American Building

Today we will be speaking with Vishaan Chakrabarti, a licensed architect and the founder of the Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU). His professional portfolio is diverse, expanding from creating a master plan for the surrounding area of Michigan Central Station in Detroit to creating a social housing neighborhood in East New York. In this week’s episode, we will be speaking to Vishaan ab...

Today we will be speaking with Vishaan Chakrabarti, a licensed architect and the founder of the Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU). His professional portfolio is diverse, expanding from creating a master plan for the surrounding area of Michigan Central Station in Detroit to creating a social housing neighborhood in East New York. In this week’s episode, we will be speaking to Vishaan ab...

Today we will be speaking with Faith Rose, a founding partner of O’Neill Rose Architects, a design firm based in Brooklyn. Her firm builds projects that have distinct physical, cultural, and historical conditions that create rich and meaningful spaces. She shares how her projects use a versatile approach to creating space that reflects and frames her client’s aspirations. One such project is Cowbo...

On this week’s episode, we will be speaking with Johanna Anderson, Executive Director of Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services. We will be speaking about Founder’s Way, a major mixed-use project in downtown Ithaca, New York on the site of a former Catholic school. This project was purchased by INHS from the Immaculate Conception School at 320 West Buffalo St. in Ithaca from the Roman Catholic Dioce...

In today’s episode, we will be speaking with Yasmin Rehmanjee, partner and Co-Director of the New York office of Buro Happold. She has had two decades of structural engineering design experience, leading large-scale, multidisciplinary projects such as the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Today we will be speaking to Yasmin about the Hudson’s Site in downtown Detroit, a 680-foot mixed-use project...

Jon Pickard is a Co-founder and Principal at Pickard Chilton, an award-winning architectural design firm based in Connecticut. We are talking about 2+U (also known as the Qualtrics Tower), the studio’s recently completed 690,000-square foot next-generation office complex in the heart of downtown Seattle. 2+U consists of 2 separate towers of 38 stories and 18 stories joined atop a common podium. It...

This week we will be speaking with Jenny Peysin, a licensed architect based in Brooklyn, NYC, about her current passive house project, Wilderness Drive in the Catskills region of upstate New York. As the founder of Jenny Peysin Architecture, her approach to design is rooted in a modernist philosophy, one that incorporates people with the spaces in which they live and work. She has also become a ce...

Today we will be speaking with Chris Mazzola, the Director of Development at Bijou Properties and a developer who focuses on residential anchored, mixed-use developments in New Jersey. He has been with the company for seven years and has shaped many of their major projects in the process, from acquisitions all the way to leasing. On today’s episode, we will hear more about the 7Seventy House, a ne...

Today we speak with Camila Crazut, an architect and interior designer working as a Project Manager at Spivak Architects in New York City. After training and becoming licensed as an architect in Venezuela, Camila came to the US to extend her training with a degree in interior design. Regardless of the title, Camila identifies as a designer capable of a wide range of creative projects, including the...

Today we will be talking to Rob Menendez, a member of the Board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. We will be discussing a major intermodal transit hub in Manhattan’s Times Square, serving 65M people per year, known as the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Located in the heart of Times Square, this project is not only the nation's largest bus terminal but the busiest in...

In today’s episode, we will be speaking with Alicia Hylton-Daniel who is the founder of Hylton Daniel, a design and construction company in Durham, North Carolina. She is both an interior designer and a general contractor, featuring in the Durham Magazine and the HGTV show Love it or List It, where she shares her portfolio of modernist renovation and new construction projects in greater Durham. To...

This week we'll be talking to Phillip Gesue, the Chief Development Officer at Strategic Capital, a Jersey City-based development company that is a subsidiary of China Construction America. Previously, he held senior development roles at the Witkoff Group and Time Equities. In this week’s episode, we will discuss how a 37 story high-rise, located just steps from the Hudson River, is set to become t...

For this episode, we welcome Samer Hanini. Samer is the founder and managing partner of the Hanini Group, a development company with an affiliated architecture firm, Brick Design, and a construction management firm, Hanini Construction. We are talking about the Peoples Bank Building, his recently completed 120,000-square-foot mixed-use building in downtown Passaic, New Jersey. This historic landma...

