Ep. 166: Rethinking Our Built Environment with Futurist Dror Benshetrit

Designer, futurist, activist and artist Dror Benshetrit grew up in Tel Aviv, drawing, and building puppetry or sculptures. But it was Dror’s experience serving in the Israeli army that showed him all the different ways his creative thinking could be applied - compelling him to pursue design and attend the Design Academy in Eindhoven. Afterwards, he moved to New York - where his career exploded - from designing the Peacock Chair showcased in a Rihanna video to designing luxury houses for the Crown Sheik. Since then, he stepped back and began rethinking how we understand the future of the built environment, embarking on tying together research, design, architecture and urban planning through Supernature Labs. Dror’s life has been filled with brilliant visions and breathtaking designs, always grounded in sustainability and with an eye toward a better future.

Learn more about Dror Benshetrit and SuperNature here.

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Read the Transcript

Amy Devers: Hi everyone, I’m Amy Devers and this is Clever. Today I’m talking to Dror Benshetrit. Dror is a multi-disciplinary designer, artist, activist, and futurist who has recently launched Supernature Labs, a regenerative design and technology organization that seeks to trigger a massive change in the built environment by building communities like nature, and with nature for the benefit of all life. What does this mean, exactly? Well, you’ll hear all about it in our talk, but in essence It is a new approach to urban planning and construction that shifts cities from the traditional Cartesian grid to a more adaptive, cellular planning model, allowing urban and building design to be more biophilic, biomimetic, regenerative, and community oriented. It’s complex and rigorous, and as hopeful as it is urgently important.  Prior to dedicating his life to Supernature Labs, Dror made a name for himself designing many critically acclaimed projects across the fields of furniture, products, interiors, architecture, urban planning, and public installation - including the Peacock chair for Cappellini, the QuaDror structural support system, and a residential masterplan for Nurai, a private island off the coast of Abu Dhabi.  All of this experience has made for a fascinating life and has resulted in a passionate and driven advocate for ecological harmony… here’s Dror

Dror Benshetrit: I’m Dror Benshetrit, I’m based between New York and Miami and I’m a designer, futurist, activist, artist, kind of involved in a bunch of different things, mainly focusing right now on our new venture, SuperNature Labs.

Amy: That’s a lot to unpack there, all of those things, all of those hats you wear. Let’s go way back to before you even were wearing any hats though. I like to start with the formative years. Can you tell me where you were born, what your home town was like, your family dynamic and the things that you were fascinated by in your youth?

Dror: (Laughs) Yeah, that’s an interesting one. So I grew up in Tel Aviv and as a little kid, I was always creating, I was always interested in art and I was always either building something or drawing something and I constantly remember just imagining things and finding ways to articulate those ideas. And always been using all kinds of medium to do that, whether it’s building puppetry or sculptures or sketching drawings. I’ve always been attracted to this mixed media, these different tools to utilize, to create my ideas, my thoughts.

Amy: Were you in a creative family or were you kind of an outlier?

Dror: I do like to think of both my parents as extremely creative, but not really practicing it. I think that it’s only very late in my 20s that I kind of realized that the combination of both my mom and my dad’s talent is a reflection of what I’m doing. But none of them were practicing art or other creative forms in their -

Amy: Was there a general environment of encouragement for these creative endeavors, these sculptures and puppetry? I’m really excited (laughs) to hear about the puppetry. Did you have brothers and sisters that you could do this with or were you on your own doing this? 

Dror: Yeah,I have only one sister that is six years younger than me. And we were not very close in our childhood, obviously because of the age difference, mostly. But yeah, those creations have always been me on my own, but in terms of encouragement, absolutely. they’ve been very supportive, besides the fact that from a very young age I was a part of an art program in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. For me, I think it was an extremely important aspect of my life. 

I spent several days, every afternoon going to the museum and learning from different artists that were providing… I don’t know to call it mentorship or inspirational guidance, but it was all based on personal exploration. And I’ve been very, very fortunate to be part of this unique program in Israel that was selecting a small group of kids and giving them scholarship to study under this program. 

Amy: That sounds like a dream come true. If only all children had access to something like that, don’t you think the world would look so different? 

