Explore every episode of the podcast Unfrozen
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 88. The Architecture of Urbanity | 20 Apr 2025 | 00:45:50 | |
Vishaan Chakrabarti is the founder and creative director of the Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), and the author of "The Architecture of Urbanity." He has worn many hats - in development, architecture, government and academia, and brings this experience to bear in his public advocacy work. -- Intro/Outro: "I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane Show Notes: - The "Joy" Thing with Tim Walz - Obama > Biden Infrastructure Bill - Is it really Rural vs Urban, or Suburban vs Everyone Else? Is it Rurbanity? - UC Berkeley analysis of carbon footprints of cities vs rural vs suburban - The mortgage interest tax deduction - The Federal gas tax - Out-migration from expensive to affordable cities - not the suburbs - Railroad suburbs: Montclair and Maplewood NJ - Carbon pricing - Jane Jacobs' idea that cities formed around trade - James C. Scott - The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber & David Wengrow - Alternate civilizational origin stories at the Venice Biennale - The places we go on vacation all have lousy parking - The energy source powering cars is not really the issue - it's the degree to which we design our cities around cars - or not - Copenhagen - the urban planning Mecca - but where are the immigrants? - InterOculus, PAU, Columbus, Indiana - "Because they've been told their definition of excellence is to design spaceships to be built by slaves in the sand, that's what architects are off doing. And so of course they're not at the adult table influencing policy. We can't relegate ourselves to the kiddie table by talking about irrelevant things and then complain about the chicken nuggets." - "We don't help everyday people visualize the power of policy change as well as we could." - "I think we are at a moment where it is really, important for people who understand the physical world to sit down and be able to speak the language of government." - "Designing policy is a form of design." - New York Times collaboration with PAU = NYC = Not Your Car - Gov. Kathy Hochul's cancellation of congestion pricing - Robert Caro, The Power Broker - "The city's permanent government" - the "deep state" might actually be OK - "New York, New York, New York," by Tom Dyja - Accepting imperfection as a necessary democratic outcome - instead of going Roark on imperfection and blowing it up - Uber's hiring of Bradley Tusk, Bloomberg's third mayoral campaign manager - Alejandro Aravena - an architect literally being the architect of the new Chilean constitution - Norman Foster - adviser to the United Nations on rebuilding Ukraine - Book design by Michael Beirut and Britt Cobb at Pentagram | |||
| 87. Glass Houses | 20 Apr 2025 | 00:45:00 | |
Madeline Ashby is a freelance futurist and author of Glass Houses, a near-future sci-fi thriller about creepy tech, creepier tech bros, and the woman who dares challenge both. The first Unfrozen interview with a novelist takes us on a journey to desert islands, bland design-hotel furniture, evil architecture tropes, and much more. -- Intro/Outro: "I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- Show Notes: - Previous work:
- Strategic Foresight and Innovation Program - OCAD University - The Old Dark House, 1932 - Institute for the Future - Age of Networked Matter - Haunted Objects, Greg and Dana Newkirk - Major inspo: Michael Mann movies - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - David Cronenberg's Brutalist Toronto - Toshiya Ueno and "Cultural Odorlessness" - Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross collaboration on Halsey's 2021 album "If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power." - The tendency of AI to generate from the baseline average of all things on the internet - usually porn, maybe hentai - "Domestic Violence," Madeline Ashby, Slate, 2018 - Samantha Bee - "Excuse Me, Do You Have a Moment to Talk About Canada?" - Augmented Cities, Cornell Tech - The decline of dating apps and replacement by AI bot boyfriends and girlfriends / The fracking of human consciousness - DARVO - Movie version would almost certainly star Kristen Bell or Kristen Stewart | |||
| 78. Irreplaceable | 25 Apr 2025 | 00:52:04 | |
Kevin Kelley, a self-described “attention architect,” is aco-founding partner of design firm Shook Kelley and author of Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together. In our digitized world of ghost commerce, he believes there is still a place for real places, and that it is incumbent on architects to stop looking down their nosesat retail, the essential lubricant of urban life, and start designing places that matter. -- Intro/Outro: “24 Hour Limes" by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Bass Pro Shops at the Memphis Pyramid “The Bonfire Effect,” courtesy Loxahatchie, Florida Participation mystique, as per Jung, as per Lucien Levy-Bruhl “TheAnxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt “Harvard Guide to Shopping” by Rem Koolhaas et. al. Prior Unfrozen commentary on the replacement for the Orange County Government Center by Paul Rudolph Yaromir Steiner and Easton Town Center, Columbus Country Club Plaza, Kansas City The Grove, Los Angeles The Farmer’s Market, Los Angeles Larchmont, Los Angeles Hollywood and Highland (now Ovation), Los Angeles Harley-Davidson dealerships’ Parts Bar Mercado Gonzalez, Costa Mesa, CA | |||
| 73. On Balance: Architecture and Vertigo | 22 Jan 2024 | 00:39:00 | |
