Wendy Gilmartin

We talk with architect and journalist Wendy Gilmartin. We discuss the relationship and practice of architecture informed by journalism, and the nature of Los Angeles Architecture. As a former writer for LA Weekly, and longtime professor at CAL Poly Pomona, and former advisor for the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Design Wendy has a deep connection and understanding of what makes up the city. We talk about small projects, building after disaster, and what makes Los Angeles architecture unique.

In this episode we talk with Adrienne Nelson, principal at Pickard Chilton where she leads their design teams across a diverse portfolio including office, life science, mass timber, and interior architecture. We delve into her work with mass timber in projects like the Atco Commercial Center in Calgary, how we can start to address the housing shortfall, and her optimism for the future of architecture. Link: https://www.pickardchilton.com/about/leadership/adrienne-nelson

For episode 3, we talk with Alexander Robinson, director of the LA River Integrated Design Lab, and Office of Outdoor Research and Landscape Morphologies, and Associate Professor at the University of Southern California.  What does it mean to design landscapes in a city of cities like Los Angeles? In a place defined by its fraught and tragic history of the built environment and complex politics, we discuss community engagement, augmented reality, physical models, and the complex politics of design.   USC Profile: https://arch.usc.edu/people/alexander-robinson Office of Outdoor Research: https://oorscapes.com/  

We interview Hernan Diaz Alonso, designer and for nearly the past decade Director of SCI-Arc. Hernan has exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art, New York; SFMoMA to name a few. He is widely credited with spearheading SCI-Arc's transition to digital technologies, and he played a key role in shaping the school's graduate curriculum over the last decade. We talk about what it means to design, and why architecture anchors us to memory and stillness. With memory, we talk about the nature of learning, about the changing need and nature of education and the institutions that support them, and the nature of architecture and education as necessary luxuries.   SCI-Arc Profile: https://www.sciarc.edu/people/faculty/hernan-diaz-alonso   HDA-X: https://www.hda-x.co/    

In our first episode, we interview Sean Lally, architect, professor, and host of the most successful architecture podcast, Night White Skies, and author of ​'The Air from Other Planets: A Brief History of Architecture to Come' (Lars Müller).  Join us for this first conversation as we talk about architecture's relationship to music, creative performance, writing, and paranoia. We discuss why is architecture a mute force in public life, and what can architects, designers, and people do to communicate in this crowded media landscape? We ask if drawings are still a useful medium to communicate ideas with in a world of digital twins, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and increasingly realistic simulations. Finally we get into how to run a show, talk to famous people, and not get jaded.   Night White Skies Podcast: https://nightwhiteskies.com/ Sean Lally Architecture: https://www.seanlally.net/