Unfrozen

Jesse M. Keenan is the Favrot II Associate Professor of Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment at Tulane University. In his upcoming book North: The Future of Post-Climate America, he outlines the complexities of America’s handling of climate change and its effects on not only migration, mitigation, and real estate, but also our institutions and societal fabric. Simultaneous conclusions: There are no climate havens, but adapt we will. Join us for the fascinating Unfrozen interview. -- Intro/Outro: “System Error,” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank report on reversal of the migration to the Sun Belt “What Climate Change Will Do to America by Mid-Century” - The Atlantic Climate gentrification: from theory to empiricism in Miami-Dade County, Florida Sean Becketti, Freddie Mac, April 2016: Will Markets Absorb Climate Change? A Climate Minsky Moment? Mitigation vs adaptation vs resilience Rachel Minnery’s efforts at the AIA to include climate adaptation as part of architects’ standards and duty of care “Climate-proof Duluth” in the New York Times There were never any climate havens: The Guardian The lesson of Asheville: The flooding was the beginning of its role as a “receiving zone,” not the end “Climate havens” = media clickbait Marketing of Buffalo as a “climate haven” by Mayor Byron R. Brown Alan Mallach’s Unfrozen take on reviving legacy cities “This is about growth management and urban planning 101 at the regional and local level” For many “climate havens” rhetoric is not about recruiting new residents; climate mobility is a rhetorical arm for the existing residents for core sustainability development. “The Midwest will ultimately grow for the exact same reason the Sun Belt grew” Storming the Wall by Todd Miller The Climate Credit Score Hurricane Pass, Pinellas County, Florida “Sodom & Gorlando” Climate intelligence arms race, e.g., AlphaGeo Spencer Glendon – “The money is slow and dumb”

Just in time for Halloween comes a spooky story of speculation and specters in the world of real estate. Joshua Comaroff, a professor at National University of Singapore, is the author of Spectropolis: The Enchantment of Capital in Singapore. He tells Unfrozen that, despite being one of the most assertively modern nations in the world, mysticism and geomancy are very much part of the design and construction process in the island nation-state. Woe be to the development (and its occupants) that does not undertake elaborate rituals and pay the requisite respect (and sometimes burnt “hell money” offerings) to ghosts that may be resident on the site. We hope you enjoy this tale of spirits and the material world… -- Intro/Outro: “Beancounter,” by the Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Hell money, in sextillion-dollar denominations Feng shui People’s Action Party Ghost Month (Ghost Festival) Bomoh (Malay spirit doctor) Winchester Mystery House ION Orchard Gateway, by I.M. Pei AI Ghosts John Calvin’s hatred of speculation The Clayford Sisters Thanatechnology

Depending on how you look at it, it is either a great or rough time out there for speculative fiction, as reality continues to bite at the heels of even the most dystopian visions. Jason Tester is a futurist with a knack for telling prescient stories about our imminent urban realities, in a startlingly graphic way. The visually compelling Insurrection: an American Future predicted troop deployments in San Francisco in early January 2025; by June, a real-life version of that story began unfolding in Los Angeles, then Washington, Chicago, and Portland. Tester gazes into the abyss with Unfrozen, in another episode a bit too close for comfort. -- Intro/Outro: “System Error,” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Institute for the Future What Is The Insurrection Act? Here’s What Happens If Trump Invokes Law Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Frogs of Portland Ilana Lipsett Meta Ray-Bans Frend.AI ImmigrationOS San Francisco Proposition E - Police drone authorization The beleaguered Whole Foods on Market ICE Ramming in Chicago Grand juries say no to sandwich crimes DDS Waymo Jam Barbara Walter at UC San Diego: How Civil Wars Start Abyss gazing UrbanistAI One Big Beautiful Bill One Big Beautiful Aftermath

