Unfrozen

Kevin Kelley, a self-described “attention architect,” is a co-founding partner of design firm Shook Kelley and author of Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together. In our digitized world of ghost commerce, he believes there is still a place for real places, and that it is incumbent on architects to stop looking down their noses at retail, the essential lubricant of urban life, and start designing places that matter. -- Intro/Outro: “Friction,” by Television -- Discussed: Bass Pro Shops at the Memphis Pyramid Against 15-Minute Delivery “The Bonfire Effect,” courtesy Loxahatchie, Florida Participation mystique, as per Jung, as per Lucien Levy-Bruhl “TheAnxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt “Harvard Guide to Shopping” by Rem Koolhaas et. al. Prior Unfrozen commentary on the replacement for the Orange County Government Center by Paul Rudolph Robert Venturi on Las Vegas Maslow's hierarchy of needs Yaromir Steiner and Easton Town Center, Columbus Victor Gruen Country Club Plaza, Kansas City The Grove, Los Angeles The Farmer’s Market, Los Angeles Larchmont, Los Angeles Hollywood and Highland (now Ovation), Los Angeles Harley-Davidson dealerships’ Parts Bar Mercado Gonzalez, Costa Mesa, CA

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

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

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

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

Mankind’s quest for verticality has an underexplored dimension: the queasy feeling of vertigo many experience when close to the edge of a sheer drop. Davide Deriu, Reader in Architectural History and Theory at the University of Westminster, London, has taken on the relative lack of research into the subject with an interdisciplinary approach, captured in his book On Balance: Architecture and Vertigo. Come, stand on the edge with us. -- Intro/Outro: “Vertigo” by U2 -- Discussed:            Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock, 1958          Vertical: The City from Satellites to Bunkers, Stephen Graham, 2016          Vertigo in the City program at University of Westminster, 2015        The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies, Roland Barthes, 1979          Funambulism              Jean François "Blondin" Gravelet – Niagara Falls wire walk, 1859        Philippe Petit, World Trade Center wire walk, 1974              Jan Gehl on humans’ “natural” habitat in horizontal planes            Singapore’s HDB social high-rises             Mies’ insertion of ventilation grilles in front of the glass curtain wall at the Seagram Building, 1958           Prosper Meniere, father of the vestibular sciences

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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