Explore every episode of the podcast Almost Nothing

The Vancouver Aquatic Centre closes for good on June 28th. This solo episode covers Duncan McNab, the overlooked architect behind the 1974 building, its clever engineering, the politics of its replacement, and Vancouver's habit of erasing its own architectural history. Plus a personal story about what this building meant to me.

He designed the Coconut Chair eight years before it had that name. Then the story of how it got made turned out to have a story of its own.

In this solo episode, we dig into A.J. Donahue: Harvard trained under Gropius and Breuer, recruited to teach architecture in Winnipeg, and for a while, the best modernist architect Manitoba ever produced. He also, quietly, designed one of the most recognizable mid-century chairs in North America. Except history gave the credit to George Nelson and Herman Miller instead.

We get into the legend that's followed this chair for decades: 200 prototypes, hand built by architecture students in Donahue's own basement. Then we pull it apart, piece by piece, using the archival research that suggests the real story ran through a furniture factory in Montreal. Plus: the world's first plastic chair, an unproven patent, and one very confusing sketch Donahue drew from memory forty five years later.

A story about a brilliant, difficult man, a beautiful chair, and how design history actually gets written.

Research for this episode provided by:

WPGARCH

Dana and Mary (Metropolitan Home)

Patrick sits down with artist and designer Mike Seymour, known for his work at Bocci and his independent project Sfossils, which debuted with Paean, a large ceramic chandelier installed at the Villa Bagatti Valsecchi in Milan. The two discuss Mike's process, his path from Bocci to launching his own practice, his residency at Fallingwater, and the ideas behind his latest work.

Last year, Steven Bailey purchased Arthur Erickson's Perry Residence (1963), a house that had fallen into a significant state of disrepair. Rather than seeing a problem, he saw an opportunity.

In this conversation, we discuss the realities of taking on an important piece of architectural history, balancing preservation with practicality, and what it takes to make a project like this financially viable.

Released one day after what would have been Arthur Erickson's 102nd birthday.

The Museum of Anthropology at UBC is probably the most important building in Vancouver — and one of the most quietly radical. In this solo episode, we get into how Arthur Erickson translated the logic of Northwest Coast post-and-beam construction into concrete and glass, why the site carries more history than most people realize, and what it means that the Great Hall was just demolished and rebuilt from scratch. A building about permanence that had to be taken apart to survive.

Shaniff Thawer spent four years saving Ron Thom's Fells House. Built in 1958, this West Vancouver home could have been torn down — instead, Shanif took it on and brought it back. In this episode, Patrick and Shanif sit down to talk about what that process actually looks like. The patience, the decisions, and what it means to fight for a building worth keeping.