Unfrozen

The Unfrozen crew hit the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale with all the furious energy our 100th episode deserved. A rollicking roundup of robots, pans, picks, porches and pavilions, with special guest interviews: Michele Champagne, Kate Wagner, Marisa Moran Jahn, Bekim Ramku, Rafi Segal, Jeanne Gang, and Mark Cavagnero. And finally, while Rome picked a pontiff, we had our own mini-conclave in Venice and humbly offered up our picks for the 20th Biennale curator. Join us for this extra special centenary episode.--Intro/Outro: “Bounder of Adventure,” by The Cooper Vane--Discussed:-      Olly Wainwright: Can robots make the perfect Aperol spritz? – Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 review | Architecture | The Guardian-         Rowan Moore: Venice Architecture Biennale review: ‘a hot mess of pretension' | The Observer-         The New York Architecture Review crew: Nicolas, Chloe and Sammy-         International Exhibition in the Arsenaleo  Robots, hemp, bio-concrete, 8-point font with AI-assisted summarieso  Kate Crawford and Vladan Joier's megascale text: Calculating Empireso   Bjarke Ingels Group's entry: Ancient Future, with Bhutanese carvers paced by an ABB roboto  Christopher Hawthorne's Speaker's Cornero  Shades of Rem Koolhaas' 2014 Fundamentals edition-         Kate Wagner's review:o  Dated techno-optimismo  Cannibalism of architecture by art and exhibition design-         National Pavilions:o  Austria: “Agency for Better Living”o  Canada: “Picoplanktonics” by The Living Room Collectiveo  Denmark: “Build of Site”o  Estonia: “Let Me Warm You”o  Romania: “Human Scale”o  Saudi Arabia: “The Um Slaim School: An Architecture of Connection”o  Slovenia: “Master Builders”o  South Korea: “Little Toad, Little Toad”, but mainly this cato  Spain: “Internalities: Architectures for Territorial Equilibrium”o  UAE: “Pressure Cooker”o  USA: “Porch: An Architecture of Generosity”§  Curators: ·        Peter MacKeith, Fay Jones School of Architecture, University of Arkansas·        Rod Bigelow, Executive Director, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art·        Marlon Blackwell, Marlon Blackwell Architects·        Susan Chin, Design Connects·        Stephen Burks, Man Made§  Shades of the timber-themed 2021 exhibit, but with a twist§  Interview with Mark Cavagnero, Mark Cavagnero Associates, on participation in Porch and his work updating the original 1969 design of the Oakland Museum of California by Kevin Roche and Dan Kiley o  Uzbekistan: A Matter of Radiance-         Interview with collaborators on Art-Tek Tulltorja, conversion of former brick works into a tech hub and community center, Pristina, Kosovo:o  Rafi Segal, Associate Professor, Architecture & Urbanism, MITo  Marisa Moran Jahn, Director, Integrated Design,Parsons School of Designo  Bekim Ramku, OUD+ Architectso  Nol Binakaj, OUD+ Architects-         Interview with Jeanne Gang, amidst a Bio-Blitz powered by the iNaturalist app and featuring a “disco ball for bees”-         Unfrozen's nominations for 2027 Biennale curator:o  Carolyn Whitzman, Senior Housing Researcher, Schoolof Cities, University of Toronto and author of Home Truths: Fixing Canada's Housing Crisiso  Diane Longboat, Senior Manager, StrategicInitiatives, Center for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto§  See: Sweat lodge at the Centero  Patrick Bellew, Chief Sustainability Officer, Surbana Jurong (Atelier Ten)§  Gardens by the Bay cooling system,powered by incinerated tree trimming wasteo  Peter Barber, Peter Barber Architectso  Eyal Weizman, Forensic Architecture-         Stafford Beer: “The purpose of the system is what it does.”

The Unfrozen squad descends on Venice to experience inperson the full blunt force of the Biennale. Special guests include: Carlo Ratti, the curator of the 19th Architecture Biennale, Anastasia Sukhoroslova, CEO of All Things Urban, and Michele Champagne, graphic artist and contributor to Volume magazine.--Intro/Outro: “Bounder of Adventure” by The Cooper Vane

Our guest on this episode is Christopher Hawthorne, the Senior Critic at Yale University's School of Architecture. His previous roles include architecture critic of the Los Angeles Times, and Chief Design Officer of the City of Los Angeles. His current mission is to assemble the Speaker's Corner at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Unfrozen hears his unique perspective as both critic and exhibitor.--Intro/Outro: “Elevator,” by The Cooper Vane--Discussed:2025 Venice Architecture Biennale: “Inteligens: Natural, Artificial, Collective” – Carlo RattiSpeakers' Corner / Re-staging Criticism series, part of the GENS Public Program-         Florencia Rodriguez, Director, School of Architecture, University of Illinois Chicago-         Mark Lee, Sharon Johnston of Johnston Marklee-         Inspiration: “Vincent Scully: Architecture, Urbanism, and a Life in Search of Community,” by A. Krista Sykes-         9 May: “Exhibition as Critical Vessel”o   Florencia Rodriguez, Moderatoro  Lesley Lokko, 2023 Biennale curatoro  Aric Cheno  Pancho Diazo  Sarah Herdao  Michael Meredith (MOS) > Building with Writing-         10 May: Conversation on L.A. Fireso   Michael Maltzano   Alejandro Haiek Collo  Florencia Rodriguez11 May:o  Kate Wagnero  Samuel Medinao  Sam Jacobo  Shumi Bose1980 Venice Architecture Biennale – The Presence of the Past - Paolo Portoghesi-         Strada Novissima, feat. Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, Arati Isozaki, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown-         Teatro del Mundo, Aldo Rossi-         Critic's Corner, feat. Vincent Scully, Charles Jencks, Kenneth Frampton & Christian Norberg-SchulzWhy “The Brutalist” Isn't Really About ArchitectureKazuyo SejimaWriting About Architecture - Alexandra LangeCaught practicing without a license: Frank Lloyd Wright and Thomas JeffersonInternational Committee of Architecture CriticsSalon de MobileAda Louise HuxtableYou Have to Pay for the Public Life, by Charles MooreComplexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Robert VenturiCharles Jencks Foundation

