Unfrozen

94. Tales of Trilith

Tucked away in a hollow some 20 miles south of Atlanta, theTown of Trilith contains multitudes: possibly North America’s largest purpose-built film and television production studio, a steak/cigar bar, bucolic surrounds, “loft”-style living and cornhole games on an ersatz main street – everything, surely, somebody would want out of a hometown. But who? Kyle Holtan reports.--Music: “Elevator,” by The Cooper Vane--Discussed:Congress for the New UrbanismSerenbe, GAPinewood Atlanta Studios (now Trilith Studios)MegalopolisDan Cathy & River’s Rock LLCHow The Chick-Fil-A Billionaire CEO Plays A Part In Your Favorite Marvel MoviesTrilithonsGeorgia GuidestonesMesa del SolThe Buckhead Succession MovementStockbridge, GA vs Eagle’s LandingSilvercup StudiosKaufman Astoria Studios

93. The Cities We Need

Over the past 20 years, Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani has taken the question, “what, and who is the city for?” directly to the streets of Prospect Heights in Brooklyn and Mosswood in Oakland, asking locals to take her to the places that matter to them. A visual urbanist, co-founder of the interdisciplinary studio Buscada, and widely exhibited photographer, Bendiner-Viani holds a doctorate in environmental psychology from the Graduate Center, CUNY.--Intro/Outro: “Elevator,” by The Cooper VaneDiscussed:Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, NYMosswood, Oakland, CAPrior urbanists of “placework”:-         Jane Jacobs-         David Harvey – The Right to the City-         Henri Lefebvre – Le Droit à la Ville-         Kevin Lynch – Image of the City-         Christopher Alexander – A Pattern Language-         Mindy Thompson FulliloveDiana Lind – The Human Doom LoopThe Anti-Social Century, Derek Thompson, The AtlanticContested City, Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani

92. The Hidden Globe

Between, and sometimes within, the boundaries of nation-states are thousands of liminal zones which are neither here nor there, and their rules are different from those of the countries in which they are physically located. Author Atossa Araxia Abrahamian calls this “The Hidden Globe,” and chronicles the in-between places where money, art, luxurygoods, and stateless prisoners spend time in limbo. At a time of rising nationalism, tariff wars, and mass deportations, these places are on the ascendant. What are they like? Why are they there? And what’s next? Join this episode ofUnfrozen to find out.--Intro/Outro: “Elevator,” by the Cooper Vane--Discussed:-         The Geneva Freeport-         Svalbard-         Tenet-         The Cosmopolites-         Henley & Partners-         Dubai International Finance Center (DIFC)-         Mark Beer, Zone Man-         Estonia e-residency program-         Greenland, Guantanamo Bay, and the Panama Canalare also zones-         Freedom Cities-         Boten, Laos-         Laos-China Railway-         Golden Triangle Zone-         The Mont Pelerin Society-         Extrastatecraft by Keller Easterling-         Paul Collier-         Paul Romer and the Charter City-         Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol-         Hudson Yards-         Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act-         U.S. Rep Jake Auchinsloss (D – MA) infavor of charter cities-         Citizenship by investment = passports for sale:here to stay-         Praxis: “The startup nation we deserve today”

91. After the Fires, Will Prefab Sprout?

Amidst the unprecedented destruction wrought by the multiple fires that swept across Southern California in January 2025, there are opportunities, and causes for optimism that we can build back, better than before. Among these is the prospective role of prefabricated construction,
which can be 30 to 50 percent faster than traditional methods. Steve Glenn, CEO of Plant Prefab, shares his thoughts on the role prefab can play in reconstruction.
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Intro/Outro: “Elevator,” by The Cooper Vane
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Discussed:
Bloomberg CityLab: Los Angeles Fire Victims Turn to Prefab Homes for Quick Builds
Regulations:
California Coastal Commission
CEQA
CALGreen
Title 24
HUD Code (Manufactured Homes)
Wildland Urban Interface⁠ (WUI) Zones
Woolsey fire, 2018
Architecturally significant buildings (at least 32) lost in the fires

