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Jesse M. Keenan is the Favrot II Associate Professor of Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment at Tulane University. In his upcoming book North: The Future of Post-Climate America, he outlines the complexities of America’s handling of climate change and its effects on not only migration, mitigation, and real estate, but also our institutions and societal fabric. Simultaneous conclusions: There are no climate havens, but adapt we will. Join us for the fascinating Unfrozen interview. -- Intro/Outro: “System Error,” by The Cooper Vane --   Discussed: San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank report on reversal of the migration to the Sun Belt “What Climate Change Will Do to America by Mid-Century” - The Atlantic Climate gentrification: from theory to empiricism in Miami-Dade County, Florida Sean Becketti, Freddie Mac, April 2016: Will Markets Absorb Climate Change? A Climate Minsky Moment? Mitigation vs adaptation vs resilience Rachel Minnery’s efforts at the AIA to include climate adaptation as part of architects’ standards and duty of care “Climate-proof Duluth” in the New York Times There were never any climate havens: The Guardian The lesson of Asheville: The flooding was the beginning of its role as a “receiving zone,” not the end “Climate havens” = media clickbait Marketing of Buffalo as a “climate haven” by Mayor Byron R. Brown Alan Mallach’s Unfrozen take on reviving legacy cities “This is about growth management and urban planning 101 at the regional and local level” For many “climate havens” rhetoric is not about recruiting new residents; climate mobility is a rhetorical arm for the existing residents for core sustainability development. “The Midwest will ultimately grow for the exact same reason the Sun Belt grew” Storming the Wall by Todd Miller The Climate Credit Score Hurricane Pass, Pinellas County, Florida “Sodom & Gorlando” Climate intelligence arms race, e.g., AlphaGeo Spencer Glendon – “The money is slow and dumb”

Just in time for Halloween comes a spooky story of speculation and specters in the world of real estate. Joshua Comaroff, a professor at National University of Singapore, is the author of Spectropolis: The Enchantment of Capital in Singapore. He tells Unfrozen that, despite being one of the most assertively modern nations in the world, mysticism and geomancy are very much part of the design and construction process in the island nation-state. Woe be to the development (and its occupants) that does not undertake elaborate rituals and pay the requisite respect (and sometimes burnt “hell money” offerings) to ghosts that may be resident on the site. We hope you enjoy this tale of spirits and the material world… -- Intro/Outro: “Beancounter,” by the Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Hell money, in sextillion-dollar denominations Feng shui People’s Action Party Ghost Month (Ghost Festival) Bomoh (Malay spirit doctor) Winchester Mystery House ION Orchard Gateway, by I.M. Pei AI Ghosts John Calvin’s hatred of speculation The Clayford Sisters Thanatechnology

Depending on how you look at it, it is either a great or rough time out there for speculative fiction, as reality continues to bite at the heels of even the most dystopian visions. Jason Tester is a futurist with a knack for telling prescient stories about our imminent urban realities, in a startlingly graphic way. The visually compelling Insurrection: an American Future predicted troop deployments in San Francisco in early January 2025; by June, a real-life version of that story began unfolding in Los Angeles, then Washington, Chicago, and Portland. Tester gazes into the abyss with Unfrozen, in another episode a bit too close for comfort. -- Intro/Outro: “System Error,” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Institute for the Future What Is The Insurrection Act? Here’s What Happens If Trump Invokes Law Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Frogs of Portland Ilana Lipsett Meta Ray-Bans Frend.AI ImmigrationOS San Francisco Proposition E - Police drone authorization The beleaguered Whole Foods on Market ICE Ramming in Chicago Grand juries say no to sandwich crimes DDS Waymo Jam Barbara Walter at UC San Diego: How Civil Wars Start Abyss gazing UrbanistAI One Big Beautiful Bill One Big Beautiful Aftermath