Mankind’s quest for verticality has an underexplored dimension: the queasy feeling of vertigo many experience when close to the edge of a sheer drop. Davide Deriu, Reader in Architectural History and Theory at the University of Westminster, London, has taken on the relative lack of research into the subject with an interdisciplinary approach, captured in his book On Balance: Architecture and Vertigo. Come, stand on the edge with us. -- Intro/Outro: "I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock, 1958 Vertical: The City from Satellites to Bunkers, Stephen Graham, 2016 Vertigo in the City program at University of Westminster, 2015 The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies, Roland Barthes, 1979 Funambulism Jean François "Blondin" Gravelet – Niagara Falls wire walk, 1859 Philippe Petit, World Trade Center wire walk, 1974 Jan Gehl on humans’ “natural” habitat in horizontal planes Singapore’s HDB social high-rises Mies’ insertion of ventilation grilles in front of the glass curtain wall at the Seagram Building, 1958 Prosper Meniere, father of the vestibular sciences | |||
| 86. Salty Urbanism | 20 Apr 2025 | 00:49:37 | |
Salty Urbanism is a design manual to address sea level rise and climate change for urban areas in coastal zones. It is a concept that refers to the ways in which cities and urban areas will respond and adapt to rising sea levels and the accompanying increase in salinity of coastal and near-coastal land. This phenomenon is caused by a combination of factors, including global warming, sea-level rise, and human development along coastlines. Unfrozen interviews Jeffrey Huber, Principal, Brooks + Scarpa and Associate Professor, School of Architecture, Florida Atlantic University, about how the concept is applied in South Florida. -- Intro/Outro: "I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- | |||
| 85. Getting Unstuck from the Rut: Introducing IDC | 20 Apr 2025 | 00:41:24 | |
Today’s uncanny AI renderings are just the tip of theiceberg. Architects are banding together to clean up their digital houses, master data literacy, collectively bargain for their needs with software monopolies, and ultimately, prevent technology rendering them irrelevant. Enter the Innovation Design Consortium, an elite corps of leaders and technologists of America’s 40 largest architecturefirms, who have banded together to battle the bots. Unfrozen interviews its Chair, Peter Devereaux, Founding Principal of HED.Among many other things, he says, “We have to get out of the business of selling our time by the hour for the production of two-dimensional construction documents.” -- Intro/Outro: “I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: The Road to IDC: Writing guidelines for the use ofgenerative AI via the AIA Large Firm Roundtable (LFRT) See also: “The Future of Generative AI in Architecture, Design and Engineering,” Cornell Tech Key players: - Carole Wedge, Shepley Bulfinch - Bob Packard, ZGF - Brad Lukanic, Cannon Design Other leading lights in the AI 4 AEC community: Phillip Bernstein, Yale Chris Minerva, Thornton Tomasetti Greg Schluesner, Volker Buscher, - IP Law, terms and conditions, “give to get” Is this the “anti-Autodesk”? What does “after Autodesk” look like? | |||
| 84. Movement | 20 Apr 2025 | 00:50:10 | |
“Every line on the road is a political choice.” Marco te Brömmelstroet, a.k.a. “The Cycling Professor,” is the chair of Urban Mobility Futures at the University of Amsterdam. His book Movement, with Thalia Verkade, takes a stance against myths and received wisdoms that surround popular thinking about the rights and place of cyclists and pedestrians, urban design, and traffic engineering. Parallel to the critique, he presents new ways of thinking about how, and why we move through the world, and at what speed. -- Intro/Outro: “I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: - Woonerf - Chicane - Cauliflower neighborhood, a.k.a. Bloemkoolwijk - Fighting Traffic, by Peter Norton - Rollback of congestion pricing in New York City - The bicycle at the bed-in, Amsterdam 1969 - The Royal Dutch Touring Club, AWNB vs the EWNB - Provo – Dutch nonviolent protest group + The White Bicycle Plan - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig - Anne Hidalgo + Carlos Moreno = 170,000 trees - Groningen car ban, 1980 - Nieuwmarkt riots, Amsterdam, 1975 - Janette Sadiq-Khan and the Times Square pedestrianization - Bike Bus – Sam Balto - NYC Municipal Vehicle Active Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) / Speed Geofencing - Valerie Plante, Mayor of Montreal, BIXI bikes (non-profitbike-sharing program) - Swapfliets (Swap Bike) | |||
| 44. "Olive the Seal" - Unfrozen in 2022 | 18 Dec 2022 | 00:36:26 | |
Dan and Greg recap the highs and lows of the first full year of Unfrozen – 33 episodes – and look ahead to 2023. Did you know? You don’t have to catch the stars as they fall. You can listen to any episode from our web site, or on your favorite podcast platform, at any time! Intro/Outro: “Our Lips are Sealed,” by The Go-Go’s Discussed: - A high number of episodes devoted to Peter Rees, the former chief planner of the City of London o Episode 37: The City is Here for You to Use o Episode 22: The Engine Room, the City, and Color Commentary o Episode 21: This is London: Rees Reminiscences - Stats and demographics - Fan fave episodes: tied for 125 plays each: o Episode 32: Future Storage: From Mineral Extraction to Data Forestry (Marina Otero) o Episode 31: Emergent Tokyo (Jorge Almazan) - Greg’s favorites: o Episode 13: What Fresh McMansion Hell is This? (Kate Wagner) o Episode 26: Big Time (Patrick MacLeamy) o Episode 27: A Skyscraper Superfan Aims High (Changsub Lee) o Episode 34: Chicago: Two Guides, One Cast (Laurie Petersen, Vladimir Belogolovsky o Episode 41: Imagine a City (Mark Vanhoenacker) o Episode 43: Who is the City For? (Blair Kamin) - Dan’s favorites: o Episode 42: 1972: A Spatial Oddity (Noritaka Minami, Iker Gil) - Guest & adventure pipeline for 2023 o Juan Miro, Miro Rivera Architects on windowless dormitories o Andrew Shanken – author, The Everyday Life of Memorials o Andmore Partners – Architects as Developers o Dan in Hradec Kralove, Czechia o Greg: The Metaverse Metropolis @ Cornell Tech Urban Hub o What is the Figma of Autodesk? o Zach Katz – Transform Your City | |||
| 43. Who is the City For? | 26 Nov 2022 | 00:46:20 | |
Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Blair Kamin has long informed and delighted readers with his illuminating commentary. Kamin’s newest collection, Who Is the City For?, does more than gather fifty-five of his most notable Chicago Tribune columns from the past decade: it pairs his words with striking new images by photographer and architecture critic Lee Bey, Kamin’s former rival at the Chicago Sun-Times. Listen to the Unfrozen interview with Kamin, and understand why “city planning is not a game of 2D checkers but of 3D chess.” Intro/Outro: “Chicago” by Benny Goodman Discussed: Maurice Cox, Chicago Planning Commissioner The pandemic’s effect on rapid urbanization Spread of crime from poor to rich neighborhoods The city’s not “out of control,” but it is in need of reinvention Lower Manhattan’s adaptive reuse of older skyscrapers does present a template Decentralization of the central business district, ex: McDonald’s HQ in the Fulton Market Prospects for Lincoln Yards and The 78 – shades of Cityfront Center? The Chicago Spire pit / 400 N Lake Shore Drive replacement project DuSable Park and the Riverwalk “We have to think of the city not as a 2D checkers game but a 3D chess game.” Buffalo Bayou Park extension project, Houston AIA design competition for the next bungalow “Plop” architecture 1611 W Division – look ma, no parking! “There are those who say ‘who gets what’ is a tired trope of architectural criticism – let me vehemently disagree.” Chicago as a participant in global economic and architectural design exchange The City that Works > The City that Plays Investment of Chinese capital in St. Regis Tower | |||
| 41. Typological Drift | 25 Oct 2022 | 00:50:54 | |
Cities that produce only underwear, blue jeans and extras in domestic films are among the fascinating objects of study in Typological Drift: Emerging Cities in China by Shiqiao Li and Esther Lorenz. Journey with Unfrozen and Shiqiao Li to reveal the surprising urban realities of China that escape normative urban theories, with several stops along the way in philosophy and linguistics. Typological Drift: Emerging Cities in China by Shiqiao Li and Esther Lorenz Interviewee: Shiqiao Li is Weedon Professor in Asian Architecture, School of Architecture, University of Virginia, where he teaches history, theory, and design of architecture, and directs PhD in the Constructed Environment Program. He is author of Understanding the Chinese City (2014), Architecture and Modernization (2009, in Chinese) and Power and Virtue, Architecture and Intellectual Change in England 1650-1730 (2006). He recently contributed an essay to the Routledge Handbook of Chinese Architecture (2022). Inro/Outro: “Drifted” by Groove Armada Discussed: Drift Triggers Ten Thousand Things Borges: “The map of the empire is the size of the empire itself.” Figuration | |||
| 39. Seeking the Superfruit of Urbanism | 02 Oct 2022 | 00:38:01 | |
Michael Eliason is an architect and founder of Larch Lab, a studio focused on prefabricated, decarbonized, climate-adaptive, low-energy buildings and livable ecodistricts. Eliason, based in Seattle, had a transformative experience while living in Germany – the American residential model could be greatly improved by adopting some of the principles of Baugruppen – self-developed co-housing, without the granola trappings. Hear the Unfrozen interview – and then listen to his podcast, Livable Low-Carbon City. Intro/Outro: “Spacelab” by Kraftwerk Discussed:
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| 83. The City in the City | 20 Apr 2025 | 00:48:39 | |
In The City in the City, Amy Thomas offersthe first in-depth architectural and urban history of London's financial district, the City of London, from the period of rebuilding after World War II to the explosive climax of financial deregulation in the 1980s and its long aftermath. From the Big Tie to the Big Bang, it’s a heavy-hitting episode of Unfrozen. -- Intro/Outro: “I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: o This is London: Rees Remembrances o The City is Here for You to Use - The BigTie, by Brian Griffin - Top hatters - Lloyds and the Lloyds Building - Eva Jiricna: Kenzo > Interiors at Lloyds - Spitting Image Richard Rogers episode - “Where Ideas Come From,” by Steven Johnson - Paul Romer’s “spillover effect” - The Big Bang, 1986 - If it’s bad in the City, it’s worse at Canary Wharf and Stamford - Bishopsgate bombing, 1993 & the Ring of Steel - Paternoster Square & Prince Charles - London County Council vs. the City of London Corporation - No. 1 Poultry, by James Stirling - “Edge of Empire,” by Jane Margaret Jacobs - The British financial archipelago, e.g., Bermuda and the Cayman Islands | |||
| 39. Towards a Non-Combustible Practice, Away from Mundane Endeavors of Indifference | 24 Sep 2022 | 00:45:31 | |
Hanif Kara is a civil and structural engineer and professor in practice at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and the co-founder of AKT II, a 350-person engineering practice based in London. The firm won the Stirling Award for Peckham Library in 2000 (with (Will Alsop), the Sainsbury Laboratory in 2012 (with Stanton Williams), and the Bloomberg European Headquarters in 2018 (with Foster + Partners). He is co-author of Blank: Speculations on CLT with Jennifer Bonner, and the recipient of the 2022 Fazlar Khan Lifetime Award from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Intro/Outro: Great Things, by Echobelly Discussed: One Park Drive (with Herzog & De Meuron) Castilla (with Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners) 240 Blackfriars (with AHMM) The Tower and the Bridge by David P. Billington Joint studio with Farshid Moussavi, using reclaimed steel Google HQ London (with BIG & Heatherwick Studio) The Francis Crick Institute (with HOK & PLP Architecture) Culture flaps at SCI-Arc and The Bartlett | |||
| 37. The City is Here for You to Use | 17 Sep 2022 | 00:53:38 | |
