The postponed 17th Venice Architecture Biennale asked its 112 participants to consider the question, “How will we live together?”. A question originally posed in 2019 by curator and architect, Hashim Sarkis far before our collective 2020 experience. He originally asked participants “to imagine spaces in which we can generously live together” Answers from 46 countries materialized into the exhibition of 2021. After a year spent living apart, the theme is both hauntingly fitting and reifies our...

The postponed 17th Venice Architecture Biennale asked its 112 participants to consider the question, “How will we live together?”. A question originally posed in 2019 by curator and architect, Hashim Sarkis far before our collective 2020 experience. He originally asked participants “to imagine spaces in which we can generously live together” Answers from 46 countries materialized into the exhibition of 2021. After a year spent living apart, the theme is both hauntingly fitting and reifies our...

For Trey Trahan, founder of Trahan Architects, human connection, ecology, and unvarnished beauty encompass the core ethos of his work which primarily focuses on creating cultural architectural spaces. With roots in New Orleans and their global perspective based in New York, they have risen to the rank of the number one design firm by Architect 50, an official publication of the American Institute of Architects. He leads his firm with the conviction of bringing humility and awareness into a...

A city that is good for children, is good for everyone. A concept that has begun to gain more traction as cities look to new urbanism principles to apply to their respective cities. It’s one Tim Gill, author of Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities, has been championing since the nineties. Based in the UK, he has laid a foundation for a career in research on the topic and was the former director of Play England, a children’s play council. In Tim’s book, he...

We are asking—is birth a design problem? Can rethinking and redesigning the ways birth is approached shift the outcomes of labor and birth experiences? Can it be instrumental in improving our qualities of life--in our environments, in cities, and beyond? And, as we explore how to create better cities for the next generation to work, live and play in, should we also consider the spaces in which that generation comes into this world? It’s these questions we will explore today with Kim Holden,...

Michael Green and Natalie Telewiak love wood. These Vancouver-based architects champion the idea that Earth can, and should, grow our buildings--or grow the materials we use to build them. They are the principals of Michael Green Architecture, or MGA, and have made it their mission to tackle world housing and climate change by harnessing the power of timber, which they call “the most technologically advanced material we can build with,” to sequester carbon, to accelerate construction and...

Michel Rojkind, founder of Rojkind Arquitectos is known as one of Mexico’s most successful architects. Projects like Foro Boca, a stunning sea-side home to the Boca del Rio Philharmonic Orchestra, or the Cinetecca Nacional that is home of arguably the most important film heritage center in Latin America, Mexico’s National Film Institute. Mercado Roma is a Mexican gastronomic expression designed from the inside-out and bottom-up. And finally, the Nestle Chocolate Museum immortalizes the...

"It only took a couple of seconds to destroy 40% of the city of Beirut on August 4th, 2020. A couple of trivial seconds were enough to determine the fate of the urban and social fabric of the Lebanese capital and its architectural heritage. Years and years of accumulated cultural assets fell instantly in distress, causing more harm than the infamous 15-year civil war. These seconds have erased the past, present, and destroyed future aspirations." Words taken from Christele Harrouk’s article...

Some of you may already know our next guest, New-York based, Indie filmmaker, Gary Hustwit, from his iconic trilogy of design-focused documentaries: First, Helvetica examines our visual culture and how a font impacts urban spaces, asking us to take another glance at the thousands of words we see every day. Objectified is a look into our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, “by extension, the people who design them.” And finally Urbanized — a window into how cities are designed,...

It’s hard to say what iconic graphic designer and typographer, Stefan Sagmeister, is most known for. His multi-decade career was first formed as the New York-based Sagmeister INC. in 1993 and went on to become Sagmeister & Walsh in 2012. Some of his best-known work includes iconic album covers and posters for artists like The Rolling Stones, the Talking Heads, and more--some of which went on to receive Grammies, cementing him as an epochal visual artist of our time. His intimate...

Julia is many things. Woman. Immigrant. Architect. Writer. Cornell Graduate. Director of Strategy at Trahan Architects. Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Madame Architect. The latter is her brainchild and arguably her most well-known work; an online magazine about, by, and for the women that shape the built environment. What is so special about the work she is doing with Madame Architect? Her commitment is to profile women in all stages of their careers, who break the mold of what an architect...

Vishaan Chakrabarti, the founder and creative director of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) as well as the Dean of the William W. Wurster College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley discusses the future of mobility, designing streets as public spaces and creating an architecture of belonging with reSITE founder, Martin Barry. Vishaan has made some thoughtful arguments against banal, processed urban design being detrimental to our ability to thrive as...