Rem Koolhaas is nothing if not enigmatic, which makes him and his first major built work, the Villa dal’Alva, Paris (1990), an ideal first subject of the “Gumshoe” series of architectural mysteries. Cutting through the conventions of academic jargon and trade press, The House of Dr. Koolhaas reopens the “cold case” of Koolhaas and examines evidence in a pulp-detective novel format. Unfrozen turns the lamp back on writer/editor team Francoise Fromonot and Thomas Weaver. -- Intro/Outro: “Beancounter,” by the Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Gumshoe Architectural Mystery Series Thomas Weaver (AA Files) Villa d’Alva, OMA S, M, L, XL Luis Bunuel City of Glass by Paul Auster Ways of Seeing by John Berger Aramis, or the Love of Technology by Bruno Latour The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allen Poe Mannerism Madelon Vreisendorp with Teri Wehn-Damisch: The Film of Delirious New York Countryside, The Future Dali’s paranoiac-critical method Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Next up: Oscar Neimayer’s Communist Party Headquarters, Paris, by Littell Shaw Then: The Parthenon Then: Case Study House by Craig Ellwood Poelzig’s I.G. Farben Building, Frankfurt Raymond Chandler James Ellroy  

Dismayed by the destruction and death in Gaza? Fear not, the wizards at Boston Consulting Group have a plan – a 38-slide deck that will Make Gaza GREAT Again. It’s a molten nugget of consultant-speak, SimCity planning moves, weirdly proportioned AI slop renderings, and tokenized real estate transactions that place a thin veil of “solutioneering” over what looks an awful lot like ethnic cleansing. Don’t worry – it will all be covered by private investment and all kinds of familiar corporations in the tech, design, construction and security businesses are invited, whether they know it or not. Our hot take on this hottest of messes. Discussed: Washington Post article Wall Street Journal article Financial Times article GREAT Trust deck Pre-GREAT Trust Hebrew version of the deck Gaza Riviera TikTok video Scarlett Johansson on SNL: Complicit Boston Consulting Group Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Tony Blair Institute Ebenezer Howard Baron von Haussmann SimCity Paul Romer’s Charter Cities Shout back to Episode 92, The Hidden Globe AECOM Studio Boeri Architetti IMEC = India-Middle East Corridor UN rapporteur communique on Gaza report: Economy of Occupation to an Economy of Genocide

A former president of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Carl Elefante has led the field in finding common ground between two things seemingly in conflict: sustainable design and historic preservation. He is a Principal Emeritus with Quinn Evans and a charter member of the Climate Heritage Network. In addition to his work on the intersection of historic preservation and sustainability, he has spent decades focusing on building-sector decarbonization, community vitality, and urbanism. His new book is Going for Zero: Decarbonizing the Built Environment on the Path to Our Urban Future. Intro/Outro: “24 Hour Limes,” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: The Greenest Building is the One That is Already Built Work and the City, by Frank Duffy MASS Design Group Kéré Architecture Lo-TEK Design by Radical Indigenism, by Julia Watson Empire State Building retrofit vs One World Trade Center: Both LEED Gold Passive House PassiveLogic WUFI Modeling Susan Roth Mini-splits  

Hillary Brown, Professor Emerita of Architecture at the City College of New York, joins Unfrozen to discuss her book Revitalize | Resettle, which explores how climate migration and rural revitalization can solve interlinked crises. Brown emphasizes that large U.S. cities alone cannot absorb climate-displaced populations due to infrastructural limits and rising costs. Instead, she proposes strategic resettlement in small towns and “micropolitan areas”—places often overlooked but rich in cultural value and potential. -- Intro/Outro: “24-Hour Limes” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Hero towns leading the charge to accept climate migrants and flourish: Clinton, IA: Brownfield redevelopment and corridor revitalization Gorham and Milan, NH: Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program Madison, IN: Main Street Program Morris, NY: Livingston County Development Group Norfolk, NE: North Fork Whitewater Park Ord, NE: Vibrant Future Fund Rock Port, MO: Wind Capital Group – First town in U.S. to be 100% wind-powered West Windsor, VT: Ascutney revitalization Jesse Keenan – Climate-Proof Duluth New York State Small-Town Revitalization T-Mobile hometown grants Parag Khanna, ecstatic nomad

