New Civics
Rip Rapson is the President and CEO of the Kresge Foundation. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss the Foundation’s work in Detroit.
Episodes
Future of the American City
An initiative of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Episodes
Common Land and Collective Meaning
Anya Sirota is an architectural designer interested in the intersection of social enterprise and cultural production. She joins Charles Waldheim to discuss her ongoing work in Detroit.
Inclusive Design
Anika Goss is the Executive Director of Detroit Future City. She joins Charles Waldheim to discuss the organization’s role in the recent history of Detroit.
Architecture Is a Social Act
Lorcan O’Herlihy is an architect whose practice embraces architecture as a catalyst for social change. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss his work in Detroit and Los Angeles.
Advocacy and Redevelopment
Melissa Dittmer is Chief Design Officer at Bedrock Detroit. She joins Charles Waldheim to discuss Bedrock’s work developing Detroit’s downtown.
Reconceiving the Waterfront
Mark Wallace is President and CEO of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss his work overseeing the transformation of Detroit’s riverfront.
Community Engaged Design
Ceara O’Leary is an architect and planner who works at the intersection of design and policy. She joins Charles Waldheim to discuss her work at the Detroit Collaborative Design Center.
Inverse Utopia
Albert Pope is an architect and urbanist whose research deals with the modern postwar city. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss new and alternative approaches to urbanism in Detroit.
Windows of Opportunity
Dr. Jennifer Wolch is a Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. She joins Charles Waldheim to discuss urban homelessness, food systems, and opportunities for innovation in Los Angeles.
Integrity and Affordability
Patrick Tighe is an architect interested in technology and building innovation. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss his work on housing in Los Angeles.
Responsible Auteurism
Neil Denari is an architect interested in the tension and interplay between innovation, preservation, technology, and tradition. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss his work in Los Angeles.
Advocacy by Design
Mia Lehrer is an urbanist and landscape designer interested in urban revitalization and sustainability. She joins Charles Waldheim to discuss community advocacy and her work on the LA River and sports stadia.
Housing as Lifestyle
Frances Anderton is an author and broadcaster who has long focused on covering design and architecture in Los Angeles. She joins Charles Waldheim to discuss what makes ‘home’ in Los Angeles.
The Hidden Logic of Cities
Roger Sherman is an architect and urbanist interested in the visible and invisible logic of cities. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss new models for housing in Los Angeles and his work as Senior Director of Urban Strategy at Gensler.
Street Economies
Andres Sevtsuk is an architect, urban designer, and educator whose work focuses on urban planning and spatial analysis. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss his work on city networks, transportation technology, and the future streets of Los Angeles.
Relaxation of Boundaries
Andrew Zago is an architect and educator whose work focuses on art, architecture, and urbanism. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss architecture’s role, limitations, and autonomous contributions beyond power and economics.
City of Many Cultures
Michael Maltzan is an architect and educator whose work focuses on affordable urban housing, infrastructure, and the public realm. His most recent projects in Los Angeles demonstrate the importance of architectural legibility and bridging communities within a city of many cultures.
The Politics of Density
Dana Cuff is an author and educator whose research focuses on affordable housing and urban density. As director of cityLAB at UCLA, she has spearheaded efforts to make housing in Los Angeles more dense, equitable, and affordable.
Civic Memory and the Urban Imaginary
Christopher Hawthorne is the first Chief Design Officer of the City of Los Angeles. Appointed in 2018, he has introduced new measures for shade and street lighting, brownfield redevelopment efforts, and a working group for rethinking Los Angeles’s history of design.
The Idiosyncratic and the Irregular
Thom Mayne is an architect and educator whose practice, Morphosis, engages in cross-disciplinary research and design. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss performance, idiosyncrasy, and irregularity in the context of his life and work in Los Angeles.
Redesigning the Dream
Eric Höweler is an architect and educator whose work deals with building technology and the public realm. He recently led a course in Miami on new strategies for urban housing, focusing on the issues of typology, density, transit, and climate adaptability.
Urban Typologies
Sean Canty is an architect and educator whose work focuses on building type and geometry. Among other things, he has recently engaged in teaching a course on reimagining housing and public space in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood.
Elevating Landscapes
Laurinda Spear and Margarita Blanco are architects and landscape architects whose work at ArquitectonicaGEO focuses on creating ecologically performative public spaces. Many of their projects in Miami deal with elevated landscapes and water management.
Responsive Technologies and the Public Realm
Rodolphe el-Khoury is an architect, historian, and educator whose recent work deals with smart cities and embedded technology. RAD-UM, his lab at the University of Miami, explores the potential of responsive architecture.
Planning for Adaptation
Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk is a pioneering urban planner, architect, and educator. She has been instrumental in developing the City of Miami’s form-based zoning code, Miami 21. Her recent work and teaching focuses on built environment adaptation to climate change.
Curating Neighborhoods
Craig Robins is a Miami real estate developer whose projects focus on arts, culture, and historic preservation. Most recently, he has repositioned the city’s Design District as a cultural and commercial destination.
Imagining Retreat
Rosetta S. Elkin is a landscape architect who uses design as a means to address risk, injustice, and instability brought on by climate change. Elkin’s recent work on “Imagining Retreat” looks to expand the definition of coastal retreat to increase long-term stability and lower vulnerability.
Race and Place
Lily Song is an urban planner whose work aims to center the experiences of marginalized groups in the policy and development process. Her research introduces “Race and Place” as a diagnostic mechanism, looking to open up new urban futures by incorporating minority perspectives.
Work-Life
Chris Reed is a landscape architect specializing in dynamic ecologies and generative processes. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss his idea of “Work-Life,” an ongoing exploration of the lives and afterlives of public space. Since this recording, the name of Reed’s upcoming book project has changed to Mise-en-Scène.
The Just City
Toni L. Griffin is an urban planner who employs a value-based approach to urbanism, examining the ways design and planning figure into to questions of equality and inclusion. Griffin’s pursuit of the “Just City” has led her across the country to push for urban design that promotes access, choice, and empowerment.