Rem Koolhaas is nothing if not enigmatic, which makes him and his first major built work, the Villa dal’Alva, Paris (1990), an ideal first subject of the “Gumshoe” series of architectural mysteries. Cutting through the conventions of academic jargon and trade press, The House of Dr. Koolhaas reopens the “cold case” of Koolhaas and examines evidence in a pulp-detective novel format. Unfrozen turns the lamp back on writer/editor team Francoise Fromonot and Thomas Weaver. -- Intro/Outro: “Beancounter,” by the Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Gumshoe Architectural Mystery Series Thomas Weaver (AA Files) Villa d’Alva, OMA S, M, L, XL Luis Bunuel City of Glass by Paul Auster Ways of Seeing by John Berger Aramis, or the Love of Technology by Bruno Latour The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allen Poe Mannerism Madelon Vreisendorp with Teri Wehn-Damisch: The Film of Delirious New York Countryside, The Future Dali’s paranoiac-critical method Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Next up: Oscar Neimayer’s Communist Party Headquarters, Paris, by Littell Shaw Then: The Parthenon Then: Case Study House by Craig Ellwood Poelzig’s I.G. Farben Building, Frankfurt Raymond Chandler James Ellroy

Dismayed by the destruction and death in Gaza? Fear not, the wizards at Boston Consulting Group have a plan – a 38-slide deck that will Make Gaza GREAT Again. It’s a molten nugget of consultant-speak, SimCity planning moves, weirdly proportioned AI slop renderings, and tokenized real estate transactions that place a thin veil of “solutioneering” over what looks an awful lot like ethnic cleansing. Don’t worry – it will all be covered by private investment and all kinds of familiar corporations in the tech, design, construction and security businesses are invited, whether they know it or not. Our hot take on this hottest of messes. Discussed: Washington Post article Wall Street Journal article Financial Times article GREAT Trust deck Pre-GREAT Trust Hebrew version of the deck Gaza Riviera TikTok video Scarlett Johansson on SNL: Complicit Boston Consulting Group Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Tony Blair Institute Ebenezer Howard Baron von Haussmann SimCity Paul Romer’s Charter Cities Shout back to Episode 92, The Hidden Globe AECOM Studio Boeri Architetti IMEC = India-Middle East Corridor UN rapporteur communique on Gaza report: Economy of Occupation to an Economy of Genocide

A former president of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Carl Elefante has led the field in finding common ground between two things seemingly in conflict: sustainable design and historic preservation. He is a Principal Emeritus with Quinn Evans and a charter member of the Climate Heritage Network. In addition to his work on the intersection of historic preservation and sustainability, he has spent decades focusing on building-sector decarbonization, community vitality, and urbanism. His new book is Going for Zero: Decarbonizing the Built Environment on the Path to Our Urban Future. Intro/Outro: “24 Hour Limes,” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: The Greenest Building is the One That is Already Built Work and the City, by Frank Duffy MASS Design Group Kéré Architecture Lo-TEK Design by Radical Indigenism, by Julia Watson Empire State Building retrofit vs One World Trade Center: Both LEED Gold Passive House PassiveLogic WUFI Modeling Susan Roth Mini-splits

Hillary Brown, Professor Emerita of Architecture at the City College of New York, joins Unfrozen to discuss her book Revitalize | Resettle, which explores how climate migration and rural revitalization can solve interlinked crises. Brown emphasizes that large U.S. cities alone cannot absorb climate-displaced populations due to infrastructural limits and rising costs. Instead, she proposes strategic resettlement in small towns and “micropolitan areas”—places often overlooked but rich in cultural value and potential. -- Intro/Outro: “24-Hour Limes” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Hero towns leading the charge to accept climate migrants and flourish: Clinton, IA: Brownfield redevelopment and corridor revitalization Gorham and Milan, NH: Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program Madison, IN: Main Street Program Morris, NY: Livingston County Development Group Norfolk, NE: North Fork Whitewater Park Ord, NE: Vibrant Future Fund Rock Port, MO: Wind Capital Group – First town in U.S. to be 100% wind-powered West Windsor, VT: Ascutney revitalization Jesse Keenan – Climate-Proof Duluth New York State Small-Town Revitalization T-Mobile hometown grants Parag Khanna, ecstatic nomad

