people understand what this future is that we're trying to describe. You know, I think I don't know if it's a trend in America, but there have certainly been trends in Europe about, say, meat free Mondays and people can accept that, You know, they like, oh, great, yeah, I eat me once a week and and that could be the same with mobility, right.

00:25:21:25 - 00:25:41:20
Robert Martin
I mean people just think, okay, I could I could take public transport, I could cycle, I could walk to work, you know, one day a week because that's probably manageable. And, you know, if society do that, that actually has a huge impact, right? Because if we can think at the individual but then understand it at the societal level, these small little shifts can actually have large effects.

00:25:42:14 - 00:26:10:11
John Simmerman
Right? Yeah. Yeah. It actually is kind of brilliant in the sense that, you know, when we think about the mobility pyramid and, and, you know, the, the, the mobility or the, the diet, you know, pyramid is that, you know, the foundation of the pyramid, the foundation of of your go to activities are hopefully going to be active mobility and those those those quote unquote greener choices.

00:26:10:22 - 00:26:44:07
John Simmerman
And to your point, you know, hopefully, you know, using that single occupancy vehicle is, you know, is done sparingly, similar to, you know, indulging in that that meat or dairy product, you know, or, you know, or a dessert or something like that, you know, whatever's at the top of the pyramid these days. And likewise, you know, getting on an airplane, hopefully getting on an airplane is not something that you are doing on a regular, regular basis, you know, so doing it sparingly.

00:26:44:07 - 00:26:56:01
John Simmerman
So I think it's a beautiful analogy and and brilliant in that sense. What has been the reaction to this as you've been presenting this and talking about this around the globe?

00:26:57:19 - 00:27:16:09
Robert Martin
It's been quite positive, as I say, and I think most people can understand it. I think some people read it a little bit too literally sometimes, like maybe it's a policy document and they think, okay, maybe that electric car should be a bit high, maybe this should come down. But in some ways, maybe that's missing the point because we're not trying to be so dogmatic with it.

00:27:16:18 - 00:27:35:17
Robert Martin
We're just trying to say that if we focus on walking, if we focus on cycling, if we take public transport less and drive less, that's that's generally a way to do it. But I think it's also been funny because people there was there was a company, I think, in Argentina that stole it. They changed the color scheme and replaced our logo.

00:27:36:01 - 00:27:44:01
Robert Martin
And in some way that's frustrating, but also it's nice that it becomes like it resonates with people. Yeah, because I guess that's.

00:27:44:17 - 00:27:45:18
John Simmerman
The flattery part.

00:27:46:21 - 00:27:59:21
Robert Martin
And, and also just the message kind of is spread, right? Because I think when you're working within the green transition and trying to work with sustainability, it's more important that the get the job gets done right rather than who does it.

00:27:59:28 - 00:28:24:11
John Simmerman
Yeah absolutely absolutely. Yeah. That that I'm sure that that can be a bit frustrating at times when when that that sort of thing happens. But again, I guess getting that information out is is absolutely critical. And that's the same thing that I run into all the time with. You know, content creation is sometimes folks will actually reach out to me and say, hey, is it okay if I steal this and use this?

00:28:24:11 - 00:28:30:14
John Simmerman
And I'm like, Oh, yeah, absolutely. Sometimes I don't ever hear and I just, you know, find out later, that's fine too.

00:28:30:21 - 00:28:52:19
Robert Martin
So but I actually I mean, this has been one of the, I would say, kind of key parts of, let's call it. Yeah. Success up until now is the ability to communicate a lot of these messages quite simply and I don't want to say viral because it hasn't gone that way at all. But, you know, we're constantly trying to think how we can actually create this message and spread it.

00:28:53:02 - 00:29:18:16
Robert Martin
Like, for instance, we had a we've recently had a new government here, and so we had a new transport minister. And so we made this mean, which was make mobility great again as a hat, right? And then we kind of wanted to present it to him as a way to kind of bring it on. And we're constantly thinking about these like ways that we can use communication, especially through social media, to engage people in and kind of talk to them.

