FUTURE OF XYZ

S8 E22: The final episode in our special 4-part “Archober” series, this week we feature acclaimed interior designer, Jean Chandler, IIDA. Now the VP of Global Design at Industrious, the co-working pioneer recently acquired by real-estate giant CBRE, Jean shares with us what the future of co-working looks like. From headquarters in New York City to 2nd and 3rd tier city preferences, buildouts &...

S8 E21: In our continued focus on the built environment in celebration of ‘Archtober’, this week’s guest is a half Dutch, half Japanese landscape architect, Associate Professor of Architecture & Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as Core Faculty at MIT’s Climate Project and Director of their Urban Risk Lab. Miho Mazereeuw’s expertise in driving climate risk mitigati...

S8 E20: This week’s guest is Alexis Villanueva – longtime affordable housing advocate, President & CEO of City Heights Community Development Corporation- a California public benefit nonprofit corporation, and recent TEDx San Diego speaker alongside XYZ’s host, Lisa Gralnek. In this parallel release episode, Alexis shares her perspective on the ‘Future of Community Development’ from best practi...

S8 E19: In the ‘Future of Placemaking’, acclaimed Architect & Artist, Nina Cooke John, joins us to talk about the practice of placemaking “as a way to transform relationships between people and the built environment”. This is a remarkable discussion in which Nina shares her detailed perspective on how a “legacy becomes living”, why people get “excited about the gathering”, when art makes archi...

S8 E18 (Episode 175): For this special milestone edition, XYZ is speaking with the renowned and rather elusive, Nancy Spector, an independent art curator and former Artistic Director & Chief Curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Now an advisor and guest curator for the Prada and Louis Vuitton Foundations, among other global institutes, we explore the art part of the $60 billion gl...

S8 E17: The United States National Park Service says, ”Historic preservation is a conversation with our past about our future”. Historic preservation is an essential part of national and cultural history, urban planning, and the built environment. This week on XYZ, we speak with Niles Parker, Gosnell Executive Director of the Nantucket Historical Association- one of America’s most significant loca...

S8 E16: In the rapidly evolving electric vehicle landscape, the question of how and where to get a charge is imperative. Especially in densely populated urban environments, and even more so in neighborhoods with limited access to public transportation. That's what we’re discussing in this week’s episode of XYZ with designer Tiya Gordon, Co-Founder & COO of it’s electric – a Brooklyn NY-based p...

S8 E15: “Calibrating our inner compass as individuals will lead to exponential ingenuity.” So suggests our guest on this week’s equally expansive episode. The Detroit native, now Angelino is a former standup comedian, current TV host, and author of the 2019 #1 bestselling book, 10 Essential Rules for Breaking Essential Rules (2019). He shares creative guidelines and innovation insights from his ex...

S8 E14: For XYZ’s second ever live recording release, we spoke live from the SURROUND Podcast Network studio at NeoCon with award-winner industrial designer, Brad Ascalon, about the ‘Future of (Not) Fast Furniture’. In this fun and fascinating conversation, Brad talked about how his appreciation for materials traces back a creative childhood, dished on “big vs little d” design, weighed in on longe...

S8 E13: For XYZ’s first ever live recording release, we spoke live from the SURROUND Podcast Network studio at NeoCon with Chicago native Cheryl Durst Hon. FIIDA, Executive Vice President/CEO at IIDA (International Interior Design Association). Based on her extensive experience in the interiors industry, three years as an iF Design Award Juror, and role as a sought-after board member, keynote spea...

S8 E12: Carole Wedge FAIA NOMA LEED AP is the CEO/EVP of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) - the largest design organization in the world with over 101K members across 200 chapters. An accredited architect herself who for 17 years served as CEO of Shepley Bulfinch- one of the nation’s largest architecture & interior firms founded in 1874, there are few better guests to speak about the...

S8 E11: Women are 73% more likely to be injured in a car crash than men. Across the trades, 90% of women cannot find properly fitting safety gear. In every public space everywhere, the lines for ladies’ restrooms are multitudes longer than for men. These aren't statistical anomalies — they are the predictable consequences of a world designed primarily by and for men. Karen Korellis Reuther is the...

S8 E10: When a strategic architecture and experience firm thinks about design in decades-long time horizons and considers culture, community, and climate in their built environment projects – what emerges are deeply human-centered projects that serve all stakeholders well. Spatial Strategy is the architectural equivalent of “thinking before we speak” - the practice of planning designs and builds b...

