Scratching the Surface

This episode originally aired April 14, 2021. Dori Tunstall is a design anthropologist, public intellectual, and design advocate who works at the intersections of critical theory, culture, and design. She’s currently the Dean of Design at Ontario College of Art and Design and previously taught at Swinburne University and the University of Illinois Chicago. In this episode, Jarrett and Dori talk ab...

This episode originally aired January 13, 2019. Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell are designers, authors, and educators. They operate Skolos+Wedell where they are interested in demising the boundaries between graphic design and photography through collaged three-dimensional images influenced by painting, technology, and architecture and are long-time faculty members at RISD. In this episode, Nancy and T...

This episode originally aired March 13, 2019 Reinier de Graaf has been a partner at OMA since 1996. He co-founded the studio's think tank AMO and has overseen projects ranging from an exhibition of the history of the European Union to masterplans for projects around the world. He has also taught in Harvard's architecture department and is the author of Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of...

This episode originally aired September 11, 2019. Jenny Odell is a multidisciplinary artist and writer based in Oakland, California. She’s the author of How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, teaches digital/phyiscal design at Stanford and has been the artist in residence at the Recology SF (aka ‘the dump’, San Francisco Planning Department, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. In thi...

Julia Gamolina is the founder and Editor-In-Chief of Madame Architect, a digital magazine and media start-up celebrating women in architecture. She's also an Associate Principal and Business Development Director at Ennead Architects and is a visiting assistant professor at Pratt Institute. In this conversation, Julia and Jarrett talk about what's missing in design media, the intersection of mentor...

Mohsen Mostafavi is an architect and educator. From 2008 to 2019, he was the dean of the Harvard GSD. Previously he served as dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University and as director of the Architectural Association School of Architecture. His current research,focused on the future of the Japanese city, includes the first English translation of Manfredo Tafuri's...

Scott Klinker is a designer, educator, and the designer-in-residence at Cranbrook Academy of Art's 3D Design department. His work in furniture and lighting explores a space between design, architecture, art, and craft. In this conversation, Jarrett and Scott talk about the evolution of industrial design, the intersection of design, art, and craft, and the role of personal expression in design proc...

Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine are filmmakers, video artists, producers, and publishers. Their films focus on experimenting with new narratives and cinematographic forms in relationship to architecture and the urban environment. In 2016, their complete works were acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In this conversation, Jarrett talks with Bêka and Lemoine about filmmaking as architectur...

Sarah Whiting is an architect, writer, editor, and the current dean of Harvard GSD. She is a design principal and co-founder of WW Architecture and from 2010 to 2019, she served as the dean of Rice University's School of Architecture. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on architecture's relationship with politics, economics, and society. Her writing has appeared in a range of publications from...

Fraser Muggeridge is a graphic designer based in London. His studio works across a range of formats with a focus on typography and formal innovation. In 2010, he founded and is a tutor at the Typography Summer School, a week-long program for recent graduates and professionals and in 2022, he completed a PhD at RMIT called ”A Knowing Wrongness: Innovation in graphic design through combinations of t...

Jeremiah Chiu is a creative director, artist, synthesis, and educator. He is an Assistant Professor at Otis College of Art & Design, a lecturer at Art Center College of Design, and a resident DJ at Dublab. His studio, Some All None, is a hybrid creative studio working at the intersection of graphic design, art, music, and technology. His most recent album, recorded with Marta Sofia Honer, is calle...

Andrés Jaque is the founder of the Office for Political Innovation and the newly appointed dean of Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. His work spans architecture, performance, publishing, curating, and research. In this conversation, Jarrett and Andrés talk about what he wants to do in his new position at Columbia, the intersection of politics and archi...

Katherine McCoy is a graphic designer and educator. From 1971 to 1995, she was the co-artist-in-residence with Michael McCoy of the pioneering design department at the Cranbook Academy of Art. With Mike, she is the co-author of Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse and continued to teach at a variety of schools around the world. In this conversation, Katherine and Jarrett talk about the state of gra...

Michael McCoy is an industrial designer and educator. From 1971 to 1995, he was the co-artist-in-residence with Katherine McCoy of the pioneering design department at the Cranbook Academy of Art. With Katherine, he is the co-author of Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse and continued to teach at a variety of schools around the world. In this conversation, Michael and Jarrett talk about his early i...

Carson Chan is an architecture writer, curator, and educator. He is the inaugural director of the Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and Natural Environment at MoMA and a curator in the department of architecture and design. He previously co-founded the Current Collective for Architecture History and Environment and the Berlin-based project space PROGRAM. In this conversation...

James Bridle is a writer, artist, and technologist. They are the author, most recently, of Ways of Being and previously wrote New Dark Age. They've exhibited art in galleries and institutions around the world and have written for publications like Wired, The Atlantic, and the Guardian. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jarrett and James talk about the limited ways we talk about artificial intelli...

Iker Gil is an architect and director of MAS Studio, the editor-in-chief of MAS Context, and the Executive Director of the SOM Foundation. He was the co-curator of Exhibit Columbus 2020-2021 and associate curator of the US Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016. In this conversation, Jarrett and Iker talk about the relationship between architecture and editing, sustaining a publ...

Sam Grawe is the Chief Brand & Marketing Officer at The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity. He previously was the Global Brand and Editorial Director at Herman Miller and the editor-in-chief at Dwell. In this conversation, Jarrett and Sam talk about the intersection of branding and editorial, the early years at Dwell, and the enduring influence of the Eames's philosophies. Links from this episo...

Elvia Wilk is the author of the novel, Oval, and the essay collection, Death by Landscape. She's contributed to publications like Frieze, Artforum, 4Columns, Rhizome, and e-flux and was a founding editor of the design and architecture publication uncube. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jarrett and Elvia talk about the intersection of criticism and fiction, how writing essays is a type of design...

Matthew Wizinsky is a designer, researcher, educator, and author of the new book Design After Capitalism. He is an Associate Professor & Graduate Program Director in the Ullman School of Design at the University of Cincinnati, PhD researcher in Transition Design at Carnegie Mellon University, and Associate Editor for Visible Language. In this conversation, Jarrett and Matthew talk about the relati...

Tripp Mickle is a tech reporter for The New York Times and the author of After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul, a book about the tension between design and commerce in a post-Steve Jobs Apple. In this conversation, Jarrett and Tripp talk about how design is viewed inside Apple, what happens when design gets a seat at the table, and learning to write about design...

Eva Hagberg is an author, architecture writer, and editorial and publication strategist. Her new book, When Eero Met His Match, is a hybrid biography of Aline Louchheim Saarinen and an account of her time working as an architectural publicist. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Dwell, The Architect’s Newspaper, Wallpaper, and more. In this conversation, Jarrett and Eva talk about writ...

Maria Nicanor is the director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She previously was the executive director of the Rice Design Alliance at Rice University’s School of Architecture and a curator at the design, architecture, and digital department of the Victoria and Albert Museum. In this conversation, Jarrett and Maria talk about the mandate of the Cooper Hewitt, the role of museums, and...

This episode originally aired April 11, 2018. — Bryan Boyer is a partner at Dash Marshall, an architecture and strategic design studio based in New York and Detroit, where he leads their Civic Futures practice. Bryan studied architecture and interior renovation before heading to Finland to help start the Helsinki Design Lab, where he worked on a team that helped improve public institutions through...

This episode originally aired June 24, 2020. — Deanna Van Buren is an architect, activist, and the design director and co-founder of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, an architecture and real estate development non-profit working to end mass incarceration by building infrastructure that attacks its root causes: poverty, racism, unequal access to resources, and the criminal justice system itsel...