Dror: Oh my god, absolutely, I’m so grateful for those years. It’s been extremely unique and I think that [0.05.00] growing up, even at those times or those ages, you simply realize that your childhood is quite different than your other classmates and peers. And I agree, I think it’s a huge privilege that I got, that yes, I wish the whole world would have access to such an experience. 

Amy: Do you find that having access to a program like that also kind of in those formative years, would have had to have had an impact on how your brain processes information and how you see the world?

Dror: For sure, even just the environment of Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which is an incredible museum, just walking inside of that space, walking inside of that building, every single day, sometimes after hours where nobody else is in the museum. And have this intimate relationship with those pieces, it’s incredible. 

Amy: So, one sibling who is six years younger than you, and you’re the oldest, so that means you had to be the pioneer of the teenage years in your family, I mean clearly your parents were there before you, but what were you like in adolescence and were you rebellious and angsty or were you just kind of driven and on a path or how were you expressing your creativity?

Dror: Early on, I definitely was an introvert. I spent a lot of time by myself and I just loved diving into my world of imagination. Yeah, I think it was only through high school that I kind of developed my creative social friends that an interesting creative exchange happened with like-minded people of my age. And prior to that it was pretty much only through that program and I would say that with my parents, it was never a significant dialogue, you know what I mean? They kind of left me to do what I do. They found it special. They found it unique and they embraced it. But embraced it by just letting it be. 

Amy: Yeah, I can relate to that, it’s a sort of Dror is doing his thing and we have no problem with him doing his thing, but we also can’t really engage him on a deep level about it. 

Dror: Yes, something like that. (Laughs)

Amy: What were the college years like for you and did finding a creative exchange with people the same age, your social tribe in high school, did that convince you that that’s where you belonged and also support your decision to study design? 

Dror: Oobviously a gap between high school and university, which is the Israeli army for three years. And pretty much during high school it was very clear to me that I’m going to be an artist. And I knew that I’m giving the Israeli army three years of my life and then I’m moving on with my own path. But something really interesting happened, which during the army service I started to realize that I’m still applying the same creative thinking, but the expression of that was no longer drawings and sculptures, but they were tools and educational [makits?] and models and demonstration elements. 

And I realized that I’m actually designing. So I kind of seeked to [0.10.00] understand a little bit more what it means and my first realization was okay, this is essentially art with function and what do I think of that in terms of my future career? Do I want to get into art with function or do I want to continue to do what I’ve done before? And I was just fascinated by how you can influence people’s wellbeing, quality of life, through the use of creativity in a more direct way. 

So after the army I started looking for both art school and design schools. And I was just fascinated by design because that was kind of new and different to me, from everything else. And I decided to go to the Design Academy in Eindhoven, which was, until today, I’m so grateful for that experience. I think it was one of the most important choices I’ve made, simply because it was, and it still is an extremely artistic school. 

Extremely conceptual and also a school that you really discover yourself and finding ways to deliver on your own inspiration I often design for the things that I want to see in the world because I feel strongly about their needs. And regardless of the type of discipline that they belong into, and then that particular school gave me such a deep understanding on how to accomplish different things by collaborating with specialists and people that have the unique knowledge and capabilities to take it to where it needs to be. 

Amy: So what are the highlights and the projects that really shaped you professionally between college and now? you started your studio in New York City at 25, so that’s pretty young. Did you feel naïve or… it just seems like that takes a lot of moxy. (Laughs)

Dror: The word ‘naïve’ is an interesting one because I think you’re…I’m always naïve, at different levels of my life, at different points I’m always naïve and I think that that’s what gets me going, right? You just -

Amy: Yeah, I think if we knew what was involved in a lot of stuff (laughs), we’d be really intimidated, but not knowing what we don’t know (laughs) seems so exciting. 

Dror: Exactly. It started with a broken vase and it went all the way to large urban planning and massive planning challenges. There has been a lot of benchmarks and defining moments in my career. I mean obviously my very first product that I put in the market, which was the Vase of Phases for Rosenthal, was extremely influential on my career, in many, many, many ways. One, you know, it was essentially an expression of my own feeling at that time. 

I really felt my naiveté was broken by moving to New York and trying to build a practice, right? And being a young kid, coming from the countryside of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, moving to New York City, thinking that [0.15.00] doors will just open and you just walk in and (Laughs) obviously it wasn’t like that, it was very challenging. But the Vase of Phases received such an incredible attention and was a huge success both commercially, for Rosenthal and both, from a publicity standpoint for me and the practice. 