00:29:18:16 - 00:29:34:16
John Simmerman
Right? Yeah, Yeah, that's that's great. One of the things that I wanted to to also do is give you an opportunity to talk a little bit more in depth about the types of projects that you're working on within your.

00:29:36:16 - 00:30:14:16
Robert Martin
Sure. I mean, it ranges quite a lot actually. We have kind of traditional clients like municipalities and property developers, but then we also have new mobility clients, which is really interesting to work with. So like shared e-scooter companies, so micromobility companies shared shared car companies, and the kind of work we do for them is a little bit different to what we would do for a property developer in that a lot of what their interested in is how to actually engage with cities and talk to them.

00:30:15:08 - 00:30:38:22
Robert Martin
Like, for instance, you know, a company that isn't necessarily used to engaging with municipalities and working with public space and might have a difficult time understanding what the kind of ambitions and the kind of what is important to the municipalities. And we basically work with these companies to help them align the city goals, help them to understand like the service or product that they're offering.

00:30:38:22 - 00:30:44:22
Robert Martin
How does that actually contribute to what the municipality would actually do within the city rather than kind of disrupting it?

00:30:45:10 - 00:31:10:27
John Simmerman
Right. You know, one of the things that I find fascinating is that interaction and and where the visions of the architects and the city planners and the designers then come in to work with the transportation and mobility engineers. Can you explain that a little bit?

00:31:11:24 - 00:31:50:28
Robert Martin
Yeah, it's definitely a collaborative effort. I think early on when I came into the space, I was quite critical of transport engineers because I perceive them maybe as a little bit as the kind of root cause of the problem. Whereas as I've matured, I guess I would say within it I've seen that actually you need that collaboration between what we do, which is a lot about visioning, trying to create these longer plans and actually the transport engineers that have like really good knowledge on how to implement solutions, how to understand mobility networks, etc..

00:31:51:01 - 00:32:21:05
Robert Martin
And so I would actually say that one of the main ways that we've been working together on projects is through this methodology that we've been trying to employ called backtesting. For those of you that don't have that casting, it's basically the opposite of forecasting where I would definitely criticize forecasting as a method because how I understand it is that you take historical data, you make some assumptions, and then you projected into the future and that projection is often seen as a truth.

00:32:21:22 - 00:32:54:21
Robert Martin
And those assumptions which led to that projection aren't necessarily so transparent. But what that casting does is it actually starts in that future. You know, you develop that vision with the necessary stakeholders. You kind of agree on what that vision is. You build up coalition support and then you develop pathways to get that. It's actually a very normal way for an architect to think actually where you kind of, you know, you do this vision for a building and then you start, okay, how do we actually do it right?

00:32:54:22 - 00:33:10:05
Robert Martin
How do we how do we construct this thing? And it's basically applying that. So to kind of then involve engineers, it's it's it's instead of like starting it today and projecting forward, we're trying to work with what is that future and then working with them how to actually figure out to get that.

00:33:10:27 - 00:33:18:18
John Simmerman
Yeah, now I'm lingering on this shot just to get some clarification as to where is this photo know.

00:33:18:20 - 00:33:36:20
Robert Martin
So it's actually in downtown Copenhagen. If you just go back one slide. And the reason why this is included is because I think when people think of Copenhagen, they think of this image, right? Yeah, this is definitely how the city is sold internationally. But if you go to the next one. Yeah, yeah, I know.

00:33:36:20 - 00:33:40:12
John Simmerman
This is this is the, this is the Copenhagen I, I can relate to.

00:33:41:01 - 00:34:01:25
Robert Martin
Yeah, exactly. Because you've actually seen like it's like a steady increase in the number of cars over the city over the last 20 years, which is my assumption is it's linked to the city becoming a lot richer. It was essentially bankrupt in the early 2000s. And as people get richer, they buy cars and this is more the experience of the day to day.

00:34:01:25 - 00:34:06:24
Robert Martin
It's not quite like Amsterdam, for instance. It's a little bit more intense.