A quick one before we're away. Dan and Greg sum up theirsprings and get ready for spritzes and socializing with smart people in at the 2025 Venice Biennale.--Intro/Outro: “Bounder of Adventure,” by The Cooper Vane--Discussed:Going Underground -> The Space Below w/ James Parakh·        Toronto PATH·        Montreal RESO·        Chicago Pedway·        Minneapolis Skyway·        Houston Tunnels·        Oklahoma City Underground·        Hong Kong Central Elevated WalkwayZohran Mamdami –Make the Subway Great AgainSmart City Expo, New York CityBusiness Facilities Live eXchange, New OrleansCurbivore, Los AngelesJonah BlissJoshua Harris, Fordham UniversityMarchetti's constantZiplineAustin Baker Tilly ConferenceCosMc'sNational Association of Realtors surveyWaymoRoboCopSidewalk TorontoDownstate IL secession movementSnow Crash – Neal Stephenson, feat. Mr. Lee's Greater Hong KongPaul RomerCharter CitiesThe Voluntary City - David T. Beto, Peter Gordon and Alexander TabarrokHow to Run the World - Parag KhannaHell on Earth – The 30 Years' War Podcast The Network State - Balaji SrinivasanGlobal Parliament of Mayors / Ben BarberPolarization of reality > revenge of sovereigntyPraxis: Med Charter City > Greenland feat. Steven HarperThe evermore-relevant Hidden Globe episodeExit, Voice and Loyalty - Albert O. HirschmanPatri FriedmanThe lost art of imagining the future“My Brain Finally Broke,” - Jia Tolentino in The New YorkerBruce Sterling – Atemporality

Sara Bronin is an architect, attorney, policymaker, and professor at Cornell University. Born and raised in Houston, the only large US city without zoning, previously served as the Chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission of Hartford, Connecticut. Her book is called Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our World, and she joins Unfrozen to demystify the why and wherefore of what you can, cannot, and “must” build in cities all over the US.--Intro/Outro: “Elevator,” by The Cooper Vane--Discussed:-         How large-lot mandates contribute to the epidemic of loneliness-         YIMBY prevails in Arlington and Alexandria, VA-         Re-zoning in Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, OR, and Hartford-         Supreme Court ruling on Shelley vs Kraemer, 1948, outlawing racially restrictive covenants-         Houston's affordability comes at the cost of flood zones and unpleasant adjacencies-         Gulfton neighborhood-         El Principe Azul nightclub-         Effects of Parking Provision on Automobile Use in Cities: Inferring Causality-         Albany Avenue rezoning and corridor improvements, Hartford-         Denise Best-         Form-based code-         Washington Commanders' new DC stadium-         Code overhauls in Hartford, Charlottesville VA, and Boston-         Bronin trashes Boston's zoning code-         Pittsburgh spends $5.8 million on zoning consultant

Scott Francisco is the founder and director of Pilot Projects, a systems thinking and design consultancy that co-creates sustainable solutions to complex challenges in global systems, cities and the natural environment. On this episode of Unfrozen, we discuss the Cities4Forests initiative, which aims to more closely align the environmental and economic goals of cities and the forested lands on which they depend.--Intro/Outro: "Elevator," by The Cooper Vane--Discussed:Wood @ Work, NYC, October 2015Cities4ForestsPartner Forest ProgramWorld Resources InstituteMass Timber Tipping Point ReportAlliance of Francophone MayorsNet zeroScope 1, 2 and 3 emissionsNordic StructuresMontreal Protocol 1987COP 15 Montreal, 2022COP 21 Paris Agreement, 2015COP 26 Glasgow, 2021COP 28 Dubai, 2023COP 30 Belem, Brazil:Design for activation: A Mass Timber, Conservation Timber Pavilion, Floating on the Amazon, with Hammocks!Declaration for Forests and CitiesAlec Fitala, DOM, rainforest products > Hearts of Palmpasta

Tucked away in a hollow some 20 miles south of Atlanta, theTown of Trilith contains multitudes: possibly North America's largest purpose-built film and television production studio, a steak/cigar bar, bucolic surrounds, “loft”-style living and cornhole games on an ersatz main street – everything, surely, somebody would want out of a hometown. But who? Kyle Holtan reports.--Music: “Elevator,” by The Cooper Vane--Discussed:Congress for the New UrbanismSerenbe, GAPinewood Atlanta Studios (now Trilith Studios)MegalopolisDan Cathy & River's Rock LLCHow The Chick-Fil-A Billionaire CEO Plays A Part In Your Favorite Marvel MoviesTrilithonsGeorgia GuidestonesMesa del SolThe Buckhead Succession MovementStockbridge, GA vs Eagle's LandingSilvercup StudiosKaufman Astoria Studios

Over the past 20 years, Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani has taken the question, “what, and who is the city for?” directly to the streets of Prospect Heights in Brooklyn and Mosswood in Oakland, asking locals to take her to the places that matter to them. A visual urbanist, co-founder of the interdisciplinary studio Buscada, and widely exhibited photographer, Bendiner-Viani holds a doctorate in environmental psychology from the Graduate Center, CUNY.--Intro/Outro: “Elevator,” by The Cooper VaneDiscussed:Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, NYMosswood, Oakland, CAPrior urbanists of “placework”:-         Jane Jacobs-         David Harvey – The Right to the City-         Henri Lefebvre – Le Droit à la Ville-         Kevin Lynch – Image of the City-         Christopher Alexander – A Pattern Language-         Mindy Thompson FulliloveDiana Lind – The Human Doom LoopThe Anti-Social Century, Derek Thompson, The AtlanticContested City, Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani

Between, and sometimes within, the boundaries of nation-states are thousands of liminal zones which are neither here nor there, and their rules are different from those of the countries in which they are physically located. Author Atossa Araxia Abrahamian calls this “The Hidden Globe,” and chronicles the in-between places where money, art, luxurygoods, and stateless prisoners spend time in limbo. At a time of rising nationalism, tariff wars, and mass deportations, these places are on the ascendant. What are they like? Why are they there? And what's next? Join this episode ofUnfrozen to find out.--Intro/Outro: “Elevator,” by the Cooper Vane--Discussed:-         The Geneva Freeport-         Svalbard-         Tenet-         The Cosmopolites-         Henley & Partners-         Dubai International Finance Center (DIFC)-         Mark Beer, Zone Man-         Estonia e-residency program-         Greenland, Guantanamo Bay, and the Panama Canalare also zones-         Freedom Cities-         Boten, Laos-         Laos-China Railway-         Golden Triangle Zone-         The Mont Pelerin Society-         Extrastatecraft by Keller Easterling-         Paul Collier-         Paul Romer and the Charter City-         Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol-         Hudson Yards-         Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act-         U.S. Rep Jake Auchinsloss (D – MA) infavor of charter cities-         Citizenship by investment = passports for sale:here to stay-         Praxis: “The startup nation we deserve today”

Amidst the unprecedented destruction wrought by the multiple fires that swept across Southern California in January 2025, there are opportunities, and causes for optimism that we can build back, better than before. Among these is the prospective role of prefabricated construction, which can be 30 to 50 percent faster than traditional methods. Steve Glenn, CEO of Plant Prefab, shares his thoughts on the role prefab can play in reconstruction. -- Intro/Outro: “Elevator,” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Bloomberg CityLab: Los Angeles Fire Victims Turn to Prefab Homes for Quick Builds Regulations: California Coastal Commission CEQA CALGreen Title 24 HUD Code (Manufactured Homes) Wildland Urban Interface⁠ (WUI) Zones Woolsey fire, 2018 Architecturally significant buildings (at least 32) lost in the fires