Chicago’s Wrigley Building, constructed in 1921, is the “whited sepulcher” of Michigan Avenue, gleaming in terra cotta like the rows of teeth ostensibly cleansed by Wrigley’s Chewing Gum, the company that built the Beaux-Arts edifice. But its extravagant looks are only part of the story. Unfrozen hosts Robert Sharoff and William Zbaren, who wrote and photographed the new book from Rizzoli, The Wrigley Building: The Making of an Icon, to hear the rest. -- Intro / Outro: “24 Hour Limes,” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Graham, Anderson, Probst & White Charles Beersman Julia Morgan Arts Club of Chicago Joe Mansueto Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, Helmut Jahn, 2011 John Vinci Phillip Wrigley William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson Girilda Tower, Seville Chateau Chambord, Loire Valley, France New York Municipal Building, Stanford White, 1914 The Carter Family Tribune Tower, Howells and Hood, 1925 London Guarantee Building, Alfred Alschuler, 1923 333 North Michigan Avenue, Holabird & Roche, 1928 Belden-Stratford Hotel, Meyer Fridstein, 1923 Waldor-Astoria Chicago, Lucien Lagrange, 2009 Chicago Fire Stadium Stanley Tigerman Studio Blue, Cheryl Towler Weese

The Unfrozen crew hit the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale with all the furious energy our 100th episode deserved. A rollicking roundup of robots, pans, picks, porches and pavilions, with special guest interviews: Michele Champagne, Kate Wagner, Marisa Moran Jahn, Bekim Ramku, Rafi Segal, Jeanne Gang, and Mark Cavagnero. And finally, while Rome picked a pontiff, we had our own mini-conclave in Venice and humbly offered up our picks for the 20th Biennale curator. Join us for this extra special centenary episode. -- Intro/Outro: “Bounder of Adventure,” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: -      Olly Wainwright: Can robots make the perfect Aperol spritz? – Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 review | Architecture | The Guardian -         Rowan Moore: Venice Architecture Biennale review: ‘a hot mess of pretension’ | The Observer -         The New York Architecture Review crew: Nicolas, Chloe and Sammy -         International Exhibition in the Arsenale o  Robots, hemp, bio-concrete, 8-point font with AI-assisted summaries o  Kate Crawford and Vladan Joier’s megascale text: Calculating Empires o   Bjarke Ingels Group’s entry: Ancient Future, with Bhutanese carvers paced by an ABB robot o  Christopher Hawthorne’s Speaker’s Corner o  Shades of Rem Koolhaas’ 2014 Fundamentals edition -         Kate Wagner’s review: o  Dated techno-optimism o  Cannibalism of architecture by art and exhibition design -         National Pavilions: o  Austria: “Agency for Better Living” o  Canada: “Picoplanktonics” by The Living Room Collective o  Denmark: “Build of Site” o  Estonia: “Let Me Warm You” o  Romania: “Human Scale” o  Saudi Arabia: “The Um Slaim School: An Architecture of Connection” o  Slovenia: “Master Builders” o  South Korea: “Little Toad, Little Toad”, but mainly this cat o  Spain: “Internalities: Architectures for Territorial Equilibrium” o  UAE: “Pressure Cooker” o  USA: “Porch: An Architecture of Generosity” §  Curators: ·        Peter MacKeith, Fay Jones School of Architecture, University of Arkansas ·        Rod Bigelow, Executive Director, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art ·        Marlon Blackwell, Marlon Blackwell Architects ·        Susan Chin, Design Connects ·        Stephen Burks, Man Made §  Shades of the timber-themed 2021 exhibit, but with a twist §  Interview with Mark Cavagnero, Mark Cavagnero Associates, on participation in Porch and his work updating the original 1969 design of the Oakland Museum of California by Kevin Roche and Dan Kiley o  Uzbekistan: A Matter of Radiance -         Interview with collaborators on Art-Tek Tulltorja, conversion of former brick works into a tech hub and community center, Pristina, Kosovo: o  Rafi Segal, Associate Professor, Architecture & Urbanism, MIT o  Marisa Moran Jahn, Director, Integrated Design,Parsons School of Design o  Bekim Ramku, OUD+ Architects o  Nol Binakaj, OUD+ Architects -         Interview with Jeanne Gang, amidst a Bio-Blitz powered by the iNaturalist app and featuring a “disco ball for bees” -         Unfrozen’s nominations for 2027 Biennale curator: o  Carolyn Whitzman, Senior Housing Researcher, Schoolof Cities, University of Toronto and author of Home Truths: Fixing Canada’s Housing Crisis o  Diane Longboat, Senior Manager, StrategicInitiatives, Center for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto §  See: Sweat lodge at the Center o  Patrick Bellew, Chief Sustainability Officer, Surbana Jurong (Atelier Ten) §  Gardens by the Bay cooling system,powered by incinerated tree trimming waste o  Peter Barber, Peter Barber Architects o  Eyal Weizman, Forensic Architecture -         Stafford Beer: “The purpose of the system is what it does.”