And it also came with a very interesting understanding of design responsibility. For me this project was about talking about the beauty in experience and the beauty in taking ourselves through certain particular experiences that are shaping us to become who we are, which never stopped being relevant, right, and will never ever stop becoming relevant. 

It’s funny for me that still, until today, 20 years later, I sometimes start my lectures and talks with the Vase of Phases as an example of creating a connection between human and products. that was one, the Peacock Chair for Cappellini was also a very important project for me that actually was born in a very, very, very similar way to the Vast of Phases. It was a personal experience, it was a personal story. It was about a breakup with a girlfriend and how do I express that in a piece of art, in a chair in this case. 

And at that point also, I was obsessed with transformation. I used to almost divide my practice into two. The physical transformation, object and product that actually physically transforms and metaphorical transformation, things like the vase which are essentially about evolution of change. And the Peacock Chair kind of sits in between because the folding of the sheets of felt, because of this kind of approach that I took does not require any traditional upholstery technique, or glue or anything else, just the pressure of one metal band all around. 

So for me that was a transformational form, but not a physical transformation of Point A to Point B, it was a transformation through the process. And that made me realize for the first time, okay, there’s also that, right? There’s also that kind of way of looking at transformation. And that brought me into a whole other world of fascination with physics, structures and material and I think another huge defining point was the creation of QuaDror, which is this four identical elements that connects together to form a structural system. 

That also articulates and opens from a flat state to a three dimensional state. And I’ve been obsessed with this geometry for several years, looking at more and more applications that this geometry can be beneficial from sawhorses to a table all the way up to structural support system for architecture and exoskeleton for homes and sound barriers for highways and many other applications. (Laughs)

Amy: It’s fascinating and it does sound like you are both gifted with connecting the human experience to the expression in an object, but also very much a systems thinker. And able to, distil things down to a modular essence that can then be… I mean this is essentially what QuaDror is, can then be used in so many different applications, in so many different materials for so many different reasons. 

Dror: Right. 

Amy: I’m curious [0.20.00] professionally, the Vast of Phases was really successful, but how were you able to convince people to work with you on architectural projects and city planning projects after that? I mean how did you not get stuck in doing product?

Dror: That’s a really good one. So Aric Chen which has been somebody that’s wrote about my work for many years, since the beginning, and also wrote the introduction to my recent book with Monacelli, he once came to the studio and said, Dror, “Your work is very architectural.” And I didn’t really know what it meant. I went home and his voice kept coming up in my head and I thought, why is he saying that? Because I like playing with structures and with physics. And at that point architecture was not part of my practice. 

I loved, already at that stage, to say that I work comprehensively across different design typologies and scale. But I wasn’t doing any architecture at that time. But because of that comment, I started thinking of architectural ideas in the same system approach that I often think… wait, so I came up with a series of architectural concepts and then I just showed it to a few people. One of those people that I showed it to was at the time a real estate marketeer and broker, now a very successful developer, Michael [** 0.22.01]. 

And he said, “I’m going to get you your first architectural commission and we’re going to have to make sure that you have the knowledge and the support system around you to execute that project.” He said, “Do you think you can handle a seven story building?” I said sure, (laughs), not knowing obviously what I’m getting into. But assuming, at that time I had no formal education in porcelain making or [**] making with collaboration with Puma or any other aspect. For me design is a very collaborative effort and I said, sure, we’re going to find the people to support the conceptual, the creation and pad us with what we need. 

He called me back and said, “Dror, I have a 25 story building for you, do you think you can handle that?” (Laughs) And that was our first commission. Actually that building did not get built, it broke ground and then the financial crash of 2008 happened. But the process -

Amy: Oh heartbreaking!

Dror: Yeah, well, part of the design experiences, right, and architecture -

Amy: Yeah.

Dror: But what’s interesting is that the process was so unique and so different that Michael actually got us our second architectural commission, which was the Nurai Island in Abu Dhabi. And that project was our first built architectural commission. We had an amazing support system of collaborators and what was interesting for me is that the starting point was a very naïve poetic approach to an experience, right? I could not stop thinking about the fact that the client said, think about the most luxurious homes you can possibly imagine in an island setting. 

