Criticism Is a Love Letter

This week on the Brick & Wonder podcast, we're joined by Sue Chan, a food industry veteran and founder of Care of Chan, a hospitality-driven marketing and event production agency.Sue's early career included Momofuku, where she worked with David Chang and saw food become a vehicle for influencing culture and behavior. As the internet took hold in the mid-2000s, she watched food and restaurant culture move into the public zeitgeist, then tip into oversaturation.We discuss her bullish outlook on in-person experience as a counterweight to digital oversaturation. In Sue's view, technology has become the new monoculture, and in-person gathering is the counterculture.This episode is brought to you by MADERA, specialists in handcrafted wood floors and Seamless Wood Design® solutions.

This week on the Brick & Wonder podcast, we're joined by Jen Monroe, a chef, artist, and food designer whose company Bad Taste is committed to exploring new ways of thinking about food and consumption, approaching food as fantasy and as a transportive medium.The conversation explores Jen's journey in the world of food and design. She describes what she does as visually centric cooking, or cooking for the eyes. She curates events with food at the center in a visual and spatial capacity. Feeling, form, and color are throughlines in her work. She's a creative and a business owner who consistently struggles with the conflicts inherent to simultaneously holding these dual roles.

This week on the Brick & Wonder podcast, we're joined by David Michon, design journalist and publisher of the Substack newsletter FOR SCALE, where he provides fresh perspectives on the state of design.The conversation explores David's thoughts on elitism and exclusivity versus access and the quotidian in the world of design, the different ways people engage with design, and the state of the media business, advertising, brand activations, and the notion of patronage. We also dig into David's belief that criticism is inherently optimistic.This episode is brought to you by MADERA, specialists in handcrafted wood floors and Seamless Wood Design® solutions.

This week on the Brick & Wonder podcast, we are joined by Dan Parker, Co-Head of New Development for Compass, a real estate brokerage and services firm based in New York City.The conversation explores how working for artist Julian Schnabel led Dan to a career in real estate, and how he has come to believe that New York real estate is a block-by-block market. We discuss why it is critical for developers and their architects to align buildings with their specific location in the city, and why views and amenities are, above all else, today's sales drivers. Dan also takes us into politics, taxes, and the many other forces that touch the world of real estate.

This week on the Brick & Wonder podcast, we are joined by Nigerien architect Mariam Issoufou.The conversation explores Mariam’s journey into architecture, the assumptions she has challenged along the way, and how her work pushes back on dominant ideas of modernity and progress. Shaped by her contemporary perspective on climate change and post-colonial identity, we discuss why architecture is not neutral, and why meaningful design must respond to economic, cultural, and climatic realities, not just aesthetics.This episode is brought to you by MADERA, specialists in handcrafted wood floors and Seamless Wood Design® solutions.

This week we are joined by Debbie Millman, a graphic designer, podcaster, and the chair and co-founder of the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts. The episode focuses on the theme of designing your life, and Debbie’s unique framework for doing so. We talk about how fear and regret get in the way, and that ultimately, how successful we are depends not only on the goals we set, but whether or not we act or succumb to our fears.After interviewing the world’s leading creatives for 21 years on her podcast, Design Matters, Debbie brings a deep understanding of how to lead a creatively fulfilling life.

This week we are kicking off season three of the podcast with the urbanist and real estate developer Coby Lefkowitz.The conversation explores what it would take to develop new housing at scale today, why fashion commands public imagination in ways that real estate and design rarely do, and more.This episode is brought to you by MADERA, specialists in handcrafted wood floors and Seamless Wood Design® solutions.

This week on the Brick & Wonder podcast, our hosts sit down with two design leaders in the hospitality world: Aliya Khan, Vice President of Global Design Strategy & Product Development at Marriott International, and Matt Berman, Founding Principal at Workshop/APD.Together, they explore their collaboration on the Moxy hotel in Banff, Alberta; the joy of working with open, supportive collaborators; how hospitality design demands flexing brands to meet context; and the unexpected paths that shaped their design careers.This episode is brought to you by Reilly Architectural, known for their custom windows and doors, and Madera, specialists in handcrafted wood floors and Seamless Wood Design® solutions.

Today on the Brick & Wonder podcast we sat down with custom home builder and industry thought leader Nick Schiffer and James Robb, co-founder of Madera, specialists in hardwood finishes.Recorded at 45 White Oak, an ambitious home Nick has developed and built in Wellesley, Massachusetts, this candid conversation explores how to have challenging conversations with clients, the ups and downs of business ventures that don’t yet pencil, and their goal of productizing their practices to create more seamless client experiences.This episode is brought to you by Reilly Architectural, known for their custom windows and doors, and Madera, specialists in handcrafted wood floors and Seamless Wood Design® solutions.

This week on the Brick & Wonder podcast, we sat down with developer Sam Alison-Mayne of Tankhouse and architect Jing Liu of SO-IL, whose long-running collaboration is reshaping multifamily housing in Brooklyn.Beginning with this episode, Ravi Arps joins as co-host of the podcast. Ravi is the founder and principal of Plane, a construction company based in New York City and the Hudson Valley.This episode is brought to you by Reilly Architectural, known for their custom windows and doors, and Madera, specialists in handcrafted wood floors and Seamless Wood Design® solutions.