Archinect Sessions (Paul Petrunia, Donna Sink and Ken Koense)

Winner of this year's MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program, Andrés Jaque of the Office for Political Innovation, joins us on the podcast this week to discuss his winning design, COSMO. In a continued thread from last year's YAP, The Living's "Hy-Fi", Jaque's COSMO focuses on issues of sustainability and ecology – its main element is a series of pipes that will purify water with biological treatments.

Before winning the YAP, Jaque's office already had a piece in MoMA's permanent collection, IKEA Disobedients (2011), the museum's first "architectural performance" acquisition. COSMO will be installed from June 23 through September 7.

For this Mini-Session from our Next Up: The LA River event, Nicholas Korody spoke with Julia Meltzer, director and founder of non-profit arts organization, Clockshop, and Elizabeth Timme, co-director of the urban design and architecture non-profit LA-Más.

Both Clockshop and LA-Más are located within Elysian Valley, aka Frogtown—a sliver of a neighborhood bordered by the LA River, the 5 and the 2 freeways. In recent years, Frogtown (predominantly a low-density neighborhood of single-family homes) has become a major focus in LA conversations about gentrification and development, and both Timme's and Meltzer's work is heavily invested in their context. Clockshop (in collaboration with California State Parks) has its HQ in Frogtown and hosts art events in the Bowtie, an undeveloped plot of land along the river. In 2015, LA-Más led a community "co-visioning process" (the 'Futuro de Frogtown') to determine the kind of development decisions residents were concerned about.

Nicholas Korody spoke with both Timme and Meltzer about issues of equitable-design and place-making along the river, and the role of art within a master redevelopment plan.

On the happy and historic occasion of Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi being jointly awarded the 2016 AIA Gold Medal, we speak with Brown about whether this truly is a watershed moment for architecture, and the long road that she and Robert took to arriving here. We last spoke with Brown on episode #39, when the Vanna Venturi house hit the market.

If we accept that accolades like the Gold Medal have the influence to (potentially) nudge the profession in certain directions, then this time – the first the award has been given jointly, and to a living woman – could signal a movement towards increased inclusivity, and reevaluations of collaborative agency.

It's that time of the year – for washing away the stench of the past and basking in the sweet, slightly terrifying promise of an uncertain future. This week on the podcast, we dish out our predictions for architecture in 2017, and try to digest the year that was 2016.

This is our final episode for the year – we'll be back in a few weeks with fresh discussions, but in the meantime, if you like the podcast, you can do us a huge solid by rating us on iTunes. Send us thoughts, comments, and suggestions through connect@archinect.com, or find us on Twitter, @archsessions.

For this week's podcast, Paul and Amelia spoke with architect Barbara Bestor, of Bestor Architecture, about growing her firm and Los Angeles' design influence, prompted by one of her recently acquired projects, a renovation of Lautner's Silvertop house. Next up, something's rotten in the state of New Jersey: Donna and Ken join in to discuss the local-beefs surrounding the new Michael Graves School of Architecture, whose prioritization of hand-drawing is inciting criticism from the neighboring New Jersey Institute of Technology.

We also consider Julia Ingalls' Material Witness series, and how cinematography and set design can drive narrative (and architectural) themes. To conclude, we briefly touch on the recently revealed renderings of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts in Chicago, designed by MAD Architects.

Tomorrow (!!!) we'll premiere season two of Archinect Sessions, and in anticipation of the launch, we've been posting Mini-Sessions interviews, recorded during our first-ever live-podcasting series, "Next Up", held at Jai & Jai Gallery in Los Angeles' Chinatown and at the opening weekend of the Chicago Architecture Biennial. You can listen to past Mini-Sessions here. We'll also be launching a brand new podcast soon. 

For our last Mini-Session recorded at Jai & Jai, we spoke with a panel of jurors from Archinect'sDry Futures competition, featuring: Charles Anderson of werk, Hadley Arnold of the Arid Lands Institute, Ian Quate and Colleen Tuite of GRNASFCK (who joined us via Skype), andPeter Zellner of Zellner Naecker Architects LLP. The winners had been announced just a few days prior.

This week on the podcast: Gehry's design for the Eisenhower memorial is finally approved, Zaha Hadid's Olympic Stadium in Tokyo gets cut-and-pasted into some very Japanese situations, and Peter Zellner, Principal and Design Lead of AECOM's architecture division, and founder of Zellnerplus, sits down for a chat.

On today’s episode of Archinect Sessions Donna and I are joined by Karen Compton, a Los Angeles-based business consultant, business owner and podcast host. 

As the Principal at A3K Consulting, Karen oversees a team of professionals to help clients in the AEC industry grow and improve their businesses applying strategy, business planning, education, training and recruitment. Her vodcast, Breaking the Silence of Design, started just 2 months ago, with co-host Gabrielle Bullock, Director of Global Diversity at Perkins & Will Architects, as a platform to address the uncomfortable conversations around race and inequality in the AEC industry.  

Today Donna, Ken and I are joined by Paulette Singley. Paulette is a respected architectural historian, educator and author. Her writing and editing expands beyond the world of architecture, looking at connections within the culinary arts and film. In today's conversation we’re focusing on her latest book "How to Read Architecture: An Introduction to Interpreting the Built Environment,” a must read for architecture students, architects, designers and admirers of the built world.

Our latest installment of Mini-Sessions, recorded live at the Chicago Architecture Biennial's opening weekend as part of our Next Up event series, features John Lin of Rural Urban Framework. This year's winner of the Curry Stone Design Prize, Rural Urban Framework has distinguished itself for work involving China's rapidly urbanizing rural landscapes. You can listen to past Mini-Sessions here.

This week on the podcast, Donna, Ken and Amelia discuss the uncertain future of downtown Atlanta's brutalist Public Library (the last building Marcel Breuer designed), how Shigeru Ban's relief efforts in Ecuador relate to his celebrity, and the emergence of a heavy-hitting lobbyist group for driverless cars in the US.

Shownotes:

News pieces discussed in this show:

• Google, Uber, Lyft, Ford and Volvo join forces to lobby for autonomous vehicles
• Shigeru Ban arrives in Ecuador to train locals in relief architecture
• Breuer's Brutalist library in downtown Atlanta faces demolition

The campaign to save Marcel Breuer's Grosse Central Pointe Library, started on Archinect

Venice Biennale director Alejandro Aravena: "Our challenge must be to go beyond architecture."

On this latest episode of Archinect Sessions we talk with Sekou Cooke, Syracuse-based architect, educator and curator of the upcoming exhibition at the Center for Architecture, "Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture", scheduled to open this Monday, October 1st in New York City.

Long-time Archinector and BLDGBLOG-runner Geoff Manaugh joins us on the podcast this week to discuss his piece on "The Dream Life of Driverless Cars" for the New York Times Magazine. Referencing work like that of London-based design studio, ScanLAB Projects, who use lidar (light + radar) technology to map how autonomous vehicles see and understand the built environment, Manaugh spoke with us about how these vehicles could potentially change the structures and sensations of our cities – and all the unknowns that accompany such speculation.

We also briefly touch on the recent news of Philadelphia becoming an UNESCO World Heritage site; the first city in the U.S. to receive such status. This episode is sponsored by BQE's ArchiOffice.