The inauguration of the 47th president of the United States takes place on January 20. What are the implications of Trump 2.0 on the built environment, design and cities? Inspired by the eponymous, omnibus crucible of dread in the New York Review of Architecture, we huddled with the best and brightest design critics we know, Kate Wagner (The Nation / McMansion Hell) and Zach Mortice (Bloomberg CityLab) to try to come to grips with the oncoming MAGAlopolis. === Intro/Outro: “Elevator,” by The Cooper Vane == Discussed: Will They Build the Wall and its Ancillaries? Trump Will Not Make Architecture Great Again Make Tartaria Great Again Journalists needed, maybe more than architects right now The Harold Washington Library is not a relic of an advanced 19th century civilization Will there be a Super State Fair? Trump administration aesthetic = BioShock Infinite Will the FBI Edgar J. Hoover Building (C.F. Murphy, 1975) be moved or demolished? The Trads Have It Tommy Tuberville: California will get Federal aid if “conditions are met” Scott Turner: Putting the CHUD in HUD Jason Tester: Insurrection Post-fire price gouging in L.A. Suspending environmental regulations in California to build the same thing over again It's housing affordability, stupid – look at Canada What happened to the rent cap? We're a few election cycles away from “progressive” mayors actually stepping up to the mic “The future is about old people, in big cities, afraid of the sky.” – Bruce Sterling Hoovervilles > Trumptowns DOGE = Department of Graft Enhancement

Dan and Greg recap Unfrozen in 2024 and look ahead to 2025. -- Show Notes: Intro/Outro: “I Still Wear the Uniform,” by The Cooper Vane - Our Spotify Wrapped Stats for 2024 - AndrewAndrew - That time in 2005 when Greg wrote that podcasts would never amount to anything. If you find it, send us the link! --- TOP EPISODES OF 2024: - Top episode of 2024 was also the top episode of 2023: Show Me the Bodies - Horror in Architecture, with Joshua Comaroff - Glass Houses, with Madeline Ashby - Domo Arigatou, Mike 2.0 with Robert Otani - On Balance: Architecture and Vertigo, with Davide Deriu - Innovation Design Consortium, with Peter Devereaux - Salty Urbanism, with Jeffrey Huber - Cornell Tech Urban Tech Summit In 2025…maybe?: - Jane Jacobs the Musical: A Marvelous Order - La Biennale Architettura 2025 – curated by Carlo Ratti - Who will build the Wall? - Who has built the Line – and died? - Data Towers: -             33 Thomas Street – the AT&T Long Lines / Neutron Bomb Building -             1 Brooklyn Bridge Plaza – the Verizon telephone exchange

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: "Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie 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 Outro: "Don't Worry About the Government," by Talking Heads

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 am not a woman, I am a god," by Halsey -- Show Notes: - Previous work: - Company Town - The Machine Dynasty series - 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 Heat Manhunter - 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?" - Network states - 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

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: "Waiting for the Flood," by Love and Rockets --

Today's uncanny AI renderings are just the tip of the iceberg. 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 architecture firms, 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: “Stuck in a Rut,” by The Darkness -- Discussed: The Road to IDC: Writing guidelines for the use of generative 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,Executive Committee Secretary, IDC Director of Design Technology, HOK Volker Buscher, Chief Data Officer, Data LeadersFormer Chief Data Officer, Arup Fish & Richardson -          IP Law, terms and conditions, “give to get” Is this the “anti-Autodesk”? What does “after Autodesk” look like?

“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: “My White Bicycle,” by Tomorrow -- Discussed: -              Urban Cycling Institute -              Woonerf -              Chicane -              Chip Cone -              Cauliflower neighborhood, a.k.a. Bloemkoolwijk -              Fighting Traffic, by Peter Norton -              RoadDanger.org -              Stafford Beer -              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 -              School streets, Paris -              Provo – Dutch nonviolent protest group + The White Bicycle Plan -              Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig -              Bicycle Highways -              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-profit bike-sharing program) -              Swapfliets (Swap Bike)

In The City in the City, Amy Thomas offers the 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: “Money,” by Pink Floyd -- Discussed: -              Peter Wynne Rees o  This is London: Rees Remembrances o  The City is Here for You to Use -              St Paul's Cathedral -              The Bank of England -              The BigTie, by Brian Griffin -              Broadgate -              Top hatters -              The Domesday Book -              Corporation of London -              Jamaica Wine House -              The George and Vulture -              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 -              National Provincial Bank -              If it's bad in the City, it's worse at Canary Wharf and Stamford -              Bishopsgate bombing, 1993 & the Ring of Steel -              The Barbican Estate -              Paternoster Square & Prince Charles -              London Wall -              London County Council vs. the City of London Corporation -              No. 1 Poultry, by James Stirling -              One Exchange Square -              Frank Duffy -              “Edge of Empire,” by Jane Margaret Jacobs -              The British financial archipelago, e.g., Bermuda and the Cayman Islands

“Either you're growing your materials or not. You're getting them from a forest or a mine.” Lindsey Wikstrom is the Founding Principal of Mattaforma and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia Graduate 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 Am a Tree,” by Guided by Voices

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: “High Rise” by Ladytron -- 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

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: “Until the End of the World,” by U2 -- Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World, by Timothy Morton Utopias (and Utopia's Evil Twins)                   Welwyn Garden City                   Chandigarh                   Burning Man                   EPCOT                   Pruitt-Igoe                   Walmart Supercenter 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 Y2Y Banff Wildlife Crossings Project The Atlas for the End of the World

Jason Barr is a professor of economics at Rutgers University Newark and one of the world's foremost experts on the economics of skyscrapers. His new book, out May 14, 2024, is Cities in the Sky: The Quest to Build the World's Tallest Skyscrapers. In it, Barr takes a global view of why the quest to build up is as fierce as ever, and why skyscrapers remain so controversial. Join the Unfrozen interview with Barr, in which some record-breaking myths get busted. -- Intro/Outro: “Altitude Blues,” by Ladytron -- Discussed: Mythbusting the Home Insurance Building First Skyscrapers | Skyscraper Firsts Forum LeRoy Buffington's skyscraper patent Mythbusting The Skyscraper Index The Line Jeddah Tower Joel Garreau's Edge City Emaar's real estate play at Burj Khalifa: Downtown Dubai Legends Tower, Oklahoma City Empire State Building China's “build it” economy “Zero Gravity Living” Nashville and Oracle Detroit and Dan Gilbert Newark renaissance Center City District (Philadelphia) study: Downtowns Rebound Karen Seto (Yale)'s studies on tall building height canopies

Kevin Kelley, a self-described “attention architect,” is a co-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 noses at retail, the essential lubricant of urban life, and start designing places that matter. -- Intro/Outro: “Friction,” by Television -- Discussed: Bass Pro Shops at the Memphis Pyramid Against 15-Minute Delivery “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 Robert Venturi on Las Vegas Maslow's hierarchy of needs Yaromir Steiner and Easton Town Center, Columbus Victor Gruen 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

