Sarah Bannister is a promising urban planner from Bath, studying for her masters at the Bartlett School of Planning in London. She has a diverse range of experience, from working for the Swindon Borough Council to working for CreateStreets and the Bath preservation trust. Currently she works for Meristem Design, a company that aims to make our cities more liveable and healthy through urban greenery. Sarah's website can be found on https://sarahbannister.co.uk/ She wrote an excellent article...

Coby Lefkowitz is an urbanist, developer and writer living in New York City. He was a real estate analyst, but left his company to co-found Backyard, a real estate startup. He studied urban and environmental planning at the University of Virginia and writes for the Metropolis column for Medium. In this second interview with Coby we discuss the topic of highrise in various contexts, NIMBYism and densification, organic growth of cities as complex systems versus planned developments, the value...

Michael Spicher is a writer and philosopher, who is specialised in art and aesthetics. He is based in Boston and earned his PhD in Philosophy from the University of South Carolina. He currently teaches at Massachusetts College of Art & Design and Boston Architectural College. Apart from that he also founded the Aesthetics Research Lab in 2016, with an excellent website that showcases a lot of fascinating research and projects that showcase the importance of aesthetics in our everyday...

Building Culture creates wonderful structural brick masonry, something not common in current construction practice (to put it very mildly). Their work is beautiful, of excellent quality and above all, authentic. This authenticity sparks a passion and lingering desire for beauty in many who see their work. Starting Building Culture has been a life changing experience for its founder Austin Tunnell, who is as passionate as it gets about building. Listen to his inspiring story in this...

Steve Wright is a storyteller, educator, advocate and planner with four decades of expertise in planning, urban design, engineering and universal design. His key focus is on how to make our cities and buildings more inclusive and accessible to all. He co-created a universal design course at the University of Miami School of Architecture, together with his wife of 33 years, who has used a wheelchair for mobility her entire adult life. Find his website here:...

Isak Lyngsdal is the pen name for an architectural designer who lives in Tromsø, Norway - all the way north of the Arctic Circle. He is an independent student of architecture and creates beautiful designs with Blender, which he shares on his Instagram account. With his unique view on Nordic architecture and open mindedness, this was a very fun conversation that ranged many topics - from Dragestil, to designing with Blender to the role mythology plays in architecture. Follow him on Instagram:...

Samuel Hughes is a research fellow at Oxford University and senior fellow at Policy Exchange and Create Streets. He has a background in philosophy, as he completed his PhD in Philosophy in 2020 in Cambridge. He spent time as a visiting researcher at many other universities and served as research assistant to the British governments’ Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission. In this episode, we talk about a variety of topics: we hear about Samuel's work with the Building Better,...

Ben Southwood has worked for KPMG, was head of research at the Adam Smith Institute and the head of Housing, Transport and Urban Space at the UK think tank ‘Policy Exchange’. He has also assisted CreateStreets as head of research. Currently he is editor at Stripe, for the online journal Works in Progress. An excellent source for high quality, optimistic articles on scientific progress, innovation and other topics. In this episode he talks about the StreetVotes concept, how it can gently...

Marjo Uotila is the founder of INTBAU Finland, connecting Finland to the International Network of Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism, and Arkkitehtuurikapina, the Finnish architectural uprising. The Nordic Architectural Uprising groups have more than 100.000 members altogether and are achieving real impact in the Scandinavian countries.  Marjo also works as an elected Member of City Council and the Chair of the Urban Development Committee at the town of Kaarina in Finland. In...

Milly Main is a consultant at a global business strategy firm by day, but late last year she founded an organisation called StreetLevel in Australia. With StreetLevel, the aim is to build a grassroots movement in Australia being led by regular local people for more attractive and liveable cities and buildings, while trying to change things from the top down too. Her outstanding work to promote better forms of urbanism and architecture 'at street level' is a model for other people to follow in...

Coby Lefkowitz is an urbanist, developer and writer living in New York City. He was a real estate analyst, but left his company to co-found Backyard, a real estate startup. He studied urban and environmental planning at the University of Virginia and writes for the Metropolis column for Medium. In this episode we have a great talk on the differences between the European and American urban planning context, Coby talks about what challenges developers face to achieve something more than...

Vincent Veneman is a professional trombonist, composer and arranger and an architectural designer specialised in classical architectural design.  He has had an interest in both music and architecture since childhood, but chose to pursue music - which led to a full-time career as freelance musician. He appeared on over 50 recordings, as well as on TV and radio. He even appeared on the Grammy-award winning album ‘Sylva’ by Snarky Puppy and the Metropole orchestra; both in the orchestra as well...

Ireland faces a horrendous housing shortage and a lack of commercial real estate accessible to smaller entrepreneurs, as well as a homelessness problem. Yet, an astounding quantity of real estate, often consisting of beautiful, incredibly valuable heritage, is rotting away, sometimes even on purpose. Thus, entire historical districts of Irelands' cities are at risk of getting demolished, permanently erasing quality urban fabric and Ireland's very own history. Why is this being allowed to...

Dr. Nir Buras is an experienced architect, planner, author and founder of the Classic Planning Institute, which is a traditional architecture and urban design consultancy, an academy of traditional architecture and classic urban planning, and a community of like minded practitioners. He authored the book 'The Art of Classic Planning' (Harvard University Press, 2019) which is a must-have for any planner that values beauty and common sense in the built environment. In this episode we talk about...

Joseph Jutras is the founder of the Institute of Traditional Architecture, on which he shares useful information on correctly applying traditional architecture. As a Canadian living in the Netherlands and having travelled all over Europe, he has a refreshing outlook on many urban matters. He is chair of the committee organising the brand new summer school on traditional and classical architecture and architecture happening in Utrecht this year, 'Let's Build a Beautiful City'. In this episode...

Michael Diamant is founder of New Traditional Architecture & Urbanism and has been a very vocal critic of contemporary architecture and planning practices. His fight for more beauty and sanity / common sense in urban planning is being heard: through the platform of an acquaintance that has grown explosively, 'Arkitekturupproret' or 'Architecture Uprising', he has attracted the attention of many Scandinavian media. The Architecture Uprising has caused many city councils to listen better to...

Mieke Bosse is an experienced architect at Scala Architecten, a traditional architecture firm based in The Hague, the Netherlands. With her firm she has created many projects that fit in their environment and are embraced by local residents and their new inhabitants alike. She is chair of INTBAU Nederland and has been a member of the exam committee of the Dutch architecture registry. Furthermore, Mieke was visiting professor at the University of Minnesota and teacher at the Engelsberg...

Flavio Diaz Miron is a young urban planner based in La Paz, Mexico, with a background in political sciences. He did an internship at La Table Ronde d'Architecture in Brussels and is involved with INTBAU, aiming to set up the Mexican chapter of this organisation. This is the first episode of The Aesthetic City Podcast, a podcast focused on the question: how do we improve our built environment to make it more suited to human wellbeing, more beautiful and pleasant? If you like this content,...