“The economy of the home becoming an investment culture instead of a savings culture disrupts the idea of very specific gendered roles in Japanese society,” states the Copenhagen-based architect Christine Bjerke during an interview conducted as part of Archinect’s Next Up: Floating Worlds. Bjerke’s project (On the Floating World of the) FX Beauties, which inspired the name of the event,derives from her research into the spatial implications of the work of the FX Beauties, a club of Japanese housewives who engage in day-trading on foreign exchange markets.

Today, in partnership with Exhibit Columbus, we're introducing Next Up: Exhibit Columbus, our 5-part series of conversations with the curators of Exhibit Columbus and the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. More: https://archinect.com/news/article/150274759/next-up-exhibit-columbus-part-1-a-conversation-with-the-curators

Recently, Archinect teamed up with Bureau Spectacular for the Arroyo Seco Weekend festival. Jimenez Lai and Joanna Grant designed a pavilion for the event, while Archinect's Paul Petrunia and Nicholas Korody held a series of interviews within it. Conversations focused on temporary architecture, installations, festival design and planning, and the festival's host city of Pasadena, CA, the results of which can be listened to below.

We'd like to thank the Goldenvoice team, and in particular Raffi Lehrher, for recognizing the importance of architecture and urban issues, their interest in engaging the community, and inviting us to take part in this inaugural event. 

This week's podcast episode is all about podcasting. So meta. We're joined by Sera Ghadaki, a recent graduate of Pratt M.Arch program, and a contributing editor of Tarp: Digital, Pratt’s podcast spinoff from their long-running student publication.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've already heard about Abstract, Netflix's incredible new documentary series on design. This week we're talking to Abstract's executive producer, Morgan Neville, who also directed the episodes featuring Bjarke Ingels and Christoph Niemann.

As one of the world's most groundbreaking and talented documentary filmmakers, there's a good chance you have already seen Morgan's work. If you haven't, a good place to start is "20 Feet from Stardom", his Academy Award-winning doc that takes a look at the fascinating lives of the often-overlooked backup singers. His documentary on Yo-Yo Ma, "The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble", will be premiering on HBO in March. I'm particularly looking forward to his upcoming Mr. Rogers documentary that he mentions in our conversation. 

Today's installment of Archinect Sessions introduces the first of six episodes sharing conversations we've had with architects, designers. and others in the industry. The discussions address the challenges experienced navigating these uncertain times, from the stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus, to the toll it's taken on jobs and the economy.

In this first part, we feature the perspectives of Zachary, a recently laid-off unlicensed architectural designer in Oshkosh, Wisconsin; Nancy, an architect-turned-architectural-consultant in New York; and an architect in Glasgow, Scotland, who wishes to remain unnamed because of the potentially-illegal layoffs he's been the victim of in recent months.

On this episode of Archinect Sessions we're joined with Alex Baca, a Washington DC-based journalist focused on smart cities, planning, bike advocacy and urban mobility devices. Recent news, and related controversy, surrounding Amazon’s newly announced move into New York City and Washington DC is what initially motivated us to bring Alex onto this show.

Lots of summer blockbuster news to discuss on this week's podcast. The winner of the Helsinki Guggenheim competition was announced (a young husband-wife firm from Paris took the cake), SelgasCano's "psychedelic chrysalis" Serpentine Pavilion opened, and Andres Jaque's COSMO for MoMA PS1's "Warm Up" began its water cycle. And while not quite blockbusting, in what could easily be the premise for a Vincent Price flick, residents of the blighted Robin Hood Gardens dared Lord Rogers to spend a night in their quarters.

Special guests Quilian Riano and Peggy Deamer of The Architecture Lobby join our news discussion this week, dropping their excellent and incisive commentary on ethical practice into every topic. We are collaborating with the Lobby to measure satisfaction with work-life balance in architecture – take the 3-question survey here.

Back in December of last year, the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture launched in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, featuring an exhibition curated by Los Angeles-based critic Mimi Zeiger and designer Tim Durfee. Their show, “Now, There: Scenes from the Post-Geographic City,” winner of the Biennale’s Bronze Dragon, reconsiders what makes up today’s idea of a “city”, specifically regarding our digital and virtual presences, as well as contemporary issues of globalized economies.

Mimi and Tim joined Paul and I in Archinect’s podcasting studio to talk about the exhibition, and introduce a discussion recorded in Shenzhen among the participants of “Now, There" and one of the Biennale’s curators, Aaron Betsky. Their conversation, “Where is now; When is then” makes up the meat of this Bonus Session.

The exhibition features work by Besler & Sons, Walton Chiu, Tim Durfee and Ben Hooker (with Jenny Rodenhouse), John Szot Studio, m-a-u-s-e-r, and Metahaven, as well as texts by Joanne McNeil, Enrique Ramirez, and Therese Tierney.

Last Saturday, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Kathmandu, precipitating catastrophic destruction throughout Nepal and a death toll currently marked at more than 5,000. Reports have been very bleak, with citizens taking to living outside in public spaces, fearful of more damage from aftershocks. Aid and relief efforts are slowly beginning to appear, but basic necessities such as food, water and shelter are still desperately needed.

In the face of such large-scale damage to buildings and infrastructure, architects have a professional imperative to consider their role (from near or far) in reconstruction and relief efforts. At the same time, assistance must take the long-view – for survivors, the worst part of such disasters may not have the immediate event, but the trauma and tedium of the long return to normal.

On this episode, Rajan Karmachaya, a Nepalese architect in Kathmandu, spoke with us about what it's like in Kathmandu now, and what architects can (or shouldn't) do to help. Rajan has been active in the ongoing forum discussion about what architects can do after the earthquake; please contribute to the thread or reach out to us to continue the conversation.

Collecting the most important news of the past week – that is, from the recording date's perspective of March 30th, the day before Zaha Hadid's sudden death – this episode brings stories on: the winning below-grade skyscraper (sinkscrapers?) of eVolo's Skyscraper Competition; a long-lost Le Corbusier tapestry returning to the Sydney Opera House; another twist on co-habitation in the co-work startup, PodShare; Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects taking "revenge" on Charles Moore's Hood Museum; and our future of eating sandwiches while robots do our work. 

We'll discuss the late Dame Zaha Hadid's legacy on next week's podcast.

How far we've come: this week, we're thrilled to have Christopher Hawthorne on the podcast, architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times. Paul, Amelia, Donna and Ken talk with Christopher about his recent 3-part series on architecture and immigration in southern California, the role of the architecture critic at a major national newspaper, and his take on new media journalism.

We're also proud to introduce our inaugural bit with Archinect's lawyer-correspondent, Brian Newman at Dykema Gossett PLLC, where we submit our architectural legal queries to an actual lawyer. And per usual, we check in on recent news, discussing the stormy marketing campaign for a Steampunk luxury condo building.

And has it really already been ten episodes? To celebrate Archinect Sessions' rite-of-passage into double digits, we reflect on how it's been going so far – what we'd like to change, criticism we've received, and our favorite episodes.

Send your architectural legal questions, comments or questions about the podcast to us, on twitter #archinectsessions or call us at: (213) 784-7421.

It's great to be back. Our second season of Archinect Sessions premieres today in a new, shorter format, with an episode devoted to the Chicago Architecture Biennial, and featuring special guest Cynthia Davidson, director of Log and co-curator of the US Pavilion for the 2016 Venice Biennale. Keep a look out as well for more Mini-Sessions, featuring interviews from the Biennial.

