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Interviews: The Latest Architecture and News

The Second Studio Podcast: Interview with Jai Kumaran

The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.

A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design are joined by Architect Jai Kumaran, founding partner of West of West to discuss his background; the influence his father’s work had on his career; attending architecture school; why he pursued a master’s degree; starting and growing an office; exploring project types; branding in architecture; and more!

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The Second Studio Podcast: Local Architecture and Natural Landscapes of the Southwest

The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.

A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design discuss the local architecture, adobe buildings, and natural landscapes of the southwest region of the United States. The two cover the role nature has in cities, designing experiences, how architecture can co-exist with the natural landscape, craftsmanship, and more. Destinations included the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West, and Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti.

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The Second Studio Podcast: Interview with Mark Bullivant

The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.

A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design are joined by Architect Mark Bullivant, Principal of SAOTA to discuss his background; attending architecture school in South Africa; working on projects across continents; the differing roles of contractors in different areas of the work; their collaborative approach; leadership and management of a large office; the various types of projects they work on; and more!

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"Architecture Is About Humanism": In Conversation with Shelley McNamara

Shelley McNamara is one-half of the renowned Irish-based Grafton Architects studio, together with Yvonne Farrell. Pritzker Prize 2020 Laureates founded their practice in 1978 and are well-known for their co-curation of the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. In this interview with Louisiana Channel, McNamara talks through her design theories, direction, inspirations, and the studio’s approach to “humanism.”

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“Our Mission Is to Preserve and Explore the Neutra Legacy”: In Conversation with Raymond Neutra, the Youngest Son of Richard Neutra

It was, of course, Frank Lloyd Wright who set up the ground for modern architecture to happen in Los Angeles. Then came the Viennese, Rudolph Schindler in 1920 and Richard Neutra in 1925 at the invitation of Schindler. Both worked for Wright choosing to learn from him what they saw as essential—by focusing on spatial and formal clarity, transformability, restrained materiality, and the living environment to achieve a desirable quality of life within. Neutra and Schindler collaborated at first, and then each built a rich portfolio, mainly comprising houses and apartment blocks. Universal in principle, these abstract robust structures defined and led the development of a local building vernacular. These buildings, of which there are several hundred, are now strongly associated with the two architects’ adopted city.

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“Architecture Needed to Be Liberated from Itself”: In Conversation with James Wines

James Wines, a New York architect and environmental artist, has been on a mission of sorts. He believes that architecture needs to be liberated from itself. This act of liberation is expressed in many radical projects that he and his company, SITE (Sculpture In The Environment) realized in 11 countries. Wines is world famous for such projects as Ghost Parking Lot (Hamden, CO, 1977), Highrise of Homes (theoretical project, 1981), Highway 86 (Vancouver, Canada, 1986), Fondazione Pietro Rossini Pavilion (Briosco, Italy, 2008), and Off-White Showroom for Virgil Abloh (Ginza, Tokyo, 2021). The very essence of the architect’s work is expressed in his fascinating stores for BEST Products Company, the key focus of my conversation with the architect that took place over Zoom on August 10, 2022, following many of our in-person meetings.

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Bringing People Together Through Architecture: In Conversation with Lina Ghotmeh, the Designer of the 2023 Serpentine Pavilion

While visiting this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, the ArchDaily team has a chance to sit down with French-Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh, the designer behind the temporary structure built in the Kensington Gardens in London. The conversation touched upon Ghotmeh’s motivations and concepts that prompted this pavilion titled À table, conceived as an invitation to sit down together at a table, to enjoy sharing food and engaging in open dialogues. Delving into her Lebanese roots, the architect also expands on her methodology and the desire to create space for conversation and decision-making while encouraging conviviality among people of different backgrounds and experiences. The ArchDaily team also talked to Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries, about the pavilion as a platform for architecture and the arts.

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The Second Studio Podcast: Interview with Denise Scott Brown

The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.

A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design are joined by Denise Scott Brown, architect, planner and urban designer, and a theorist, writer and educator to discuss her background and upbringing in South Africa; her beginnings in architecture; traveling the world; how teaching impacted her life and career; the National Gallery and other of her projects being remodeled; and much more!

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The Second Studio Podcast: Interview with Anthony Laney

The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.

A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

This week Anthony Laney, Founder of Laney LA joins David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design to discuss the iterative design process, leadership and teamwork, how Laney LA has evolved, designing different kinds of buildings, refining their design sensibilities, and more!

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Sunlight Shadows for Slow but Colorful Façade Movements with Pierre Brault

When transparent facade elements deliberately evolve from the course of the sun, we can explore a fascinating slow movement in stark contrast to the hectic urban street life on the ground. Especially the French designer Pierre Brault has responded to the accelerated rhythm of our society with facade installations that combine the principle of the sundial with colorful pop design. His three-dimensional works made of recycled colored plexiglass mesmerize through simple but dramatic movements of colored shadows. In the interview, Brault explains his inspiration, the experimental approach and his interest in working responsibly with material.

