architectures of planetary well-being Podcast

“There’s two professions in the world that have at their heart some form of liberty… a philosopher and an artist,” says writer and curator Ekow Eshun. In a conversation with the interdisciplinary artist Danielle Dean, the two discuss the importance of storytelling and art in creating a more just and caring world. They reimagine the role of cultural institutions, particularly museums, and think bey...

Architect, media artist, and educator Leah Wulfman and artist, filmmaker, and musician Lawrence Lek each found their way to architecture through an interest in world-building. Today, they both continue to create digital universes. In this episode, they discuss their educational histories, the material connection between the digital and physical worlds—the often detrimental environmental impact of...

While graphic novelist and architectural designer Sabba Khan’s work poignantly explores her own history growing up in East London, and Federica Fragapane uses painterly illustration to visualize data, in this conversation, they find the overlaps between their respective practices, and discuss the lived experiences and choices shaping even the most objective information. They remind us to use our o...

How does water carry ancestral memory? And how can ancestral memory remind us of the wisdom we’ve always carried? Curator and writer Natasha Ginwala and architect Sumayya Vally examine questions like these in a profoundly tender conversation that touches on both practitioners’ recent work, as well as landscape, memory, the importance of what Natasha describes as a “unity of knowledge,” and how the...

In this episode, the Palestinian architect Noura Al Sayeh and the writer, historian, and architect Samia Henni discuss their recent accomplishments and, more broadly, the widespread impact of colonialism and imperialism—on both western perceptions of the world and its geographies, and on the artistic institutions that purport to fight hegemonic power structures. In an emotional, hopeful conversati...

Welcome to Between Us , the second season of the Architectures of Planetary Well-Being podcast. For our first episode, we speak to the curators for this season, Shumi Bose and Federica Zambeletti of KoozArch, a research studio and digital magazine exploring architecture and design. Shumi and Federica guided the conversations of Season Two through the lens of betweenness —bridging gaps between prac...

“What happens on Earth stays on Earth”: This Kendrick Lamar lyric unexpectedly grounds a conversation on sustainability and embodiment between architect Nzinga Biegueng Mboup and designer Seetal Solanki. The two find common ground in the multiplicity of their respective backgrounds and their shared love for materials; together they discuss the surprising fluidity of architectural materials, how a...

Researcher and architect Setareh Noorani and artist and architect Emanuel Admassu discuss the transformative power of friendship, collaboration, and, as Setareh says, being “in touch with each other.” Together, they explore how that same sense of horizontality might shape the concept of reparations—all the while considering the importance of accountability, of reframing the hegemonic hierarchies t...

The Architectures of Planetary Well-being podcast Season 1 is hosted by Yessenia Funes and produced by re:arc institute. In this episode, host Yessenia Funes welcomes climate justice activist Vic Barrett to discuss Moving Policy Through Storytelling. Vic Barrett is most known as a plaintiff in Juliana v. United States, a climate-related lawsuit filed in 2015 by 21 youth plaintiffs against the Unit...

The Architectures of Planetary Well-being podcast Season 1 is hosted by Yessenia Funes and produced by re:arc institute. In this episode, host Yessenia Funes speaks with climate scientist, artist, and activist Mika Tosca. Mika Tosca is an Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her current research and public outreach explores the synthesis of art and climate science and...

The Architectures of Planetary Well-being podcast Season 1 is hosted by Yessenia Funes and produced by re:arc institute. In this episode, host Yessenia Funes is joined by Singapore-based urbanist Sarah Ichioka and London-based architect Michael Pawlyn. Sarah Ichioka and Michael Pawlyn are co-authors of Flourish: Design Paradigms for Our Planetary Emergency, a book which proposes a new framework fo...

The Architectures of Planetary Well-being podcast Season 1 is hosted by Yessenia Funes and produced by re:arc institute. In this episode, host Yessenia Funes catches up with climate activist Ayisha Siddiqa. Ayisha Siddiqa is a Pakistani Climate justice advocate based in New York. She is a co-founder of Polluters Out and the Executive Director of Student Affairs at Fossil Free University. Her advoc...

The Architectures of Planetary Well-being podcast Season 1 is hosted by Yessenia Funes and produced by re:arc institute. In this episode, host Yessenia Funes discusses the process of Decolonizing Architectures with WAI Architecture Think Tank. WAI Architecture Think Tank is a planetary studio practicing by questioning the political, historical, and material legacy and imperatives of architecture a...

The Architectures of Planetary Well-being podcast Season 1 is hosted by Yessenia Funes and produced by re:arc institute. In this episode, host Yessenia Funes dives into Sustainable Movement Building with environmentalist Tamara Toles O’Laughlin. Tamara Toles O’Laughlin is a New York-based environmentalist, lawyer, and organizer, with over 20 years of experience focused on equity, access, and commu...

Welcome to architectures of planetary wellbeing, a podcast and audio sense-making space that explores the interconnection of our social and ecological systems. Each season, we partner with climate visionaries in shaping a series of conversations that bring together a variety of lived experiences with the hopes of helping us explore the threads between architecture, design, and environmental activi...