The Unfrozen squad descends on Venice to experience inperson the full blunt force of the Biennale. Special guests include: Carlo Ratti, the curator of the 19th Architecture Biennale, Anastasia Sukhoroslova, CEO of All Things Urban, and Michele Champagne, graphic artist and contributor to Volume magazine. -- Intro/Outro: “Bounder of Adventure” by The Cooper Vane

Our guest on this episode is Christopher Hawthorne, the Senior Critic at Yale University’s School of Architecture. His previous roles include architecture critic of the Los Angeles Times, and Chief Design Officer of the City of Los Angeles. His current mission is to assemble the Speaker’s Corner at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Unfrozen hears his unique perspective as both critic and exhibitor. -- Intro/Outro: “Elevator,” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale: “Inteligens: Natural, Artificial, Collective” – Carlo Ratti Speakers’ Corner / Re-staging Criticism series, part of the GENS Public Program -         Florencia Rodriguez, Director, School of Architecture, University of Illinois Chicago -         Mark Lee, Sharon Johnston of Johnston Marklee -         Inspiration: “Vincent Scully: Architecture, Urbanism, and a Life in Search of Community,” by A. Krista Sykes -         9 May: “Exhibition as Critical Vessel” o   Florencia Rodriguez, Moderator o  Lesley Lokko, 2023 Biennale curator o  Aric Chen o  Pancho Diaz o  Sarah Herda o  Michael Meredith (MOS) > Building with Writing -         10 May: Conversation on L.A. Fires o   Michael Maltzan o   Alejandro Haiek Coll o  Florencia Rodriguez 11 May: o  Kate Wagner o  Samuel Medina o  Sam Jacob o  Shumi Bose 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale – The Presence of the Past - Paolo Portoghesi -         Strada Novissima, feat. Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, Arati Isozaki, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown -         Teatro del Mundo, Aldo Rossi -         Critic’s Corner, feat. Vincent Scully, Charles Jencks, Kenneth Frampton & Christian Norberg-Schulz Why “The Brutalist” Isn’t Really About Architecture Kazuyo Sejima Writing About Architecture - Alexandra Lange Caught practicing without a license: Frank Lloyd Wright and Thomas Jefferson International Committee of Architecture Critics Salon de Mobile Ada Louise Huxtable You Have to Pay for the Public Life, by Charles Moore Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Robert Venturi Charles Jencks Foundation

A quick one before we’re away. Dan and Greg sum up theirsprings and get ready for spritzes and socializing with smart people in at the 2025 Venice Biennale. -- Intro/Outro: “Bounder of Adventure,” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Going Underground -> The Space Below w/ James Parakh ·        Toronto PATH ·        Montreal RESO ·        Chicago Pedway ·        Minneapolis Skyway ·        Houston Tunnels ·        Oklahoma City Underground ·        Hong Kong Central Elevated Walkway Zohran Mamdami –Make the Subway Great Again Smart City Expo, New York City Business Facilities Live eXchange, New Orleans Curbivore, Los Angeles Jonah Bliss Joshua Harris, Fordham University Marchetti’s constant Zipline Austin Baker Tilly Conference CosMc’s National Association of Realtors survey Waymo RoboCop Sidewalk Toronto Downstate IL secession movement Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson, feat. Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong Paul Romer Charter Cities The Voluntary City - David T. Beto, Peter Gordon and Alexander Tabarrok How to Run the World - Parag Khanna Hell on Earth – The 30 Years’ War Podcast The Network State - Balaji Srinivasan Global Parliament of Mayors / Ben Barber Polarization of reality > revenge of sovereignty Praxis: Med Charter City > Greenland feat. Steven Harper The evermore-relevant Hidden Globe episode Exit, Voice and Loyalty - Albert O. Hirschman Patri Friedman The lost art of imagining the future “My Brain Finally Broke,” - Jia Tolentino in The New Yorker Bruce Sterling – Atemporality