00:34:07:11 - 00:34:33:05
John Simmerman
And it is a little bit more of a battle and it is a little bit more of this tension and negotiation between the different modes. And it also demonstrates a little bit of the arrogance of space that is dedicated to the movement and storage of automobiles. And we can talk a little bit about the effort to try to decrease the number of surface or on street parking spaces as well in the city.

00:34:33:16 - 00:35:00:22
John Simmerman
But I like to say that just like with Rotterdam, Copenhagen is a wonderful example for cities around the world, whether it be in North America or Australia, New Zealand and and the UK, where you have environments that are very car centric and very car dependent. Copenhagen is a wonderful example because it isn't, you know, it isn't like Old Town historic Amsterdam, where the streets, everything's super, super narrow.

00:35:00:22 - 00:35:28:22
John Simmerman
You do have areas of the city that are look like this and so you're working to try to create a healthier, more sustainable balance in the midst of this. So I kind of point to Copenhagen is a wonderful example for those cities that are struggling to carve out space for creating active mobility and a culture of activity. Would you agree with that, that premise.

00:35:29:13 - 00:35:39:10
Robert Martin
In some way? I actually think it's a relevant point to pull out of this LinkedIn post where you actually found me because it's it's this exact street, actually, or this roadway is.

00:35:39:10 - 00:35:39:17
John Simmerman
Yeah.

00:35:39:25 - 00:36:04:15
Robert Martin
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And when you pull it up, it's kind of interesting to talk about because the city's current plan is actually to bury that road in a tunnel, right? And then to create the green space themselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like and in some ways, you know, it makes sense because then cars have less that impact in some ways.

00:36:04:26 - 00:36:33:24
Robert Martin
But as you can see actually in this image, the kind of on and off ramps going for it actually kind of completely tear up the space. So that is I would say that's about 50 meters away from where that photo that you just showed was taken. And actually what a lot of the studies show is that it's going to actually like it's going to induce demand, It's going to increase the amount of car use, potentially limiting public transport and cycling.

00:36:34:10 - 00:36:44:29
Robert Martin
And I just think it's it's extremely crazy that a city which prides itself so much on its cycling culture would do a project which is extremely expensive and doNis.

00:36:45:15 - 00:36:59:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. Now this post was over a month ago. What's the status of this? Is this moving or has has enough people you know, spoke up to to hopefully you know, quash this as a as a plan.

00:37:00:07 - 00:37:29:18
Robert Martin
Yeah unfortunately not to give you context about the post it was actually because the city were debating whether to move ahead with the project or not after the initial feasibility study, which showed that, you know, it would have these negative kind of implications. But it's like a myth. I think that I did a little bit too little too less in that respect, not actually thinking that, you know, a lot of these parties here have sustainability agendas.

00:37:29:19 - 00:37:51:18
Robert Martin
Like if you look at the politicians who voted yes for this, it's like, you know, they want to create a sustainable city, reduce CO2, they want to increase cycling, reduce cars, and then they vote yes on something like this. So it's not to say that it's going ahead, but it's definitely going to the next stage of analysis.

00:37:52:01 - 00:38:11:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And you did mention in that post that you praised the municipality for moving forward with the eliminating, you know, on street parking spots, which I think is a trend that we're seeing in multiple cities globally, including Oslo and Amsterdam and many more.

00:38:12:17 - 00:38:34:15
Robert Martin
Yeah, and I'm I'm really happy that they're doing it because they're trying to reactivate like downtowns, which probably facing a lot of issues at the moment in terms of changing, consuming habits. Right. So like there's a lot of movement to e-commerce, which is probably taking people away the city center. So we need to start redefining city centers as places of experience.

00:38:34:27 - 00:38:56:19
Robert Martin
And you don't have places of experience if all the public spaces are just littered with cars. So it's nice that we're able to do this. The only unfortunate thing is, is that when you look at CO2, very little of it is actually kind of created in the city center. It's much more of the kind of surrounding neighborhoods. So we need to think about, you know, removing parking, right?

