Podcast appearances and mentions of Daniel A Barber

This is a preview — for the full episode, subscribe: https://newmodels.io https://patreon.com/newmodels https://newmodels.substack.com Our guest is Orit Halpern: co-author of The Smartness Mandate (MIT Press, 2023); author of Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason since 1945 (Duke, 2014); and Full Professor and Chair of Digital Cultures at Technische Universität Dresden. Often in discussions about machine learning and smartness, AI is presented as the natural path of human progress, an evolutionary – almost biological – development that emerged out of human communication systems and that has the potential to far exceed them. But as Orit argues, these technologies are neither inevitable nor inhuman. Rather they are the result of a particular intersection of neoliberal theory, psychology, and computer science that generated the economic incentives, political will, and public desire for AI to exist in the specific form we have now. On this episode, Orit animates the technological imaginary that gave rise to our culture of AI, asking, among other things, how a highly adaptive, machine-learning enabled world changes the terms of political possibility and human revolution. For more: https://orithalpern.net
 “Financializing Intelligence: On the Integration of Markets & Machines“ https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/on-models/519993/financializing-intelligence-on-the-integration-of-machines-and-markets/ “Futures of Cybernetic Urbanism” in "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective" catalogue of the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale (2025) Counter-Practices and The Image of Thought https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/29768640251335679 Planetary Infrastructure https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-658-38128-8_1-1 - Episode image adapted from: Marco Zorzanello photo of the installation TERMS AND CONDITIONS by Transsolar, Bilge Kobas, Daniel A. Barber, and Sonia Seneviratne at La Biennale di Venezia, 2025

Today I welcome Daniel Barber, Jeannette KWO Kuo, and Paul Lewis to discuss architecture and design in the COVID era. Daniel A. Barber is Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design, where he is also Chair of the interdisciplinary PhD Program in Architecture. His most recent book is Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning (Princeton UP, 2020). Daniel edits the accumulation series on e-flux architecture and is co-founder of the Current: Collective on Environment and Architectural History. For 2021-2022 he is a Senior Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies at Universität Heidelberg. Jeannette Kuo is partner at Karamuk Kuo Architects based in Zurich and Professor of Architecture and Construction at TU Munich. Previously she was Assistant Professor in Practice at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and Visiting Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Her work and her research focus on integrated design, looking at architectural space, technology and culture to address a more sustainable future. The work of the office ranges from collective housing to institutional projects for public clients and include the International Sports Sciences Institute in Lausanne, a low-tech sustainable office building; the Archaeological Center at Augusta Raurica; and the extension to the Rice University School of Architecture in Houston. Paul Lewis, FAIA, is a Principal at LTL Architects based in New York City.  He is a Professor at Princeton University School of Architecture, where he has taught since 2000.  Paul is the President of the Architectural League of New York and a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.  His New York based firm has completed academic, cultural and institutional projects throughout the United States.  LTL are the 2019 NY State AIA firm of the year and have received a National Design Award, have been inducted into the ID Hall of Fame, and have received multiple AIA design awards.  The firm's recent work includes Poster House, The Helen R. Walton Children's Enrichment Center, and a new residence hall at Carnegie Mellon University.  LTL Architects are the authors of Manual of PhysicalDistancing (2020), Intensities (2013), Opportunistic Architecture (2008) and Situation Normal....Pamphlet Architecture #21 (1998). Their 2016 book entitled Manual of Section has been translated into six languages, and LTL is currently completing a book about plant-based materials used in the sections of house construction.

Daniel A. Barber is Associate Professor and Chair of the PhD Program in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching narrate eco-critical histories of architecture and seek pathways into the post-hydrocarbon future. We discuss on this episode his most recent book 'Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning (Princeton UP, 2020)

