Ideal Spaces podcast

Interview with Andreas Hofer: Building for the Future

In the fight against heat, drought, forest fires and heavy rain, every little green counts. In this brand-new podcast interview, Flora and Ulrich talk to German landscape architect and author Tim Kaysers about his vision of a world that is made up of green cities: human and climate-friendly spaces filled with plants and trees, and free from cars and concrete. With the irreversible effects of climate crisis an ever-present threat to the future of mankind, Tim explains why we must act quickly to make this vision a reality. We find out why plants are so crucial, and the practical steps involved in greening our cities - will it take a bottom-up, or top-down approach, or both? And what challenges will there be to changing people's mentality in our technology-focused world, where convenience and speed rule the day?

In this new episode on the Ideal Spaces Podcast, Flora and Ulrich talk to the acclaimed artist and master sculptor Romolo Del Deo about how to make art that stands the test of time. Taking a stand against the fast, momentary and disposable 'now' culture of the present, Romolo instead focuses on creating enduring, sustainable, 'long art' for the 21st century. He tells us how his sculpture is preoccupied with two major aesthetic sources of inspiration; a fascination with the artefacts washed up upon the ocean shores of his native Provincetown and a natural affinity with the archeological ruins of his Italianate background and training.

Flora interviews Delhi-based architect, urban designer and educator Tapan Chakravarty, to find out more about building with true community impact. Tapan describes how traditional, vernacular housing in rural India mirrors the characteristics of the local environment, climate and natural materials – and how the lifestyle of villagers and their ways of using domestic spaces have been culturally inherited over many generations. Amongst other themes, Flora and Tapan explore how being curious about the past is key to understanding the built environment of today – this is a mindset that Tapan encourages in his students at the Pearl Academy's School of Design in Delhi.

In this episode, Flora and Ulrich speak to Ed Finn about the complex world of algorithms. Ed tells us about the ever-increasing role that computational systems play in the 21st century. We discuss the threat that our increasingly technology-focused lifestyle poses to imagination and creativity, and what the future might hold in a world where Apple and Google determine, and often dominate, our every move: from dating and shopping, to securing good A Level grades or choosing a film to watch on Netflix. What's the difference between a useful algorithm and a damaging algorithm? And what responsibility do we have when it comes using algorithmic and computational systems?

Flora Loughridge and Ulrich Gehmann welcome artist-game designer Chris Solarski onto the Ideal Spaces Podcast in this brand-new episode on Experiencing Space. We explore how Chris's sensory design approach Interactive Empathy and Embodiment (IEE) to interactive media heightens the player-audience's physical experience of gameplay, making them feel totally immersed in the virtual gaming environment. Chris explains how his sensory design method relates to architecture, interior design and classical painting (as well as acting theory, neuroscience, psychology and disability aesthetics), with the atmosphere of a game similarly created through the careful placement of objects, colours, music and movement. We also learn how exactly video games succeed in evoking a wide range of emotions in their players. Along the way, we discuss fail videos, the rubber hand illusion, The Simpsons and Game of Thrones!

Architecture, Communities & Practice

In this episode, Flora Loughridge and Ulrich Gehmann welcome San Francisco architect John Marx onto the Ideal Spaces Podcast to explore the importance of emotional meaning in built and natural environments. We discuss the role that architects play in bringing poetry and beauty to our daily interactions with buildings and urban spaces - to giving form to ideas and emotions, rather than falling into the trap of creating banal and purely functional, soulless Modernist buildings. John shares with us how architects might achieve architecture that is sustainable, aesthetically appealing and function, and which fundamentally, stands the test of time - just like the great Doric Columns in Agrigento's ancient Greek temples. Along the way, we discuss the Brutalist Barbican complex in London, the difference between beautiful, pretty and cute and The Temptation's 1966 hit single 'Beauty is only Skin Deep'. John Marx, AIA, is a co-founding principal and chief artistic officer of Form4 Architecture in San Francisco, California. He is responsible for developing Form4 Architecture's design vision and philosophical language. Form4 Architecture has received over 174 design awards and in 2017, John became a Laureate of the American Prize for Architecture - one of the highest public tributes for architecture in the United States. In order to return a sense of humanity back into architecture, John advocates for the inclusion of Philosophy, Art, and Poetry in the thoughtful making of place by creating emotionally resonant architecture and urban spaces. John's design work and writing have been published in over 100 national and international publications. In 2018, the Architectural Review published his monograph "The Absurdity of Beauty - Rebalancing the Modernist Narrative". He has widely lectured on the topics of Design, Placemaking, Emotional Meaning and Cultural Vibrancy in Silicon Valley and places as diverse as Korea, Italy, Austria, Australia, Canada and the Technion in Israel.