Craig Hutson has worked in research and development in academia and industry and is fascinated with the history of Chicago's lakefront. When seeking a definitive book about the history of Illinois Center and Lakeshore East, the air-rights developments above former docklands and railyards east of the Loop, he realized there wasn't one, and he decided to write it himself. -- -- Intro/Outro: “Nighttime in the Switching Yard,” by Warren Zevon -- Discussed: Illinois Central Railroad Illinois Center Lakeshore East Millennium Park Maggie Daley Park Aqua St. Regis Chicago Outer Drive East (400 East Randolph) Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower The Park at Lakeshore East Millennium Station Hyatt Regency Chicago Chicago Pedway Boulevard East Magellan Development Group James Loewenberg

Blobs. Doppelgangers. Giants. Puppets. Incontinent objects. Mullets. Army of Darkness. All and much more are covered in Horror in Architecture: The Reanimated Edition by Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing. The book examines how horror genre tropes familiar from books and cinema also appear in architecture, and in so doing, how we can find another way to understand and criticize our built environment, using the language of mass culture in place of “weaponized jargon.” Comaroff is the guest of honor on episode 76 of Unfrozen. -- -- Intro/Outro: “Scare Me,” by Deadbolt -- Discussed:   Immanuel Kant Edmund Burke Harvard Graduate School of Design under Rem Koolhaas Bigness, or the Problem of Large, by Rem Koolhaas Centre Pompidou = Terry Gilliam's Brazil Xintiandi, Shanghai Jan Gehl The Architectural Uncanny, by Anthony Vidler Built Beautiful, with narration by … Martha Stewart Mullets Army of Darkness Twins are in Doppelgangers Ordos 100, Inner Mongolia -              House House, by Johnston Marklee -              Gaston Bachelard -              Preston Scott Cohen -              Ai Weiwei H.R. Giger -> Zaha Hadid -> Thomas Heatherwick-> Santiago Calatrava Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town Gordon Matta-Clark Jan Kaplicky / Future Systems Frank Gehry Francois Roche Parc de la Villette American Psycho Hannover Pavilion at Expo 2000 by MVRDV = Arby's Breakfast Sandwich Toshiko Mori Caltrans Building, Los Angeles, Morphosis Daniel Libeskind League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, by Alan Moore House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov Saddam Hussein's Frank Frazetta-esque fantasy interior paintings Idi Amin's Chinese Garden Great Basilica, Yamoussukro, Ivory Coast (110% the size of St. Peters) Anti-Oedipus, by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari The Day of the Beast and Philip Johnson's Gate of Europe, Madrid

Never mind the weather, don't you feel it has been a cold and eerily quiet winter? Could it be because Unfrozen was offline due to unanticipated legal issues with our podcasting platform? Never fear, we are back in black / in the saddle again, we missed you, and we are ready to infiltrate your ears with our musings once again. Intro/Outro: “Miss You,” by the Rolling Stones -- Discussed: -              Spotify throws a sprocket in our jam-bulance wheels -              Ubik-like terms of service, as written by Philip K. Dick. -              Digital Millennium Copyright Act -              Dubai: Mistakes were made -              15-minute cities are in the Dubai 2040 plan -              Junkspace -              Diriyah Gate -              Qiddiya -              North Pole Riyadh, 2-kilometer tower by Foster + Partners -              The Ministry of McKinsey -              The US Senate Inquiry into the PIF Consultants -              Dubai Creek Harbour and the delayed Dubai Creek Tower maybe restarting? -              Jeddah Tower also maybe restarting? -              Pritzker Prize goes to Riken Yamamoto o   Work includes The Circle, Zurich Airport -              Bjarke Ingels had a big, postmodern, postironic week o   Museum/Casino of Freedom and Democracy, New York o   Las Vegas A's Stadium -              Exhuming Baudrillard -              Bears and Sox lobbying Chicago and Illinois for stadium subsidies -              F1 < Saudi Vegas > F1 -              Saudi 2034 World Cup Stadium by Populous -              Greg's SXSW calendar o  Conference of Mayors Civic I/O Mayor's Summit o  Using Augmented Reality to Drive Inclusive City Development -              Also at SXSW: Imagine Harder: Prototyping Impossible Futures -              Don't drive or walk outside using Apple Vision Pro goggles -              Upcoming guests: o  Joshua Comaroff & Ong Ker-Shing, authors of Horror in Architecture o  Kevin Kelley, Shook Kelley, author of Irreplaceable (not Kevin Kelly)

In every office, there is someone with so much accumulated knowledge the boss wants to “clone” them. At structural engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti (TT), they've basically done that. The firm has taken the concept of a “digital twin” to a newly literal level – engineers can now quiz a synthetic clone of the firm's in-house welding and metallurgy expert, constructed from 30 years of his files and emails. Chief Technology Officer Robert Otani tells Unfrozen where TT is taking generative artificial intelligence (GAI) next. -- Intro/Outro: “Mr. Roboto,” by Styx -- Discussed: ·     ZHA's Patrik Schumacher keynote at the AIA Center for Architecture's AI+A Symposium, 16 December 2023 ·     Dall-E, ChatGPT, Midjourney, OpenAI ·     HOU 3000: Serpentine Galleries' virtual chief curator, Hans Ulrich Obrist ·     TT's Spark Intranet ·     Cornell Tech Jacobs Institute: The Future of Generative AI in Architecture, Design and Engineering ·     TT made a digital twin of welding and metallurgy expert Mike DeLashmit. The real Mike gives "Mike 2.0" a “4.7 out of 5” in terms of the accuracy of its answers. ·     Converting scanned PDF drawings with annotations into vectors + tabular data ·     Google Gemini ·     A “hallucination throttle” for generative AI iterations on existing documents ·     Using AI to optimize material quantities, operational energy, and eventually, embodied carbon

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: “Vertigo” by U2 -- 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

