Barriers to Entry

Looking back and forward It’s a conversation wrapped in nostalgia when Bobby and Andrew welcome Mancini Duffy’s Bill Mandara to the pod. From remembering childhood aspirations through to the aspirations of the present, the conversation is one focused on being authentic and being willing to try new things. Bill shares how he and partner Christian Giordano have re-thought their business at...

Influencing the Sphere If finally happened.  After months of name dropping, Bobby and Andrew finally visited the Sphere and they brought along a new friend to talk about it.  Kelly Knapp has been at the forefront of immersive experiences for much of her career and she joins the pod to talk about the process of creating projects like Sphere, where she was a pre-launch creative lead, as we...

 Coming to America  Fresh off having moderating a packed house panel at SXSW, Bobby and Andrew are joined by luxury brand-building powerhouse, and fellow podcast host, Lisa Gralnek.  Recently named the US Managing Director and Global Head of Sustainability & Impact for the prestigious iF DESIGN organization based in Hannover Germany, Lisa drops in for a conversation about everything from the futur...

Introducing the BTE Hotline In a special episode, Producer Rob joins the show to share the first voicemails left at the new Barrier to Entry audience hotline.  On tap are a handful of reflections, aspirations and predictions from previous guests to the show along with reactions and predictions of their own from the gang - as well as a slew of memorable (?) new audio amuse bouches from Producer Rob...

Making magic at Maison et Objet On the verge of the acclaimed French design show, Maison et Objet, the gang is joined by the fair’s 2024 Designer of the Year, Mathieu Lehanneur.  Mathieu is regularly acclaimed for making ‘magic’ through his blending of design thinking with technology, psychology and beyond.  While no rabbits are pulled from hats, the conversation ranges from the importance of stan...

Form follows experiences The gang are excited to welcome a leader who’s made his name bringing public and private sector together to deliver major New York City architecture projects. His firm, ODA, is now spreading their wings internationally as well as into AI, VR and more. Tune in as an icon in the industry, Eran Chen, drops by to share how he uses storytelling to inspire and bring stakeholders...

BTE has always been about bringing you innovation stories that we think have the greatest impact on the architecture & design industry, but in 2024 we’re taking this a step further—we want to hear from you! What questions would you like us to answer? Are there talking points in your boardrooms that need the BTE spark? Which AI or Metaverse subjects are keeping you up at night? You can call our hot...

The state of the industry 12/23 To wrap up the year at BTE, the gang welcomes old friend, fellow SURROUND podcast host, and President of ThinkLab, Amanda Scheider.  After getting a sneak preview of  Bobby’s somber New Year’s Eve plans, they dive in to look back on how we say AI, metaverse and other trends unfold and then look forward to the future for trade shows, industry shifts, the ‘tech’ trend...

Technology’s impact on design in 2023 This week, an old friend drops by the podcast to catch up on all that’s happened in 2023, the first full year of Barrier to Entry.  Our first ever guest, Jaime Derringer joins the pod to talk about the evolutions of AI, the metaverse and the blockchain on the design industry in the year that was.  Bobby turns the plug reigns over to Jaime to hear more about he...

Design principles meet technology. This week on the pod, we manage to get both practical and technical in a forward-looking conversation with a passionate advocate of the metaverse, wearables, and more - who also happens to be a licensed senior designer at a major firm. Lisbeth Jimenez joins the gang to talk about the potential for inclusivity in digital spaces, why designers should be the ones de...

Immersive design: by Gensler. This week we welcome one of the leaders of a rapidly growing practice area from one of the world’s most noteworthy architecture & design firms, Gensler. In a can’t-miss conversation, Sarah DiLeo, our first guest who can claim to be both a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and a licensed pilot, goes deep with the gang into how a leading immersive me...

Discussing recent announcements in AI and 3D spatial tech and their impact on A&D! This week the gang puts on their party hats and pops a bottle of (non-alcoholic) bubbly to celebrate 25 episodes of BTE. Together, they reflect on the stories of the guests we’ve welcomed in the past year and discuss a series of recent and relevant announcements in 3D spatial design and artificial intelligence and t...

