GSAPP Conversations

Dean Amale Andraos speaks with GSAPP Associate Professor Laura Kurgan, who directs the school's Visual Studies curriculum and the Center for Spatial Research. Her work explores subjects ranging from digital mapping technologies to the ethics and politics of mapping, and the art, science and visualization of data. They discuss the Center for Spatial Research's recently completed Brain Index, a large-scale interactive installation for Columbia University's Mind, Brain, Behavioral Institute, as well as Kurgan's ongoing research project Conflict Urbanism: Aleppo.

Dean Amale Andraos speaks with Mark Lee of Johnston Marklee on the occasion of his lecture in GSAPP’s Arguments series in July 2017. Lee is co-curator with Sharon Johnston of the Chicago Architecture Biennial opening on September 15, 2017. In this podcast they discuss the biennial’s theme “Make New History” and the role of books in contemporary architectural practice.

Dean Amale Andraos speaks with Mark Lee of Johnston Marklee on the occasion of his lecture in GSAPP’s Arguments series in July 2017. Lee is co-curator with Sharon Johnston of the Chicago Architecture Biennial opening on September 15, 2017. In this podcast they discuss the biennial’s theme “Make New History” and the role of books in contemporary architectural practice.

We’ll be taking a break from our regular publishing schedule during the month of August, and hope that you’ll join us again in September for a new season. Upcoming episodes will feature Mark Lee, co-curator with Sharon Johnston of this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial; Laura Kurgan, director of Columbia GSAPP’s Center for Spatial Research; Anne Lacaton of the French firm Lacaton & Vassal; and legendary artist and architect James Wines, founder of the environmental arts studio SITE.

Listen to this bonus episode to hear a excerpts from some of our earlier episodes with Juan Herreros, Carlos Bayod Lucini and Adam Lowe of Factum Arte, the London-based office vPPR, and Kate Orff of SCAPE.

We’ll be taking a break from our regular publishing schedule during the month of August, and hope that you’ll join us again in September for a new season. Upcoming episodes will feature Mark Lee, co-curator with Sharon Johnston of this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial; Laura Kurgan, director of Columbia GSAPP’s Center for Spatial Research; Anne Lacaton of the French firm Lacaton & Vassal; and legendary artist and architect James Wines, founder of the environmental arts studio SITE.

Listen to this bonus episode to hear a excerpts from some of our earlier episodes with Juan Herreros, Carlos Bayod Lucini and Adam Lowe of Factum Arte, the London-based office vPPR, and Kate Orff of SCAPE.

ArchDaily's Editor-at-Large James Taylor-Foster speaks with Columbia GSAPP faculty Christoph Kumpusch, who directs the school's Core I studios. Kumpusch introduces his Extraction Lab, a new five-year project launching in August 2017 with a student summer workshop at the Burning Man festival in Black Rock Desert, Nevada.

ArchDaily's Editor-at-Large James Taylor-Foster speaks with Columbia GSAPP faculty Christoph Kumpusch, who directs the school's Core I studios. Kumpusch introduces his Extraction Lab, a new five-year project launching in August 2017 with a student summer workshop at the Burning Man festival in Black Rock Desert, Nevada.

Third-year M.Arch student Ayesha Ghosh speaks with Anupama Kundoo on the occasion of her lecture at Columbia GSAPP in November 2016. Kundoo, who started her award-winning practice in 1990, discusses the relationship between material and technology, involving people in the making of their houses to develop a new model for affordable housing, and her belief that many global versus local arguments miss the fact that people are not as different as one thinks.

"My deep belief is that architecture lies in the non-material. ... Architecture is all about occupying the void and shaping the void and designing the void. Materials are there to hold the space."

–Anupama Kundoo

Third-year M.Arch student Ayesha Ghosh speaks with Anupama Kundoo on the occasion of her lecture at Columbia GSAPP in November 2016. Kundoo, who started her award-winning practice in 1990, discusses the relationship between material and technology, involving people in the making of their houses to develop a new model for affordable housing, and her belief that many global versus local arguments miss the fact that people are not as different as one thinks.

"My deep belief is that architecture lies in the non-material. ... Architecture is all about occupying the void and shaping the void and designing the void. Materials are there to hold the space."

–Anupama Kundoo

Current Columbia GSAPP student Jarrett Ley speaks with Zeynep Çelik Alexander, who taught the course "Questions in Architectural History" at GSAPP in the Fall of 2016 and delivered the school's 2017 Detlef Mertens Lecture on the History of Modernity. Alexander is an associate professor at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. In this podcast, she discusses her ongoing research on the history of modern architecture since the Enlightenment and the meaning of "Gestaltung", the need for developing new language suitable for contemporary practice, and the role of architecture schools within the context of research universities.

“We haven’t yet developed the language with which to understand the world that we live in.”

–Zeynep Çelik Alexander