In other podcasting news, we're going to be launching a brand new podcast early next week, focusing exclusively on interviews. You can keep up-to-date on all our podcasting news by following us on Twitter, @archsessions, and let us know what you think by rating us on iTunes.

It seems as if the tumult and intrigue that ran through Frank Lloyd Wright's life has lived on at Taliesin. After being embroiled in accreditation issues, suspending Fall 2013 enrollment, and working through rocky fundraising plans, Taliesin recently appointed Aaron Betsky to lead the school and help it regain solid footing. Betsky was previously the Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum and has quite the art/architecture pedigree: he's served as the Director of the 2008 International Architecture Biennale in Venice, SFMOMA's Curator of Architecture and Design, and the Director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam.

Betsky joined Paul, Amelia, Donna and Ken on the podcast to talk about his plans to make the school the "best experimental and its role in the changing world of architecture education. It also turns out that Betsky is quite the DJ.

News this week was also rather Wright-ous, with the nomination of 10 FLW structures to the UNESCO World Heritage List, and the Hollyhock House's reopening in Los Angeles.

We also take some time this episode to gaze inward on the podcast, and frankly consider our "intro" segments, where each hosts shares what's going on in their lives. What do you think of our introductions? We hunger for feedback.

Send us your architectural legal issues, comments or questions via twitter #archinectsessions, email or call us at (213) 784-7421.

This episode is a doozy. Paul and Amelia left the temperate sunshine of Los Angeles for Washington, DC's frigid monumentality, to interview Bjarke Ingels on the eve of his "Hot to Cold" exhibition at the National Building Museum. The 40-year old architect shared some quick-won wisdom about scaling a business, the Danish condition, and the indispensability of humor and play in architecture.

Donna and Ken joined Paul and Amelia to speak with Lian Chang about her recently published visualizations of the Archinect Salary Poll for the ACSA, in charming emoji-based data sets. The Sessions co-hosts also discuss Aaron Betsky's new appointment as the head of the deeply troubled Taliesin West, and what Thom Mayne's demolition of Ray Bradbury's house means for architecture preservation and sentimentality.

And for another climatological analogy, Paul and Brian Newman, Archinect Sessions's legal correspondent, poke at the tip of the iceberg concerning issues of copyright in architecture.  

A reminder: send us your architectural legal issues, comments or questions about the podcast, via twitter #archinectsessions, email or call us at (213) 784-7421.

Today’s show follows up on Archinect Sessions episode 83, when we discussed this first year of Exhibit Columbus. The inaugural exhibition of Exhibit Columbus opens this summer, on August 26, and will include six built structures, designed by teams from six different Midwestern universities, investigating the built environment of Columbus. On today’s show, we will be discussing these projects along with Joshua Coggeshall and Janice Shimizu from the Ball State University team, and Martin Summers from the University of Kentucky. 

Our episode this week revolves around Paris – city of lights, riots, artists and cheese-shaped skyscrapers (or at least, those are the bits were talking about). As part of a nationwide strike against UberPop, the cheapest Uber-affiliate in France, taxi drivers in Paris launched a riotous protest on June 25, terrorizing Uber drivers and generally disrupting Parisians in transit (and Courtney Love).

Contention (albeit the nonviolent kind) also arose in response to Herzog & de Meuron's new Tour Triangle skyscraper, which Paris officials approved on June 30. It will be the city's first skyscraper since the much-maligned Tour Montparnasse was built in 1973, precipitating a height limit on new buildings (that has since been relaxed). Critics are unhappy about the Triangle's intrusion onto the Parisian skyline, and its inhospitable-looking atmosphere on the street level.

Paul also shares his conversation with Guggenheim Helsinki winners Nicolas Moreau and Hiroko Kusunoki, following up on our discussion of their winning proposal on Episode #35. For a refresher on Moreau Kusunoki's work, check out our piece, Who are Helsinki Guggenheim winners Nicolas Moreau and Hiroko Kusunoki?

We're also pleased to share Paul's interview with Paris-based artist Xavier Veilhan, whose series of interventions into some of the world's most famous modernist landmarks have culminated with his book, Architectones. Paul spoke with Veilhan, along with his Los Angeles-collaborator, François Perrin, at the book's launch at MOCA a few weeks ago.

This week on the podcast: continuing our earlier discussion on student debt, special guest (and fellow Archinector) Quilian Riano joins Paul, Amelia, Donna and Ken to discuss the Architecture Lobby's advocacy for increasing the value of architecture, both monetarily and in the public eye. We also cover Karim Rashid's recent inflammatory New York Times interview.

Last Thursday, Great Britain voted to leave the European Union, with a margin of 52% to 48%. The result was a huge surprise—especially for those in creative industries like architecture, many of whom publicly supported the Remain campaign. While no official exit strategy is yet in place, within hours of the 'Brexit' vote becoming clear, the British pound dropped 10% in value against the US dollar (the lowest it's been since the 1980s). Prime Minister David Cameron resigned shortly after, and many British architects are wondering what the hell will happen now.

Speaking from his position as Principal Lecturer at the Manchester School of Architecture, Rob Hyde joined us on the podcast this week to talk about the mood in the UK post-Brexit, and how architects are carrying on.

This week we’re joined by special guest co-host Aaron Betsky, author of Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire and Building Sex: Men, Women, Architecture & the Construction of Sexuality. As a strong presence in the architectural discourse of gender and sexuality since the 1990s, Betsky discusses with us a few of our recent Features published under April's special editorial theme, Sex, including:

• The enduring influence of "Playboy Architecture"
• Screen/Print #41: "Family Planning" from Harvard Design Magazine
• The gimp room, the padded cell, the medical office: inside the world of Kink.com
• Transparent Motives: the ins and outs of sex-specific architecture
• "The difference between porn and erotica is the lighting." – One-to-One #19 with Jake Jaxson, CEO and Creative Director at CockyBoys

Betsky was last on the podcast in his current professional capacity as the dean at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture at Taliesin, to talk about the school's then-uncertain future. You can listen to that episode here.

When news broke yesterday that Alejandro Aravena was the winner of this year's Pritzker Architecture Prize, reactions were generally positive, but a bit conflicted. Aravena's most known, and cited by the Pritzker, for his work on social housing projects in his home base of Santiago de Chile, where he operates as the executive director of the "do tank", ELEMENTAL. And few would contest that his work is worthy of the prize, despite the fact that he's only 48.

But Aravena was also a Pritzker juror from 2009 - 2015, serving alongside jurors who ultimately chose to cite him, and he isn't the first winner to have previously served on the jury. This makes it impossible to ignore criticism that the award tends to stay within a pretty tight-knit circle of practitioners. Often described as the most prestigious architecture award out there, what is the point of the prize nowadays, and is its significance justified?

We wanted to know more about how the Pritzker is awarded, and its self-awareness in the eye of architects as well as the greater public. On the day the Pritzker was announced, Martha Thorne, executive director of the Pritzker Prize, generously gave us insight into "the room where it happens" – how the jury's deliberation work, and why Aravena's work is deserving of the prize.

On this week's show we talk to Kogonada, the writer and director of the critically-acclaimed film Columbus, and Kyle Bergman, founder of the Architecture & Design Film Festival.