Chicago’s Wrigley Building, constructed in 1921, is the “whited sepulcher” of Michigan Avenue, gleaming in terra cotta like the rows of teeth ostensibly cleansed by Wrigley’s Chewing Gum, the company that built the Beaux-Arts edifice. But its extravagant looks are only part of the story. Unfrozen hosts Robert Sharoff and William Zbaren, who wrote and photographed the new book from Rizzoli, The Wrigley Building: The Making of an Icon, to hear the rest. -- Intro / Outro: “24 Hour Limes,” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Graham, Anderson, Probst & White Charles Beersman Julia Morgan Arts Club of Chicago Joe Mansueto Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, Helmut Jahn, 2011 John Vinci Phillip Wrigley William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson Girilda Tower, Seville Chateau Chambord, Loire Valley, France New York Municipal Building, Stanford White, 1914 The Carter Family Tribune Tower, Howells and Hood, 1925 London Guarantee Building, Alfred Alschuler, 1923 333 North Michigan Avenue, Holabird & Roche, 1928 Belden-Stratford Hotel, Meyer Fridstein, 1923 Waldor-Astoria Chicago, Lucien Lagrange, 2009 Chicago Fire Stadium Stanley Tigerman Studio Blue, Cheryl Towler Weese

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 Arsenale o Robots, hemp, bio-concrete, 8-point font with AI-assisted summaries o Kate Crawford and Vladan Joier’s megascale text: Calculating Empires o Bjarke Ingels Group’s entry: Ancient Future, with Bhutanese carvers paced by an ABB robot o Christopher Hawthorne’s Speaker’s Corner o Shades of Rem Koolhaas’ 2014 Fundamentals edition - Kate Wagner’s review: o Dated techno-optimism o Cannibalism of architecture by art and exhibition design - National Pavilions: o Austria: “Agency for Better Living” o Canada: “Picoplanktonics” by The Living Room Collective o 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 cat o 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, MIT o Marisa Moran Jahn, Director, Integrated Design,Parsons School of Design o Bekim Ramku, OUD+ Architects o 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 Crisis o Diane Longboat, Senior Manager, StrategicInitiatives, Center for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto § See: Sweat lodge at the Center o Patrick Bellew, Chief Sustainability Officer, Surbana Jurong (Atelier Ten) § Gardens by the Bay cooling system,powered by incinerated tree trimming waste o Peter Barber, Peter Barber Architects o 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 Ratti Speakers’ 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, Moderator o Lesley Lokko, 2023 Biennale curator o Aric Chen o Pancho Diaz o Sarah Herda o Michael Meredith (MOS) > Building with Writing - 10 May: Conversation on L.A. Fires o Michael Maltzan o Alejandro Haiek Coll o Florencia Rodriguez 11 May: o Kate Wagner o Samuel Medina o Sam Jacob o Shumi Bose 1980 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-Schulz Why “The Brutalist” Isn’t Really About Architecture Kazuyo Sejima Writing About Architecture - Alexandra Lange Caught practicing without a license: Frank Lloyd Wright and Thomas Jefferson International Committee of Architecture Critics Salon de Mobile Ada Louise Huxtable You Have to Pay for the Public Life, by Charles Moore Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Robert Venturi Charles 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 Walkway Zohran Mamdami –Make the Subway Great Again Smart City Expo, New York City Business Facilities Live eXchange, New Orleans Curbivore, Los Angeles Jonah Bliss Joshua Harris, Fordham University Marchetti’s constant Zipline Austin Baker Tilly Conference CosMc’s National Association of Realtors survey Waymo RoboCop Sidewalk Toronto Downstate IL secession movement Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson, feat. Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong Paul Romer Charter Cities The Voluntary City - David T. Beto, Peter Gordon and Alexander Tabarrok How to Run the World - Parag Khanna Hell on Earth – The 30 Years’ War Podcast The Network State - Balaji Srinivasan Global Parliament of Mayors / Ben Barber Polarization of reality > revenge of sovereignty Praxis: Med Charter City > Greenland feat. Steven Harper The evermore-relevant Hidden Globe episode Exit, Voice and Loyalty - Albert O. Hirschman Patri Friedman The lost art of imagining the future “My Brain Finally Broke,” - Jia Tolentino in The New Yorker Bruce 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

Kevin Kelley, a self-described “attention architect,” is aco-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 nosesat retail, the essential lubricant of urban life, and start designing places that matter. -- Intro/Outro: “24 Hour Limes" by The Cooper Vane -- 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