Unfrozen interviews Peter Wynne Rees, Professor of Places and City Planning, The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, who was previously City Planning Officer for the City of London, from 1985 to 2014. He is a founding member and director (1990-2022) of the British Council for Offices and received their President’s Award in 2003 for “presiding over one of the most extensive periods of redevelopment in the City’s long history”. This is his first appearance on the program, but he has been the subject of two prior episodes, #21, This is London: Rees Remembrances and #22, The Engine Room, the City, and Color Commentary. Intro/Outro: "The City Is Here for You to Use," by The Futureheads Discussed: CTBUH Lynn Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award The cult of home ownership, enforced by government Lifespan of buildings vs building products What architecture and planning students should be learning | |||
| 36. Big Time: Patrick MacLeamy | 26 Aug 2022 | 00:52:32 | |
Patrick MacLeamy was the CEO of HOK from 2003 to 2017, capping off a 50-year career at the venerable firm responsible for the National Air and Space Museum, Moscone Center, and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, and is credited with creating "The MacLeamy Curve," a touchstone of business guidance for the built environment. In his semi-retirement, he is a founder and chairman of buildingSMART International, which encourages the adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and more open collaboration between the design and construction industries. He recently authored "Designing a World-Class Architecture Firm: The People, Stories and Strategies Behind HOK." Hear some of his lifetime's worth of colorful anecdotes and sage advice on this special episode of Unfrozen. Intro/Outro: "Elevation" by U2 Nuggets: “We need to think about contractors as our valued colleagues and friends, and change the way we think about our industry. It needs to be more collaborative – design-bid-build is going into the dustbin of history. Collaborative design-build is the way forward.” “Managing risk and complexity is much easier to do collaboratively. We have to wake up and smell the coffee. The old way of designing and building is changing. If architects want to rejoin society in a special place, they have to adapt. The world needs us, but we need to get the rules of the game changed so we can be successful again.” | |||
| 35. Architecture of Normal | 15 Aug 2022 | 00:52:34 | |
Daniel Kaven is the author of Architecture of Normal: The Colonization of the American Landscape, a book that views the built environment through the lens of successive developments in transportation. An architect and visual artist hailing from Albuquerque, now calling Portland home, Kaven takes on suburbanization, flying cars, and why “Generation Z needs to get out in the streets and be really pissed off about work-from-home.” Intro/Outro: The Big Country, by The Talking Heads Discussed: Ed Ruscha Cibola – one of the Seven Cities of Gold COVID as accelerant of moving from an experiential lifestyle to a destination-based lifestyle Instagram feeds are the new main streets of America United Airlines buys Archer – an air-taxi company Henry Ford’s flying personal cars department Prediction: First place to adopt flying cars – Saudi Arabia The Main Street and Mall Retail Apocalypse Future infrastructure and traffic planning will be about stratification of means of transport, literally Just because we have the technology to do something, doesn’t mean we should Do we want to live in places where we just order online and it gets delivered to a drone pad? The Big Tech companies are nation-states, or partners thereof Urbanism had a good run from 1990s to just before COVID. The post-COVID boom is in places like suburban Boise – Boomtown ZoomTown, and it’s already fizzling. “Generation Z needs to get out in the streets and be really pissed off about work-from-home.” Architecture firms have really phoned in their responsibility to make places where people want to be – as a counterpoint to work-from-home, the tone of which is being set by Facebook and their brethren. “There is no future with goggles on.” “We don’t need to rip America apart and build the Metaverse.” “How can people live a more spacious life in an urban environment?” “We’re going to regret having made all these 5-over-1 wood-frame buildings with cheap materials.” | |||
| 34. Chicago: Two Guides, One Cast | 31 Jul 2022 | 00:51:45 | |
Chicago is a famed architecture town, but the road has not always been smooth. Hear from the editor and author, respectively, of two recently released guides – Laurie Petersen for the AIA Guide to Chicago and Vladimir Belogolovskyfor the DOM Architectural Guide Chicago, discourse on Postmodernist icons like the Thompson (future Google?) Center and Harold Washington Library, and muse on what came next, where we are now, and why Chicago is still important to architecture everywhere. | |||
| 33. Tallest Timber, Boutique Hotels, Pokemon NO! and more… | 23 Jul 2022 | 00:37:35 | |
Dan’s recent consecration of the world’s tallest timber building; Greg’s new gigs, and hotels to stay at while making them happen; the third space in a post-COVID world; update on the Durbin Renewal scandal in Chicago, and a preview of upcoming guests. Intro/Outro: Super Sex by Morphine Tall Timber: Ascent, Milwaukee Rocket & Tigerli, Winterthur, Switzerland Atlassian Central, Sydney Greg’s gig in NYC this week: Patcraft– Shaw Industries, with: Brad Hargraeves – Common Evan Fain – Industrious Boutique Hotels: The Ace Portland – have a record player! Why not the Nakagin Capsule Hotel? Brooklyn Mirage(Bushwick / Ridgewood) Brimfield Antique Flea Market – feeding ground for Roman & Williams-designed boutique hotels Inside Amy Schumer Pretentious Hotel McKinsey & Co NYC Taskforce to repurpose office space Mary Ludgin, Heitman, Chicago taskforce Durbin Renewal: Century and Consumers buildings Greg’s new gigs - Undisclosed fellowship, a.k.a. Pokemon NO!: Preparing cities for the metaverse, protecting real public space from virtual reality, unregulated disruptors, and more… - Parag Khanna startup: Chief Communications Officer: Tool for modeling climate risk. Invest now in the climate-resilient regions of the world. The call is open for volunteers. Are we living in Ready Player One or Snow Crash? | |||