On the dawn of our fourth season, your hosts recap their favorite ‘casts of 2023, a live dramatic reading of Unfrozen's 2023 Spotify Wrapped stats, and get on and off the soapbox as we stare down the barrel of 2024. -- Intro/Outro: “Trying Not to Think About Time,” by The Futureheads -- Discussed: -       Unfrozen's 2023 Spotify Wrapped Stats: o  Most Popular Episode: “Show Me the Bodies” with Peter Apps o  Most Shared Episode: “Untimely Meditations, Virtual Repatriations,” with Era Merkuri and Martin Gjoleka + Chidi Nwaubani -       After School Newsletter by Casey Lewis -       Unfrozen's Favorites of 2023: o  Attending the Venice Biennale during previews, including Sir Peter Cook's assertion that, while at their event and on their payroll, NEOM would be less than half-built and eventually devolve into shantytowns o  “Moving the Monolith, Speed-Running the Follies,” with Andreea Ion Cojocaru and Nick Kauffman o  “The Atlas of Space Rocket Launch Sites,” with Brian Harvey and Gurbir Singh. Greg was channeling Geoff Manaugh's BLDGBLOG o  “Smaller Cities in a Shrinking World,” with Alan Mallach o  “Renewing the Dream” with James Sanders   ---     2024 Doomscroll: o  NEOM meets the Metaverse at Aquellum + Zaha Hadid's Minas Morgul tower, Discovery at Trojena o  You won't have Charlie Munger to kick around anymore o  CES is underway, and so is the metaverse rebranding o  Apple Vision Pro o  Meta Wayfarer Ray-Bans o  Want work? You need to kneel before the PIF o  Are architects and engineers really building the future for Saudi's young? Or are they just taking the money and running? ---       Half the world's population will vote in 2024 -       No election scheduled in Canada, but in 2025, things are looking topsy-turvy: o  Canada is “three NIMBYs in a trenchcoat” right now o  Households now owe more in mortgage debt than Canada's entire GDP o  Pierre Poilievre and the Canadian Conservatives seem to be the only ones taking the housing crisis seriously, and the kids are listening o  CHMC can't just straight-up build affordable housing – why? ---      But it's good real estate vibes in the US once rates get cut... Freedom Cities      California Forever -       You can build it – but who will insure it? -       Will San Francisco exit its doom loop in 2024? What cities will pull ahead? o  Gensler doubles down in its hometown + Shvo to the rescue at the Transamerica Pyramid -       Greg draws a picture of the work-from-home, AI-driven, obesity-drug-taking hellscape called America -       People are competing for walkable urbanism everywhere because we can't seem to build any new housing -       Could consumer branding of residential real estate boost housing construction? o  Welcome to the Neighborhood! Wall Street Designed It o  Culdesac– build-to-rent walkable urbanism in Tempe, AZ o  WeWork's Adam Neumann starts Flow -       Dead mall resurrections -       Easton Town Center, Columbus -       Retrofitting Suburbia, Ellen Dunham Jones and June Williamson   -- Engagements Preview 2024:    “Don't Believe the Hype: Cities are Alive and Well,” University of Maryland Baltimore, 22 February     “Using Augmented Reality to Drive Inclusive City Development,” SXSW, Austin, 10 March     Smart City Expo USA, New York, 22-23 May       CTBUH International Conference, London and Paris, 23-27 September

James Sanders edited Renewing the Dream: The Mobility Revolution and the Future of Los Angeles, out now from Rizzoli. With contributions from Nik Karalis, Frances Anderton, Mark Valliantos and Unfrozen's own Greg Lindsay, the book explores the forces behind the change in the mobility landscape of the most famously car-centric city on Earth. Through design provocations and disciplined research, Sanders and the authors see the city on the edge of a mobility revolution, already manifesting in the largest rail-transit-building campaign in America since World War II, that could soon see its dozens of square miles of surface parking and 1,500 gas stations converted to “higher and better” uses, including housing and public space around far less-consumptive electric-vehicle charging stations. -- Intro: “Low Rider,” by War -- Discussed: -          James Sanders: Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies: 2001, Knopf New York: A Documentary Film with Ric Burns, 1999 -          Donald Shoup -          Woods Bagot & Renewing the Dream -          John Rossant & CoMOTION -          Christopher Hawthorne -          Party time on the Expo Line -          The California courtyard apartment complex & bungalow court -          Courtyard Housing in Los Angeles, by Stefanos Polyzoides, Roger Sherwood and James Tice. Photos by Julius Shulman -          Who Framed Roger Rabbit? -          Chinatown -          La La Land -          California transit-oriented development legislation and funding -          LA's transit-oriented communities program -          Tesla LED drive-in Upcoming readings/bookstore appearances: -          Book Soup, West Hollywood, CA:              1/5 -          The Skyscraper Museum, New York:        1/23 -- Outro: “L.A. Woman” by the Doors

Andi Schmied is an artist and architect based in Budapest. On a fellowship with the Triangle Arts Association, she traveled to New York, impersonating a “Hungarian billionaire's wife” and prospective apartment buyer to gain access to some of the highest and most expensive real-estate in the world. The result is “Private Views,” a book documenting through photography and research the rarified atmosphere of the so-called “pencil towers” now dotting the Manhattan skyline. -- Intro/Outro: “Something for the Girl with Everything” by Sparks -- Discussed:      Calacatta Tucci marble          Miele appliances       New York State LLC purchase transparency law        Lawsuits over construction defects at 432 Park Avenue, by Rafael Vinoly         One57          Trump Tower Lantern House by Thomas Heatherwick      53w53 (MoMA Tower) by Jean Nouvel       56 Leonard, by Herzog & de Meuron, with sculpture by Anish Kapoor 85% of ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) individuals are men        90% of billionaires are men A Dubai-style free zone in Hungary EB-5 visas Editor Irena Lehkoživová and VI PER gallery Next project 1: World Islands, Dubai The Palm, Dubai Next project 2: London's “Iceberg Homes” Oliver Bullough's Kleptocracy Tours         From Russia with Cash

Zachary Balber is a photo artist who has been a frequent presence in the Miami contemporary art circuit exhibition since he got his BFA in Creative Photography at the University of Florida, New World School of the Arts, in 2009. His work has also been included in several American private and institutional collections. Intimate Stranger is a photographic series produced in Miami by Zachary Balber between 2013 and 2020. Zachary has created 150 photos in which he has taken, very rapidly and without authorization, self-portraits during photo sessions of high-end real estate, in various poses, and in various degrees of undress. -- Intro/Outro: "Balls" by Sparks -- Discussed: “Photography: The Middle Class Medium” Family Propaganda Portraits Photo-Marxism Bruce Weber Susan Sontag Cindy Sherman Walker Evans Loriel Beltran Marvin Heiferman Jose Antonio Navarette “Avedon Smiles” > Richard Avedon: Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent Brene Brown Weegee Alfred Dupont Building, downtown Miami Allappattah > “Wynwood West” -- “Navigating through the excuses became part of the performance.” “The image is more important than the reality it captures.” “You are poking at people who can squish you.” “Is taking a picture a crime?” “I erase myself into these interiors.” “I left with all the conceptual goodies I could fathom.” “Interior decorating choices like a bad mixtape…With all of the resources at your disposal, this was your choice?” “Buildings will eventually be like a Mr. Potato Head, with interchangeable parts.” “Documenting architecture and fine art, I can map the gentrification that has happened in the last few years.”

