GSAPP Conversations

James Brillon, a third-year M.Arch student at Columbia GSAPP, speaks with Joe Noero of Noero Architects on the occasion of his lecture at the school on October 16, 2017. They discuss the relationship between democracy and architecture and how this is expressed in Noero’s Table House project: stacking structures that provide shack dwellers with a framework to both improve their homes and acquire skilled labor. They also consider what an architect gains from teaching, and Noero shares his advice for students: “Go where the work is. Leave America. Leave Western Europe: they’re finished. … Africa’s population is going to double in forty years time. It’s going to be the continent of the future. That’s where you should go.” More information on Noero Architects at http://www.noeroarchitects.com/ Watch the full Jo Noero lecture video at https://www.arch.columbia.edu/events/729-jo-noero

Columbia GSAPP student Jarrett Ley speaks with James Wines on the occasion of his lecture at the school on October 9, 2017. Wines founded SITE, an environmental art and design organization, in New York City in 1970. His architecture, landscape and public space designs have been influential for decades. The work is based on a response to surrounding contexts, and spans more than one hundred and fifty projects internationally. Wines is also a Professor of Architecture at Penn State University, and he continues to write and lecture on integrative thinking and environmental issues internationally. More information on SITE at http://www.siteenvirodesign.com/ See the full lecture video at https://www.arch.columbia.edu/events/727-james-wines

GSAPP faculty and alumni Justin Garret Moore (M.Arch/MSUD '04) speaks with alumni Rosanne Haggerty (MSRED '89) on the occasion of her lecture at the school on October 2, 2017. Haggerty is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Community Solutions, an organization dedicated to building effective local housing systems and creating new models of housing and community development to prevent homelessness. Watch the lecture video at: www.arch.columbia.edu/events/725-rosanne-haggerty (http://www.arch.columbia.edu/events/725-rosanne-haggerty) More info about Community Solutions at: www.community.solutions (http://www.community.solutions)

Dean Amale Andraos speaks with Mimi Hoang and Eric Bunge, founding partners of nARCHITECTS. Hoang and Bunge are Adjunct Assistant Professors at Columbia GSAPP, where they teach Core Architecture Studios. In this episode, they discuss the need to rethink a building’s interaction with the city and its occupants, teaching students to consider typological, social, and economic units in new ways, and finding an alternative way of presenting their office in print – as a project in itself, rather than a through a series of projects – with their forthcoming book “Buildings and Almost Buildings”.  “Carmel Place is trying to reflect and respond to how we have changed — how the family structure has changed, how the demographics of cities have changed. All of that is pushing against our known assumptions of how we live. It was an extremely inspiring act to inset architecture into these much larger discussions about housing policy, zoning codes, etc., and to really insert architecture as a necessary act to respond to change.” —Mimi Hoang on nARCHITECT's modular housing project for Kips Bay, New York. nARCHITECTS: http://narchitects.com/ Carmel Place: https://www.aia.org/showcases/25486-carmel-place

James Brillon, third-year M.Arch student at Columbia GSAPP, speaks with Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa of Ensamble Studio on the occasion of their lecture at the school on September 25, 2017. They discuss the firm’s recent participation in the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the need for embedding localized notions of prefabrication in the design process, and the beneficial ways in which simultaneously working in rural and urban contexts can inform and influence the other. Ensamble describe their Chicago Tribune Tower project for the biennial – the Big Bang Tower – as an opportunity to challenge the relationship between a tower’s core and shell in order to create a new typology with a permeable structural perimeter expressing urbanity: “a column of columns”. They also describe the experience of working in the expansive western landscape of Montana for the Tippet Rise Art Center, where the perception and role of the building continually changes with the light, season, and climate. Ensamble has offices in Madrid, Spain, and Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to their architectural practice, Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa lead the POPlab (Prototypes of Prefabrication Research Laboratory) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.). The full lecture can be viewed at: www.arch.columbia.edu/events/724-ensamble (http://www.arch.columbia.edu/events/724-ensamble) Ensamble Studio information: https://www.ensamble.info

Justin Romeo, a second year Urban Planning student at Columbia GSAPP, speaks with Meng Yan of Urbanus on the occasion of his lecture at the school on September 18, 2017. They discuss the relationship between research and design in the Urbanus office, and Meng Yan's plans for the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, which he is co-curating in Shenzhen in December 2017. URBANUS was founded in 1999 by partners Liu Xiaodu, Wang Hui and Meng Yan, and is recognized as one of the most influential architecture practices in China. The firm focuses on urban realities in their research and built projects, seeking architectural solutions to emerging urban problems. Watch the full lecture at: https://www.arch.columbia.edu/events/723-urbanus Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture: http://en.szhkbiennale.org URBANUS information: http://www.urbanus.com.cn/

Paul Makovsky of Metropolis Magazine speaks with four recent members of the GSAPP Incubator: Michelle Young, Untapped Cities; Bika Rebek, SibilaSoon; Lauren Johnson, QSPACE; and Chris Barley, Consortia. They discuss their respective projects, how these were developed during their time at the Incubator, and what is coming up next in their work.

ArchDaily's Editor-at-Large James Taylor-Foster speaks with Tomas Koolhaas prior to his screening of the film REM at Columbia GSAPP on September 7, 2017. Tomas Koolhaas, the LA-based son of Rem Koolhaas, speaks about the process of conceiving, producing, and directing the film over the course of four years.

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.

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.

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

Third-year M.Arch student Ayesha Ghosh speaks with Fabrizio Barozzi, who co-founded Barozzi Veiga with Alberto Veiga in 2004. The Barcelona-based practice has won numerous competitions and their work has won awards throughout Europe. In this conversation, which took place on the occasion of his lecture at Columbia GSAPP on April 12, 2017, Barozzi describes his process and obsessions – including the role of research and his engagement with history, using this research to construct a narrative for the building, and the qualities he hopes to embed in his work. “How to find your own voice, starting from a different environment, or a different context … maybe this is one of my obsessions.” –Fabrizio Barozzi