Modern Architecture and Climate explores how leading architects of the twentieth century incorporated climate-mediating strategies into their designs, and shows how regional approaches to climate adaptability were essential to the development of modern architecture. Focusing on the period surrounding World War II—before fossil-fuel powered air-conditioning became widely available—Daniel Barber brings to light a vibrant and dynamic architectural discussion involving design, materials, and shading systems as means of interior climate control. He looks at projects by well-known architects such as Richard Neutra, Le Corbusier, Lúcio Costa, Mies van der Rohe, and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and the work of climate-focused architects such as MMM Roberto, Olgyay and Olgyay, and Cliff May. Drawing on the editorial projects of James Marston Fitch, Elizabeth Gordon, and others, he demonstrates how images and diagrams produced by architects helped conceptualize climate knowledge, alongside the work of meteorologists, physicists, engineers, and social scientists. Barber describes how this novel type of environmental media catalyzed new ways of thinking about climate and architectural design. Extensively illustrated with archival material, Modern Architecture and Climate: Design Before Air Conditioning (Princeton UP, 2020) provides global perspectives on modern architecture and its evolving relationship with a changing climate, showcasing designs from Latin America, Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and Africa. This timely and important book reconciles the cultural dynamism of architecture with the material realities of ever-increasing carbon emissions from the mechanical cooling systems of buildings, and offers a historical foundation for today’s zero-carbon design. Daniel A. Barber is an associate professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. Nushelle de Silva is a PhD candidate in the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work examines museums and exhibitions, and how the dissemination of visual culture is politically mediated by international organizations in the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Modern Architecture and Climate explores how leading architects of the twentieth century incorporated climate-mediating strategies into their designs, and shows how regional approaches to climate adaptability were essential to the development of modern architecture. Focusing on the period surrounding World War II—before fossil-fuel powered air-conditioning became widely available—Daniel Barber brings to light a vibrant and dynamic architectural discussion involving design, materials, and shading systems as means of interior climate control. He looks at projects by well-known architects such as Richard Neutra, Le Corbusier, Lúcio Costa, Mies van der Rohe, and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and the work of climate-focused architects such as MMM Roberto, Olgyay and Olgyay, and Cliff May. Drawing on the editorial projects of James Marston Fitch, Elizabeth Gordon, and others, he demonstrates how images and diagrams produced by architects helped conceptualize climate knowledge, alongside the work of meteorologists, physicists, engineers, and social scientists. Barber describes how this novel type of environmental media catalyzed new ways of thinking about climate and architectural design. Extensively illustrated with archival material, Modern Architecture and Climate: Design Before Air Conditioning (Princeton UP, 2020) provides global perspectives on modern architecture and its evolving relationship with a changing climate, showcasing designs from Latin America, Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and Africa. This timely and important book reconciles the cultural dynamism of architecture with the material realities of ever-increasing carbon emissions from the mechanical cooling systems of buildings, and offers a historical foundation for today’s zero-carbon design. Daniel A. Barber is an associate professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. Nushelle de Silva is a PhD candidate in the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work examines museums and exhibitions, and how the dissemination of visual culture is politically mediated by international organizations in the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Modern Architecture and Climate explores how leading architects of the twentieth century incorporated climate-mediating strategies into their designs, and shows how regional approaches to climate adaptability were essential to the development of modern architecture. Focusing on the period surrounding World War II—before fossil-fuel powered air-conditioning became widely available—Daniel Barber brings to light a vibrant and dynamic architectural discussion involving design, materials, and shading systems as means of interior climate control. He looks at projects by well-known architects such as Richard Neutra, Le Corbusier, Lúcio Costa, Mies van der Rohe, and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and the work of climate-focused architects such as MMM Roberto, Olgyay and Olgyay, and Cliff May. Drawing on the editorial projects of James Marston Fitch, Elizabeth Gordon, and others, he demonstrates how images and diagrams produced by architects helped conceptualize climate knowledge, alongside the work of meteorologists, physicists, engineers, and social scientists. Barber describes how this novel type of environmental media catalyzed new ways of thinking about climate and architectural design. Extensively illustrated with archival material, Modern Architecture and Climate: Design Before Air Conditioning (Princeton UP, 2020) provides global perspectives on modern architecture and its evolving relationship with a changing climate, showcasing designs from Latin America, Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and Africa. This timely and important book reconciles the cultural dynamism of architecture with the material realities of ever-increasing carbon emissions from the mechanical cooling systems of buildings, and offers a historical foundation for today’s zero-carbon design. Daniel A. Barber is an associate professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. Nushelle de Silva is a PhD candidate in the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work examines museums and exhibitions, and how the dissemination of visual culture is politically mediated by international organizations in the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Modern Architecture and Climate explores how leading architects of the twentieth century incorporated climate-mediating strategies into their designs, and shows how regional approaches to climate adaptability were essential to the development of modern architecture. Focusing on the period surrounding World War II—before fossil-fuel powered air-conditioning became widely available—Daniel Barber brings to light a vibrant and dynamic architectural discussion involving design, materials, and shading systems as means of interior climate control. He looks at projects by well-known architects such as Richard Neutra, Le Corbusier, Lúcio Costa, Mies van der Rohe, and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and the work of climate-focused architects such as MMM Roberto, Olgyay and Olgyay, and Cliff May. Drawing on the editorial projects of James Marston Fitch, Elizabeth Gordon, and others, he demonstrates how images and diagrams produced by architects helped conceptualize climate knowledge, alongside the work of meteorologists, physicists, engineers, and social scientists. Barber describes how this novel type of environmental media catalyzed new ways of thinking about climate and architectural design. Extensively illustrated with archival material, Modern Architecture and Climate: Design Before Air Conditioning (Princeton UP, 2020) provides global perspectives on modern architecture and its evolving relationship with a changing climate, showcasing designs from Latin America, Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and Africa. This timely and important book reconciles the cultural dynamism of architecture with the material realities of ever-increasing carbon emissions from the mechanical cooling systems of buildings, and offers a historical foundation for today’s zero-carbon design. Daniel A. Barber is an associate professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. Nushelle de Silva is a PhD candidate in the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work examines museums and exhibitions, and how the dissemination of visual culture is politically mediated by international organizations in the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeffrey S. Nesbit is joined by Daisy Ames, Daniel A. Barber and Mae-ling Lokko to reflect on climate change, air quality, and cultures from within the architectural envelopes as the Nature of Enclosure. Learn more about Daniel A Barber's work: https://www.design.upenn.edu/architecture/graduate/people/daniel-barber https://upenn.academia.edu/DanielBarber https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691170039/modern-architecture-and-climate Learn more about Daisy Ames's work: http://studio-ames.com/ https://www.arch.columbia.edu/faculty/1365-daisy-ames https://www.arch.columbia.edu/research/labs/15-housing-lab Learn more about Mae-ling Lokko's work: https://www.arch.rpi.edu/2018/03/mae-ling-lokko/ https://housingthehuman.com/prototypes/mae-ling-lokko/ This space has been sponsored by Actar Publishers and urbanNext.net. For the most engaging publications on architecture, urbanism, and landscape architecture visit: http://actar.com/ For access to exclusive digital content subscribe to: https://urbannext.net/ The urbanNext_exchanges series is curated by Ricardo Devesa and Marta Bugés. Feel free to contact us via email at inputbox@urbannext.net if you want to comment on the podcast or share your work with us.

