Night White Skies

Elisa Iturbe is a critic at the Yale University School of Architecture (YSoA), where she also coordinates the dual-degree program between YSoA and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Her writings have been published in Log, Dearq, and Pulp, in addition to a forthcoming piece in Perspecta. Most recently she guest edited Log 47, titled Overcoming Carbon Form, an issue dedicated to redefining the relationship between architectural form and our dominant energy paradigm. She also co-wrote a book with Peter Eisenman titled Lateness, forthcoming in May 2020. In addition, she teaches studio, formal analysis, and a course on carbon form at the Cooper Union. She is cofounder of Outside Development, an architectural practice.

Today is a conversation with Charles Waldheim. Waldheim is a Canadian-American architect and urbanist. Waldheim's research examines the relations between landscape, ecology, and contemporary urbanism. He is author, editor, or co-editor of numerous books on these subjects, and his writing has been published and translated internationally. Waldheim is John E. Irving Professor at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design where he directs the School's Office for Urbanization. Waldheim is recipient of the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome; the Visiting Scholar Research Fellowship at the Study Centre of the Canadian Centre for Architecture; the Cullinan Chair at Rice University; and the Sanders Fellowship at the University of Michigan

Today we're talking about an article he wrote called 'Aero-Gangplank and the Avant-Gard' which appeared in LOG 46. This episode is called 'Overcoming Spatial Fixity'. I'm not sure that's the BEST title for this conversation but we begin by discussing the development of airports in the 1950's and the eventual use of gangplanks that get passengers from the terminal to the plane. This moves us to discussions of other examples within architecture that have sought to overcome fixity (from the kinetic movements of the Aero Gangplank, to Clip On's & Plug In's of Archigram and others, to the non monumental system architecture of Cedric Price's Fun Palace.

I thought it was a great conversation and I hope you enjoy.

A quick thanks you to the Graham Foundation in Chicago for supporting this program!

Until next time...Take care.

Jo is a guest editor of 'Strange Economics' and wrote the afterward for the book. Jo is also co-editor (with Polina Levontin) of Vector, the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association. Recent essays and fiction appear in Strange Economics, Science Fiction Studies, Big Echo: Critical Science Fiction, Gross Ideas: Tales of Tomorrow's Architecture, and Economic Science Fictions.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition to the book How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, Dr. Barrett has published over 200 peer-reviewed, scientific papers appearing in Science, Nature Neuroscience, and other top journals in psychology and cognitive neuroscience

Alexander Eisenschmidt is the author of 'The Good Metropolis, Between Urban Formlessness and Metropolitan Architecture' Birkhauser, 2018 Alexander is a designer, theorist, and Associate Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Illinois at Chicago, where he teaches design studios and courses in history & theory.

Dr. Kiang is a biometeorologist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York. She conducts research on the interaction between the biosphere and the atmosphere, focusing on life on land. Dr. Kiang also relates this work to research in astrobiology, particularly with regard to how photosynthetic activity produces signs of life at the global scale and how these may exhibit adaptations to alternative environments on extrasolar planets, resulting in other "biosignatures" that might be detected by space telescopes.

Neil Denari is principal of Neil M. Denari Architects / NMDA and a Professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA. With NMDA, Denari works on building projects in North America, Europe and Asia. In 2012, NMDA won first prize in the New Keelung Harbor Service Building competition. Denari lectures worldwide and has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, and Rice among other schools. He is the author of Interrupted Projections (1996), Gyroscopic Horizons (1999), and MASS X (2018).

This week is with Mark A. Cheetham discussing his book 'Landscape into Eco Art: Articulations of Nature since the 60's'

This week is with Rachel Armstrong, Professor of Experimental Architecture at the Department of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University. Rachel Armstrong leads Metabolism research in developing artificial biology systems showing qualities of near-living systems. Armstrong is the author of the books Origamy and Invisible Ecologies.

'The Efficiency Paradox: What Big Data Can't Do'. Edward Tenner is a distinguished scholar of the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation and a visiting scholar in the Rutgers University Department of History. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Wilson Quarterly, and Forbes.com.