Our conversation with Kogonada touches on his inspirations and video-essay work prior to this spectacular debut feature-length film (currently 98% on Rotten Tomatoes!), his experience growing up in an midwest immigrant household and his passion for bringing architecture to film.

Kyle Bergman, who is also a practicing architect, shares his backstory behind the Architecture & Design Film Festival, and tells us about some of the very exciting new films that will be screening at the upcoming festivals in Whitefish, Montana in September and NYC in November.

This week on the podcast: student debt, Chicago's "State of the Art of Architecture", and our new series, Archinect's Lexicon. Paul, Amelia, Donna and Ken are joined by architecture students Jarrod and Elliott to discuss how student debt is changing their lives and careers. We also consider what Chicago has in store for its inaugural architectural biennial next year, and how architectural language (and English in general) is changing with the internet.

As always, you can tweet questions/comments about podcast topics to #archinectsessions, or leave a message for us at (213) 784-7421. You could hear your voice on the next episode.

Over Skype from their homebase in Beijing, WAI Architecture Think Tank partners Cruz Garcia and Nathalie Frankowski spoke with Paul Petrunia, on our latest Mini-Session for the Next Up series. Their contribution to the Chicago Architecture Biennial, a rumination on manifestos, looks to the potential forms of architectural persuasion in any medium.

Special guest Susan Surface, former Archinect editor now at Design in Public, joins us on Archinect Sessions to talk about recent developments in the dialogue around gender inclusive design – particularly, in public restrooms.

As the binary model of gender begins to slowly dissolve in popular consciousness, in favor of a spectrum of different identifications, international building codes still often mandate restrooms (even single-occupancy ones) as strictly for either male or female. Those who do not identify as either face a difficult choice at best, and often harassment or exclusion. Various institutions are experimenting with more gender-inclusive designs and designations, but not without controversy. Advocates liken the advent of all-gender inclusive bathrooms to a civil right, akin to policies that guarantee equal access regardless of ethnicity or physical ability.

In other news, this past Monday we launched Archinect Sessions One-to-One, a brand new podcast focusing exclusively interviews. The premiere episode features Neil Denari. You can keep up-to-date on all our podcasting news by following us on Twitter, @archsessions, and let us know what you think by rating us on iTunes.

​Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus concludes today with our conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's final episode is a conversation with Sam Jacob​​.​

​Sam Jacob Studio​​ is a London-based practice that works at a variety of scales from urban planning to architecture, design objects, art, and curatorial work. Sam Jacob also currently works as a Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois, Chicago​, and as a columnist for Art Review. Sam's installation for Exhibit Columbus is located on Washington Street. He treats the six city blocks as a design object in his project titled "Alternative Instruments," telling a story of Utopia from the perspective of both history and fiction, referencing a 16th century novel by Thomas More through symbolism, mapping, and the typography of the Utopian alphabet.

When he was a kid, Ned Cramer, editor in chief of Architect, wanted to be the first architect-pope. After enrolling in architecture school and weighing his papal options, he decided to do neither, focusing instead on writing and publishing for the profession. He's now the brains behind media firm Hanley Wood's Architect Group, serving as group editorial director for Architect, Architectural Lighting, Residential Architect, EcoStructure, EcoHome, EcoBuilding Pulse and MetalMag.

We spoke with Cramer about his career path and the state of architecture media, and the role of Architect as the AIA's official publication. Cramer and the whole Sessions' crew will be at the AIA National Convention next week; keep an eye (and ear) out for us if you'll be there!

This week Ken, Donna and I talk about some topics in recent architecture news, along with a little discussion about dealing with criticism. 

While Amelia is away this week, Alexander Walter fills in and joins Ken, Donna and me for a conversation about competitions, in a celebration of the re-launch of our sister site Bustler. In addition to discussing the new website and its new features, we also talk about the controversial new "Border Wall" competition and look at some current competitions worth checking out. 

Architect, artist, and experimental preservationist Jorge Otero-Pailos has created scents for Philip Johnson's Glass House, removed centuries of dust from the inside of Trajan's Column with latex, and is the newly appointed director of the Historic Preservation program at Columbia University's GSAPP, where he also began the "Future Anterior" journal. And this week, he joins us on the podcast to discuss ideas that he mulls over constantly in his work – what role should originality play in architecture? What's at stake when discourse and criticism come to rely more on representations than the in situ structure? And what role do media and virtual realities play in all of this?

This episode is brought to you by BQE ArchiOffice. Check out their offer for Archinect Sessions listeners at bqe.com/startups.

Peter Zumthor released new renderings for his LACMA redesign last week, and boy are people not impressed! We talk about the "undercooked" look of Zumthor's snaking concrete inkblot plan for the museum, and experiment with a new segment devoted to ranting. You've been warned.

Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus continues with sharing conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's episode is a conversation with Olalekan Jeyifous​​.

Olelakan, who also goes by LEk, as I refer to him in this conversation, is a Nigerian-born visual artist with an architecture degree from Cornell​. His work​ has been widely exhibited at institutions including the Studio Museum in Harlem, MoMA, Vitra Design Museum and the Guggenheim Bilboa. His work ranges from large-scale art commissions in public spaces and festivals to commercial installations. His contribution to this year's Exhibit Columbus is a fascinating hybrid of physical and virtual space entitled Archival/Revival. The installation directly references exhibits at the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, the site of the installation, from 1970, celebrating the Black and African arts.

On this latest episode of the Archinect Sessions podcast we're joined by Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers of the Minneapolis-based practice Dream the Combine.

Jennifer and Tom are a husband and wife team that specialize in site-specific installations. Their work is deeply-collaborative, directly referenced in the name of their practice, and looks at the overlaps in art, architecture, and cultural theory, while manipulating the boundary between real and illusory space.

This week we're joined by Inga Saffron, the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer. If you haven't read her latest piece on Henry Wilcots, the relatively unknown architect responsible for finishing Louis Kahn's masterpiece in Dhaka, go read it now. We talk with Inga about her experience meeting with Wilcots, architecture criticism pre and post-internet, Philadelphia and more.

On this episode of Archinect Sessions we’re sharing the recording of a panel discussion I moderated last weekend at the A+D Museum​, as part of the current exhibition The Los Angeles Schools​. The panel brought together five students and three faculty members representing student-led publications from LA’s architecture programs. Rayne Laborde and Phoebe Webster represented UCLA​'s POOL​​​; Marcelyn Gow represented SCI-Arc​’s Offramp​; Richard Mapes, Corie Yaguchi and Irvin Shaifa represented SCI-Arc​'s Underscore​; Alvin Huang​ represented USC​’s Supertall​; and Stephen Phillips​, Cal Poly LA Metro’s Director, represented their program’s hardcover publication LA Ten​. 

Our talk covers a lot of ground, exposing the inner-workings of editing and producing publications in today’s unique and highly transformative media landscape. Our conversations cover issues of editorial decision-making, design, freedom of expression and thoughts on the future of student publishing in architecture school.  

This week on the podcast we are joined by Evan Chakroff. We discuss his latest piece on Cuba and Cuban architecture, travel, 360° photography, and more. 

On this week's show, Archinect Sessions episode 124, Ken and Donna look back at this year's AIA National Convention in NYC.

On our year-end show Donna, Ken and I are joined by Frances Anderton. For those listeners that are in LA, Frances's voice is probably very familiar to you. Frances is the host of DnA, the radio show the focuses on architecture and design on KCRW, the local favorite station among architects in the Southern California region.