And they wanted 30 of them. And I said, well, that’s not very luxurious, to live in a line of other houses and being number 17 and 16 on your left and another 12 on your right. So I said, this idea that living on an island [0.25.00] and having the privacy to feel as if you’re the only person on the island, while simultaneously you have a community, but the community is not visible, is very similar to, let’s say a luxury hotel where the service is done so seamlessly that you throw a towel and you look back and it’s hung back on the hanger. 

So this is where we came up with this idea of the green carpet and presented it as a very childish concept of shoving everything underneath the carpet and appropriating the carpet as a symbol of the Persian Gulf, saying carpet making is originally from here, why don’t we treat the entire island as a giant carpet of vegetation. 

So that was in 2007 and the client fell in love with the approach and called us back and said, the Crown Sheikh wants to build your vision. And I started laughing hysterically and I said, I really have no idea how to build this. (Laughs) And they said, we know, we’ve done our homework on the size of your team and your experience and we will pad you with the knowledge that you’re lacking. And I just loved hearing that because that was the premise of the practice, is we constantly pad ourselves with the knowledge that we’re lacking, to make sure that we can execute on our visions. 

So hearing that, at that stage, being project number two in our architectural practice, was very refreshing and very exciting. And this project ended up breaking the records of the most expensive residential ever sold in the UAE at that time. It was also a huge scale for us. The total project was north of a billion dollars and at that time (laughs) my portfolio was a few chairs and some table tops and you put all of them together and they’re still quite far from a billion dollars. 

So that’s when I realized that your ideas could be applied in different ways, in different industries and have different types of effects, different contribution. And this is when I really fell in love with public art and with large architectural commissions. 

Amy: That’s a perfect segue into SuperNature Labs. But from what I’ve read, it’s a global alliance of designers, architects, urbanists, city futurists, engineers, neuroscientists, strategists, technologists and activists, all addressing the need for regenerative urban communities across the globe, so -

Dror: That sounds good. 

Amy: Hallelujah! Yeah, right? I think I read that from your press release (laughs). 

Dror: I don’t know if we’re all the way there yet, this is what we’re striving to accomplish and I think that we are making major headways towards that global alliance. 

Amy: Start with the mission, why did you feel the need to put together a collective like this and really start to amass a coalition of people who want to approach building communities in a more regenerative way?

Dror: So two things really led to that, well actually maybe a few more. One, turning 40, almost five years ago now, been a huge reflection point in my career where I basically kind of, I guess everybody at this stage kind of thinks, okay, what have I accomplished so far? What’s my plan for the future? And I found myself asking a very, very, very different question than I typically asked before. It’s always been like, okay, we’ve done this, this and this, what should we do next? 

[0.30.00] And all of a sudden I found myself asking, well, what does the world need the most? And the answer just flew out and I found myself sitting down for about four days, nonstop, writing, what now I call the SuperNature Manifesto, which really has been me understanding that the future of the built environment needs to change and we cannot build cities the way that we have been doing for the last several decades. 

And I think that it was born from a couple of different things. One is this understanding that the way that we treat each other, the way that we treat ourselves, our relationship with money, our relationship with consumption, is all just going in a very, very, very challenging path. And I think that the built environment has a huge contribution to that. Obviously living in New York for 20 years, and first loving the city for the incredible access that you have to absolutely everything, right, culture and people of different kinds… this beautiful melting pot.

But at some point you realize that this grid system of New York might seem simple, might seem easy to find your way around, but also creates a very aggressive environment, also creates a very aggressive behavior from people that spend a lot of time in it. And the reason is, I mean obviously there’s not that much access to nature, with the exception of Central Park and a few more. There’s also those harsh massive buildings, but this logic of blocks with interactions between each one of them is like every few minutes you are in a conflict zone. You would crash if you’re driving, or you would be run over if you’re not paying attention, right? So I felt that there must be a different approach, there must be a different typology that we can live in, that are not just what we are familiar with right now. And I’ll explain. If you live in a city, the chances are that you’re either living in a townhouse, a low rise, a mid rise, a high rise and a skyscraper, that’s pretty much the options. And if you’re living outside of the city, then you are either in a private home, a semi-detached home, or maybe other forms of small communities, row house or something like that. 