00:38:56:19 - 00:39:01:16
Robert Martin
Definitely. But then we also need kind of strategies which can have an impact in the greater area.

00:39:02:02 - 00:39:37:29
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And it's I mean, when you see this type of of environment, you know, regardless of the city, you know, globally and we look at again, the I called it earlier the arrogance, the space allocation to the movement, the storage of automobiles. This is a nice way to, you know, sort of highlight that we can look at our public space and again, thinking, reframing our thought processes of our streets or as public space is incredibly important because it's it's reframing.

00:39:38:01 - 00:40:14:29
John Simmerman
It's like, you know, we are really acknowledging the fact that streets have been in existence for thousands of years, essentially as long as we have been, you know, in villages and creating habitation locations. And so it's it's really that automobiles are a recent invader of, you know, the last hundred years or so. So again, reframing it doesn't have to be that we can we can create a new future, like you said, back casting, saying what is it we want our spaces to look like?

00:40:14:29 - 00:40:33:17
John Simmerman
And then let's let's back up and was figure this out. Let's play in the South was let's lean into those architects to help us out and designers to help us out and then turn to the engineers and say, okay, how how do we make this happen and ensure that it's done properly and safely?

00:40:34:05 - 00:40:59:21
Robert Martin
Hmm. Yeah, Yeah, of course. I mean, it's a good point about public space in the streets because I think streets and roads are actually the kind of largest public space that cities have. You know, it is like it's like a common asset, right? I mean, the city owns it. So that means that people own and yet we kind of give it over to objects which still, you know, 90 something whatever report you read this end of a time.

00:41:00:08 - 00:41:25:04
Robert Martin
I think it's funny, though, if like the previous kind of image is what we describe as a 100% car based diet. Right. So we use these two drawings to kind of go from what is a mobility diet, conceptual, really, and what does it look like in space? And if you go to the next image, this is basically, you know, how we imagine this could look like rides where, you know, car owners don't need to get completely scanned.

00:41:25:04 - 00:41:30:22
Robert Martin
There is some levels of car parking, but there's much more space for shared cars because yeah, I mean.

00:41:31:05 - 00:41:59:26
John Simmerman
Yeah, if we zoom in a little bit, we can see, you know, right here down at the bottom, we've got it looks like an electric car charging station. And this looks like it's also a shared car situation. So we're able to help facilitate, you know, car light lifestyles as well. And again, because we don't have to be dogmatic and say that, you know, automobiles are evil and they have to be completely eliminated.

00:42:00:06 - 00:42:17:08
John Simmerman
The reality is we alluded to in the mobility pyramid is that there are going to be some people who are, you know, going to need to be able to do that, but we can do so in a much more balanced and healthful way. That's much more sustainable for everyone.

00:42:18:08 - 00:42:36:25
Robert Martin
Yeah, I agree. I mean, cars have done, you know, a lot of good for society as well. All right. Like, you know, it definitely allowed people to connect and socialize in new ways. It certainly opened up new economic opportunities for new people. It's basically what we're experiencing now with the Internet, Right. This is what happened at the beginning of the 20th century.

00:42:37:06 - 00:42:49:06
Robert Martin
The only problem is, is that we became addicted to it in some sense. And now we're experiencing a lot of those negative externalities. And that's why we need to rethink the way we move in cities.

00:42:49:14 - 00:42:58:20
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there anything that we haven't yet discussed that you really want to hone in on?

00:42:58:20 - 00:43:28:19
Robert Martin
I mean, I think I would like to kind of talk about the second part of our working methodology, right, because we've already mentioned that casting. I think it might be in this slideshow actually like a way to describe it. It's it's kind of at the end, how do we get there if you want to pull it up? But otherwise what we're kind of talking about is that it's it's a little bit easy to show these pictures, you know, of kids playing in the street lights and trees, getting rid of cars.