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: DowntownsRebound Karen Seto(Yale)'s studies on tall building height canopies

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: “I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- 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 WalmartSupercenter 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

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: “I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- 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

“Either you’re growing your materials or not. You’re gettingthem from a forest or a mine.” Lindsey Wikstrom is the Founding Principal of Mattaformaand an Adjunct Assistant Professor at ColumbiaGraduate 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 Still Wear the Uniform,” by The Cooper Vane

In The City in the City, Amy Thomas offersthe 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: “I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- 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

“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: “I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- 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-profitbike-sharing program) - Swapfliets (Swap Bike)

Today’s uncanny AI renderings are just the tip of theiceberg. 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 architecturefirms, 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: “I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: The Road to IDC: Writing guidelines for the use ofgenerative 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 Leaders Former 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?

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: "I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane --

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 Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- 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

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/Outro: "I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane 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

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 2015 Cities4Forests Partner Forest Program World Resources Institute Mass Timber Tipping Point Report Alliance of Francophone Mayors Net zero Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions Nordic Structures Montreal Protocol 1987 COP 15 Montreal, 2022 COP 21 Paris Agreement, 2015 COP 26 Glasgow, 2021 COP 28 Dubai, 2023 COP 30 Belem, Brazil:Design for activation: A Mass Timber, Conservation Timber Pavilion, Floating on the Amazon, with Hammocks! Declaration for Forests and Cities Alec 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 Urbanism Serenbe, GA Pinewood Atlanta Studios (now Trilith Studios) Megalopolis Dan Cathy & River’s Rock LLC How The Chick-Fil-A Billionaire CEO Plays A Part In Your Favorite Marvel Movies Trilithons Georgia Guidestones Mesa del Sol The Buckhead Succession Movement Stockbridge, GA vs Eagle’s Landing Silvercup Studios Kaufman 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 Vane Discussed: Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, NY Mosswood, Oakland, CA Prior 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 Fullilove Diana Lind – The Human Doom Loop The Anti-Social Century, Derek Thompson, The Atlantic Contested 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

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: "I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane -- 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

Dan and Greg recap the highs and lows of the first full year of Unfrozen – 33 episodes – and look ahead to 2023. Did you know? You don’t have to catch the stars as they fall. You can listen to any episode from our web site, or on your favorite podcast platform, at any time! Intro/Outro: “Our Lips are Sealed,” by The Go-Go’s Discussed: - A high number of episodes devoted to Peter Rees, the former chief planner of the City of London o Episode 37: The City is Here for You to Use o Episode 22: The Engine Room, the City, and Color Commentary o Episode 21: This is London: Rees Reminiscences - Stats and demographics - Fan fave episodes: tied for 125 plays each: o Episode 32: Future Storage: From Mineral Extraction to Data Forestry (Marina Otero) o Episode 31: Emergent Tokyo (Jorge Almazan) - Greg’s favorites: o Episode 13: What Fresh McMansion Hell is This? (Kate Wagner) o Episode 26: Big Time (Patrick MacLeamy) o Episode 27: A Skyscraper Superfan Aims High (Changsub Lee) o Episode 34: Chicago: Two Guides, One Cast (Laurie Petersen, Vladimir Belogolovsky o Episode 41: Imagine a City (Mark Vanhoenacker) o Episode 43: Who is the City For? (Blair Kamin) - Dan’s favorites: o Episode 42: 1972: A Spatial Oddity (Noritaka Minami, Iker Gil) - Guest & adventure pipeline for 2023 o Juan Miro, Miro Rivera Architects on windowless dormitories o Andrew Shanken – author, The Everyday Life of Memorials o Andmore Partners – Architects as Developers o Dan in Hradec Kralove, Czechia o Greg: The Metaverse Metropolis @ Cornell Tech Urban Hub o What is the Figma of Autodesk? o Zach Katz – Transform Your City

Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Blair Kamin has long informed and delighted readers with his illuminating commentary. Kamin’s newest collection, Who Is the City For?, does more than gather fifty-five of his most notable Chicago Tribune columns from the past decade: it pairs his words with striking new images by photographer and architecture critic Lee Bey, Kamin’s former rival at the Chicago Sun-Times. Listen to the Unfrozen interview with Kamin, and understand why “city planning is not a game of 2D checkers but of 3D chess.” Intro/Outro: “Chicago” by Benny Goodman Discussed: INVEST South/West Maurice Cox, Chicago Planning Commissioner The pandemic’s effect on rapid urbanization Spread of crime from poor to rich neighborhoods The city’s not “out of control,” but it is in need of reinvention Lower Manhattan’s adaptive reuse of older skyscrapers does present a template Decentralization of the central business district, ex: McDonald’s HQ in the Fulton Market Prospects for Lincoln Yards and The 78 – shades of Cityfront Center? The Chicago Spire pit / 400 N Lake Shore Drive replacement project DuSable Park and the Riverwalk “We have to think of the city not as a 2D checkers game but a 3D chess game.” Buffalo Bayou Park extension project, Houston O’Hare Global Terminal Chicago River Boathouses AIA design competition for the next bungalow Committee on Design “Plop” architecture 1611 W Division – look ma, no parking! Red Line South extension “There are those who say ‘who gets what’ is a tired trope of architectural criticism – let me vehemently disagree.” Chicago as a participant in global economic and architectural design exchange Chicago Architecture Biennial The City that Works > The City that Plays Investment of Chinese capital in St. Regis Tower Cloud Gate Crown Fountain

Cities that produce only underwear, blue jeans and extras in domestic films are among the fascinating objects of study in Typological Drift: Emerging Cities in China by Shiqiao Li and Esther Lorenz. Journey with Unfrozen and Shiqiao Li to reveal the surprising urban realities of China that escape normative urban theories, with several stops along the way in philosophy and linguistics. Typological Drift: Emerging Cities in China by Shiqiao Li and Esther Lorenz Interviewee: Shiqiao Li is Weedon Professor in Asian Architecture, School of Architecture, University of Virginia, where he teaches history, theory, and design of architecture, and directs PhD in the Constructed Environment Program. He is author of Understanding the Chinese City (2014), Architecture and Modernization (2009, in Chinese) and Power and Virtue, Architecture and Intellectual Change in England 1650-1730 (2006). He recently contributed an essay to the Routledge Handbook of Chinese Architecture (2022). Inro/Outro: “Drifted” by Groove Armada Discussed: Drift Triggers Ten Thousand Things Yiwu International Trade City Borges: “The map of the empire is the size of the empire itself.” Figuration Wilhelm von Humboldt Francois Jullien: The Silent Transformations Nanhui New City Hengdian World Studios Minmetals Hallstatt Thames Town Lujiazui The Bund Tongji Architectural Design Group Co. Ltd.

Michael Eliason is an architect and founder of Larch Lab, a studio focused on prefabricated, decarbonized, climate-adaptive, low-energy buildings and livable ecodistricts. Eliason, based in Seattle, had a transformative experience while living in Germany – the American residential model could be greatly improved by adopting some of the principles of Baugruppen – self-developed co-housing, without the granola trappings. Hear the Unfrozen interview – and then listen to his podcast, Livable Low-Carbon City. Intro/Outro: “Spacelab” by Kraftwerk Discussed: Black Sheep Development Co., Larch Lab’s baugruppen partner, headed by Aaron Yankauskas Ascent, Milwaukee Jeremy McCloud, Nightingale, Melbourne California development legislative changes First Passivhaus in the US: Smith House, Urbana, IL Minneapolis’ single-family housing zoning rollback experiment St. Paul’s rent control battle Product recommendation: Corsi-Rosenthal Box The north star of Baugruppen: Gleiss 21, Vienna

