Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) presents two podcast series featuring in-depth interviews with leading design practitioners from around the world. “Talking Practice,” produced by the Practice Platform, investigates the ways in which architects, landscape architects, designers, and planners articulate design imagination through practice. “Future of the American City,” from the Office for Urbanization, explores alternative futures and convenes conversations about how we live, where we live. Learn more below about both series and how to listen.

 

Talking Practice

Paul-and-Grace-Podcast-Interview

Grace La MArch ’95 speaks with Paul Nakazawa.

Hosted by Grace La MArch ’95, professor of architecture and chair of the practice platform, each 40-minute episode provides a rare glimpse into the work, experiences, and attitudes of design luminaries, many of whom are GSD alumni. Comprehensive, thought-provoking, and timely, “Talking Practice” tells the story of what designers do, why, and how they do it—exploring the key issues at stake in practice today.

Episodes include:

  • Lyndon Neri MArch ’92 and Rossana Hu, partners and co-founders of Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, and the John C. Portman Design Critics in architecture at the GSD.
  • Preston Scott Cohen MArch ’85, founder and principal of Preston Scott Cohen Inc, and Gerald M. McCue Professor in Architecture at the GSD.
  • Gary Hilderbrand MLA ’85, founding principal and partner at Reed Hilderbrand, and Peter Louis Hornbeck Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at the GSD.
  • Anna Heringer, founder and principal of Anna Heringer Architects, and honorary professor of the UNESCO Chair of Earthen Architecture, Building Cultures, and Sustainable Development
  • Shohei Shigematsu, partner at Office of Metropolitan Architects (OMA) and head of the New York office.
  • Paul Nakazawa, Associate Professor in Practice of Architecture at the GSD.
  • Jeanne Gang MArch ’93, founder and principal of Studio Gang, Professor in Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and 2011 MacArthur Fellow.
  • Reinier de Graaf, the longest non-founding partner at the Office of Metropolitan Architects and co-founder of AMO, the think tank of OMA.

Upcoming episode: Grace La speaks with Kersten Geers about his practice OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen and the meaning of architecture without content. Listen to a sneak peek below.

 

Listen to all available episodes and find program notes on the GSD website, or subscribe to the series via one of these podcast providers: iTunesAndroidGoogleStitcher, and Spotify.

 

Future of the American City

Future of American city logoSupported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and generous donors to the American Cities Fund, this series of 10 episodes lanched in May 2019; it investigates Miami and other urban areas considering issues related to urban planning, adaptation to climate change, transit, equity and more. 

The most recent episode from December 2019 features Associate Professor of Architecture Eric Höweler, an architect and educator whose work deals with building technology and the public realm. He and Alumni Council member Corey Zehngebot MArch ’09 led the fall 2019 option studio “Adapting Miami Housing on the Transect,” which centered on new strategies for urban housing, focusing on the issues of typology, density, transit, and climate adaptability.

Future of American city Howler

The other nine episodes include interviews with:

  • Sean Canty MArch ’14 is an architect and educator whose work focuses on building type and geometry. Among other things, he has recently engaged in teaching a course on reimagining housing and public space in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood.
  • Laurinda Spear and Margarita Blanco are architects and landscape architects whose work at ArquitectonicaGEO focuses on creating ecologically performative public spaces.
  • Rodolphe el-Khoury is an architect, historian, and educator whose recent work deals with smart cities and embedded technology.
  • Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk is a pioneering urban planner, architect, and educator. She has been instrumental in developing the City of Miami’s form-based zoning code, Miami 21.
  • Craig Robins is a Miami real estate developer whose projects focus on arts, culture, and historic preservation.
  • Rosetta S. Elkin is a landscape architect who uses design as a means to address risk, injustice, and instability brought on by climate change.
  • Lily Song is an urban planner whose work aims to center the experiences of marginalized groups in the policy and development process.
  • Chris Reed is a landscape architect specializing in dynamic ecologies and generative processes.
  • Toni L. Griffin LF ’98 is an urban planner who employs a value-based approach to urbanism, examining the ways design and planning figure into to questions of equality and inclusion. Griffin’s pursuit of the “Just City” has led her across the country to push for urban design that promotes access, choice, and empowerment.

Subscribe to the series via one of these podcast providers: iTunes and Stitcher.