The Complex Culture of Nightrise in Jabal ‘Amil, Lebanon

As farmers water crops by moonlight, undocumented children head to school and villagers scan the sky for surveillance airplanes—these are glimpses of a complex culture that emerges in south Lebanon after dark. In collecting some of these nightly practices, Mohamad Nahleh—lecturer in architecture and urbanism at MIT—journeyed across the landscapes of Jabal ‘Amil hoping to build a new alliance between architecture and the night. His "Path of Nightrise" research has turned into a construction to revive a forgotten river path and was published by Places Journal. The interview with Nahleh argues for a new nocturnal imagination in design and reveals, not only how the night has changed in Lebanon over time, but also how he has changed alongside it.

Sustainability, A.I., and the Future of Construction in India: An Interview with Amit Gupta

Currently working on 45 simultaneous projects, including India’s largest bio-diversity park in India and the second largest in the world, Amit Gupta has been leading Studio Simbiosis for the past 12 years with a special focus on sustainability where performance follows experience more than form following function.

In this 2022 version of the World Architecture Festival, in Lisbon, ArchDaily had the opportunity to talk with Amit Gupta and discuss the main philosophy behind Studio Simbiosis, the challenges of building in India’s low-tech context, and the future of artificial intelligence and the metaverse in architectural design.

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Blair Kamin: ‘Who Is the City For?’

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Blair Kamin stepped down as architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune in January 2021, after a nearly 30-year run in the post. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for a body of work highlighted by a series on Chicago’s lakefront, including a story that documented the race- and class-based disparity between the city’s north and south lakefronts. He has previously published two collections of his work: Why Architecture Matters (2001) and Terror and Wonder (2010), both from the University of Chicago Press. His third collection, Who is the City For? Architecture, Equity, and the Public Realm in Chicago, was released last week. Recently I talked to Kamin about the new book, the state of post-pandemic Chicago, and the need for more mainstream architecture criticism. I will post the second of our conversations tomorrow, in which the critic pushes the need for a redefinition of the phrase “design equity.”

“I Followed My Father’s Advice and Did Not Design a House for My Family” in Conversation With Paul Tange

In the following interview with Paul Tange, the chairman and senior principal architect at Tange Associates in Tokyo, we discussed the relationship with his famous architect-father Kenzo Tange (1913-2005; the most influential architect in postwar Japan and the winner of the 1987 Pritzker Prize), the fate of the house Tange senior built for his first family, the decision of joining his father’s practice right after graduation from Harvard, sharing his father’s design principles, and the vision behind his first independent built work – a 50-story Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower in Tokyo, a vertical campus that can accommodate up to 10,000 students; the project won an international competition, in which 50 international architects participated.

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Hanif Kara: As Engineers We Are Still Judged by What We Finished, Not What We Wrote About

In the complex trade of architecture and construction, you are never alone. And behind every great building there is a strong team of professionals combining their expertise. 

Hanif Kara OBE is a structural engineer and one of the founders of AKT II, one of the top engineering firms in the world. Based in London, he has been closely collaborating with some of the world’s most innovative architects, including Grafton Architects, David Chipperfield, Norman Foster, BIG, Zaha Hadid, Thomas Heatherwick, and many more.

Notable projects include the Kingston University Town House by Grafton Architects, the Bloomberg HQ by Foster + Partners and the Peckham Library by Will Alsop, all recognized with the RIBA Stirling Prize, and the recently completed Twist Museum by BIG, LSE Marshall Building by Grafton Architects, and 404 One Park Drive by Herzog & de Meuron.

“Turning Challenges into Opportunities”: In Conversation with East Architecture Studio, One of the Winners of the 2020-2022 Aga Khan Award

This year, one of the winners of the Aga Khan Award was the Renovation of the Niemeyer Guest House by East Architecture Studio. The project is located on Tripoli’s outskirts in Lebanon, and it is part of the Rachid Karami International Fair (RKIF), an unfinished masterpiece by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. ArchDaily’s Managing Editor, Christele Harrouk had the chance to sit with Charles Kettaneh and Nicolas Fayad, founders of the East Architecture Studio, on-site in "the Niemeyer Guest House Renovation" project. Talking about modern heritage and the challenges of renovations, the architects opened the conversation about the role of architecture in building platforms for change.

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Eyal Weizman on Forensic Architecture: ''Mapping is Power''

“Since I remember myself, I have wanted to be an architect… I could see the way that neighborhoods were organized. I could see the separation. I could see the frontier areas between the Palestinian community and the Jewish majority,” expresses Eyal Weizman in conversation with Louisiana Channel, in regards to understanding the ‘political significance’ of architecture and the potential of the occupation as a critical tool for understanding the world.

Eyal Weizman was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner at Forensic Architecture’s studio in London, in April 2022. As the head of Forensic Architecture, he is renowned for his part within the multidisciplinary research group, using a combination of architectural technologies and techniques to investigate instances of state violence and violations of human rights across the globe. Growing up in Haifa, Israel he developed an understanding of the political connotations within architecture from an early stage.

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Explore the DAAily Bar's Space at the 2022 Milan Design Week

As the design world prepares for one of the most anticipated events of the year, Designboom, Architonic, and ArchDaily which make up DAAily platforms have put together for the visitors of Milan Design Week 2022, a unique, storytelling-programmed space, designed by architects and designers for architects and designers. This year, DAAily platforms are taking the opportunity to take to the stage together from 7 to 10 June at the Swiss Corner at Piazza Cavour / Via Palestro 2, hosting curated talk series and gathering spots, along with immersive art installations.

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