A few weeks ago Frances broke the news that she would be leaving the beloved radio show at the end of the year, after an 18-year run. Today she joins us to tell us about work with DnA, the backstory behind her transition from architecture student to journalist to radio personality, and gives us a hint at what she'll be doing next.

Later in the episode, the four of us discuss some of the bigger news stories that helped define what 2020 meant for architects. We also share what we're each looking forward to as we enter into a new year.

Thom Mayne and Eui-Sung Yi join us to discuss their recently published book, Haiti Now – a herculean resource on post-disaster urbanism in Haiti, published by their urban think tank, the NOW Institute.

The rest of this episode takes a look back at the first forty episodes of Archinect Sessions, as we wrap up season one. Each new episode has expanded, and sharpened, our idea of what the podcast can and should be. We've spoken with some pretty heavy hitters, including Denise Scott Brown, Kevin Roche, Patrik Schumacher, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Heatherwick, Christopher Hawthorne and Michael Rotondi, as well as some up and comers, like Andrés Jaque (winner of MoMA's 2015 YAP), Jimenez Lai, and Nicolas Moreau and Hiroko Kusunoki (winners of the Guggenheim Helsinki competition).

It's been a blast, but moving forward, we want to tighten up, dig deeper and move the proverbial furniture around. We'll start up season two in the coming weeks, but while we're on hiatus, we'd love to get your feedback – tell us what you think of the podcast by taking this short survey, or rating us on iTunes. Your thoughts will help us shape Sessions' next season.

In a landmark decision last month, Columbia University graduate students won the right to unionize in a case filed against the National Labor Relations Board. As a result, graduate students in private universities across the U.S. now have the right to collectively bargain. What effect does this have on architecture student labor, and the valuation of architecture overall?

We're joined this week by special guest A.L. Hu, a third-year GSAPP MArch student and key organizer with Graduate Workers of Columbia (GWC-UAW). Hu shared what's happening at the school after the landmark decision, and how these organizing efforts can affect the architecture profession overall.

The tragedy of Flint, Michigan's water crisis seems to worsen with every newly uncovered detail. As a manmade public health crisis provoked by willful denial and compromised safety standards, the entirely preventable poisoning of Flint's water supply with lead stands not only as a failure to care for the citizens of one city, but as a dreadful harbinger for the U.S.'s deteriorating infrastructure networks.

Like any concerned citizen, Filnt-based architect Kurt Neiswender sees this as a call to action to help any way he can. Kurt joins us on the podcast this week to discuss how architects might apply their skills to improve such a monstrous situation, and address the real limitations the profession has when it comes to these scenarios.

On this episode of Archinect Sessions we're joined by Eva Hagberg, a NY-based writer and architectural consultant. Our conversation covers Eva’s architectural studies at Princeton and Berkeley, and how that transitioned into a successful writing career spanning architecture criticism to writing about her own life in her recently published memoir How to Be Loved. We also talk about the unique personality traits of architects and her approach to helping architects communicate.

Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus continues with sharing conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's episode is a conversation with Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo of Ecosistema Urbano.

Ecosistema Urbano is a design and consulting company operating within the fields of urbanism, architecture, engineering, and sociology, with offices in Madrid and Miami. Their work often addresses climate head-on, while incorporating strategies of working with micro-climates to educate communities through public spaces. This focus was applied to Cloudroom, their contribution to this year's Exhibit Columbus. Cloudroom consists of an inflatable "cloud," floating over a wooden structure, acting as a space for education, play, and interaction for middle school students.

This is the final installment of Archinect Sessions' six-part series of conversations we've had with architects, designers, and others in the industry. The discussions address the challenges experienced navigating these uncertain times, from the stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus, to the toll it's taken on jobs and the economy.

Today we share our conversations with Ilya Bourim, an architectural designer working for a developer in the Coachella Valley; Lauren Harris, a BIM Manager in Philadelphia; Dawn Zuber, an architect and small practice owner just outside of Detroit; and Carl Emberger, a Technical Director at a mid-size firm in Philadelphia. 

This week we talk with Jonathan Massey, the new Dean at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. We talk about his approach to architectural education and his previous roles at Syracuse and the California College of the Arts, where he finished his deanship this year. We also discuss the world of architectural publishing as it relates to his work with Aggregate. 

This week, we are joined by Nicholas Korody, the Editor-in-Chief of Archinect's new print project Ed, and Ethel Baraona Pohl, co-founder of Barcelona-based architecture publisher dpr-barcelona. We discuss the increasingly-niche industry of architectural print publishing, and the evolving value it offers as digital media continues to thrive.

We also provide a little behind-the-scenes look at the conception and development of Ed. Interested in seeing your work in print? Ed is currently seeking submissions for our next issue on "Disaster". Bracket, a publication project Archinect co-publishes with Infranetlab, is seeking submissions for the upcoming release "On Sharing".

The sudden death of Dame Zaha Hadid could not also mean the end of Zaha Hadid Architects. With major projects still ongoing all over the world, the firm had to keep things running strong, focusing on the future while managing grief. After working with Zaha for nearly thirty years, Patrik Schumacher has now taken over leadership at the firm, and joins us on the podcast to discuss what it was like collaborating with her "killer instinct", and how he can continue honoring the "DNA" of her.

This episode originally aired on April 21, 2016.

The Architecture + Design Museum hosted two panels to close out its "Shelter" exhibition, focusing on local architects visions for future residential architectures in a changing Los Angeles.

The first panel, moderated by Mimi Zeiger (west coast editor of the Architect's Newspaper), focused on the LA River's impact, and featured exhibiting architects Jimenez Lai (Bureau Spectacular), Elizabeth Timme (LA Más), and Lorcan O'Herlihy (of Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects). The second panel, moderated by Amelia Taylor-Hochberg (editorial manager for Archinect), focused on the influence of the Metro expansion in front of LACMA, and featured exhibiting architects Jennifer Marmon (PAR), Bob Dornberger (WHY), and senior architect at LACMA, Priscilla Fraser.

Both panels were recorded live for this special Bonus content on November 6, 2015. In between the panels, you'll hear a special performance by local poet-urbanist, Mike the Poet.

Special thanks to Danielle Rago and Sam Lubell for curating the exhibition and putting the panels together, as well as B&O in Pasadena for their help recording the event.

For our final live Mini-Session, recorded during our Next Up event at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, we present a festival of Pauls. Archinect founder/publisher Paul Petrunia interviews Paul Andersen (Independent Architecture) and Paul Preissner (Paul Preissner Architects), who designed the University of Illinois at Chicago's kiosk in the Biennial's Lakefront Kiosk competition. You can listen to past Mini-Sessions here.

On this week's show we are trying out something new by inviting on guest hosts to take over the mics. Our guest hosts today, Mitch McEwen and Marc Miller, are familiar figures to regular listeners of this podcast and readers of Archinect.  

Mitch is the principal of McEwen Studio, co-founder of the studio collective, A(n) Office, and an Assistant Professor at Princeton University’s School of Architecture. Mitch's writing can be found on her Archinect blog Another Architecture. She has also been a guest on previous episodes of Archinect Sessions Equity, Secrets and Relevancy of AIA; 1 Year After #NotMyAIA, Twilight Zoning: What 100 years of zoning hath wrought, and Another year, Another Architecture.