Winy Maas is constantly looking towards the future and asking the question - what’s next? The co-founder of MVRDV has ideas that are seemingly larger than life, and push the boundaries of our urban potential. His firm is known for projects like Rotterdam's Markthal, Stairs to Kriterion, or the Taipei Twin Towers. reSITE founder Martin Barry spoke with Winy about his recent projects, including the retrofitted abandoned shopping mall close to the Taiwanese city of Tainan that is part of a wider...

Hello listeners! We are happy to announce an exciting new season of reSITE’s podcast. It’s great to be back. For those of you who are new to reSITE, we are a global platform and nonprofit connecting people and ideas to improve the urban environment. Martin Barry, reSITE’s founder stared because he wanted to listen closer. He was growing tired of what is known as classic architecture, landscape, or urban design firm. He wanted to see how useful we can be in the making of a city by providing...

Exuberant. Optimistic. Romantic. Three words Ravi Naidoo, the advocate who put African design on the map, used to describe himself. Ravi's story is one of reinvention. Just as South Africa was entering a period of newly found democracy, Ravi found an impetus to change his career. Over 20 years later, he is the driving force behind Design Indaba, arguably the most influential design event in the world. The event takes place in Cape Town every year, and it's only the tip of the iceberg. They...

The longest-serving mayor in West Sacramento’s history, the man behind the city’s outstanding urban regeneration that put it on the map as one of the most livable small towns in the United States, and an LGBTQ+ advocate, Christopher Cabaldon is a model city official. During his on-going, 20-year-long seat in office, the California capital's adjacent city underwent an incredible transformation from a former industrial town to an urbanized, livable community. Design and the City, is a podcast...

As a true systems thinker, Marianthi Tatari, Associate Director and Senior Architect at UNStudio, takes a scalar approach to design, addressing issues of experience and sense of place in various scales and typologies. During our discussion, we dissect different aspects of city-making that threaten the quality of life such as monofunctional spaces and commoditized smart cities and how to approach designing them with optimism.  Learn more www.reSITE.org Attend reSITE Events...

"How do you bring modern architecture into the future and connect humans with nature?” That is the question Yosuke Hayano, principal partner for MAD Architects brings to the table when the studio approaches any of their projects. They are creating a vision for the future city. As they’ve put it, they have been “committed to developing futuristic, organic, technologically advanced designs that embody a contemporary interpretation of the Eastern affinity for nature”. During our interview with...

Haus der Statistik is a vast, unoccupied administration building in the heart of Berlin at Alexanderplatz. Leona is a Berlin-based urbanist and a member of ZUsammenKUNFT, a cooperative for urban development. ZUsammenKUNFT advocates for cooperation between civil society and administration in order to co-create a better quality of life, starting with Haus der Statistik. It is currently being turned into a model project for a co-operative, mixed-use urban development that is oriented towards the...

From working on the launch of Art Basel Hong Kong, to managing Beijing Design Week’s international communications, to her current role as Chinese editor of Wallpaper* magazine, Yoko Choy is a highly regarded communications consultant and design journalist. Now, embarking on her latest project - the Collective Contemporist, a creative consultancy she co-founded, with the aim to create conversations and collaborations between the two spheres. She is after more than just an alignment of the two,...

When it comes to urban regeneration, not many are thinking about it the way Chris Precht is. Studio Precht’s modular buildings with interwoven, natural geometry bring “being green” to a whole other level. They are all variations on a theme - vertical farming meant for city-living - and aim to reconnect our lives to our food production by bringing it back into our cities, and our minds through architecture. Hear from Chris as he discusses the importance of authenticity, creating spaces that...

For Thomas Heatherwick, architecture and urban design go hand-in-hand. Like with all of his projects, he strives to consider them from a human scale capturing the essence of what already exists. His holistic approach brings a thoughtful dimension to architecture, design and urban spaces. Joining the interview is ArchDaily editor, Christele Harrouk, to explore deeper into how Heatherwick approaches his projects with an inspiring amount of integrity and humility.  Design and the City, is a...

Design and the City is a podcast about the ways we can use design to make cities more livable and lovable. reSITE is excited to announce the launch of its first-ever official podcast, Design and the City. We interviewed nine of our most prolific and promising speakers from reSITE 2019 REGENERATE for a more intimate, in-depth dig into their current projects and outlooks on the future of our cities. Hear from Thomas Heatherwick (Heatherwick Studios), Chris Precht (Studio Precht), Leona Lynen...