00:43:28:19 - 00:44:02:13
Robert Martin
But, you know, we don't you know, so if this is the kind of mechanistic model that, you know, where we kind of jump to the future and come back. And if you go to the next slide, this is since, say, prototyping or piloting where we essentially, you know, we have these assumptions about the way we want to develop cities, but so we take that vision of the future and we actually places in the present right at a very small scale so that we can test it, we can get user feedback, we can find out what works and what doesn't, and then we can actually kind of scale these solutions to come up, right?

00:44:03:01 - 00:44:19:16
Robert Martin
If you go to the next slide, you can see how we're completely thinking about it right? You know, when we're thinking that you always need to have these kind of long term visions, right? You kind of need to have an idea of where you're going or else you're just going to be wandering around aimlessly. But at the same time, you're constantly testing that, right?

00:44:19:16 - 00:44:32:08
Robert Martin
So that vision for the future should never be fixed. You should be agile, right? So that you can kind of pivot when you kind of gain more knowledge. And I think that's really the way that we're trying to work with this right there. Really try. And I think.

00:44:32:08 - 00:45:03:07
John Simmerman
I think it's also important to to to acknowledge the fact that this is one of the ways that we, the people, can hold our leaders accountable for the commitments that they've made. So as an example, you know, being able to say that, you know, hey, leaders, you are saying that it's important for you to abide by becoming more sustainable and, you know, being accountable to trying to do something about, you know, climate change.

00:45:03:17 - 00:45:16:14
John Simmerman
Well, you know, are you do are you using that? Are you bad casting and then are you prototyping and are you doing this cycle of of moving things forward or is it just service now?

00:45:16:14 - 00:45:43:23
Robert Martin
Of course, I think the other way that I mean, politicians are data points, right? I mean, they essentially need it to make decisions unless you have a very visionary leaders who can just essentially do things. And that's what these pilot projects can do, right? You know, you can start to gather the data and the evidence needed for like political leaders to actually make these big changes so they can feel confident that they're not going to lose a lot of votes and essentially lose their job.

00:45:43:23 - 00:45:46:11
Robert Martin
But be assured that right decisions.

00:45:47:05 - 00:46:18:05
John Simmerman
Well, and also, you know, speaks to the point that being able to do something, being able to prototype actually better communicate to the community because that they need that as well. They need to be able to to, you know, continue to be able to grasp something of, you know, what change looks like so that they can continue to communicate and stay focused instead fast with their desire to see a built environment that looks different.

00:46:19:11 - 00:46:44:02
Robert Martin
And that's actually I mean, that's a very good point that you made. And I think we discussed this earlier off camera about behavior change and the fact that that is kind of where your background is, because I actually think and behavior change on the short term is going to have like a lot more effect and impacts than kind of redesigning cities, because redesigning cities takes a lot of time and it's very slow.

00:46:44:02 - 00:46:55:18
Robert Martin
Whereas if we can somehow onboard citizens and kind of bring them along with this journey, we actually probably do have a lot more impact early on. Yeah, Yeah. Which is incredibly important.

00:46:56:05 - 00:47:23:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. And, and I love that too. You know, the prototyping and the lighter, quicker, cheaper the, you know, tactical urbanism approach to be able to at least give folks an opportunity to feel it and taste it and experience it, you know, kind of keeps that stuff going. But like you said, you know, the the major, major projects, you know, do take a lot more time.

00:47:23:01 - 00:47:53:18
John Simmerman
But what we can do in the short term to be able to give folks a chance to be able to see what the future could be like, seems like the way to go that can sometimes drive architects crazy because design really, really matters. How do you how do you deal with that tension between needing to be able to to move quickly and definitively in a positive direction versus having things be architecturally perfect?

00:47:53:18 - 00:48:20:12
Robert Martin
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I think it's balance because I understand that you do need to test things quickly. But I think also there's a point where it needs to be designed to be good. I would give pockets actually as like a very good example of this where I think now over the last ten years we've seen endless iterations of essentially like a very cheap wooden construction taking up a parking place.