Through multiple earthquakes, misguided urban renewal schemes and changing economic conditions, the Ferry Building has stood at the foot of San Francisco's Market Street since 1898. In his book, “Portal: San Francisco's Ferry Building and the Reinvention of American Cities,” John King, the urban design critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, tells Unfrozen what we can learn from the indefatigable icon, and what that might mean for the future of downtowns in this uncertain era.   -- Intro/Outro: “Ride Captain Ride,” by Blues Image   -- Discussed:   A Trip Down Market Street The City Beautiful Movement A. Page Brown California Building at the 1893 Columbian Exposition Embarcadero Freeway San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge The Key System Alameda Ferry Golden Gate Bridge Dianne Feinstein Ballot measure 1986 – tear down the Embarcadero Freeway? Art Agnos Loma Prieta Earthquake, 1989 Ghirardelli Square Lawrence Halprin Faneuil Hall Wilson Meany (Sullivan) Chez Panisse Hallidie Plaza The Doom Loop Union Square Hayes Valley Dogpatch Parklets

To some, the postindustrial linear park, exemplified by the High Line in New York City, is one of the prime examples of the resurgence of the city that has taken place in the last few decades. But for Unfrozen guest Kevin Loughran, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Temple University, the postindustrial park is also a vector of gentrification and privatization of cities: a kind of “death show of zombie plants and railroad corpses.” Parks for Profit: Selling Nature in the City (Columbia University Press, 2022), his first book, offers a critique of the High Line, Buffalo Bayou Park in Houston, and the Bloomingdale Trail/606 in Chicago. -- Intro/Outro: “Post-Industrial Necrofolk,” by Vredenstal -- Discussed:     The High Line   Buffalo Bayou Park: Prime donor: Rich Kinder, Kinder Morgan / The Kinder Foundation    Discovery Green Bloomingdale Trail/The 606   CMAQ funds via Rahm Emmanuel   Philadelphia Rail Park    Kelly Drive - Philadelphia The Central Park Conservancy The Trust for Public Land Millennium Park, a network of corporate-branded spaces    BP Millennium Bridge Exelon Pavilions Atlanta Belt Line The QueensWay, NYC -- -       The “picturesque” as a historical element of 19th-century imperialism.   -       Landscape as a colonial tool.   -       Parks conceived as safe spaces for white women and children in rapidly industrializing and ethnographically changing.   -       Counterpoint: Small parks pioneered by Jane Addams and Hull House.   -       Three-point manifesto: Ban private park corporations. Decolonize the links among race, capital and the aesthetics of nature > Provincialize the canon.   Let the rails rot, or, “Why is a weed so offensive to a certain sensibility about social class?”

“We were like ants trying to describe a mountain.” We would like to think that we “know” what goes into making a modern building. But the truth is that no one, not even architects, knows. The O(U)R, Office of (UN)certainty Research, spent three years studying a single, relatively modest modern house located in Seattle by Allied8. The result is “A House Deconstructed,” featuring graphics by Angie Door. Mark Jarzombek is a professor of history and theory of architecture at MIT. Vikramaditya Prakash is a professor of architecture at the University of Washington. Founded in February 2020, O(U)R is a design research practice dedicated to rethinking architecture in terms of the emergent scientific, social and political parameters of the 21st century. O(U)R collaboration started in February 2020. The “House Deconstructed” project grew from the 2021 Venice Biennale exhibition “Many Houses, Many Worlds.” -- Intro / Outro: “The Deconstruction,” by Eels -- Discussed: -        Permission granted to examine house by its architect, Allied8. -        The research focused on four vectors: o   Atomic Consciousness that dates back to the Big Bang and the earliest supernovas o   Production Consciousness that involves a vast array of ingredients that are combined to make architectural products o   Labor Consciousness that spans a wide spectrum of temporal and economic conditions o   Source Consciousness that is multilayered and global in its reach.   -        “Consciousness” as opposed to “research” or “history” -        Deliberate obfuscation of sources of environmentally damaging materials -        Normalization of the “chemicalization” of supply chains in the building industry -        The entire industrial complex is based on exploitation of the planet – which we need to fundamentally rethink -        Design for deconstruction – labeling all materials, using machine learning in some cases, in order to consider how a building can be taken apart and reassembled into a project in the future -        Interview took place on the day the day the NASA Psyche mission was launched, sent in search of metallic bodies -        Attempting to quantify the inputs and normalize them for comparison proved next to impossible – and beside the point, somewhat, which is simply to establish awareness of the complexity. -        The objective is to create a generation of future designers who have the “rearview mirrors” that prior generations didn't, when it came to understanding material sourcing.  

At the intersection of A.I. and timber, expect new tessellations and kinetic results. Unfrozen interviews Mykola Murashko, a 23-year-old Cambridge graduate who, with Carlo Ratti, founded Maestro, a software-powered construction company whose initial projects feature precision-cut timber panels, optimized by artificial intelligence.   Intro: The Cutter, by Echo and the Bunnymen   -- Discussed:   Blank: Speculations on CLT: Jennifer Bonner & Hanif Kara MIT Senseable City Lab Katerra  ETH Zurich Robotics Aesthetics & Usability Center AGO Modina - adaptive reuse in which an A.I.-designed steel kinetic roof covering the courtyard - using digitally fabricated components. Alpine stone bivouacs What's the best tessellation? What's the best kinetic result? -- Outro: The Trees, by Pulp    

Verse Design LA is headed by Paul Tang and Courtenay Bauer. The architecture firm has taken considerable risks, sometimes playing the role of ambassador and accountant while pursuing value for clients – including telling prospective clients they shouldn't pursue the project. From high-speed rail stations in China to sprawling eco-resorts in Northern California, Verse Design has been around the Ring of Fire a few times, literally and figuratively. They share their wisdom with Unfrozen.   -- Intro/Outro: “Value,” by Foliage   Discussed:   -       Verse Design Shanghai – with Leon Dai   -       USC American Academy in China   -       Projects: o  High-Speed Rail Station, Bengbu,China, 2010 o  Thirty75 Tech, Santa Clara, CA, 2022 o  Guenoc Valley, Lake County, CA (16,000 acres) – Ongoing Adrian Zecha, partner, founder, Aman Resorts -       Manhattan = 14,478 acres   California Forever, Solano County, CA: 55,000 acres -       Pro forma as a design tool

Our guest is Larry Booth, founder of Booth Hansen Architects and a member of the original "Chicago Seven" group of architects who broke away from the Miesian acolytes dominating the discourse in Chicago at the end of the 1970s. He has a new monograph by Jay Pridmore called "Modern Beyond Style." We chat about postmodernism, pluralism, and the sensibilities that have made his work timeless, even as he has transitioned from the "young Turk" to "the establishment." -- Intro/Outro: "Chicago" by Sufjan Stevens -- Discussed: "One Hundred Years of Architecture in Chicago" exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 1973 the Chicago Architectural Club & "Chicago Architects" exhibition, 1976 Time Life Building, Harry Weese, 1969 Museum of Contemporary Art - Larry Booth, 1978 Museum of Contemporary Art - Josef Paul Kleihues, 1996 Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL - Booth Hansen, 1985 The Whites (the New York Five) The Grays Computer Design Research and Learning Center, University of Illinois at Chicago Philip Johnson, cover of Time Magazine, Jan. 8, 1979, with the drawing for the AT&T Building, New York Paul Hansen, the "business side" of Booth Hansen