This week on BTE - when emerging tech meets city planning… This week we welcome a guest who’s credentials include being everything from an Urban Tech fellow at Cornell University to a multiple time startup founder and advisor to a repeat champion on Jeopardy. Greg Lindsay joins the gang to get into how cities (and by extension large groups of people) deal with technology being thrust upon them and...

This week, we sit down with David Schwarz, the founder of HUSH, an innovative experience design studio. In a conversation that moves from the philosophical to the practical, we go deep into the challenges and opportunities for both clients and staff of working with a design studio with technology and innovation core, discuss the future of work and the state of sustainability in emerging tech, shar...

This week, the gang is joined in-person in New York by a classically-trained, multidisciplinary designer who is always pushing the envelope and finding new ways at his shop, RADS Studios, to blend the traditional with the digital. Rodolfo Agrella stops by to share stories from his classical architecture and design training in Caracas and Milan, how he used technology to create a cookie at Salone d...

This week on the pod, the gang receives a masterclass in embedding innovation into a business from the Director of Innovation at S/L/A/M Collaborative, Keith Fine. Keith took a moment of necessity to create a virtual workflow at the onset of COVID and has used it to chart a path to redefine how the firm is now using 3D Spatial and AI technology to work both with its clients and internally. Tune in...

We’re keeping it in the (SANDOW) family this week as we welcome the Editor-in-Chief of Metropolis Magazine, and leading thinker on industry sustainability, Avi Rajagopal. Buckle up as the team nerds out with Avi on everything from how blockchain technology can impact supply chain, to judging the first Interior Design Metaverse Architecture & Design Awards, to what Indigenous culture is teaching us...

The summer of BTE continues as the pod travels to Chicago for Design Week where we sit down with Karli Slocum, the Vice President of Product and Marketing at 3Form, live from the SnapCab podcast studio at NeoCon (is that enough plugs for you??). Kicking off talking about the company’s roots in Utah, Karli shares insights from a number of signature initiatives including her transformative partnersh...

This week on the pod, while Bobby is away, Tess and Andrew hold down the fort and welcome a Global powerhouse in the world of trends. Patti Carpenter, the Global Trend Ambassador for Maison et Objet, joins us for a far-reaching conversation that touches on how metaverse and other emerging technologies are becoming trends, the pandemic's impact on the fashion and design industries, and her work in...

In a NYCxDESIGN special, the pod squad assembles live at the Audo Copenhagen showroom in Tribeca for an in-person conversation with 3rd generation member of the founding family, Joachim Kornbek Engell-Hansen. In this wide-ranging conversation in front of a live audience, we get into the evolution of the Audo brand, the many ways in which design innovation is achieved through collaboration with dif...

This week on the pod, we welcome a true icon in the world of 3D spatial design, Philip Rosedale. Philip is the co-founder of High Fidelity, a company committed to connecting people through superior digital audio, but he’s probably best known as the brain behind Second Life—a pioneering virtual world launched wayyyy back in 2003. If you’re a long-time listener, you’ve definitely heard us mention Se...

Today on the pod the gang welcomes a leader in innovation at one of our industry’s most renowned firms, Perkins & Will. While Yehia Madkour currently resides in Vancouver, allowing Tess and Andrew to claim him as a ‘Canadian’, he hails from one of the world’s most bustling and populous cities, Cairo, Egypt, where his appreciation for architecture, technology, and transportation systems was first f...

On the latest episode of Barriers to Entry, we sit down with an early leader at one of the most publicized and possibly most criticized of the ‘metaverse’ worlds, Decentaland. Sam Hamilton came to the Decentraland Foundation through a journey stemming from art and music that intersected with technology in the early days of the rise of cryptocurrency and NFTs. Today, he oversees the direction of a...

In this special Bonus Pod episode, we welcome the Founder of Architecture Hunter, Amanda Ferber. While Bobby gets the day off, Andrew and Tess get into it with Amanda about the rise of her Global brand from a collection of images in folders on her university computer, then Tess and Amanda discuss their impressions of being judges for the inaugural Interior Design Metaverse Architecture & Design (M...

This week, the gang is joined by an A&D leader fresh off appearances on stage at CES and SXSW, two of the world’s most prominent tech conferences. Lighting Environments and Elevated Environments CEO, Erin McDannald, joins the pod to talk about learnings from their company’s industry-leading office digital twin, the impacts of technology on talent, and how the metaverse has the potential to elimina...