90. MAGAlopolis

The inauguration of the 47th president of the United States takes place on January 20. What are the implications of Trump 2.0 on the built environment, design and cities? Inspired by the eponymous, omnibus crucible of dread in the New York Review of Architecture, we huddled with the best and brightest design critics we know, Kate Wagner (The Nation / McMansion Hell) and Zach Mortice (Bloomberg CityLab) to try to come to grips with the oncoming MAGAlopolis.
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Intro/Outro: “Elevator,” by The Cooper Vane
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Discussed:
Will They Build the Wall and its Ancillaries?
Trump Will Not Make Architecture Great Again
Make Tartaria Great Again
Journalists needed, maybe more than architects right now
The Harold Washington Library is not a relic of an advanced
19th century civilization
Will there be a Super State Fair?
Trump administration aesthetic = BioShock Infinite
Will the FBI Edgar J. Hoover Building (C.F. Murphy, 1975) be moved or demolished?
The Trads Have It
Tommy Tuberville: California will get Federal aid if “conditions
are met”
Scott
Turner: Putting the CHUD in HUD
Jason Tester: Insurrection
Post-fire price gouging in L.A.
Suspending environmental regulations in California to build the same thing over again
It’s housing affordability, stupid – look at Canada
What happened to the rent cap?
We’re a few election cycles away from “progressive” mayors
actually stepping up to the mic
“The future is about old people, in big cities, afraid of
the sky.” – Bruce Sterling
Hoovervilles > Trumptowns
DOGE = Department of Graft Enhancement

89. That Was a Year, Wasn’t It?

Dan and Greg recap Unfrozen in 2024 and look ahead to 2025.
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Show Notes:
Intro/Outro: “I Still Wear the Uniform,” by The Cooper Vane
- Our Spotify Wrapped Stats for 2024
- AndrewAndrew
- That time in 2005 when Greg wrote that podcasts would
never amount to anything. If you find it, send us the link!
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TOP EPISODES OF 2024:
- Top episode of 2024 was also the top episode of 2023: Show Me the
Bodies
- Horror in
Architecture, with Joshua Comaroff
- Glass
Houses, with Madeline Ashby
- Domo Arigatou,
Mike 2.0 with Robert Otani
- On
Balance: Architecture and Vertigo, with Davide Deriu
- Innovation
Design Consortium, with Peter Devereaux
- Salty Urbanism,
with Jeffrey Huber
- Cornell Tech Urban
Tech Summit
In 2025…maybe?:
- Jane Jacobs the Musical: A Marvelous Order
- La
Biennale Architettura 2025 – curated by Carlo Ratti
- Who will build the Wall?
- Who has built the Line – and died?
- Data Towers:
-             33 Thomas Street –
the AT&T Long Lines / Neutron Bomb Building
-             1
Brooklyn Bridge Plaza – the Verizon telephone exchange

73. On Balance: Architecture and Vertigo

Mankind’s quest for verticality has an underexplored dimension:
the queasy feeling of vertigo many experience when close to the edge of a sheer drop. Davide Deriu, Reader in Architectural History and Theory at the University of Westminster, London, has taken on the relative lack of research into the subject with an interdisciplinary approach, captured in his book On Balance: Architecture and Vertigo. Come, stand on the edge with us.
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Intro/Outro: "I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane
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Discussed:
          
Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock, 1958
        
Vertical: The City from Satellites to Bunkers, Stephen Graham, 2016
        
Vertigo in the City program at University of Westminster, 2015
      
The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies, Roland Barthes, 1979
        
Funambulism
            
Jean François "Blondin" Gravelet – Niagara Falls wire walk, 1859
      
Philippe Petit, World Trade Center wire walk, 1974
            
Jan Gehl on humans’ “natural” habitat in horizontal planes
          
Singapore’s HDB social high-rises
           
Mies’ insertion of ventilation grilles in front of the glass curtain wall at the Seagram Building, 1958
         