Marc is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Penn State University, in addition to being a regular voice of reason and intelligence in our discussion forum and comments section. Marc previously joined us on the podcast to discuss HUD and Zaha Hadid Architects in HUD-winked: Ben Carson takes on housing for Trump and ZHA distances itself from Patrik Schumacher.

On this episode of Archinect Sessions we’re sharing a conversation I had with Alysa Nahmias, the director and producer of the documentary film “The New Bauhaus.” We recorded this conversation last month, poolside, a few hours before the film premiered to a packed house in the Annenberg Theater at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Alysa, a trained architect-turned-filmmaker, made her directorial debut in 2011 with Unfinished Spaces, a critically acclaimed documentary about the unfinished National Art School in Cuba. 

While she has a number of producing credits under her belt, The New Bauhaus is the second documentary film project that she directed. The film focuses on the life and legacy of László Moholy-Nagy, the Hungarian artist and teacher most famously known through his work at the Bauhaus. It’s a beautifully told story, presented in a unique, non-linear fashion, narrated by Hans Ulrich Obrist who represent Maholy in a surprisingly effective way. 

The film will be screened again at this year’s Modernism Week in Palm springs, tomorrow, February 14th, followed by screenings at Melbourne Design Week the Architecture & Design Film Festival in DC in March, and in Los Angeles, at SC-Arc, in April. Full details can be found at thenewbauhaus.com. 

We are delighted to devote the entirety of this episode to an interview with Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. Our discussion spanned their nearly 30 years (and counting) working together, focusing not on individual projects but their architectural philosophy, their material explorations, and their work with landscape. The rising cream throughout was the way Williams and Tsien talk with one another, each pulling on their side of the rowboat to craft a truly collaborative response.

This week, with the encroaching holiday craziness picking up steam, we're releasing a mini-version of Archinect Sessions to cap off the 2014 podcasting season. For this special XS session, Paul, Amelia, Donna and Ken make predictions for the world of architecture in 2015, and discuss our plans for the year's end. We'll return from the hiatus with a new episode airing on January 8th.

“Everything we think of as being normal in the home, everything we think of as being traditional—they’re all inventions,” states Jack Self, the London-based founder of the REAL Foundation, during an interview conducted as part of Archinect’s fourth live podcasting event, Next Up: Floating Worlds. “The corridor is an invention, the single bed is an invention, the kitchen is an invention. And they’re all constantly in a state of evolution. If we can view the house as a design object and as an artificial construct with social relations, then anyone can have power to change the way that they live. Go home and rearrange your living room. Put all the soft surfaces in one room and all the hard surfaces in another room. You’ll instantly see how much of a construct your home is.”

Closing out August's special theme of Games, we're joined this week by Quilian Riano to talk through all the ways games can help architects reimagine not only their designs and design processes, but also their own role in the system and structures of city building. We discuss Quilian's recent piece for Archinect on his own work with games in pedagogy, practice and protest, and share our other experiences at the intersection of games and architecture.

This week, Paul, Amelia, Donna and Ken speak with Greg Henderson, architect and co-founder of Arx Pax, the company that is bringing the long-fantisized hoverboard to the market. We also discuss the hoverboard's technology and its potential applications in architecture. Greg holds an M.Arch from UC Berkeley, leading to our discussion on the history behind Working Out of the Box, and what may come next for the series, now that employers have more jobs than there are architects to fill them.

We also discuss the problematics of the Helsinki Guggenheim's Stage One entries, and whether Gehry's bird flipping makes him into a crotchety old man or defiant punk.

This week we’re sharing my conversation with Sou Fujimoto, recorded immediately before his new show opened to the press at Japan House in Hollywood last Friday. The show, titled “FUTURES OF THE FUTURE”, brings together large-scale renderings and photographs, along with over 100 models showcasing a selection of Fujimoto’s distinctive work and process.

Our conversation covers his upbringing in Hokkaido, his academic and personal studies in Tokyo, and how these experiences contributed to his highly unique approach to architecture; investigating primitive lifestyles, blurring boundaries and breaking down walls. If you’re in the LA area, the exhibition will remain until December 12th at Japan House, which is located on the 2nd floor of the bustling, tourist-filled Hollywood and Highland complex.

Co-hosts Donna Sink and Ken Koense join us for our second episode, to discuss licensing and IDP issues at NCARB, the value of mentorship in the profession, and the latest news on the Moriyama RAIC International Prize.

"Archinect Sessions" is a weekly podcast discussing recent news items and happenings on the website. Hosted by Archinect's founder and publisher, Paul Petrunia, alongside Editorial Manager Amelia Taylor-Hochberg, the podcast pulls on the expertise of special weekly co-hosts, whether other Archinectors or players within the architecture community at large.

This episode of Archinect Sessions was intended to be a brief introduction to a number of conversations we've been recording with members of the architecture community from around the world, checking in to see how people are coping through the current COVID-19 crisis and related effects to the economy. Since it's been so long that the three of us recorded our last episode, we ended up spending a full hour catching up amongst ourselves, sharing stories and perspectives on what we're experiencing ourselves, and observing around us. Our conversations with the architects we've been talking to will follow in subsequent episodes, beginning next week. If you have stories to share, please reach out to us and tell us about it. 

Earlier this summer I sat down with Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee to discuss their practice, Johnston Marklee, in front of a live audience at this year's LA Design Festival. We discuss the origin of their practice, their relationship to LA, the eclectic group of collaborators they have worked with over the years, and their unique approach to telling the story of their work in their recently published monograph.

Michael Rotondi joins us in-studio this week, for a special conversation with Orhan Ayyüce about architecture education and Rotondi's Los Angeles roots. Paul, Amelia, Donna and Ken also discuss ol' fashioned southern contextualism in Charleston, South Carolina, in response to Clemson University's scrapped modern building plans.

We discuss the latest big news from the awards-world of architecture, as we saw Caruso St John take home the Stirling Prize for their Newport Street Gallery, and the Aga Khan Award recipients ranged from a female Muslim starchitect to lesser-known female Muslim architects. We also take a slanted look at the hilarious winners of the satirical "Good Walls Make Good Neighbors, Mr. Trump" ideas competition.

To describe John Cary simply as an author would be a disservice. John is a unique individual in the world of architecture. For 20 years, since he was a student, he has been on a non-stop mission to make the world a more just place with the power of good architecture and design. On this week's show Ken and I talk to John about his career arc, thus far, from fighting for the rights of interns and architects as the Vice President of the AIAS, to his new book Design for Good: A New Era of Architecture for Everyone, published by Island Press.

This week, we devote the majority of our show to a discussion with Patrik Schumacher, about celebrity and the insularity of critical discourse in architecture. The idea of the "starchitect" is onerous to pretty much everybody in architecture, but that hasn't stopped us from using it. It's a popular media fabrication that, by becoming a potent cultural meme in its own right (thanks, Gehry), has derailed significant portions of architecture discourse into the murky realm of identity politics – the aesthetics and politics of a built object becoming an inextricable part of their designer's character. Schumacher's Parametricism may be an antidote to that. We discuss Schumacher's recent op-ed on these subjects, in the hope that keeping the discussion going will flush out something useful (or even flush away the "starchitect" concept entirely).