In this episode, co-founder of Deep Blue Institute and expert in green, clean and smart cities Greg Delaune joins us on the Ideal Spaces Podcast to speak to us about the multi-scale regenerative marine infrastructure projects that Deep Blue Institute is leading in the Bayou region. Greg explains why the transition to a blue economy is so crucial, and shares the challenges that the institute faces in its work to preserve and restore at-risk aquatic ecosystems most impacted by climate change and other human-caused damage. We learn about Deep Blue Institute's 'three legged' approach to building a blue economy, which will leverage the economic and environmental benefits of emerging blue technologies, and will allow the Bayou region to become a global leader in the deployment and scaling of these critical marine infrastructure solution sets. Greg Delaune is an internationally recognised consultant, teacher, speaker, and writer specialising in public-private partnerships (PPPs) for green cities and smart cities, regenerative floating cities, sustainable economic development, and innovation ecosystem design. He is the Co-founder and CEO of The Urban Innovation Exchange (UIX Global), Co-founder of Deep Blue Institute, and founder and editor of the blog IMPACT URBANISM (www.impacturbanism.org).

In this episode, documentary and architecture photographer Filippo Romano joins podcast host Flora Loughridge to share his experiences capturing the devastating earthquake in Haiti for a photoreportage commissioned in 2010. He speaks of his ongoing interest in the relationship between architecture and communities, and the importance of trust when capturing the spirit and stories of people living in the Mathare ghetto in Nairobi, 2011. Filippo studied at ISIA in Urbino and specialised in photo documentary at the International Centre of Photography (ICP) in New York. His work explores cities, architecture and urban dwellers, and has featured in magazines, including Abitare, Dwell, Domus, Io Donna, Courrier International, Huffington Post, Newsweek and Skira. Filippo has travelled widely throughout his career, working in cities including Tokyo, Nairobi and Cairo. He also works on diverse projects closer to home, in Italy, and currently teaches at the Naba Design School in Milan and in the Photography Department at IUAV in Venice. @idealspaceswg @filipporomanophoto https://www.filipporomano.it/

Flora Loughridge and Ulrich Gehmann speak to Dr. Khalid Kadir, a Continuing Lecturer at UC Berkeley and recipient of the 2017 Distinguished Teaching Award, UC Berkeley's most prestigious honor for teaching. In this episode, we discuss the intersection of poverty, engineering expertise and politics, as well as the complex role that expertise plays in the politics of international development and poverty alleviation. Along the way, we talk about everything from social media and Silicon Valley to resilience, utopia and who is accountable for the social injustice in the technology-focused society we have built.⁣

In Episode 3 of the Ideal Spaces podcast, we are joined by Stan Allen, an architect and Professor of Architecture at Princeton. Stan holds degrees from Brown University, The Cooper Union and Princeton.  In 1991 he established an independent practice, and since that time, has pursued parallel careers as architect, educator and writer. He has taught at Harvard, Columbia and Princeton, and served as Dean of the School of Architecture at Princeton from 2002 to 2012. His books include Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City (1999); Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation (2008); Landform Building: Architecture's New Terrain (2011); and Four Projects: A Stan Allen Sourcebook (2017). His most recent book, published in 2020, is Situated Objects, a book of buildings and projects located in the Hudson River Valley where he lives and works. We discuss architecture as a material practice that should anticipate and continuously evolve over time and architecture as the immaterial structures and spaces between things. We explore the importance of re-connecting architecture with time and process, to once again find a human measure that makes functional spaces sustainable, human living environments.

Flora Loughridge and Ulrich Gehmann are joined by Andy Jones, Professor in Public Health at UEA's Norwich Medical School. Andy's primary research focus is on the environmental influences on population health. His core work explores the manner by which characteristics of the social and physical environments act to influence the health of the population. This interview focuses on Andy's recently published co-authored study on Environmental Equity and Perceived Accessibility to Urban Parks in Osaka, Japan. This opens up a thought-provoking discussion on the history of parks, problems with accessibility and funding of urban parks, as well as the future of green spaces.

This week on the Ideal Spaces podcast, we're joined by Professor Kean Birch, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change as well as Graduate Program Director of the Science & Technology Studies Program at York University, Canada. Kean's research focuses on the emergence of a specifically technoscientific capitalism, entailing the increasing entanglement of technoscience and finance. His most recent project focuses on the diverse modes of rentiership in technology sectors, especially in the extraction and exploitation of our personal data, and what this means for the organization of markets and economies. Kean talks to us about the entanglement of space with financial logic, using two key examples of assets: bio-fuels and houses. We discuss the complex relationship between people and managed spaces, the collection and use of personal data, and the future of management.

Welcome to Episode 1 of the Ideal Spaces podcast. Flora Loughridge is joined by the founder of Ideal Spaces Working Group, Ulrich Gehmann, and Michael Johannson, who leads New Developments and Digital Design at Ideal Spaces to explore the question ‘What is Space?'. This episode is the first in a series of 10 ‘vignettes', in which the Ideal Spaces team discusses the driving forces behind society as it is today: not only the built ‘architectural' world we live in, but also the human processes of social imagination that architecture is an expression of.