Podcast

In these three episodes of GSAPP Conversations, a podcast series designed to offer a window onto the expanding field of contemporary architectural practice, three globally-operating emerging practices are pressed and interviewed by students and staff from the New York-based school.

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In this third episode of GSAPP Conversations, Columbia GSAPP Associate Professor Mabel O. Wilson speaks with Sharon Sutton about the publication of her new book, When Ivory Towers Were Black, which tells the story of how an unparalleled cohort of ethnic minority students earned degrees from Columbia University’s School of Architecture (GSAPP) during a time of fierce struggles to open the ivory tower to ethnic minority students.

In this second episode of GSAPP Conversations, Amale Andraos speaks with Spanish architect and GSAPP Professor Juan Herreros about the relationship between teaching and practicing architecture, and how he has carefully designed a particular way of working globally. Herreros, who co-founded Abalos&Herreros in 1984 and currently leads estudio Herreros, offers insight into how working sensitively in foreign settings also helps to develop a robust local practice, and how he is bringing new models of emerging practices to his students in GSAPP’s Advanced Architecture Studios.

In the past 10 years, the Curry Stone Design Prize has grown to become one of the world’s preeminent awards honoring socially impactful design professionals and the influence of design as a force for improving lives and strengthening communities.

This year, in honor of the prize’s 10th anniversary, the Curry Stone Foundation will acknowledge the largest group of influential practices yet, recognizing 100 firms over the next twelve months as members of the “Social Design Circle.” Each firm will be profiled on the award website, as well as participate in the foundation’s new podcast, Social Design Insights, beginning on January 5th, 2017.

Architecture critic Kate Wagner has collaborated with 99% invisible on a podcast and a guest column delving into the tragedies of McMansions and the representation of evil through architecture in film, respectively.

In the podcast, Wagner, who is the author of McMansion Hell, is interviewed by Roman Mars and explains how the McMansion typology evolved, as well as how it became so despised, delving into topics of architectural history and representations of wealth.

Through her article as a guest columnist, Wagner explores the real-world buildings used in film to depict the evil corporation archetype in movies like Robocop, Blade Runner, and The Matrix.

In a recent article for 99% Invisible, Kurt Kohlstedt explores how integrating microalgae into buildings can create a dualistic system of living and built, in order to perform services like create shade, generate power, and work with HVAC systems to modulate interior environments.

Projects that utilize such technology include bioreactors that produce oxygen and bio-fuel, a building with a bio-adaptive façade, and a street lamp that filters carbon dioxide from the urban environment.

In the latest edition of Section D, Monocle 24's weekly review of design, architecture and craft, Henry Rees-Sheridan visits Oslo to speak to Hanna Dencik Petersson, Director of the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale, and Alejandra Navarrete Llopis and Ignacio González Galán – two members of its curatorial team, the After Belonging Agency. The show explores the concept behind the exhibitions of the Triennale, what it means to be located in Norway's capital, and how the event's trajectory is both a symptom and cause of Oslo’s development as a design city. ArchDaily's James Taylor-Foster weighs in on After Belonging's significance.

In two intriguing new podcasts, the team over at 99% Invisible uncovered some never-before-heard audio and forgotten secrets about elements of architectural history. In the first, The Mind of an Architect, producer Avery Trufelman explores the audio archives of the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR), where a study undertaken in the late 1950s mapped the personalities of prominent architects. Eero Saarinen, Philip Johnson, and Richard Neutra were among the study group, and the data came to some interesting conclusions about the role of ego and the presence of creativity.

In the second, Photo Credit; The Negatives of the Bauhaus Sam Greenspan explores the misattribution of credit for some of the most prolific images of the Bauhaus. Taken in the 1930s by German photographer Lucia Moholy, the historic images paint one of the clearest pictures of life at the Bauhaus. In the turmoil of the war, her negatives were lost, and absorbed by the school's collection, denying her the credit she deserved.

All architects desire recognition of their built work; for their signature design style to be identified, or for the quality of materials and details to outshine those around it. Unfortunately, if every new architectural structure was to insert itself into its context looking to be the star, soon it would become impossible to gauge the civic relevance of the area. Some buildings, such as Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, appear dislocated with due cause, but others stand out for the sake of standing out, turning their back on their rich historical setting.

While there can be no singular strategy for contextual integration, Kurt Kohlstedt argues that a consideration of historical context, whether eventually chosen to acquiesce with or deny, will result in richer and more engaging built environment. In his latest essay for 99% Invisible, Kohlstedt unpacks the myriad ways in which a new building can engage with what was there before, highlighting examples which successfully and unsuccessfully take up the challenge. He acknowledges the difficulty of finding the sweet spot, as many designs are unable to navigate the "fine line between contextual and contemporary."