But very limited vocabulary of possibilities within the suburbs and the city, which is where the majority of the world live in, without forgetting about a billion people today living in informal housing all around the world. So understanding that urbanization is not stopping any time soon. We love cities; we want to live in close proximity to other people. We enjoy the serendipity of cities; we enjoy the access to opportunity, the access to culture. But there have been two facts that have just blown my mind. One is the fact that we are scheduled to double the built environment somewhere between the next 30-40 years. 

Amy: Oh my god. 

Dror: And second, we’re going to [0.35.00] double the land coverage of cities in the next 20-30 years. 

Amy: Oh my god. That’s terrifying. 

Dror: And those two facts, they’re just terrifying. It’s so hard to comprehend. You fly over massive cities like New York and LA and Shanghai and Tokyo and so forth and you’re thinking, how are we going to double that amount of infrastructure, that amount of structure within our lifetime? That’s just crazy! I mean every major city in the world is suffering from major traffic pollution issues and many more and if we’re just going to continue, that’s just insane. there are many initiatives that are happening, but when I started SuperNature I just could not find a comprehensive approach and so this is one thing. Second, I really wanted to shift away from being a service provider. I think I started my career more of an artist working within the design discipline, creating ideas that I believe in and slowly you get clients, you start to follow the service path and I just did not enjoy that very well. 

And so I started SuperNature as more of a laboratory to think about new ways of planning, new ways of creating different environments and different experiences. So that was the motivation and I think that the biggest, most significant discovery was when I realized that we don’t have to any more design streets and buildings adjacent to the streets. But we can use natures most common geometry, which is the cellular logic and create cellular communities of different density, then I realized, okay, this is a very unique moment in time where we have the technological capabilities, where we have the manufacturing capabilities to accomplish something like that. 

Amy: I’m fascinated by all of this. But it seems to me that the logic is so sound, cellular communities makes a lot of sense, but in order for this to really, really work, we have to convince a lot of minds between now and the doubling of the built world, right? 

Dror: Absolutely (Laughs), a lot, a lot, a lot of mind, absolutely. And this is exactly the challenge. I mean the challenge is mostly educational actually two things Amy. One is we decided very recently to start a foundation and that’s the main focus of the foundation, is to continue to evolve the research that we need to support more and more data and simulation around this logic. And second, to educate about the power of conducting neighborhoods like that. 

But you’re right, there’s so many different stakeholders that needs to be in line with this approach for it to happen this is why it’s not easy. But this is also what’s exciting about it. 

Amy: Absolutely. oh my gosh, it’s just enormous in the complexity. Can you distil it down a little bit for us? You did a great job helping me understand the purpose of the foundation is to evolve the research and to [0.40.00] educate. Can you tell me a little bit about what the moving parts of that are?

Dror: Yeah, so let me maybe start by sharing some of the motivations the cellular logic and then kind of explain the different ways that we’re taking right now to bring it to reality. So the first assumption was very basic and very naïve, right? Nature does not break things into blocks the way that we do almost everything, right? And if you look at the natural aggregations, whether it’s cell under the microscope or organizations of planetary systems, you see this similar geometry which we call the Voronoi pattern, which is a cellular logic. 

And the first investigation was what if we applied that same approach to urban planning? Are there any benefits? And we started discovering a few very important elements and then that list started growing and growing and growing and it just does not stop. The first is the fact that we can create urban environments that have the same kind of density as Manhattan, super dense environment. And we are able to reduce roads and road infrastructure by more than 50%. 

Amy: Hot damn, how do you do that? 

Dror: Exactly right? 

Amy: Oh my god. 

Dror: I know, it’s been a huge turning point for us in understanding that that fact alone is enormous because infrastructure is just an insanely, not just costly, but something that if you can reduce and still move around in a more efficient way, it’s great. One of the biggest realizations is not just the reduction of the road and road infrastructure, but also the fact that you actually can get from Point A to Point B faster and safer. And the reason for that is actually quite simple. So if you think of a typical four-way intersection. A typical four-way intersection requires that parts of the traffic, parts of the moving parts will stop while other move. So each intersection is this conflict point, right? There’s no natural flow. When you look at how cell formations are organized, you realize that there are no four-ways crossing, there’s only three way connections. So traffic can flow in, in a much more efficient way. Now, a traditional four-ways crossing have 16 points of collision versus three-ways crossing have only three points of collision. So it’s a much safer place, which also, in some cases, allows you to reduce traffic signals, which is a major infrastructure and costly elements. So that’s one aspect, right? 