In the news, we touch on BIG's design for Two World Trade Center displacing Foster's, the resignation of five Cooper Union trustees (including Daniel Libeskind), and the scandal of Red Cross's contested use of earthquake-relief funds in Haiti. Our take on news is a bit different this episode; let us know what you think of it!

This year's winning Serpentine Pavilion, designed by BIG, came with an architectural posse—for the first time in the Serpentine Pavilion's history, the annual competition also featured four "Summer Houses" designed by other international architects. The pavilion and summer houses open to the public tomorrow on the Serpentine Galleries' lawn in London's Royal Kensington Gardens, and we discuss our initial take on their at once surprising and familiar elements.

Get briefed on the pavilion and the summer houses with Robert Urquhart's coverage here.

This week, architect-turned-coffee entrepreneur Yeekai Lim of Cognoscenti Coffee joins us in-studio, to talk pop-up shops and hospitality architecture. Afterward, Paul, Amelia, Donna and Ken hash out the recently announced finalists for the Guggenheim Helsinki competition.

Architect and experimental preservationist Bryony Roberts joins us for our next Mini-Session, a continuation of our Next Up event staged at the Chicago Architecture Biennial. While Roberts' interview at the Chicago Cultural Center unfortunately didn't make it to tape, I called her up for a do-over interview in Rome, where she is currently residing as a winner of 2015-2016's Rome Prize.

Roberts' contribution to the Biennial – a drill team performance entitled "We Know How to Order," staged in downtown Chicago's Mies van der Rohe-designed federal center plaza – was performed for a limited run during the Biennial's opening weekend. Check out a video of the performance here.

In celebration of Archinect Sessions' second season, we're posting the "Next Up" live-interviews we did at the Chicago Architecture Biennial as Mini-Sessions, continuing from the interviews done at Jai & Jai Gallery in Los Angeles. You can listen to past Mini-Sessions here.

Our third Mini-Session recorded during the Biennial's opening weekend features François Roche and Camille Lacadée who work together as New-Territories / M4, sometimes known as R&Sie. Check out their contribution to the Biennial here.

We have a very special July 4th episode for you today. 

Today’s show offers a very American conversation with the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Paul Goldberger. The discussion was recorded live at Archinect Outpost last month for the launch of his latest book Ballpark. 

Ballpark takes a deep dive into the history of the ballpark, and the impact it’s had on the evolution of the American city. The book looks at a selection of case studies to arrive at a simple yet compelling thesis: “In the ballpark,” Goldberger writes, “the two sides of the American character - the Jeffersonian impulse toward open space and rural expanse, and the Hamiltonian belief in the city and in industrial infrastructure - are joined, and cannot be torn apart.

If you’re interested in a copy of the book, we have a few copies available at Archinect, both in our shop in downtown Los Angeles, and online at outpost.archinect.com. 

Paul Goldberger began his career at The New York Times, where in 1984 his architecture criticism was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, the highest award in journalism. From 1997 through 2011 he served as the Architecture Critic for The New Yorker, where he wrote the magazine’s celebrated “Sky Line” column. He is currently a contributing editor for Vanity fair and holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School in New York City. 

When Indianapolis began demolishing its RCA Dome in 2008, Michael Bricker saw a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To save the stadium's white, Teflon-coated fiberglass roof from the landfill, Bricker salvaged 13 acres of it, and turned it into shade structures for the city, as well as locally-designed accessories. With this project, People for Urban Progress was born.

Bricker is the Founder and Executive Director of People for Urban Progress, aka PUP, based in Indianapolis. The non-profit is focused on diverting building materials from wasting away in landfills, and repurposing it for local improvements. Trained as an architect and also working as a production designer, Bricker has gone on with PUP to turn old stadium seats into bus stops, and fabric from Superbowl XLVI into handbags. Sessions' own Donna Sink is a board member at PUP, and Bricker joined us on the podcast to discuss the organization's goals and design ethos.

As a bonus for Sessions listeners, get 15% off anything in PUP's store by entering "archinect" as the coupon code at checkout.

A new Texas state law going into effect on August 1 will allow concealed handguns to be brought into public university campus buildings. This isn't sitting well with many members of the public university system, as educators and administrators are now tasked with regulating the presence of guns inside studios and classrooms, and fear that such a law will scare people away from the school (not to mention the obvious safety concerns). Dean of the architecture school, Frederick "Fritz" Steiner, has been critical of the law from its inception, and faced with having to enforce it as campus policy, was prompted to leave UT-Austin for the deanship at PennDesign.

While not the sole reason for his resignation, Steiner is adamant that such a law is simply not good for architecture education and studio culture, and joins us on the podcast to discuss.

On this episode, we're joined by Chilean architect​​ Alejandro Aravena​​. A long-familiar name to most of our listeners, Aravena’s work gained significant media attention upon winning the Pritzker Prize in 2016​, elevating his reputation for working to address some of today’s most difficult issues through participatory design, engaging users, groups, experts, and the public-at-large. His most notable projects are his “incremental housing” developments, a partially subsidized low-income solution for displaced families providing half-built homes for families to complete on their own, within their own budgets and tastes. Elemental has since released the plans for these projects for free, via download from their website​.

This week Aravena was awarded another significant prize, the ULI J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development​. The award recognizes visionaries that are making significant contributions to international community building, with an emphasis on land use and development bettering society. Our conversation starts with him describing how this ULI prize is so important to him...

Recently, Archinect teamed up with Bureau Spectacular for the Arroyo Seco Weekend festival. Jimenez Lai and Joanna Grant designed a pavilion for the event, while Archinect's Paul Petrunia and Nicholas Korody held a series of interviews within it. Conversations focused on temporary architecture, installations, festival design and planning, and the festival's host city of Pasadena, CA, the results of which can be listened to below.

We'd like to thank the Goldenvoice team, and in particular Raffi Lehrher, for recognizing the importance of architecture and urban issues, their interest in engaging the community, and inviting us to take part in this inaugural event.

Our second conversation from 'Next Up: The LA River' is with Marissa Christiansen, Senior Policy Director of Friends of the Los Angeles River. FOLAR, as the non-profit is known, turned 30 this year, and was founded on the mission to "protect and restore the natural and historic heritage of the Los Angeles river and its riparian habitat through inclusive planning, education and wise stewardship." Its role in much of the river's discourse has often included reminding all parties involved that the river is indeed a natural river, and host to a diverse ecosystem—despite its characterization as the "world's largest storm drain" ever since the Army Corps of Engineers paved most of it for flood control in the 1930s.

Christiansen trained as an urban planner before joining FOLAR this year, and spoke with Archinect's Nicholas Korody about the organization's history within the river's redevelopment, its focus on reconnecting people with the river's immense natural resources, and the delicate balance between conservation, revitalization and gentrification.

Continuing our "Next Up" series, recorded at Jai & Jai Gallery in Los Angeles and during the opening weekend of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, we've been posting the live-interviews as podcast Mini-Sessions. Due to a technical error at the Biennial, the second half of live Chicago interviews were lost – so some were recorded on another date. You can listen to past Mini-Sessions here.

Our second Mini-Session recorded during the Biennial's opening weekend features Thomas Kelley and Carrie Norman of Norman Kelley.

