Design and the City reSITE

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 disconnection.

The second installment of our special two-part Design and the City episode covers the long-awaited event. An event that signaled something, a community eager to reconnect and a deeper understanding of just how interwoven we are with our spaces spanning the full spectrum of human existence. The exhibition explores that spectrum across five scales: Among Diverse Beings, As New Households, As Emerging Communities, Across Borders, and, As One Planet.

For this episode we have it broken down into three parts. The first features none other than the 17th Biennale curator himself, Hashim Sarkis. Hashim is the Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the founder of Hashim Sarkis Studios. Joining him in conversation is NewCities’ Director of Applied Research and reSITE’s own visiting curator, Greg Lindsay, to discuss the meaning and aims of this special Biennale.

Following Sarkis and Lindsay’s conversation, we will explore accessibility and hear from the curators of the British Pavilion entitled The Garden of Privatised Delights and wrap up with the curators of the Austrian Pavilion entitled, We Like Platform Austria. Both sets of curators tackled what can often be a rather serious topic regarding accessibility along with the binary that exists between public and private space, but with a bit of whit and a sense of playfulness, ultimately makes the message on accessibility, accessible in itself.

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Design and the City, is a podcast produced by reSITE about the ways we can use design to make cities more livable and lovable. reSITE is a global non-profit and platform connecting people and ideas to improve the urban environment. We work at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, politics, culture, and economics, acting as a catalyst for social action and innovative leadership. We encourage the exchange of ideas about making cities more livable, competitive, resilient, inclusive, mobile, and designed with humans in mind to protect and public space, architecture, and sustainable development in cities.

Learn more at www.reSITE.org

Join reSITE's Newsletter

If you would like to support us as a patron, sponsor, or strategic partner, please get in touch with us at podcast@resite.org. Your support allows us to continue sharing ideas to inspire more livable, lovable cities.

Design and the City is a reSITE production. reSITE is a global non-profit connecting people and ideas to improve the urban environment. This episode was directed and produced by myself, Alexandra Siebenthal with support from Martin Barry, Radka Ondrackova, Anna Stava, and Nikkolas Zellers as well as Nano Energies and the Czech Ministry of Culture. It was edited by Andel Sound Studio.

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 disconnection.

This special two-part Design and the City episode covering the long-awaited event. It has signaled something, a community eager to reconnect and a deeper understanding of just how interwoven we are with our spaces spanning the full spectrum of human existence. The exhibition explores that spectrum across five scales: Among Diverse Beings, As New Households, As Emerging Communities, Across Borders, and, As One Planet.

In this episode we’ll hear from the U.S. pavilion curators, Paul Anderson and Paul Preissner; exhibitors Lukas Feireiss and Leopold Banchini; curator from Luxembourg, Sara Noel Costa De Araujo; and finally exhibitors for the Nordic Pavilion, Siv Helene Stangeland, and Reinhard Kropf–all whose work shares a common thread: wood.

These wood-based installations make cases for their egalitarian and democratic nature. They offer a particular simplicity, humility, flexibility, and familiarity coupled with considerate retrospectives, to not only answer the pressing question, “How will we live together?” but “how will we thrive together?”

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Design and the City, is a podcast produced by reSITE about the ways we can use design to make cities more livable and lovable. reSITE is a global non-profit and platform connecting people and ideas to improve the urban environment. We work at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, politics, culture, and economics, acting as a catalyst for social action and innovative leadership. We encourage the exchange of ideas about making cities more livable, competitive, resilient, inclusive, mobile, and designed with humans in mind to protect and public space, architecture, and sustainable development in cities.

Learn more at www.reSITE.org

Join reSITE's Newsletter

If you would like to support us as a patron, sponsor, or strategic partner, please get in touch with us at podcast@resite.org. Your support allows us to continue sharing ideas to inspire more livable, lovable cities.

Design and the City is a reSITE production. reSITE is a global non-profit connecting people and ideas to improve the urban environment. This episode was directed and produced by myself, Alexandra Siebenthal, and Radka Ondrackova with support from Martin Barry, Anna Stava, Nikkolas Zellers, and Weronika Koleda as well as Nano Energies and the Czech Ministry of Culture. It was edited by LittleBig Studio. 

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 mindful design process to create authentic spaces that elevate our lives and the human experience.

His firm known for projects like the Holy Rosary Church Complex, St. Jean Vianney, Moody Pavilions, Coca-Cola Stage at the Alliance Theatre, as well as the Louisiana State Museum and Sports Hall of Fame and the Mercedes-Benz Superdome renovation post-Katrina, just to name a few. As well as his poetic approach and thorough consideration applied to every aspect of his projects. As well as his poetic approach and thorough consideration applied to every aspect of his projects. He views them as part of the natural ecosystem, including the soil. Soil is the repository for all living, organic matter, and for Trey, our buildings should not be separate from it but constructed in harmony. And, well-constructed spaces foster human connection, both ephemeral and lasting—and it should be no different between architecture and the natural world.

We connected with Trey to hear his ideas on the importance of creating sacred spaces devoid of clutter that make way for that human connection, his definition of beauty, and the potential regeneration holds as he presents a different side of that coin. His primary focus is creating lasting, impactful cultural spaces, with the aim to look at the periphery, examining how architecture builds connections between humans and the environment in ways we may have not considered.