Amy: I have to stop and ask another question. This is so exciting! First of all, roads are right now a necessarily evil, but they’ve always bothered me because they reflect so much sunlight instead, and they block the earth from receiving water and sunlight and they, they just don’t feel natural. 

Dror: Right. 

Amy: But they also create this really hostile acoustic environment and I’m wondering if cellular logic will make the world sound better? 

Dror: Hundred percent!

Amy: I’m so excited!

Dror: Amy, I know that we’re not going to even be able to scratch the surface, even if we’re going to continue several hours. 

Amy: Don’t do it, I like being naïve and excited right now!

Dror: Yeah, yeah, so let me give you a couple of things. [0.45.00] So obviously, so look at the traditional percentages of a high dense environment, somewhere between 50-60% built, I’m talking about land coverage, and the rest is sidewalk and roads, right? When you think of parks in the built environment right now, those parks are areas that were designated as here you cannot build. Meaning I’ve taken away an area that buildings could occupy and I’ve deliberately said, you can’t build on those areas. 

So whatever those percentages are, they’re not part of the grid system in terms of an allowed space, right? When you look at the cellular logic the way that we’ve created, we’re basically given that 50% reduction in road infrastructure to natural areas that are inside of each one of those cellular communities. So first of all, think  about the fact that everybody is facing a park, which is incredible in terms of the quality of life and therefore also real estate value is higher, if we’re speaking to the developer mind. 

But think about the fact that you don’t have to cross any road to go to the park, right? The road is behind you in a way and the park is there. So think about the safety of kids. Think about the fact that you can let your kids go down to play in the park and not worry that they’re crossing any streets. Besides the fact that if you now are starting to connect all of those inner green spaces between super cells, with a very simple pedestrian under path, you get something that looks like a very complex, neuroscience, how do you call it -

Amy: Like a neural network? 

Dror: Neural network, exactly. So this is the first time in which pedestrian circulation and vehicular circulations are no longer side-by-side. I mean you’re typically walking in the same exact path that the vehicles have, with the exception of one-way streets and things like that, that you can walk and the car cannot work. But with the cellular logic, now pedestrians are able to move from a forest to a forest or from a park to a park or from, whatever you want to use that natural inner space, it can be urban farming, it could be open space for recreation, for anything.

But complete separation from vehicular. So talking about sound, yes, you’re going to reduce sounds by the reductions of the road. You’re going to reduce sound because cars are no longer having to make so many full stops because they’re basically just flowing. Obviously that flow has also that ripple effect, less pedestrians are there, so less interaction of conflict in that regard. The green space functions as a buffer, it’s basically muffling the sound. You have a lot more birds and a lot more -

Amy: Bees and squirrels, yeah. 

Dror: Exactly. 

Amy: Not only that, but the breeze rippling through leaves is way more pleasant than - A car squeaking to a stop.

Dror: Exactly. Yeah, so there’s enormous amount of benefits, right? If you think about flood issues in cities, because of the porous nature of concrete and asphalt, now you have more than 25% of your land coverage be soil. Now we haven’t even talked about the health benefit of soil alone, right? Soil is a massive carbon sink [0.50.00]. There’s a train passing. I don’t know if you hear it on your side? 

Amy: No, it’s not too bad. 

Dror: Yeah, so there’s tremendous benefits to the fact that you have so much soil, which one, provides carbon sink. Second, there’s so many studies that shows that if kids spend an average of 10 minutes stepping on soil, you can reduce so much of their need for Ritalin and other medications. There are so many studies that shows the value of being physically grounded. Putting your feet on natural soil, where there’s no layers and layers of concrete underneath you. So there’s just such a long list of benefits to all of it. 

Amy: So, is this all theoretical or do you have some built situations that are gathering data right now, that prove out these theories or where are we with this? I say ‘we’ because I’m on the mission now, I’m very excited about it. 