Thomas Leslie is a professor at the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois, and a noted skyscraper scholar. He has just published “Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986: How Technology, Politics, Finance, and Race Reshaped the City, the second book in a magisterial series on how the famous Chicago skyline came to be. This period saw the birth of icons like the Sears (Willis) Tower and John Hancock Center, the story of which is inextricable from the skullduggery in the backrooms of Chicago politics and real estate.   -- Intro/Outro: “Skullduggery” by Steppenwolf   Discussed:   -       The Richard J. Daley Collection archives at University of Illinois Chicago -       The Development Plan for the Central Area of Chicago, 1958 -       Chicago as a gameboard, in which skyscrapers were chess pieces -       Arthur Rubloff -       The Field Building, 1934 -       860-880 Lake Shore Drive, 1951 -       C.F. Murphy, the Zelig figure of Chicago architecture and real estate -       The State of Illinois Building > James R. Thompson Center > Google -       The Sears Tower and its land accumulation saga -       The John Hancock Center – the “car chase” scene in the book -       Jerry Wolman -       Carl Condit -       Modern Architecture: A Critical History - Kenneth Frampton -       The Power Broker – Robert Caro

Drawing on his decades of experience working in and writing about shrinking cities, renowned urban policy expert and Center for Community Progress senior fellow Alan Mallach delivers a powerful wake-up call in his new book Smaller Cities in a Shrinking World: The era of booming global population and economic growth is over, and cities everywhere will shrink as a result. -- Intro/Outro: "Smaller and Smaller," by Faith No More Discussed: - Bruce Sterling - Germany and Japan's demographics - The immigration factor - The political time bomb of shrinking cities and left-behinders - Networked Localism - Remote Surgery - Cooperation Jackson - Renew Newcastle - GreenStar Ithaca food co-op - Dan Gilbert saves(?) Detroit - Detroit Land Bank Authority - Detroit Future City - Dortmund Phoenix See - Migration to the Sun Belt - what will reverse that course? - HGTV for Shrinking Cities - Oneonta NY -

Justin Hui is an architect, artist and photographer who researches topics of land development, borders, globalization and memory. His recent projects are New Territories, which explores the changing landscape of Hong Kong's northern frontier, and Urban Africa, Made in China, which tracks the phenomenon of Chinese companies constructing infrastructure and buildings across Africa, modeled after China's urban development.    —   Intro/Outro: “Territories” by Rush   Discussed:   Hong Kong's New Territories: Northern Metropolis and Lantau Island Greater Bay Area MTR Belt and Road Initiative China's Debt-Driven Construction Binge > Skyscraper Ban TAZARA Railway – Dar es Salaam to the Zambian Copper Belt China in Africa - colonialism or globalization? Africa's Urban Future: “Made in China” Gated cities in Angola and Kenya Exporting Special Economic Zones (SEZs) > Zambia Made in China > Made in Africa, Mexico You get what you pay for Vincent Lo – Shui On Group Ronnie Chan -- Hang Lung Group - 66 Projects The podium + tower model as export commodity, rising in Long Island City, Flushing and Jersey City Hudson Yards is very analogous to a Asian shopping mall Steven Holl - Sliced Porosity - Chengdu  

John Lesak is a Principal at Page & Turnbull in Los Angeles, where he specializes in in the preservation, rehabilitation, repair, and reuse of historic structures. His work includes the adaption of historic modern office buildings, 1970s concrete structures, and a 1960s library into The Cheech, a museum for Chicano art in Riverside, California that opened last year to house the collection of actor Cheech Marin. Unfrozen and Lesak chat concrete, the broad meaning of historic preservation, and of course, the Cheech – the man and the museum.   -- Intro: “Born in East L.A.,” by Cheech & Chong   Discussed:   The Cheech The Mercury (Union Bank, Getty Realty Building) – Claud Beelman, converted to residential in 2007 Local Law 97 – New York City Empire State Building retrofit by Johnson Controls Ranking of NYC buildings for energy performance Shift of LEED from incentive-based program to code Concrete cage match: Walter Netsch vs William Pereira Consider also Max Abramowitz Boston City Hall Early recognition of embodied energy impact, 1976-1980: Energy Use for Building Construction, Richard G. Stein & Associates + Center for Advanced Computation at the University of Illinois New Energy from Old Buildings, National Trust, 1981 -- Outro: “Concrete,” by the Darkness

The third and final installment of the Biennale Breakdown is at hand: We speed-ran the national pavilions so you don't have to. Here's the rundown on our 16 most notable national showings, complete with two interviews of the curators of Latvia and Canada pavilions, all in less than 50 minutes.   Intro/Outro: “Natural's Not in It,” by Gang of Four   Discussed:   Austria: Partecipazione / Beteiligung Switzerland: Neighbors South Korea: 2086: Together How? The Netherlands: Plumbing the System USA: Everlasting Plastics Bahrain: Sweating Assets UAE: Aridly Abundant Applied Arts Pavilion: Victoria & Albert Museum – Tropical Modernism Australia: Unsettling Queenstown Germany: Open for Maintenance Uzbekistan: Unbuild Together Czech Republic: The Office for a Non-Precarious Future Latvia: T/C LATVIJA (TCL): Interview with curator Ernests Cerbulis             Intro/Outro:“Lost in the Supermarket,” by The Clash Estonia: Home Stage Canada: Not for Sale!!: Interview with curators Matthew Soules and Adrian Blackwell             Intro/Outro: “New Home” by Toro y Moi

Despite its looming omnipresence, the Venice Architecture Biennale had very little material on virtual/augmented reality and the metaverse. Unfrozen interviews two of the exceptions. First, Era Merkuri and Martin Gjoleka, principals of the Karlsruhe, Germany-based Heramarte, are the curators of the ⁠2023 Albanian Pavilion⁠, titled "Untimely Meditations: How We Learn to Live in Synthesized Realities." The project takes two real but highly adulterated 1950s public works projects in Tirana - the Dinamo Stadium and the Artificial Lake - and situates reimagined augmented-reality objects within them, projecting the results throughout the space at the Arsenale, and online.   Second, Chidi Nwaubani is the founder of Looty, a “virtual restitution project” in which a team of artists stages a “heist,” in masks and dark clothing, to (perfectly legally) scan detailed 3D images of looted artifacts from Africa now sitting in places such as the British Museum. The 3D images of such works as the Benin Bronzes and the Rosetta Stone are then converted into non-fungible tokens (NFTs), with 20 percent of the proceeds going to grants for young African artists.   Intro / Outro: “Untimely Meditations” by Shortwave Research Group Intermezzo: “Heist” by Noisestorm

Copenhagen has long been a paragon in urban planning circles. Karsten Palsson, CEO of Palsson Urbanism, says it's under threat from commercial development interests and weakened government, and now is the time to rearticulate and potentially export the principles that made it a paragon in the first place. Unfrozen sits with the author of "How to Design Humane Cities - Public Spaces and Urbanity," and the new "Urban Block Cities - 10 principles for Contemporary Planning." Intro/Outro: "Old Wine, New Bottles," by Silver Convention