00:48:20:12 - 00:48:46:19
Robert Martin
And I don't necessarily think that's going to convince large scale transformation. You know, it's very good for us to prove the points that people want to use the space outside shops, especially, and restaurants for other purposes. But now I think we need to move beyond that. And it doesn't have to be a complete redesign. And I think that if we're really going to convince people and we like to talk about this is like changing the conversation from what do I have to give up to?

00:48:46:19 - 00:49:02:07
Robert Martin
What do I get in return? Like if we're really going to sell this idea, you know, those pilot projects are going to have to become something a little bit high quality. So you can see there's that balance, right? You know, short term kind of onboarding and then like scale up to convince people.

00:49:02:20 - 00:49:41:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's fascinating to get, you know, try to get to that balance and it's also I think there's a little bit of having a maybe maybe it's an intuition or a second sense of seeing when you know that that pilot project or that short term intervention or, you know, maybe to use an example of a reimagine owning what, a parking space and on on street parking space could be, you know, okay, we're going to eliminate, you know, 600 parking spaces in the city center.

00:49:41:00 - 00:50:03:07
John Simmerman
What are we going to use that space for? Is it going to become activated, active mobility space? Is it going to be a series of parklets or additional dining for some of the local businesses? And do we you know, do we do it lighter, quicker, cheaper, and then make that transition? And what does that look like and when does that transition happen?

00:50:04:04 - 00:50:09:02
John Simmerman
It seems like there's a little bit of an intuition there in terms of, you know, try to figuring that out.

00:50:09:11 - 00:50:32:24
Robert Martin
This particular project that I guess you're referring to, this one in Copenhagen that we discussed, it's actually gone through a long process of citizen involvement. They created what's called like a citizens assembly where they took representatives from different socio demographic groups, held a series of workshops. They did like a business survey to understand what would the effect be.

00:50:32:25 - 00:50:58:10
Robert Martin
They actually then did a three month trial, essentially closing down these streets and taking away in parking places. And I think the whole process was about five years. So if I was a little bit critical, I like when I've written about this, I applaud that they got the job done because take away parking places is incredibly hard. But if I was to be critical, it's also like a very long time to then take that away.

00:50:58:10 - 00:51:08:23
Robert Martin
So You know, if it was going to take five years to do this everywhere, you know, with we're talking about the next century before we see it at a large scale.

00:51:10:18 - 00:51:14:17
John Simmerman
From a design perspective, should our cities be fun?

00:51:15:29 - 00:51:50:12
Robert Martin
Yes. Like, I mean, I can't imagine what it would. I just I mean, it just it provides so much quality of life to has a fun city I mean, Copenhagen is also lauded as one of the most livable cities in the world. So, you know, we're speaking from an incredibly privileged position. So like, I don't want to undermined what it is, but it's also really enjoyable having amazing public spaces like especially in summer, just seeing how active and alive the city is.

00:51:50:18 - 00:52:16:06
Robert Martin
I can remember. I mean, I don't want to contrast that too much, but when I lived in Saudi Arabia, that's it's a different type of society and they have different ways of living. But there weren't a lot of public spaces that were generally used. And when I contrast that to Copenhagen and just see the way that people are able to meet each other and build kind of a cohesive society, I can't see why you would want to encourage that in a lot of places.

00:52:16:17 - 00:52:35:20
Robert Martin
And so you can see here in this image, I mean, this was actually for a shared scooter company where we were providing a vision for them. And, you know, there's a lot of criticism about the way scooters around parked, about the way that, you know, they're kind of taking away from walking in public transport rather than car use.

00:52:35:20 - 00:52:59:17
Robert Martin
But we kind of think these are like systematic details that can be ironed out because what scooters are actually a part of is the city multimodal transportation system. And, you know, this what this image is trying to actually convey is that that part of it is a part of a shared car. They're part of a hybrid bike. But overall, if we can switch to their system, we can start to create these, you know, residential streetscapes that we could have children playing on it.

00:52:59:18 - 00:53:00:19
Robert Martin
I mean, that would be amazing.