Hanif Kara is a civil and structural engineer and professor in practice at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and the co-founder of AKT II, a 350-person engineering practice based in London. The firm won the Stirling Award for Peckham Library in 2000 (with (Will Alsop), the Sainsbury Laboratory in 2012 (with Stanton Williams), and the Bloomberg European Headquarters in 2018 (with Foster + Partners). He is co-author of Blank: Speculations on CLT with Jennifer Bonner, and the recipient of the 2022 Fazlar Khan Lifetime Award from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Intro/Outro: Great Things, by Echobelly Discussed: One Park Drive (with Herzog & De Meuron) Castilla (with Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners) 240 Blackfriars (with AHMM) The Tower and the Bridge by David P. Billington Joint studio with Farshid Moussavi, using reclaimed steel Google HQ London (with BIG & Heatherwick Studio) The Francis Crick Institute (with HOK & PLP Architecture) Culture flaps at SCI-Arc and The Bartlett

Unfrozen interviews Peter Wynne Rees, Professor of Places and City Planning, The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, who was previously City Planning Officer for the City of London, from 1985 to 2014. He is a founding member and director (1990-2022) of the British Council for Offices and received their President’s Award in 2003 for “presiding over one of the most extensive periods of redevelopment in the City’s long history”. This is his first appearance on the program, but he has been the subject of two prior episodes, #21, This is London: Rees Remembrances and #22, The Engine Room, the City, and Color Commentary. Intro/Outro: "The City Is Here for You to Use," by The Futureheads Discussed: CTBUH Lynn Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award Shoreditch 20 Fenchurch Street Metropolis Canary Wharf Favelas The East End The cult of home ownership, enforced by government The Elizabeth Line HS2 Lifespan of buildings vs building products What architecture and planning students should be learning

Patrick MacLeamy was the CEO of HOK from 2003 to 2017, capping off a 50-year career at the venerable firm responsible for the National Air and Space Museum, Moscone Center, and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, and is credited with creating "The MacLeamy Curve," a touchstone of business guidance for the built environment. In his semi-retirement, he is a founder and chairman of buildingSMART International, which encourages the adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and more open collaboration between the design and construction industries. He recently authored "Designing a World-Class Architecture Firm: The People, Stories and Strategies Behind HOK." Hear some of his lifetime's worth of colorful anecdotes and sage advice on this special episode of Unfrozen. Intro/Outro: "Elevation" by U2 Nuggets: “We need to think about contractors as our valued colleagues and friends, and change the way we think about our industry. It needs to be more collaborative – design-bid-build is going into the dustbin of history. Collaborative design-build is the way forward.” “Managing risk and complexity is much easier to do collaboratively. We have to wake up and smell the coffee. The old way of designing and building is changing. If architects want to rejoin society in a special place, they have to adapt. The world needs us, but we need to get the rules of the game changed so we can be successful again.”

Daniel Kaven is the author of Architecture of Normal: The Colonization of the American Landscape, a book that views the built environment through the lens of successive developments in transportation. An architect and visual artist hailing from Albuquerque, now calling Portland home, Kaven takes on suburbanization, flying cars, and why “Generation Z needs to get out in the streets and be really pissed off about work-from-home.” Intro/Outro: The Big Country, by The Talking Heads Discussed: Ed Ruscha Cibola – one of the Seven Cities of Gold COVID as accelerant of moving from an experiential lifestyle to a destination-based lifestyle Instagram feeds are the new main streets of America United Airlines buys Archer – an air-taxi company Henry Ford’s flying personal cars department Prediction: First place to adopt flying cars – Saudi Arabia The Main Street and Mall Retail Apocalypse Future infrastructure and traffic planning will be about stratification of means of transport, literally Just because we have the technology to do something, doesn’t mean we should Do we want to live in places where we just order online and it gets delivered to a drone pad? The Big Tech companies are nation-states, or partners thereof Urbanism had a good run from 1990s to just before COVID. The post-COVID boom is in places like suburban Boise – Boomtown ZoomTown, and it’s already fizzling. “Generation Z needs to get out in the streets and be really pissed off about work-from-home.” Architecture firms have really phoned in their responsibility to make places where people want to be – as a counterpoint to work-from-home, the tone of which is being set by Facebook and their brethren. “There is no future with goggles on.” “We don’t need to rip America apart and build the Metaverse.” “How can people live a more spacious life in an urban environment?” “We’re going to regret having made all these 5-over-1 wood-frame buildings with cheap materials.”

