Professor of landscape architecture & environmental planning and urban design at the University of California Berkeley, Walter Hood has recently given a TED Talk on how urban spaces can preserve history and build community.

To open up the discussion, Hood asks the audience, "Can public spaces both reclaim the past and embrace the future?"

Throughout his lecture, Hood talks about several of his previous projects and the ideologies behind them. He shares five concepts that guide his approach in creating spaces which highlight shared memories and force us to look at one another in different ways.

Hood concludes his 15-minute talk with a look at his current work, designing the International African American Museum in Charleston, S.C., and how it aims to force visitors into remembering the history of the slave trade. He gives a sneak peak at an innovative design element of the project that incorporates the rising and falling of the tides.

The video is available for free on YouTube, ted.com, and UC Berkeley's website and has over 615,600 cumulative views at the time of writing this. Click HERE to be taken to the Berkeley webpage containing the video and more about Walter Hood.