For this episode, we welcome Matthias Hollwich, Founder and Partner of the architecture firm HWKN (“Hawk-in”). This episode takes a deep dive into 25 Kent, HWKN’s recently completed commercial building on the Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn. Totaling 500,000 square feet, the development is divided among office, light manufacturing, and retail. It includes 1.8 acres of open space and, for grate...

This week we'll be talking with Galia Solomonoff, founder and creative director of SAS/Solomona Architecture Studio, in New York City. We will be speaking to her about the Philadelphia Art Alliance, which Galia completed in collaboration with JacobsWyper Architects in 2019. This project preserved and re-imagined a dilapidated building in the heart of Philadelphia and owned by the University of the...

Today, our guest is Rachel Loeb. Rachel is the President and CEO of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. NYCEDC is a mission-driven non-profit organization that works on behalf of New York City to invest in neighborhoods to address long-standing community needs. We’ll chat about the Bronx Point project, which broke ground earlier this year. It features 542 units of affordable housin...

Today, our guest is architect Kirk Mitchell. Kirk is the founder and principal at AKT Designs, an architecture and interior design firm based in Bergen County, New Jersey. We will be talking about 432 Woodland, a spectacular renovation of a single-family home in the Palisades, a stunning cliffside area of northern New Jersey. Listen in as we discuss how the pandemic has impacted residential design...

Today we’re talking with Anthony Pellegrino, Head of Hotels for ASH NYC, about the Hotel Peter & Paul in New Orleans. In this $20M project, ASH NYC reimagined a campus of buildings once owned by the Catholic Diocese into a 71 room hotel with 3 F&B outlets, an event space, and a courtyard. Anthony shares some fascinating insight on the project, specifically how his long-standing experience...

Today we welcome Kim Yao to the podcast, partner at Architecture Research Office, ARO, in New York City. We will be talking about Milgard Hall, the 55,000 square foot Interdisciplinary STEM building at the University of Washington - Tacoma campus. It combines the School of Engineering & Technology and the Milgard Business School, and the Global Innovation and Design Lab together,  as a hu...

On 9/11, images of Brookfield Place were seen around the world. Its gorgeous glass barrel-vaulted roof collapsed, its entrance blocked by a mountain of debris. Recently, Pelli Clarke Pelli reimagined what the building entrance could be, restoring key parts and changing others, to deliver a more innovative, sustainable building at this iconic location. Today we talk with Rafael Pelli, who rehabilit...

One of the most well-known and well-respected professionals in the real estate business joins us on the podcast today for a highly insightful and motivating chat. Listen in as MaryAnne Gilmartin, founder and CEO of MAG Partners, walks us through the process of their latest project, 241 West 28th St, a new-construction, residential building in Chelsea, Manhattan. This building was the only major de...

In today’s episode, we welcome esteemed architect and partner at FXCollaborative, Ann Rolland, to discuss her most recent project, Q404, or The Academy for Careers in TV and Film located in Hunters Point, Queens. We begin with the foundations of Ann’s architectural journey and explore how as architects and designers we can ensure people feel safer returning to schools in a post-Covid landscape. A...

Today we’re joined by Megan Luce, Senior Director of Interior Design at Michael Graves. Join us as we discuss what it was like to work alongside Michael Graves, himself, and take a look behind the scenes of Megan’s latest project, 1776 On The Green in Morristown, New Jersey. Having begun work on this combination bar, restaurant, and Top Golf Suite just before the pandemic, Megan divulges the keys...

What goes into making an iconic building in America? What are the stories and who are the people behind the next generation of architecture? In season two of American Building Podcast, we aim to answer these questions as well as how the pandemic has impacted the architectural landscape by sitting down with top developers and designers at the forefront of the industry. Be sure to follow the podcast...

The first guest in the American Building series is Matthias Hollwich, Founder and Partner of the architecture firm HWKN (“Hawk-in”). This episode takes a deep dive into 25 Kent, HWKN’s recently completed commercial building on the Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn. Totaling 500,000 square feet, the development is divided among office, light manufacturing, and retail. It includes 1.8 acres of ope...