Sara Bronin is an architect, attorney, policymaker, and professor at Cornell University. Born and raised in Houston, the only large US city without zoning, previously served as the Chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission of Hartford, Connecticut. Her book is called Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our World, and she joins Unfrozen to demystify the why and wherefore of what you can, cannot, and “must” build in cities all over the US. -- Intro/Outro: “Elevator,” by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: -         How large-lot mandates contribute to the epidemic of loneliness -         YIMBY prevails in Arlington and Alexandria, VA -         Re-zoning in Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, OR, and Hartford -         Supreme Court ruling on Shelley vs Kraemer, 1948, outlawing racially restrictive covenants -         Houston’s affordability comes at the cost of flood zones and unpleasant adjacencies -         Gulfton neighborhood -         El Principe Azul nightclub -         Effects of Parking Provision on Automobile Use in Cities: Inferring Causality -         Albany Avenue rezoning and corridor improvements, Hartford -         Denise Best -         Form-based code -         Washington Commanders’ new DC stadium -         Code overhauls in Hartford, Charlottesville VA, and Boston -         Bronin trashes Boston’s zoning code -         Pittsburgh spends $5.8 million on zoning consultant

Kevin Kelley, a self-described “attention architect,” is aco-founding partner of design firm Shook Kelley and author of Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together. In our digitized world of ghost commerce, he believes there is still a place for real places, and that it is incumbent on architects to stop looking down their nosesat retail, the essential lubricant of urban life, and start designing places that matter. -- Intro/Outro: “24 Hour Limes" by The Cooper Vane -- Discussed: Bass Pro Shops at the Memphis Pyramid Against 15-Minute Delivery “The Bonfire Effect,” courtesy Loxahatchie, Florida Participation mystique, as per Jung, as per Lucien Levy-Bruhl “TheAnxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt “Harvard Guide to Shopping” by Rem Koolhaas et. al. Prior Unfrozen commentary on the replacement for the Orange County Government Center by Paul Rudolph Robert Venturi on Las Vegas Maslow's hierarchy of needs Yaromir Steiner and Easton Town Center, Columbus Victor Gruen Country Club Plaza, Kansas City The Grove, Los Angeles The Farmer’s Market, Los Angeles Larchmont, Los Angeles Hollywood and Highland (now Ovation), Los Angeles Harley-Davidson dealerships’ Parts Bar Mercado Gonzalez, Costa Mesa, CA

Jason Barr is a professor of economics at Rutgers University Newark and one of the world's foremost experts on the economics of skyscrapers. His new book, out May 14, 2024, is Cities in the Sky: The Quest to Build the World’s Tallest Skyscrapers. In it, Barr takes a global view of why the quest to build up is as fierce as ever, and why skyscrapers remain so controversial. Join the Unfrozen interview with Barr, in which some record-breaking myths get busted. -- Intro/Outro: “Altitude Blues,” by Ladytron -- Discussed: Mythbusting the Home Insurance Building First Skyscrapers | Skyscraper Firsts Forum LeRoy Buffington’s skyscraper patent Mythbusting The Skyscraper Index The Line Jeddah Tower Joel Garreau’s Edge City Emaar’s real estate play at Burj Khalifa: Downtown Dubai Legends Tower, Oklahoma City Empire State Building China’s “build it” economy “Zero Gravity Living” Nashville and Oracle Detroit and Dan Gilbert Newark renaissance Center City District (Philadelphia) study: DowntownsRebound Karen Seto(Yale)'s studies on tall building height canopies