| 32. Future Storage: From Mineral Extraction to Data Forestry | 11 Jul 2022 | 00:42:15 | |
Marina Otero, head of the Social Design Masters Program at Design Academy Eindhoven, Netherlands, is the winner of the Harvard Graduate School of Design's 2022 Wheelwright Prize. Her study, Future Storage: Architectures to Host the Metaverse, will examine new architecture paradigms for storing data, and how reimagining digital infrastructures could meet the unprecedented demands facing the world today. Intro: Lithium, by Nirvana Discussed: The Stack, Benjamin Bratton Tubes, Andrew Blum DNA as a storage medium Seed banks for data A data garden in Eindhoven Destinations: - Singapore: Had a ban on data centers for a number of years; are seaborne and underwater data centers an option? Floating solar farms? - Darwin, Australia: Data governance – the first indigenous-led data center. Who has access to the data? Who owns it? - Nigeria: Woman-led crypto-tech communities. Positioning themselves against the corporations that are bringing the infrastructure, so they can set up their own. - Chile: Lithium extraction, new Humboldt Cable to New Zealand and Australia. - Iceland and Sweden: Questions connected to industry and energy. Use of new infrastructures. In Sweden, one data center is also a club. - California: Where new storage media are being developed. Outro: A Forest, by The Cure | |||
| 31. Emergent Tokyo | 25 Jun 2022 | 00:45:46 | |
Think of Tokyo less as a “chaotic” than as an “emergent” city. This means spontaneous, self-organizing aspects create order from the bottom up. That kind of emergence can be, if not designed, then facilitated. Unfrozen interviews Jorge Almazan, Associate Professor, Department of System Design Engineering, Keio University, and author of “Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City.” Intro: Woman from Tokyo, by Deep Purple Discussed: Yokocho Alleys Zakkyo Buildings Ankyo Streets Complexity Science – Geoffrey West Cellular Automata – Stephen Wolfram The Uses of Disorder – Richard Sennett Rather than a Unified Theory of Emergence applicable to all cities, there are transferable principles:
Bar recommendations: - Bar Usagi, Shibuya - The Greek Bar, Suginami Made in Tokyo, Atelier Bow Wow Outro: Godzilla, by Blue Oyster Cult | |||
| 30. True Lies | 11 Jun 2022 | 00:46:39 | |
For a truly philosophical take on the role of the architect in the post-truth era, Unfrozen interviews Richard Francis-Jones, author of Truth and Lies in Architecture. Intro: “Telling Lies,” by David Bowie Discussed: Architecture’s ambiguous relationship to truth. The criteria that make a building worthy of love. How can architecture bring us closer to nature? Architecture is “never neutral nor innocent. There is a mutual interconnection between architecture and the events around it.” “Eternal principles” or a classicist, colonialist trap? Ex Machina and the consciousness of materials Locaton and Vassal Tsien and Williams John Keats Aldo Rossi Louis Kahn The EY Centre, Sydney The negative critique culture. Outro: “True,” by Spandau Ballet | |||
| 29. "Al" in on Supertalls | 04 Jun 2022 | 00:38:35 | |
Unfrozen interviews Stefan Al, author, Supertall, founder, Stefan Al Architects, designer of Canton Tower, Guangzhou with Information Based Architecture (IBA). Intro/Outro: “History Rhymes,” by Empty City Squares Discussed: Technology: The role of technologies: concrete, elevators, air conditioning and dampers Society: Culture, social preferences, zoning, aesthetics The succession of events that led to today’s skyscrapers New York – zoning London – view corridors Hong Kong – transit-oriented development Singapore – vertical greenery “History rhymes” “Progress traps” Easter Island, Prometheus, and Pandora’s Box Irregular paths to inventions Carrier inventing air conditioning when trying to solve printing issues Using an Oregon optometrist’s office to test potential swaying of the World Trade Center, New York City, in 1965 Rafael Vinoly – 432 Park and the boat-pilot sway / chandelier test Icebergs, Zombies and the Ultra-Thin by Matthew Soules Digital Monuments by Simone Brott Reflexive practitioners | |||
| 82. Designing the Forest | 20 Apr 2025 | 00:49:09 | |
“Either you’re growing your materials or not. You’re gettingthem from a forest or a mine.” Lindsey Wikstrom is the Founding Principal of Mattaformaand an Adjunct Assistant Professor at ColumbiaGraduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Her debut book, Designing the Forest and Other Mass Timber Futures, argues that to overcome obstacles to wide adoption of mass timber as a building material, we need to think differently about our relationship to trees, buildings, and each other.
Intro/Outro: “I Still Wear the Uniform,” by The Cooper Vane | |||
| 28. Florida in Houston, "Durbin Renewal" in Chicago, Metabolism Demo'ed in Tokyo | 15 May 2022 | 00:34:40 | |
Greg reports from Houston, where he and Richard Florida had some stage-sharing to do. Dan recounts a jaunt to the Canadian Riviera and Pacific Northwest, where mass timber is on the rise. Then on to demolitions, what’s on the bookshelf, future guests, future guesses…. -- -- Intro: “Livin’ on the Edge (of Houston),” by Reverend Horton Heat Discussed: Richard Florida's slightly altered new jam: Live Work Play Connect. Build multifamily, family-oriented apartments of appropriate size, while you’re at it. Mass Timber Conference: Jeanne Gang can hack it – literally Explore ‘22 – Expedia Conference at Aria, Las Vegas Band recs (or wrecks) “Durbin Renewal” – The US Government’s landlord, GSA, wants to demolish two buildings from the 1910s because they present a “security risk” to the Dirksen Federal Building, which has been there since 1964. An Illinois senator just found $52 million to make it happen. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo, finally bites the dust. The stolen bicycle is in the basement of the Ford Foundation, with the built-in brass ashtrays in the auditorium… This kerfuffle in Northwest Arkansas Green Obsession – Stefano Boeri Architetti Celebrating Public Architecture – Success of open architecture competitions in Flanders, Belgium Supertall – Sfefan Al Truth and Lies in Architecture – Richard Francis-Jones Crypto-Schadenfreude and the Electric Bull - Outro: “Song for America,” by Destroyer | |||