00:53:01:05 - 00:53:04:06
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. Are you a parent now?

00:53:04:21 - 00:53:05:14
Robert Martin
Okay. Okay.

00:53:05:23 - 00:53:33:03
John Simmerman
I was going to I was going to as if you were a parent, I was going to say, you know, as a parent. But can you speak to a little bit of what we see in Copenhagen and, you know, in Denmark in general, the culture of being able to create an environment where children can be more free range, can have a sense of independence in and how important the built environment is to, you know, facilitate that.

00:53:34:07 - 00:53:55:01
Robert Martin
Yeah, When I first moved here, I was actually shocked with the amount of independence that children have. There are anecdotes actually that I have a story that one of the cultural things that they do in Denmark is they leave babies outside in prams, especially in winter, just on their own. So it's not uncommon to be walking down the street and just see a pram by itself.

00:53:55:01 - 00:54:37:06
Robert Martin
But because the society is quite untrustworthy, they they feel fine to do it. There was a Danish woman in New York, though, that left her kid outside and went into a cafe, and she was actually arrested, which is. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But that's like a cultural kind of misalignment. But it's just it's, it's it's amazing. Like, I mean, even the way that curb cuts generally, which we kind of understand that here with a curve cut is like the the pedestrian walkway continues over so like pedestrians always have right away except extended like traffic lights but at most kind of intersections like a pedestrian will have a right of way.

00:54:37:06 - 00:54:56:22
Robert Martin
And I mean, you must know about the Danish having this young girl. I think he's quite. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Quite well known. And one of his big comments is that that he loves the fact that he feels fine, that his kind of grandkids freely able to walk to school because he knows that, you know, they kind of prioritize for a long way.

00:54:56:22 - 00:55:17:29
Robert Martin
And when you give children that independence to be able to walk to school, I mean, that's incredibly liberating, not only for the child who can gain some independence and grow up in a world where they're free to to do other things, but also for the parents that, you know, don't then have to incorporate that child's journey to school, which is probably pretty walkable into their business.

00:55:18:13 - 00:55:21:29
Robert Martin
Right? It kind of frees up everyone.

00:55:21:29 - 00:55:51:13
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. I've I've had the honor to, to meet Ian a couple of times and one of the quotes that he has that I just absolutely adore and love dates back over a decade ago to a a documentary called Contested Streets that he was featured in. And he talked about the fact that it's such a wonderful it's a joy to wake up every day and know that your city is just a little bit better than it was the day before.

00:55:51:29 - 00:56:27:14
John Simmerman
And and hopefully that that trend can continue and hopefully some of the silly ideas that get put forth don't undermine the decades worth of incremental improvement that has happened in Copenhagen and in cities around, the globe that are taking steps to become more livable, more sustainable. And hopefully we can keep that momentum going. And thank you so much for everything that you're doing and Yaya is doing to facilitate that progress and keeping it going.

00:56:27:21 - 00:56:32:03
John Simmerman
And thank you so much for joining me on. The Active Towns Podcast. It's been an absolute joy.

00:56:33:04 - 00:56:34:27
Robert Martin
And thanks for having me, John. It's been a real pleasure.

00:56:35:16 - 00:56:54:18
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning and I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Robert Martin. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave the coming down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, it'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just hit that subscription button down below and ring the notifications bill next to it to select your notification preferences.

00:56:54:20 - 00:57:15:26
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoyed this content, please consider becoming a patron supporter. It really helps me out a great deal and it helps me continue to bring this content to you each week. Thank you all so much for tuning in and for whatever support you're able to provide. Oh, and don't forget, I do have plenty of streets are for people swag out on the Active Towns website.

00:57:16:05 - 00:57:35:25
John Simmerman
Again, that link is in the video description down below in the show notes. Thank you all so much. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers. And again sending a huge thank you to all my active towns Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patron buy me a coffee YouTube super.

00:57:35:25 - 00:57:53:13
John Simmerman
Thanks as well as me. Can to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active town store. Every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated. Thank you all so much.