The 18th Venice Architecture Biennale was one with “no architecture,” some critics have alleged, but there was no shortage of consequential exhibition. Shaking off jetlag and whiplash from the contrasts on hand, Greg and Dan attempt to unpack their initial impressions of “The Laboratory of the Future.”   Intro/Outro: “The Boys are Back in Town,” by Thin Lizzy   -- Discussed:   Olalekon Jeyifous – winner of the Silver Lion for “The African Conservation Effort” Killing Architects + Buzzfeed + local Chinese journalists: “Investigating Xinjiang's Network of Detention Camps” Wilson, Yoon, Howeler, Begley, Han – Unknown Unknown: A Space of Memory Albanian Pavilion: Untimely Meditations Looty Liam Young – The Great Endeavour Big Shovel – Daniel Yergin Robots of Brixton – Kibwe Tavares Forensic Architecture – The Nebelivka Hypothesis The Dawn of Everything – David Graeber & David Wengrow Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari The Economy of Cities – Jane Jacobs Sweet Water Foundation – “chaord” DAAR – winner of the Golden Lion for “Ente di Decolonizzazione — Borgo Rizza” Black City Astrolabe – J. Yolande Daniels Saudi Arabia – “Irth” UAE – Aridly Abundant Bahrain – Sweating Assets   NEOM Zero-Gravity Urbanism –     Opening talk with Sir Peter Cook – Archigram -      What the Biennale criticizes is what NEOM is built on… -      Parallel: Brasilia – 50 years of progress in 5 -      Contrast: V & A's exhibition on Tropical Modernism -      Edifice Complex / The Myth of Tabula Rasa:   You can't build your way out of a lack of institutions – it leads to disastrous consequences. - Contrast with Canada Pavilion's “Not for Sale!”   Rating the Tote Bag Designs:   No. 5 – Saudi Arabia No. 4 -- Hungary No. 3 – UAE No. 2 – Switzerland (“Neighbors” with Venezuela) No. 1 – Canada – AAHA!   Oliver Wainwright's review for the Guardian        

Jeffrey Johnson is Director of the School of Architecture at the University of Kentucky College of Design. He previously taught for 10 years at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, where he was the founding director of Asia Megacities Lab. Unfrozen interviews Johnson about his work at the Asia Megacities Lab, including the “China Lab Guide to Megablock Urbanism,” exploring the most persistent typology of China's urban expansion, domestically and internationally. -- Intro/Outro: “Blockbuster,” by Sweet -- Discussed: -       Steven Holl's Linked Hybrid, Beijing -       SOHO Jianwai, Beijing -       Hutongs, lilongs, and other older “gated communities” -       Design and Solidarity > Megablocks functioning under zero-Covid lockdowns -       Neighborhoods > Defined by walls KPF: “66” Projects Roppongi Hills New Songdo City Hudson Yards -       Lincoln Center Pacific Park / Barclays Center     Flushing, Queens as an export investment market for Chinese developers -       Jiading , Shanghai – Yun Ho Chang

Unfrozen welcomes Brian Goldstein, the author of “The Roots of Urban Renaissance: Gentrification and the Struggle Over Harlem.” Goldstein is a historian of the American built environment and an associate professor of architectural history in the Department of Art and Art History at Swarthmore College. Previously, he was assistant professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of New Mexico and an A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for the Humanities and the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 2013.  -- Intro/Outro: “Across 110th Street” by Bobby Womack  -- Discussed: ARCH – Architects Renewal Committee in Harlem             J. Max Bond Jr. > Bond Ryder & Associates > Davis Brody Bond             East Harlem Triangle Plan             Morningside Park Plan                         “Second Harlem Renaissance” of the 1990s > Magic Johnson's investor group arrival > Harlem USA   Bill Clinton office in Vincent Building, 125th St   Harlem Commonwealth Council (HCC) James Dowdy   Empowerment Zones   Harlem State Office Building,  a.k.a. Reclamation Site # 1   Robert Moses > Urban Renewal   Gov. Nelson Rockefeller + Edward Loeb, Urban Development Corp. (now Empire State Development)   Harlem Urban Development Corp.   Brownstone de-densification   Pathmark, closure and sale to Extell > Whole Foods > Target and Trader Joe's   Community Land Trusts (CLTs) – one possible legacy of 1960s planning and architecture activism   Abyssinian Development Corp. – Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III   Melvin Mitchell

Cassim Shepard is distinguished lecturer in architecture and urban studies at City College, City University of New York. Trained as an urban planner, geographer, and documentary filmmaker, Cassim produces nonfiction media about cities and places, with a particular emphasis on housing and civic life. His film and video work about cities around the world has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Museum of the City of New York, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, the United Nations, Pavillon de l'Arsenale in Paris, and the African Centre for Cities in Cape Town. His current exhibition, Mass Support, running at CCNY's Spitzer School of Architecture through May 7, with a symposium scheduled for April 26, explores the legacy and contemporary relevant of Stichting Architecten Research (SAR). SAR was an architectural think tank active in the Netherlands between 1964 and 1990, which proposed a radical new way of thinking about mass housing. The essential gambit was to fuse industrial production with mass customization, a concept that has strong implications for today's urban issues. Intro/Outro: “Plug In!” by Porci Scomodi Discussed:   John Habraken: “Supports” Places article The New York Housing Compact Prefab Problems: Pacific Park B2 Project – Forest City and Skanska Tim Swanson, Inherent Homes, ChicagoPeople's Architecture Office: Plug-in Houses Gans & Co.: Build it Back Modular Nakagin Capsule Tower > Unfrozen episode “1972: A Spatial Oddity” Levittown MoMA: Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling Herman Hertzberger Baugruppen R50, Kreuzburg, Berlin San Riemo, MunichKooperative Grosstadt Top Up and PATCH22, both by Lemniskade Projecten (Developer) and Frantzen et al architecten (Architect) Lewis Mumford Lecture: “Pressing Change in the Increasing Inflexible City,” Featuring Emily Badger (April 27, CCNY) Lacaton & Vassal Elemental

"The Atlas of Space Rocket Launch Sites" shows all major sites where space rockets have been launched since Sputnik in 1957. Brian Harvey and his co-author Gurbir Singh showcase the steps of space travel as they have never been presented before. We were lucky enough to catch them on Unfrozen. Have a listen and enjoy this unique exploration of the final frontier with us. Intro/Outro: "Rocketship XL-3" by Man or Astro-Man?

Adam Lubinsky, AICP, PhD, is a principal at WXY Studio. Adam leads a range of planning studies, strategic visions and master plans, and he has created new practice areas that address mobility, education and economic development using data analysis, design and new forms of community engagement. Lubinsky has just authored a detailed, 5,000-word report for the American Planning Association on equity and EV charging infrastructure, reaching their 40,000 members. Drawing on his work in this field in 11 states and for clients ranging from BMW to local departments of transportation, Lubinsky focuses on equitable access to charging, and the push to have more EVs — and cleaner air — in all areas, including those where environmental justice is a legacy concern. Intro: "Vehicle" by The Ides of March Outro: "Electricity" by Suede