| 27. A Skyscraper Superfan Aims High | 03 May 2022 | 00:27:48 | |
Meet Changsub Lee, a 14-year-old in South Korea who has been designing skyscrapers since he was eight. He's already a celebrity in the tall building world. Ivy League schools of architecture, prepare yourselves now. The recording is a bit soft, but if you crank him up, he's got a lot to say. Intro/Outro: "Skyscrapers," by OKGO Discussed: | |||
| 26. A Tale of Two Toy Cities | 23 Apr 2022 | 00:12:30 | |
Two toy visions of Los Angeles describe two very different future visions: One vision wants you to play with its toys – and would be offended if you didn’t – the other most assuredly does not. It is strictly off-limits, and is meant to be admired from a distance. One says “don’t touch;” the other practically grabs your hand and pulls you into the grid. Intro/Outro: "Metropolis," by Kraftwerk Originally posted Jan. 31, 2012 in Unfrozen 1.0. | |||
| 25. Metal Machine Musings | 16 Apr 2022 | 00:11:41 | |
Original story: Unfrozen 1.0, Sept. 3, 2012 A profile of two metallic sculptures by two design firms in Los Angeles: "A Loose Horizon," by LAYER, at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, and "Bloom," by DO|SU, at Materials & Applications. Intro / Outro: "Metal Machine Music," by Lou Reed | |||
| 24. Growing Moss, Gathering Pace | 09 Apr 2022 | 00:59:26 | |
Dan and Greg interview Matt Nardella, founder of Moss Design, a Chicago design-build firm with an array of residential and commercial projects, and a bent for nudging clients and neighbors toward sustainability in small, but meaningful increments. Interviewee: Matt Nardella Intro / Outro: “Highway Chile”, by the Jimi Hendrix Experience Discussed: - NewSchool of Architecture San Diego - Architects as developers, contractors and multi-disciplinary designers - In praise of not designing projects on a spreadsheet (and finding the gray zones of zoning) - Credit due to: o Ted Smith > The Red Office - Architect, Know (and Sell) Thyself! - Ending brute-force office culture > how to not “punch down” - “We (architects) should be interviewing them (developers)” - Monocultures of design making people sick and unhappy? - Nightingale Housing, Melbourne - Jeremy McLeod and Maria Yanez - You don’t need to spend more money to achieve sustainability – you just need to seriously undertake site analysis and translate that into a building, while thinking like a builder and the client – or being both, potentially. - Want to build? Blog first! - “Granny flats” are back in Chicago and the city is building 9,000 new units in the West Looop – will that help the housing crisis? - On being a “bike warrior” - Are people in happy countries just driving less? - The best way to make an argument for bike commuting is to just do it | |||
| 22. The Engine Room, the City, and Color Commentary | 19 Mar 2022 | 00:25:51 | |
Building on the momentum of Episode 21, this special episode is a back-to-back Rees attack, with Greg and Dan both relaying their respective reports from the City of London’s raconteur-in-chief, from 2017 and 2013, respectively. Intro: "In the Engine Room," by Mike Watt Intermission: "Talk Talk," by Talk Talk Outro: "My Favourite Buildings," by Robyn Hitchcock | |||
| 21. This is London: Rees Reminiscences | 12 Mar 2022 | 00:34:06 | |
Greg, fresh from a trip to London, shares with Dan updates and reminiscences of the hale old town in the throes of ever-later capitalism, doffing hats to its raconteur-in-chief, Peter Wynne Rees. -- Intro: “Hairdresser on Fire,” by Morrissey Discussed: The Square Mile (City of London) Skygarden shitshow at the Walkie Talkie – 20 Fenchurch Cities as information (gossip) machines Bank of England – John Soane The Royal Exchange – William Tite The Cheesegrater (The Leadenhall Building) – Rogers, Stirk Harbour & Partners The Lloyd’s Building – Richard Rogers NewCities Podcast interview with Peter Rees Heron (now Salesforce) Tower - KPF Selhurst Park – Crystal Palace Club 22 Bishopsgate (“The Wedge”) – PLP Architecture; née the Pinnacle (“The Helter Skelter”) - KPF Everything’s Iconic! The Google “Landscraper” – Thomas Heatherwick and Bjarke Ingels Group When is the Urban Redevelopment Vibe Shift coming? Everyone wants a High Line The Compression to Now vs Decades of Urban Accretion Travel Challenge: the Stratford Olympic Site Assemble – acupuncture revitalization – Granby Four Streets, Liverpool Ricky Burdett, Professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics - Outro: “In the City,” by the Jam | |||
| 20. Hopeful Monsters, Strange Creatures and the Freedom of Choice | 05 Mar 2022 | 00:57:08 | |
Designers, urbanists, public policy advocates, and any others are who would join the Urban Technology Program at the University of Michigan are “hopeful monsters” & “strange creatures.” Meet their leader. Guest: Bryan Boyer, Director, Urban Technology Program, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan // Co-founder, Dash Marshall Intro: “Hopeful Monsters,” by Charlie Nieland Discussed: · Architecture firms grow a spine (?) over Russia v. Ukraine: Is it a moral stand, or admission they won’t get paid? And yet, many are still working for the Saudis, on NEOM and such projects. · Imagining Future Scenarios for Autonomous Vehicles · People Party- Generating scale figures for renderings that look like their communities · Brute-Force Architecture - “Look at all these things that we didn’t choose” >> Exhaust failure. If architecture labor was more expensive, would that be possible? · George Gilder and the Early Cloud – “Conserve what is expensive, waste what is abundant.” · REEF · WSJ – REEF bought the wrong lots · Renew Newcastle (Australia) · Participatory City (London) · Outro: “Freedom of Choice,” by Devo | |||