Dror: Amazing, amazing. Well, first of all, this is how we’re building our alliance, by making more and more people wanting to see the world shifting towards that type of community creation. And we need as many supporters and believers as we can to stop urban sprawl. I mean essentially we’ve put this mission, which for me is the biggest aspect. If we’re talking about 30-40 years, then we’re in a race. We’re in a race to make sure that communities are not building more and more [** 0.52.06] communities, but evolving into this bio-planning cellular logic. 

And we know that it’s going to influence the wellbeing of people. It’s going to influence ecology and it’s also going to tremendously influence the economic aspect, which we can talk about that as well in a separate way. What we have, so SuperNature’s efforts right now are starting to get subdivided into different disciplines within the organization. One is development. We have right now a few projects in Mexico, Costa Rica, and discussions in other Latin American countries and a couple of discussions in the Middle East. 

And we basically want to… obviously open up as many conversations as we can with large development, whether they are private or governmental or municipal decisions. We know that as soon as we’re going to be able to prove one community like that, and not just draw from the data, that we’re able to support theoretically, but actually measure that success physically, we’re going to have much, much, much stronger ability to influence the world. 

Obviously it takes very specific people to be early adaptors. People that are willing to take the risk on something that was never built like that before and that’s tough. And that basically requires me travelling to a lot of places around the world and talking to a lot of people. So that’s on the development side. 

Amy: Okay.

Dror: There is constant work to improve our communication from modelling perspective, like modelling traffic simulation, modelling construction, modelling certain patterns of behavior that will come as a result of that. We are now doing all of this kind of under the general umbrella of SuperNature, but this is where the foundation is going to come. Because we realized that it’s endless how much we need to continue these efforts. [0.55.00] There’s just so much to expand. 

So one of the things that we really like to do is to bring large organization and large corporations that care about this mission and let them sponsor specific segments of research. For instance, we want to invite large mobility companies, like car manufacturers to investigate further the entire mobility aspect of bio planning. We want to bring large construction organizations to provide some more supporting data on construction efficiency. I mean I didn’t speak about that, but there’s tremendous construction efficiency to a cellular logic. 

When you think of what is the most complex aspect in construction, it’s logistics, right? You have to face the construction in such a way that you know exactly how long it takes to pour a foundation and as soon as the foundation is ready, you can put the first structural elements, once the skeleton of the building is done, then you can put your window and illustration. Then you can start laying out all of the mechanical elements. 

All of this is basically complex logistics of construction. Now, when you are thinking of cellular deployment, what’s the easiest way? Think about the kitchen, there is a round kitchen where you don’t need to move anywhere, like your sink is at arm reach on one side, your fridge is at arm reach behind you, your stove is on the left and you don’t move so much. You can cook a lot faster like this. That’s probably the easiest way to talk about building cellular communities. 

You have your deployment center in the middle and you have your crane or any other equipment basically providing all around. So what is the exact percentage of reduction in time on several systems, we have a lot of research to do around that. If you build in concrete under X amount of stories, you can save 20%. If you’re building average of 20 stories, you save that percentage and so forth. Of course we want to get to a future where construction sites are made with only modular components and ideally only regenerative material, but we’re far from that still.

Amy: Yeah, I can imagine this cellular logic too has to be, indigenous to the land and climate too and the weather systems that it will have to deal with and all of that. 

Dror: Absolutely, absolutely, of course there are different climate conditions requires different architectural needs, tropical settings, desert settings, so yeah, all of those are nuances that are very specific to where you work. I mean we haven’t even touched on talking about regulations and zonings, which (laughs) is probably one of the biggest challenges in the world today. But I’m somehow optimistic in that regard, because I’m thinking okay, everybody is understanding that zoning needs to change and zoning is being changed rapidly all over the world because our life has changed, you know? 

We’re no longer going to one area to shop for groceries and everybody understanding today this aspect of mixed use, is the most logical way to construct communities. This idea that I can go downstairs and get all of my necessity in a walking distance, what we call the ‘15 minute city’ or other names. So yeah, there’s a lot on the regulatory [1.00.00] side. But I think that what we are providing right now is so different, is so new, that we can only operate in places that are open to having a very, very close dialogue with us on zoning changes. And if the authorities, if the municipalities are not open to that, then we’re just not there at the moment. 

Amy: I do want to ask you a little bit about you personally, but even though I know that SuperNature Labs is probably the bulk of your life right now, before I do, I would love to know, for anybody who is listening who wants to learn more or get involved or even support, where would I send them? What’s the URL?