Chicago is a famed architecture town, but the road has not always been smooth. Hear from the editor and author, respectively, of two recently released guides – Laurie Petersen for the AIA Guide to Chicago and Vladimir Belogolovskyfor the DOM Architectural Guide Chicago, discourse on Postmodernist icons like the Thompson (future Google?) Center and Harold Washington Library, and muse on what came next, where we are now, and why Chicago is still important to architecture everywhere.

Dan’s recent consecration of the world’s tallest timber building; Greg’s new gigs, and hotels to stay at while making them happen; the third space in a post-COVID world; update on the Durbin Renewal scandal in Chicago, and a preview of upcoming guests. Intro/Outro: Super Sex by Morphine Tall Timber: Ascent, Milwaukee Rocket & Tigerli, Winterthur, Switzerland Atlassian Central, Sydney Greg’s gig in NYC this week: Patcraft– Shaw Industries, with: Brad Hargraeves – Common Evan Fain – Industrious Boutique Hotels: The Freehand N.Y.C. The Standard L.A. The Standard High Line N.Y.C. The Ace Brooklyn The Ace Portland – have a record player! Why not the Nakagin Capsule Hotel? Brooklyn Mirage(Bushwick / Ridgewood) Brimfield Antique Flea Market – feeding ground for Roman & Williams-designed boutique hotels Inside Amy Schumer Pretentious Hotel McKinsey & Co NYC Taskforce to repurpose office space Mary Ludgin, Heitman, Chicago taskforce Durbin Renewal: Century and Consumers buildings Greg’s new gigs - Undisclosed fellowship, a.k.a. Pokemon NO!: Preparing cities for the metaverse, protecting real public space from virtual reality, unregulated disruptors, and more… - Parag Khanna startup: Chief Communications Officer: Tool for modeling climate risk. Invest now in the climate-resilient regions of the world. The call is open for volunteers. Are we living in Ready Player One or Snow Crash?

Marina Otero, head of the Social Design Masters Program at Design Academy Eindhoven, Netherlands, is the winner of the Harvard Graduate School of Design's 2022 Wheelwright Prize. Her study, Future Storage: Architectures to Host the Metaverse, will examine new architecture paradigms for storing data, and how reimagining digital infrastructures could meet the unprecedented demands facing the world today. Intro: Lithium, by Nirvana Discussed: The Stack, Benjamin Bratton Ingrid Burrington Tubes, Andrew Blum Grow Your Own Cloud DNA as a storage medium Seed banks for data A data garden in Eindhoven Destinations: - Singapore: Had a ban on data centers for a number of years; are seaborne and underwater data centers an option? Floating solar farms? - Darwin, Australia: Data governance – the first indigenous-led data center. Who has access to the data? Who owns it? - Nigeria: Woman-led crypto-tech communities. Positioning themselves against the corporations that are bringing the infrastructure, so they can set up their own. - Chile: Lithium extraction, new Humboldt Cable to New Zealand and Australia. - Iceland and Sweden: Questions connected to industry and energy. Use of new infrastructures. In Sweden, one data center is also a club. - California: Where new storage media are being developed. Outro: A Forest, by The Cure

Think of Tokyo less as a “chaotic” than as an “emergent” city. This means spontaneous, self-organizing aspects create order from the bottom up. That kind of emergence can be, if not designed, then facilitated. Unfrozen interviews Jorge Almazan, Associate Professor, Department of System Design Engineering, Keio University, and author of “Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City.” Intro: Woman from Tokyo, by Deep Purple Discussed: Yokocho Alleys Zakkyo Buildings Ankyo Streets Complexity Science – Geoffrey West Luis Bettencourt Cellular Automata – Stephen Wolfram The Uses of Disorder – Richard Sennett Rather than a Unified Theory of Emergence applicable to all cities, there are transferable principles: Economies of Agglomeration rather than Economies of Scale. Networks versus hierarchies. Inclusive boundaries (mix of uses). Bar recommendations: - Bar Usagi, Shibuya - The Greek Bar, Suginami Made in Tokyo, Atelier Bow Wow Outro: Godzilla, by Blue Oyster Cult