| 81. Houser + Hytha = Highrises | 20 Apr 2025 | 00:42:13 | |
Chris Hytha and Mark Houser are collaborators on Highrises: Art Deco, a multimedia series chronicling the great skyscraper edifices of the roaring ‘20s. Photographed by drones and meticulously measured and researched, the series – a book, prints, website, mobile phone wallpaper and exhibition -- reveals fascinating details and stories of these distinctly American icons. Catch the in-person book talk on July 18 and the exhibition from May 31 to August 26 at the Chicago Architecture Center. -- -- Intro/Outro: “I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: MultiStories: 55 Antique Skyscrapers and the Business Tycoons Who Built Them The DJI Air 2S Drone Highrises Art Deco: 100 Spectacular Skyscrapers from the Roaring ‘20s to the Great Depression Henry W. Oliver Building, Pittsburgh, D.H. Burnham, 1910 Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln, Bertram Goodhue, 1932 Public Market > Modern Spirits Liquor Store, Tulsa, Gaylord Noftsger, 1930 Monadnock Building, Chicago, Burnham & Root, Holabird & Roche, 1891-1893 Eastern Columbia Building, Los Angeles, Claud Beelman, 1930 Mather Tower > Club Quarters Hotel, Chicago, Herbert Riddle, 1928 Union & Peoples National Bank > Jackson County Tower, Jackson, MI, Albert Kahn, 1929 Frick Building, Pittsburgh, D.H. Burnham, 1902 The Woolworth Building, New York, Cass Gilbert, 1913 Price Tower, Bartlesville, OK, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1956 Sterick Building, Memphis, Wyatt C Hendrick & Co, 1930 Industrial Trust Building, Providence, George Frederick Hall, Walker & Gillette, 1927 Guardian Building, Detroit, Donaldson & Meier; Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, 1929 Fisher Building, Detroit, Albert Kahn Associates; Graven & Mayger, 1928 Carbide & Carbon Building, Chicago, Burnham Brothers, 1929 Foshay Tower, Minneapolis, Hooper & Janusch; Magney & Tusler, 1929 Rand Tower, Minneapolis, Holabird & Root, 1929 Kansas City Power & Light Building, Kansas City, Hoit, Price & Barnes, 1931 | |||
| 19. Too-Late Modernism? | 20 Feb 2022 | 00:21:55 | |
Brutalism has had a rough time over the past decade. Can it be redeemed before it’s too late? Originally published in The Faster Times on October 8, 2012 and on Unfrozen 1.0 on November 22, 2012. - Intro: “Creep,” by Radiohead - A Teardown? o [“Alma Matters,” by Morrissey] - Truthiness be Told - Brutalism is the Prog-Rock of Architecture o [“2112 – Overture,” by Rush] o [“The Wives of Henry VIII,” by o [“Aqualung,” Jethro Tull] o [“Sailing,” by Christopher Cross] - NU-Wave o [“Atomic,” by Blondie] - Dedicated Followers of Fashion o [“Dedicated Followers of Fashion,” by The Kinks] o [“Government Center,” by The Modern Lovers] - …And When You Smile for the Camera… o [“Peg,” by Steely Dan] - Outro: “Aqualung,” by Jethro Tull | |||
| 17. The Spell of Hot Desk | 12 Feb 2022 | 00:20:18 | |
Silicon Valley prides itself on "innovation" and "disruption," and its products are meant to drive "sharing" and "collaboration," but the architecture it builds can be stunningly conservative and insular. From the Unfrozen 1.0 post, May 28, 2013 -- Intro: “I Know Where the Summer Goes,” by Belle and Sebastian Too Much, the Magic Bus [“Magic Bus,” by The Who] Casual Collisions [“Strangers When We Meet,” by David Bowie] Will Code for Pizza [“Pizza Butt,” by MC Chris] Let’s Hang Out / Don’t Look at Me Arrested Development [“Arrested Development,” by David Schwartz] I Want The Best – Whatever That Is [“The Best,” by Tina Turner] He’s The Guru of the City / No One Told the Councilor [“I Know Where the Summer Goes,” by Belle and Sebastian] Stand In the Place Where You Are [“Stand,” by R.E.M.] I Liked It So Much, I Bought the City [“Viva Las Vegas,” by Elvis Presley] Outro: “Back in the Box,” by David Byrne | |||
| 16. Games With New Frontiers, Alien Rococo, and Paper Money | 05 Feb 2022 | 00:41:35 | |
Greg and Dan, back at it again, talking about Olympics architecture and urbanism, the Housing Crisis 2.0, and the greatest hits from the 60s, 70s and 80s, come back to life as Zombie Capitalism. -- Intro: "Games Without Frontiers," by Peter Gabriel Outro: "Paper Money," by Montrose Discussed: · Beijing Olympics
· Other Olympic Riffs
· Safe as Houses?
· Greg’s book reccs:
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| 15. Can You Say Velaslavasay? | 01 Feb 2022 | 00:53:04 | |
An interview with Sara Velas, founder, Velaslavasay Panorama, Los Angeles. Intro / Outro: “Heartaches,” Al Bowlly, Sid Phillips & His Melodians Discussed: Magical Urbanism Unrestored Restoration The Union Square Florist Shop: A Case of Spectral Immersion Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon, Oakland, CA | |||
| 14. Notes from Underground | 23 Jan 2022 | 00:09:21 | |
A tour of the abandoned Pacific Electric Subway Terminal in downtown Los Angeles. From Unfrozen 1.0, originally posted May 11, 2012. Intro/Outro: "Do Not Feed the Oyster," by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks Midsection: "Judge Doom," by Alan Silvestri and the London Symphony Orchestra | |||
| 13. What Fresh McMansion Hell is This? | 19 Jan 2022 | 00:45:33 | |
Unfrozen interviews Kate Wagner, creator and curator of McMansion Hell. Intro: "Suburbia," by Pet Shop Boys Discussed: - The special McMansion Hell that is Barrington, IL - Why surprise-visiting teachers in their suburban homes is a bad idea - The best the Metaverse can do is take us shopping at Wal-Mart and just browsing at H&M? - Best places to see a McMansion in the Wild - What it's like to be a critic during the media meltdown of the early 2020s - I'd rather be biking Outro: "Bicycle Race," by Queen | |||
| 12. For Sale: Kindling $10.9 million (OBO) | 15 Jan 2022 | 00:05:03 | |
The sordid tale of a totally avoidable fire in the Hollywood Hills: a McMansion used as a set for a reality TV show goes up in smoke. Intro/Outro: "On Fire," by Van Halen | |||
| 11. Are You Experienced? Join Team Insurgent! | 11 Jan 2022 | 00:46:57 | |
