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 A...
Nov 20, 2015•1 hr 28 min
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 al...
Nov 19, 2015•45 min
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 ...
Nov 18, 2015•15 min
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...
Nov 12, 2015•33 min
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 Ca...
Nov 11, 2015•7 min
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 inter...
Nov 11, 2015•10 min
Our new podcast, Archinect Sessions: One-to-One is an interview show, straight-up. Each episode features a single interview with a notable figure in contemporary architecture – it's that simple. Usually, One-to-One will be led by me or Paul Petrunia, while occasionally others will serve as guide. The conversation will be casual and spontaneous, touching on the interviewee's role in the expanding range of architectural practice, and will serve (we hope) a valuable archival role in future discours...
Nov 09, 2015•50 min
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 i...
Nov 06, 2015•30 min
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 pa...
Nov 04, 2015•34 min
Leading up to (and continuing after) the premiere of Archinect Sessions ' second season on November 5, we're posting individual interviews as Mini-Sessions from 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 another brand new podcast soon. Here you can listen to our fifth Next Up Mini-Session with Marcel...
Nov 03, 2015•15 min
If you couldn't join us 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 , then good news – you can still listen to the over four hours of live interviews we recorded. Leading up to the premiere of Archinect Sessions ' second season on Thursday, November 5, we'll be releasing them as individual " Mini-Sessions ". We'll also be launching another brand new podcast soon....
Nov 02, 2015•14 min
After accumulating over four hours of live interviews from 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 , we're now letting them go, one by one. Leading up to the premiere of Archinect Sessions ' second season on Thursday, November 5, we'll be releasing them as " Mini-Sessions ". We'll also be launching another brand new podcast soon. Without further ado, please enjoy ou...
Nov 01, 2015•16 min
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....
Oct 31, 2015•12 min
Archinect recently wrapped its 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 . Now, we're releasing those 4+ hours of "Next Up" interviews 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. Without further ado, please enjoy our first Next Up...
Oct 30, 2015•13 min
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 R...
Jul 30, 2015•57 min
We're very excited to have Denise Scott Brown on this episode, to share some family history behind the Vanna Venturi house – the house that her husband and collaborator, Robert Venturi, built for his mother in 1965, and helped set a new tone for 20th century architectural history. The house is now for sale, listed at $1.75M. Also joining us on this week's episode is Katherine Darnstadt of Latent Design in Chicago. A native Chicagoan who trained and practices as an architect there, Katherine shar...
Jul 24, 2015•1 hr 13 min
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....
Jul 16, 2015•1 hr 12 min
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...
Jul 09, 2015•1 hr 23 min
This week, we dip into the swamp of whether so-called "poor doors" (separate entrances for affordable and market-rate housing tenants) are discriminatory, highlighting discussion points made in the wake of New York's decision to make them illegal . We also follow up on the investigation into a balcony collapse in Berkeley, California that led to six deaths, and ask Brian Newman, Archinect Sessions' Legal Correspondent, what legal recourse is possible for everyone involved. Virtual built environm...
Jul 02, 2015•1 hr 24 min
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 nigh...
Jun 25, 2015•54 min
Easily the biggest news of last week, and probably of this year, was the unveiling of BIG's design for 2WTC. For a project of such status, on such a highly charged site, representation must be handled with expert care – so to dig a bit deeper into the splashy video introducing 2WTC , we spoke with Nick Taylor, co-founder of Squint/Opera and director of the BIG video. We cover Squint/Opera's historied relationship with architects and how creative vision is managed across many powerful stakeholder...
Jun 18, 2015•1 hr 25 min
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 – th...
Jun 11, 2015•1 hr 22 min
Dead malls and ghost boxes haunt this week's episode, featuring special guest and longtime 'Nector, Nam Henderson . Whether you're mourning or reveling in the dwindling population of the American mall, their lifeless carcasses on the economic and urban landscape are starting to stink, and we have to deal with them somehow. With Nam as our spirit guide through the lost souls of dead malls, we discuss their future potentials within the suburban/urban environment, and grapple with their (perhaps by...
Jun 04, 2015•1 hr 25 min
Inadvertently, this episode is all about food – where it comes from, where we eat it, and how it shapes national identity. Our discussion on food and design starts in Los Angeles, where Norm's Restaurant recently received "historic and cultural" landmark status , and a tamale-shaped building strives for the same (just one of LA's many proud programmatic architectures ). Shifting east, we extol the multi-uses and virtues of Waffle House , and praise the Waffle House index . This dovetailed across...
May 28, 2015•1 hr 11 min
The Sessions co-hosts met all together for the first time in the meatspace last week, making the pilgrimage to Atlanta, Georgia for the AIA National Convention. Immersed in the tens of thousands of attendees for three days, we met an impressive array of professionals across the architectural board, and dove deep into how the AIA sees itself and architecture today. This week's episode is entirely devoted to happenings at the Convention, including NCARB's resolution of the intern-titling debate , ...
May 21, 2015•1 hr 25 min
Prior to his artist talk at the Hammer Museum last week, nearing the culmination of his massively successful " Provocations " show, Thomas Heatherwick spoke with Paul and Amelia about his firm's personality and design approach. We discuss his interview on this week's single-focus episode, touching on his diverse project list, his "doubting Thomas" identity, and his attitudes towards "franchised" architecture. If you're in Los Angeles, "Provocations" will be at the Hammer Museum through May 24. T...
May 14, 2015•34 min
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...
May 08, 2015•1 hr 28 min
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 infrast...
Apr 30, 2015•37 min
This week on the podcast, Paul shares an interview he did in Lima with Sebastián Bravo , a local architect and maker of award-winning pisco . Studying and practicing architecture in a city with a very fresh history of terrorism and ongoing political corruption is no easy feat, and the rapidly urbanized/urbanizing city makes practicing all the more challenging, but Bravo is up to the challenge. We also briefly discuss a recent workshop Paul attended with the Association of Collegiate Schools of A...
Apr 23, 2015•1 hr 30 min
Thanks to Patrik Schumacher, this week's episode is mostly about criticism. We respond to a polemic/rant left by Schumacher on his Facebook page, " In Defense of Stars and Icons ", and consider not simply his argument, but its presentation – how publishing these ideas on a personal Facebook page ultimately says more about celebrity and criticism than Schumacher's exorbitant word count can. In the end, we applaud Schumacher – not for his argument necessarily, but for the act of posting such. Now,...
Apr 16, 2015•1 hr 9 min