Prosper Meniere, father of the vestibular sciences

44. ”Olive the Seal” - Unfrozen in 2022

Dan and Greg recap the highs and lows of the first full year of Unfrozen – 33 episodes – and look ahead to 2023.
Did you know? You don’t have to catch the stars as they fall. You can listen to any episode from our web site, or on your favorite podcast platform, at any time!
Intro/Outro: “Our Lips are Sealed,” by The Go-Go’s
Discussed:
- A high number of episodes devoted to Peter Rees, the former chief planner of the City of London
o Episode 37: The City is Here for You to Use
o Episode 22: The Engine Room, the City, and Color Commentary
o Episode 21: This is London: Rees Reminiscences
- Stats and demographics
- Fan fave episodes: tied for 125 plays each:
o Episode 32: Future Storage: From Mineral Extraction to Data Forestry (Marina Otero)
o Episode 31: Emergent Tokyo (Jorge Almazan)
- Greg’s favorites:
o Episode 13: What Fresh McMansion Hell is This? (Kate Wagner)
o Episode 26: Big Time (Patrick MacLeamy)
o Episode 27: A Skyscraper Superfan Aims High (Changsub Lee)
o Episode 34: Chicago: Two Guides, One Cast (Laurie Petersen, Vladimir Belogolovsky
o Episode 41: Imagine a City (Mark Vanhoenacker)
o Episode 43: Who is the City For? (Blair Kamin)
- Dan’s favorites:
o Episode 42: 1972: A Spatial Oddity (Noritaka Minami, Iker Gil)
- Guest & adventure pipeline for 2023
o Juan Miro, Miro Rivera Architects on windowless dormitories
o Andrew Shanken – author, The Everyday Life of Memorials
o Andmore Partners – Architects as Developers
o Dan in Hradec Kralove, Czechia
o Greg: The Metaverse Metropolis @ Cornell Tech Urban Hub
o What is the Figma of Autodesk?
o Zach Katz – Transform Your City

43. Who is the City For?

Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Blair Kamin has long informed and delighted readers with his illuminating commentary. Kamin’s newest collection, Who Is the City For?, does more than gather fifty-five of his most notable Chicago Tribune columns from the past decade: it pairs his words with striking new images by photographer and architecture critic Lee Bey, Kamin’s former rival at the Chicago Sun-Times. Listen to the Unfrozen interview with Kamin, and understand why “city planning is not a game of 2D checkers but of 3D chess.”
Intro/Outro: “Chicago” by Benny Goodman
Discussed:
INVEST South/West
Maurice Cox, Chicago Planning Commissioner
The pandemic’s effect on rapid urbanization
Spread of crime from poor to rich neighborhoods
The city’s not “out of control,” but it is in need of reinvention
Lower Manhattan’s adaptive reuse of older skyscrapers does present a template
Decentralization of the central business district, ex: McDonald’s HQ in the Fulton Market
Prospects for Lincoln Yards and The 78 – shades of Cityfront Center?
The Chicago Spire pit / 400 N Lake Shore Drive replacement project
DuSable Park and the Riverwalk
“We have to think of the city not as a 2D checkers game but a 3D chess game.”
Buffalo Bayou Park extension project, Houston
O’Hare Global Terminal
Chicago River Boathouses
AIA design competition for the next bungalow
Committee on Design
“Plop” architecture
1611 W Division  – look ma, no parking!
Red Line South extension
“There are those who say ‘who gets what’ is a tired trope of architectural criticism – let me vehemently disagree.”
Chicago as a participant in global economic and architectural design exchange
Chicago Architecture Biennial
The City that Works > The City that Plays
Investment of Chinese capital in St. Regis Tower
Cloud Gate
Crown Fountain

41. Typological Drift

Cities that produce only underwear, blue jeans and extras in domestic films are among the fascinating objects of study in Typological Drift: Emerging Cities in China by Shiqiao Li and Esther Lorenz. Journey with Unfrozen and Shiqiao Li to reveal the surprising urban realities of China that escape normative urban theories, with several stops along the way in philosophy and linguistics.
Typological Drift: Emerging Cities in China by Shiqiao Li and Esther Lorenz
Interviewee: Shiqiao Li is Weedon Professor in Asian Architecture, School of Architecture, University of Virginia, where he teaches history, theory, and design of architecture, and directs PhD in the Constructed Environment Program. He is author of Understanding the Chinese City (2014), Architecture and Modernization (2009, in Chinese) and Power and Virtue, Architecture and Intellectual Change in England 1650-1730 (2006). He recently contributed an essay to the Routledge Handbook of Chinese Architecture (2022).
Inro/Outro: “Drifted” by Groove Armada
Discussed:
Drift Triggers
Ten Thousand Things
Yiwu International Trade City
Borges: “The map of the empire is the size of the empire itself.”
Figuration
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Francois Jullien: The Silent Transformations
Nanhui New City
Hengdian World Studios
Minmetals Hallstatt
Thames Town
Lujiazui
The Bund
Tongji Architectural Design Group Co. Ltd.