Season two of Archinect Sessions premiered last week – featuring a discussion on the Chicago Architecture Biennial with Log director (and co-curator of the US Pavilion for the 2016 Venice Biennale) Cynthia Davidson – and to finish out our coverage of CAB, we're posting the "Next Up" live-interviews we did in Chicago as Mini-Sessions, continuing from the interviews done at Jai & Jai Gallery in Los Angeles. Due to a most unfortunate technical glitch in Chicago, the second half of live interviews were lost – so some Chicago interviews were recorded on another date. You can listen to past Mini-Sessions here.

For our first Mini-Session recorded during the Biennial's opening weekend, we spoke with Urtzi Grau and Cristina Goberna Pesudo of Fake Industries Architectural Agonism.

This week Ken and I are joined by Alan Maskin, partner and co-owner of Seattle-based Olson Kundig. Alan shares his story growing up on the East Coast, working as an artist and arts educator before moving onto architecture school in his 30s. He tells us about how he finally landed a job at Olson Kundig after 4 failed job applications, and then strategically moved his way out of his initial role of IT manager. He provides insight into what it took to move up in the firm, eventually becoming a partner and co-owner, and what kind of qualities Olson Kundig looks for when hiring new talent that fits well with time-crafted firm culture.

Of course, we also talk about his work, including the highly publicized renovation of Seattle’s iconic Space Needle, and some recent projects he has designed for children and families. We even get his thoughts on two topics weighing heavily in the news these days - unpaid internships and the restoration of the Notre Dame Cathedral.  

This week we are joined, in studio, by David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, the hosts of the Midnight Charette podcast. You may be already familiar with their podcast, or perhaps you’ve just heard about the podcast since they released their episode with me a couple days ago.

The Midnight Charette has been podcasting for a while now. They're quickly approaching their 100th episode. They describe their show as an explicit podcast about design, architecture and people. The format is casual, and unscripted, and tends to run on the long side, 2 hours being about average for an episode. While this is an architecture podcast, it’s often not addressing architecture directly, rather, David and Marina discuss non-architectural issues from the perspective of a couple of architecturally-minded professionals.

In today’s conversation we learn more about the host's backgrounds, and how they came together and conceived of the podcast. We also take a peek behind the curtain by talking about all of the little details that we use to make these podcasts.

After we wrapped our first live-podcasting series, "Next Up", held at Jai & Jai Gallery in Los Angeles' Chinatown and at the opening weekend of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, we had over four hours of live interviews to release. Now, we're letting them loose as "Mini-Sessions", leading up to the premiere of Archinect Sessions' second season on Thursday, November 5. We'll also be launching a brand new podcast soon, so keep your eyes and ears open.

In light of the recent killing of 49 people at Pulse, a gay night club in Orlando known to many as a center for Queer and Latinx culture, our focus for this week’s podcast is the role and significance of queer spaces in creating community and culture.

We wanted to use this time to encourage constructive discussion of why recognizing, and preserving (in some way), these 'third spaces' is so important. Not just for those who identify as queer or the Latinx community, but for creating diverse, welcoming urban spaces for all.

We’re joined by two guests, Susan Surface: a queer designer, curator, organizer, and the program director at Design in Public in Seattle, and James Rojas: an urban planner trained at MIT and specializing in cultural landscapes, who has written extensively about Latino urbanism.

Recently, Archinect teamed up with Bureau Spectacular for the Arroyo Seco Weekend festival. Jimenez Lai and Joanna Grant designed a pavilion for the event, while Archinect's Paul Petrunia and Nicholas Korody held a series of interviews within it. Conversations focused on temporary architecture, installations, festival design and planning, and the festival's host city of Pasadena, CA, the results of which can be listened to below.

We'd like to thank the Goldenvoice team, and in particular Raffi Lehrher, for recognizing the importance of architecture and urban issues, their interest in engaging the community, and inviting us to take part in this inaugural event.

Last Wednesday, on the eve of the AIA National Convention, I had the pleasure of talking with Miguel McKelvey, co-founder of WeWork. 

The conversation was held in Midtown, in the Project 6 by AF showroom to an invited crowd of 75 architects. The event was co-hosted by Project 6 by AF and Designer Pages, and sponsored by Graff, Julien, Geberit, Kaldewei and Wetstyle. 

For those of you unfamiliar, WeWork is a co-working startup currently valued at somewhere between $20B to $35B, with almost 400 locations scattered around the world in 69 cities. While WeWork wasn’t the first company to enter the coworking space, they approached it in a very different way, focusing on creating physical environments that connected with workers and business owners, while crafting a culture of super-dedicated members. 

Miguel McKelvey, one of two co-founders, is an architect by education, with a brief work history in the field that includes an active role in the design and buildout of American Apparel's disruptive retail stores in the early 2000’s. As a personal friend that I first met while studying architecture together at the University of Oregon, I’ve followed Miguel’s entrepreneurial path for almost 20 years. In this conversation we’ll talk about that path, and how architecture has played a critical role in the success of WeWork, starting with his extremely untraditional, yet highly relevant, childhood.

For Archinect Sessions episode #145 we are joined by Kimberly Dowdell, a principal at HOK in Chicago and the current President of the National Organization of Minority Architects. Our conversation covers Kimberly’s impressive path to success in architecture, and the leadership role she’s taking in NOMA. We’ll also discuss the upcoming NOMA conference taking place in Brooklyn in a few weeks from October 14th-20th.

As last week's episode was taken up by Pritzker-hooplah, this episode takes a look back at the major news items of the last week(ish) and gets you caught up with what's been happening on Archinect.

We discuss: the recent photo exhibition on homelessness at USC (which closes tomorrow!); the Treasury Department's controversial new practice of tracking and identifying secret buyers of luxury housing; how BIG's 2 World Trade Center is now in limbo after "anchor tenant" Rupert Murdoch has pulled out; the demolition of yet another not-beloved-enough Brutalist building; the big ol' chunk of cash the U.S. now has to prepare for driverless cars; and the ongoing debacle over the Tokyo Olympic Stadium, as Zaha Hadid Architects accuses Kengo Kuma Associates of copying their design, while Japan won't pay ZHA until they hand over the design copyrights.

This week Amelia, Paul, Donna and Ken discuss the somewhat controversial Google Headquarters design by BIG and Heatherwick. On a completely different note, we also discuss the new, and the nation's first, slavery museum, Whitney Plantation, in Louisiana. 

Recently, Archinect teamed up with Bureau Spectacular for the Arroyo Seco Weekend festival. Jimenez Lai and Joanna Grant designed a pavilion for the event, while Archinect's Paul Petrunia and Nicholas Korody held a series of interviews within it. Conversations focused on temporary architecture, installations, festival design and planning, and the festival's host city of Pasadena, CA, the results of which can be listened to below.

We'd like to thank the Goldenvoice team, and in particular Raffi Lehrher, for recognizing the importance of architecture and urban issues, their interest in engaging the community, and inviting us to take part in this inaugural event.

This week we’re joined by one of our favorite regulars, Fred Scharmen. Fred currently teaches architecture and urban design at Morgan State University's School of Architecture and Planning, and is the Principal and Co-Founder of The Working Group on Adaptive Systems. What brings him on today’s show is his just-released new book Space Settlements. The 400-page paperback contains a visually stunning collection of designs for space colonies from the mid-70’s, including iconic artwork and comparison studies of 20th and 21st century architecture projects. Our conversation talks about his research leading up to this book, the process of writing the book and the fascinating stories discovered along the way.