Interview with Daniel Meyers and Traci Sym of +&> (Plus and Greater Than), an exhibition design firm in Portland, Oregon. Intro / Outro: "Are You Experienced?" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience Cover Art: "Tubes" by +&> (Plus and Greater Than) Discussed: - Cambridge Seven - High Museology versus Themed Entertainment - Exhibition design is really “schmoopy” - Encountering conflict is part of the training of performing artists, so it's good to have a theater person on your design team - Starting with a narrative rather than a site - Experiencing things that are not algorithmically selected for you - ABOTI - Always Be on Team Insurgent - The Real Dick Nixon, the Decemberists and Malkmus are all getting together on a Revolutionary War Memorial in South Carolina | |||
| 10. Can the Dome Home Finally Find a Mass Audience? | 03 Jan 2022 | 00:14:37 | |
A certain subset of architects and futurists have long obsessed with mass-marketing domes, foam houses, spheres, and combinations thereof. Could their time be nigh? From a story originally posted on Unfrozen 1.0, Sept. 3, 2012. -- Intro: "Xanadu," by Rush 1. All Yesterday's Tomorrows 2. An Architect to the Stars Dreams of Domed Domesticity 3. Sprung From the Foam [Musical interlude: "Xanadu," by ELO and Olivia Newton-John] 4. Domes as Doom Defense Outro: "Ridin' the Storm Out," by REO Speedwagon | |||
| 9. Ghost Grocers, Dark Stores, and Street Life | 27 Dec 2021 | 00:45:00 | |
Unfrozen interviews Lev Kushner, Partner, Department of Here, co-author of “The Dark Side of 15-Minute Grocery Delivery,” Bloomberg CityLab, Dec. 7, 2021, with Greg Lindsay
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| 80. To the Ends of the Earth | 25 Apr 2025 | 00:41:30 | |
In To the Ends of the Earth: A Grand Tour for the 21st Century, Richard Weller, Professor Emeritus and Co-Founder of the Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism & Ecology at the University of Pennsylvania, has condensed a sprawling subject into a compact field guide to 120 of the most significant 21st century objects, from bulldozers to Biosphere II. Call it dystopian, call it optimistic. Just don’t call it “anthroporn.” -- Intro/Outro: “I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World, by Timothy Morton Utopias (and Utopia’s Evil Twins) WalmartSupercenter Machines: Bulldozers + polymetric nodules Fish farms Solar arrays Sand motor + littoral drift Tree-planting drones Monsters: Geo-engineering The World Park Project / UN Convention on Biological Diversity | |||
| 8. In Praise of Words and Letters, Union Shops, and the New Sincerity | 23 Dec 2021 | 00:53:46 | |
Greg and Dan host Eva Hagberg, author of “Dark Nostalgia,” “How to be Loved,” and the upcoming “When Eero Met His Match”. Intro: “The Letter,” by The Box Tops Topics: · Eero and Aline: “They met and immediately started banging”… and launched the modern world of Architecture PR · “Publicists make their jobs look a lot harder than they are” · Don’t piss off OTTO and ESTO · “I blew my entire advance on seven Iwaan Baan photos” · A Union SHoP? o Tyler Goss cut the cord · Architecture Twitter vs Instagram o “They were all talking about Henri Lefebvre, which makes me feel like a Boomer” o Zoolander’s Center for Ants · The New Sincerity goes mainstream: Lesley Lokko curates Venice 2023 · Casting the “When Eero Met His Match” movie · “Letters are sexting through the centuries.” · Undoing the primacy of the image Outro: “We Used to Wait,” by The Arcade Fire | |||
| 7. Architect, Designer, Lover, Spy: The Eero You Never Knew | 19 Dec 2021 | 00:16:16 | |
The complex (abridged) history of Eero Saarinen. From the Unfrozen 1.0 blog, an audio version of an article that originally ran on October 20, 2012 in The Faster Times, and on November 22, 2012 on Unfrozen. Music: "Jet," by Wings | |||
| 6. Get Back to the Tunnel of Love: Marriage Dynamics in Design Firms, Why We Can't Have Nice Things and a Lot of Other Things | 02 Dec 2021 | 00:43:03 | |
It's a rambler, folks, but full of nuggets: Intro: "Tunnel of Love" by Dire Straits - Can BIG Transcend Bjarke? Outro: "Walking in LA" by Missing Persons | |||
| 5. Going Mobile, Productizing Everything | 17 Nov 2021 | 00:31:36 | |
In which Greg and Dan discuss: CoMotion LA 2021, Conveyor-Belt Sushi, Sidewalk Labs' Mass Timber Factory, Carehaus at the CCA, Cold-Fusion Affordable Housing in the Great White North, the Benediction of St. Jane. Intro: "Going Mobile," by The Who Outro: "I Am a Tree," by Guided by Voices Links: Will Real Estate Ever Be Normal Again? - New York Times Magazine | |||
| 4. It's Mark's Mungerverse, We're Just Living in It | 06 Nov 2021 | 00:42:40 | |
Considering: the Munger Nightmare Dorm at UCSB, the Metaverse, Pokemon Go, how BIM, CAD and CATIA can play the god game too, Planetary Computation, Really Feeling the Room, Snow and Stars as Fungible Tokens, Climbing Up the Walls. Intro/Outro: "Climbing Up the Walls" by Radiohead Show notes/Links: Maybe the Munger Nightmare Dorm is the best we can do Zuckerberg’s endgame is monetizing everything The Intersection by Superflux | |||
| 3. Turin-a-bout is Fair Play, Tracing Roots, Chasing Utopias | 30 Oct 2021 | 00:24:49 | |
Greg, Dan and special guest Alexandra Siebenthal, host of the Design in the City Podcast by RESITE, convene in Turin, Italy, to discuss their "redpill" moments that got them hooked on architecture and urbanism, and what they're looking forward to seeing at Utopian Hours, the urban design festival held 8-10 October, 2021. Intro/Outro: "Euro-Trash Girl" by Cracker | |||
| 1. Deth in Venice | 30 Oct 2021 | 00:43:12 | |
Greg and Dan successfully make it to the 2020 > 2021 Venice Biennale, on their fourth attempt, only to find it is closed on Mondays. Fortunately, there are other things to talk about and see. Intro/Outro: "Reverence" by Jesus and Mary Chain Links: 2014 Venice Biennale - Elements of Architecture University of Oregon School of Architecture & Environment The Billionaire’s Playlist, Connie Bruck, The New Yorker ReSite interview with Hashim Sarkis Open Collectives: Architecture for an Equitable Digital Economy in Prada Foundation, Milan | |||