For a truly philosophical take on the role of the architect in the post-truth era, Unfrozen interviews Richard Francis-Jones, author of Truth and Lies in Architecture. Intro: “Telling Lies,” by David Bowie Discussed: Architecture’s ambiguous relationship to truth. The criteria that make a building worthy of love. How can architecture bring us closer to nature? Architecture is “never neutral nor innocent. There is a mutual interconnection between architecture and the events around it.” “Eternal principles” or a classicist, colonialist trap? Ex Machina and the consciousness of materials Locaton and Vassal Tsien and Williams John Keats Aldo Rossi Richard Lepastrier Louis Kahn David Chalmers The EY Centre, Sydney The negative critique culture. Outro: “True,” by Spandau Ballet

Unfrozen interviews Stefan Al, author, Supertall, founder, Stefan Al Architects, designer of Canton Tower, Guangzhou with Information Based Architecture (IBA). Intro/Outro: “History Rhymes,” by Empty City Squares Discussed: Technology: The role of technologies: concrete, elevators, air conditioning and dampers Society: Culture, social preferences, zoning, aesthetics The succession of events that led to today’s skyscrapers New York – zoning London – view corridors Hong Kong – transit-oriented development Singapore – vertical greenery “History rhymes” “Progress traps” Easter Island, Prometheus, and Pandora’s Box Irregular paths to inventions Carrier inventing air conditioning when trying to solve printing issues Using an Oregon optometrist’s office to test potential swaying of the World Trade Center, New York City, in 1965 Rafael Vinoly – 432 Park and the boat-pilot sway / chandelier test Icebergs, Zombies and the Ultra-Thin by Matthew Soules Digital Monuments by Simone Brott Reflexive practitioners

Greg reports from Houston, where he and Richard Florida had some stage-sharing to do. Dan recounts a jaunt to the Canadian Riviera and Pacific Northwest, where mass timber is on the rise. Then on to demolitions, what’s on the bookshelf, future guests, future guesses…. -- -- Intro: “Livin’ on the Edge (of Houston),” by Reverend Horton Heat Discussed: Richard Florida's slightly altered new jam: Live Work Play Connect. Build multifamily, family-oriented apartments of appropriate size, while you’re at it. NEOM Mass Timber Conference: Jeanne Gang can hack it – literally Explore ‘22 – Expedia Conference at Aria, Las Vegas Band recs (or wrecks) “Durbin Renewal” – The US Government’s landlord, GSA, wants to demolish two buildings from the 1910s because they present a “security risk” to the Dirksen Federal Building, which has been there since 1964. An Illinois senator just found $52 million to make it happen. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo, finally bites the dust. The stolen bicycle is in the basement of the Ford Foundation, with the built-in brass ashtrays in the auditorium… This kerfuffle in Northwest Arkansas Green Obsession – Stefano Boeri Architetti Celebrating Public Architecture – Success of open architecture competitions in Flanders, Belgium Supertall – Sfefan Al Truth and Lies in Architecture – Richard Francis-Jones Crypto-Schadenfreude and the Electric Bull - Outro: “Song for America,” by Destroyer

Meet Changsub Lee, a 14-year-old in South Korea who has been designing skyscrapers since he was eight. He's already a celebrity in the tall building world. Ivy League schools of architecture, prepare yourselves now. The recording is a bit soft, but if you crank him up, he's got a lot to say. Intro/Outro: "Skyscrapers," by OKGO Discussed: New Songdo City Incheon Tower Infinity (Crystal Top) Tower Northeast Asia Trade Tower James von Klemperer Adrian Smith Killa Design eVolo Skyscraper Competition

Two toy visions of Los Angeles describe two very different future visions: One vision wants you to play with its toys – and would be offended if you didn’t – the other most assuredly does not. It is strictly off-limits, and is meant to be admired from a distance. One says “don’t touch;” the other practically grabs your hand and pulls you into the grid. Intro/Outro: "Metropolis," by Kraftwerk Originally posted Jan. 31, 2012 in Unfrozen 1.0.

Original story: Unfrozen 1.0, Sept. 3, 2012 A profile of two metallic sculptures by two design firms in Los Angeles: "A Loose Horizon," by LAYER, at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, and "Bloom," by DO|SU, at Materials & Applications. Intro / Outro: "Metal Machine Music," by Lou Reed