S8 E9: Foresight is a practice that predicts or prepares for the future by listening to the “weak signals of possible futures”. Similar to trend tracking and forecasting - it explores how a provocation can blossom into possibility. Tied to the release of the 5th annual iF Design Trend Report (downloadable here: https://ifdesign.com/en/trend-report) – it is a timely moment to explore the future of...

S8 E8: Todd Bracher studied at Pratt, did his Masters in Copenhagen, and spent a decade working across Europe, before returning to New York City where he established his eponymous design studio. Credited with bringing more than 200 products to market and receiving over two dozen patents alongside dozens of accolades and awards – Todd is the first American industrial designer to have Phaidon publis...

S8 E7: Within the industrial design community, our guest is known as an innovative, global leader who has created hundreds of products and services for major brands, launched over 100 early-stage ventures including Uber and TELO Trucks, received over 300 awards, was named one of TIME Magazine’s Top 25 Visionaries and recognized by Forbes as the “Most Influential Industrial Designer in the World”,...

S8 E6: “Embodied presence.” “Intelligent gestures.” “Vulnerability is the real humanity inside us.” This week, we host Artist & Experience Designer, Annabelle Schneider, for a seemingly esoteric, abstract conversation about ‘What’s Real’. However, Annabelle quickly shows the topic to be anything other than nebulous. Based on her long-time interiors practice and now multiple award-winning insta...

S8 E5: Humans have been covering our feet with shoes to protect from injury and disease for over 5000 years. Sportsmen have been harnessing shoe innovation to maximize performance since the 1800s. The global footwear industry today produces millions of SKUs every year tailored to the unique demands of every imaginable sport, demographic, and style preference. Once a highly valued handcraft, techno...

S8 E4: “It’s about the orchestration of human judgment and machine capability towards a shared outcome.” This week’s episode is about (Hu)man-Machine Collaboration, and our guest is Matt McElvogue, the Vice President of Design at Teague - a century-old Seattle-based design firm renowned for solving complex challenges at the forefront of technology. Whether we’re looking to space or deep into the i...

S8 E3: Of all the spaces in the world that people flock to, admire, and emulate in recent decades – few are as iconic as NYC’s The High Line- the old, elevated railroad tracks on Manhattan’s West Side, turned native garden and cultural space. In this episode, we speak with the project’s co-Founder, Robert Hammond, about 'Third Places'- what they are, why they matter, and how they’re evolving. From...

S8 E2: At the start of the year, what else is there for us to do than imagine all the bright wonderful possibilities ahead? And color helps guide us into sense and feeling. Our guest this week is Laura Guido-Clark, an expert in color, materials, and finishes whose career has touched interiors, education, public works, automotive, electronics, and household appliances. Science says the spectrum of...

S8 E1: To kick off the new year, we are opening Season 8 with a conversation about a favorite holiday entertainment and pastime, ‘moviegoing’. Our guest is Jed Harmsen, VP & General Manager of Cinema & Group Entertainment at Dolby Laboratories, famous for revolutionizing audio with noise reduction and compression to significantly reduce high background noise and now the world leader in spa...

S7 E19 Rerelease (150th episode overall): Acclaimed industrial designer and recent author, Nick Foster RDI, joins XYZ for our 150th episode of the series! In this special episode, we celebrate not only 150 episodes of future exploration, but also Nick’s recently released book ‘COULD SHOULD MIGHT DON’T: HOW WE THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE’ by MacMillan. And we’re going meta here to talk about the ‘Future...

S7 E25: For our final new episode of 2025, we’re speaking with Dr. Delfina Fantini van Ditmar - a Senior Researcher at the Royal College of Art where she co-directs the Becoming Regenerative Lab and a Professor in Research at CARADT in the Netherlands where she also Chairs the Regenerative Art & Design group. With an academic background merging biology with design, her practice seeks to empowe...

S7 E24: Happy Thanksgiving, America! And happy eating everyone everywhere! In this special edition, we’re speaking about food, and specifically, fine dining. Our guests are both formally trained top chefs and acclaimed restaurateurs who have each had restaurants in New York City recognized with a Michelin star, as well as James Beard Award wins and nominations. Together, we explore fine dining as...