Podcast
Unfrozen
Hosted by Daniel Safarik and Greg Lindsay · EN
A podcast on architecture and urbanism.
20episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
92. The Hidden Globe
Feb 22, 202500:40:33Tap to summarizeBetween, 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”
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91. After the Fires, Will Prefab Sprout?
Feb 1, 202500:26:13Tap to summarizeAmidst 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
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90. MAGAlopolis
Jan 19, 202500:52:05Tap to summarizeThe 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
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80. To the Ends of the Earth
Dec 31, 202400:41:30Tap to summarizeIn 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 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
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89. That Was a Year, Wasn't It?
Dec 7, 202400:21:52Tap to summarizeDan 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
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88. The Architecture of Urbanity
Aug 24, 202400:46:38Tap to summarizeVishaan 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
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87. Glass Houses
Aug 19, 202400:45:00Tap to summarizeMadeline 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
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86. Salty Urbanism
Jul 29, 202400:50:11Tap to summarizeSalty 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 --
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85. Getting Unstuck from the Rut: Introducing IDC
Jul 15, 202400:41:56Tap to summarizeToday’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?
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84. Movement
Jun 17, 202400:51:16Tap to summarize“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)
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