Daniel A. Barber is an Associate Professor of Architecture and Chair of the PhD Program in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. His books—Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning and A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War—examine historical relationships between architecture and global environmental culture, reframing the means and ends of architectural expertise to frame a more robust engagement with the climate crisis of the present. Barber edits the Accumulation series on the e-flux Architecture online platform, an annual dossier of essays that explore how media analyses provide access to processes of accumulation, material and symbolic, that are endemic to climate instabilities. He is cofounder of Current: a platform for the discussion of environmental histories of architecture, launching summer 2020.More about the book: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691170039/modern-architecture-and-climateTranscript and recommendations for further reading: https://thinkbelt.org/shows/interstitial/modern-architecture-and-climate-daniel-barber

Is modern architecture actually energy efficient? Buildings like the Bauhaus Dessau designed by Walter Gropius required large amounts of heating in the 1920s. The preservation of modern buildings like these often require large amounts of energy consumption, which places them at odds with contemporary ideas around energy efficiency. "We have been conditioned as humans to a certain type of lifestyle that is dependant - heavily dependent - upon the use of fossil fuels." Associate Professor Daniel Barber Dr Jennifer Ferng speaks with Associate Professor Daniel Barber from the University of Pennsylvania about the modernist principles behind the Bauhaus, its legacy, and how energy efficiency has changed how architects deal with renovations and regulations around cultural heritage. Innovations in heating systems often lagged behind the aesthetic principles that determined buildings like the Bauhaus Dessau. The performance of modernist structures remains incompatible with what we view now as contemporary standards of energy conservation. Architects must sometimes choose between preservation strategies and contemporary methods that reduce energy consumption. Guest Daniel A. Barber is an Associate Professor of Architecture and Chair of the Graduate Group in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. He is an architectural historian studying the relationship between the design fields and the emergence of global environmental culture across the 20th century.