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Design and the City, is a podcast produced by reSITE about the ways we can use design to make cities more livable and lovable. reSITE is a global non-profit and platform connecting people and ideas to improve the urban environment. We work at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, politics, culture, and economics, acting as a catalyst for social action and innovative leadership. We encourage the exchange of ideas about making cities more livable, competitive, resilient, inclusive, mobile, and designed with humans in mind to protect and public space, architecture, and sustainable development in cities.

Learn more at www.reSITE.org

Join reSITE's Newsletter

If you would like to support us as a patron, sponsor, or strategic partner, please get in touch with us at podcast@resite.org. Your support allows us to continue sharing ideas to inspire more livable, lovable cities.

This episode was directed and produced by myself, Alexandra Siebenthal, and Nikkolas Zellers, with the support of Martin Barry andRadka Ondrackova as well as Nano Energies and the Czech Ministry of Culture. It was recorded and edited by LittleBig Studio.

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 asks questions like “what type of cities do we want our children to grow up in? Car-dominated, noisy, polluted, and devoid of nature? Or walkable, welcoming, and green?” He emphasizes that “as the climate crisis and urbanisation escalate, cities urgently need to become more inclusive and sustainable”. His book helps us “look at cities through the eyes of children while strengthening the case for planning and transportation policies that work for people of all ages, and for the planet”.

When reviewing Tim’s book ahead of this episode, we found ourselves projecting my own childhoods onto much of what he shared in his work—an experience I think anyone might share upon reading. He invites us to look at cities through the eyes of our inner child, and revisit childhood memories of play. 

Tim’s book, Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities, was published this year by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

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Design and the City, is a podcast produced by reSITE about the ways we can use design to make cities more livable and lovable. reSITE is a global non-profit and platform connecting people and ideas to improve the urban environment. We work at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, politics, culture, and economics, acting as a catalyst for social action and innovative leadership. We encourage the exchange of ideas about making cities more livable, competitive, resilient, inclusive, mobile, and designed with humans in mind to protect and public space, architecture, and sustainable development in cities.

Learn more at www.reSITE.org

Join reSITE's Newsletter

If you would like to support us as a patron, sponsor, or strategic partner, please get in touch with us at podcast@resite.org. Your support allows us to continue sharing ideas to inspire more livable, lovable cities.

This episode was directed and produced by myself, Alexandra Siebenthal with the support of Martin Barry, Radka Ondrackova, Nikkolas Zellers, and Alexander White, as well as Nano Energies and the Czech Ministry of Culture. It was recorded in the reSITE office in Prague and edited by LittleBig Studio.

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, one of the founders of SHoP Architects, whose own birth experience led her to become a doula herself, and is that background in architecture that has become a lens through which she views her new practice, Doula x Design. She is using a unique application of design to solve something not typically seen as a design problem, to help facilitate better birthing experiences for her clients by advocating for creating positive environments that support labor rather than inhibit it.

Her designer’s approach to birth focuses on everything from the scale of the individual—anatomically and physiologically—to the scale of the environment, to the archaic design of the tools and instruments that play roles in a delivery room, to the triage and post-partum hospital flows, and what those impacts look like for the person bringing new life into the world. She is here to remind us that women, and birthing people, are designed for this.

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Design and the City, is a podcast produced by reSITE about the ways we can use design to make cities more livable and lovable. reSITE is a global non-profit and platform connecting people and ideas to improve the urban environment. We work at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, politics, culture, and economics, acting as a catalyst for social action and innovative leadership. We encourage the exchange of ideas about making cities more livable, competitive, resilient, inclusive, mobile, and designed with humans in mind to protect and public space, architecture, and sustainable development in cities.

Learn more at www.reSITE.org

Join reSITE's Newsletter

This episode was produced by myself, Alexandra Siebenthal with the support of Martin Barry and Radka Ondrackova as well as Nano Energies, the Czech Ministry of Culture and Project Syndicate. It was recorded in the reSITE office in Prague and edited by LittleBig Studio.

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 reduce local disruption, and to create spaces that foster more holistic well-being in our built environments.

In this episode, Michael and Natalie dive deep into the ethos behind their design and material choices in some of their standout projects, like the Ronald McDonald House of British Columbia and Yukon, with reSITE founder, Martin Barry. They weigh the advantages and limitations of mass timber construction and dissect the complex nuances faced when striving for true sustainability. 

One could argue, what is sustainability without community? Without affordability? Without connection? As pillars of MGA’s practice, it is the combination of these factors that render their work both remarkable and mindful. Their projects are rooted in the local ecosystem and designed for inhabitants to build connections to nature and to each other. 

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Design and the City, is a podcast produced by reSITE about the ways we can use design to make cities more livable and lovable. reSITE is a global non-profit and platform connecting people and ideas to improve the urban environment. We work at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, politics, culture, and economics, acting as a catalyst for social action and innovative leadership. We encourage the exchange of ideas about making cities more livable, competitive, resilient, inclusive, mobile, and designed with humans in mind to protect and public space, architecture, and sustainable development in cities.

Learn more at www.reSITE.org

Join reSITE's Newsletter

This podcast was directed by Elizabeth Mills and produced by Alexandra Siebenthal, with support from Martin Barry, and Radka Ondrackova as well as the support of the Czech Ministry of Culture and Nano Energies, and edited by LittleBig Studio.