Dror: Yeah, thank you. Absolutely. We need a lot of support. I think on our website, on supernaturelabs.com we have a couple of different emails for different engagement and involvement. And at this point we’re looking for different team members that we’re searching for. We are looking for developers and municipalities that are interested in exploring this approach. We’re looking for supporters for the foundations. There’s a whole tech initiative that at the moment we put aside because we realized the complexity of the tech platform that we want to build and we want to do it with a partnership with a strong technology company. So yeah, there’s… I mean we’re talking about the built environment, right, it includes everything. (Laughs)

Amy: My first question for you Dror is this is an enormous undertaking and I’m certain that nobody would undertake something like this if you weren’t absolutely 100% passionate about it, which is what we need, I think, to shift the paradigm of building communities so dramatically. But if I could bring it back to you, my question is: How is this process changing you? Where are you growing throughout this and where are you also finding, within yourself, resistance that you need to break down? 

Dror: Wow, that’s a very important question. (Laughs) You know, one of the things that I realized, and I keep on reminding myself is that this is much bigger than me, my ideas and my creation. Coming from being an artist where you kind of control the end result, it’s clear to me that this effort is about aggregating a lot, a lot of different, different aspects, different players, different opinions, different approaches. And I need to really be comfortable not being comfortable.

There’s so many topics and so many aspects that I’m just starting to gain knowledge about and the more we dive into each one of those aspects, you realize that it’s just endless. There’s just so much more and more and more to dive into and I need to be very, very comfortable in running an organization that evolves in this very liquid like process, right? [1.05.00] It’s impossible to just control it all. 

Amy: It seems to me it’s going to have to, almost grow in a cellular way and you can’t, as one person, if you try to manage or be knowledgeable or even try to control the whole ecosystem, that would restrict it in ways that aren’t healthy. So I can feel, how do I nurture this thing and give it as much support and nourishment as possible without imposing myself in such a way that I end up accidentally restricting it. 

Dror: Absolutely and it’s a lot self-work because it’s very hard to prioritize when you are having a hard time to assess the importance of certain aspects. 

Amy: Oh yeah, of course it would be. 

Dror: (Laughs)

Amy: You don’t even know what’s important or not yet. 

Dror: Exactly, exactly and I think that it’s a very fine balance because there’s certain things that are, decisions that you have to make yourself, decisions that you have to do as a group after running my own design practice for close to 20 years, you realize that this is a whole different beast. This is a whole different way of evolving. So yeah, it’s a very interesting challenge. 

Amy: Well, more power to you Dror, I hope that you grow into an enormous, thriving tree within a really healthy ecosystem. 

Dror: (Laughs) Thank you so much. 

Amy: This is so fascinating, I feel like I’m right on that space where I know enough to be excited and not enough to be daunted quite yet. But I’m thrilled that you’re undertaking this adventure/mission and in the process you can’t help but bring people together under a collective movement and that’s what it’s going to take, a really large scale movement. 

Dror: Absolutely, absolutely. 

Amy: Thank you so much. 

Dror: Thank you, thank you; it was really a pleasure Amy.

Amy: Thank you for listening! To see images of Dror’s work and read the show notes, click the link in the details of this episode on your podcast app, or go to cleverpodcast.com where you can also sign up for our newsletter, subscribe to Clever on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if what you heard today resonated with you, please consider giving us a rating and a review to help others to find these inspiring stories… we really appreciate it. We also love chatting with you on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - you can find us @cleverpodcast. You can find me, @amydevers Clever is hosted & produced by me, Amy Devers with editing by Rich Stroffolino, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan and musicby El Ten Eleven. Clever is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit airwavemedia.com to discover more great shows. They curate the best of them, so you don’t have to. 

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Peacock Chair

Nurai Villa

Supernature

Supernature

Vase of Phases

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Clever is produced and hosted by Amy Devers with editing by Rich Stroffolino, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

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Clever is produced by 2VDE Media. Thanks to Rich Stroffolino for editing this episode.
Production assistance from Ilana Nevins and music by El Ten Eleven—hear more on Bandcamp.
Shoutout to Jenny Rask for designing the Clever logo.

Clever is a proud member of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit airwavemedia.com to discover more great shows.

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