Future of the American City

Patrick Tighe is an architect interested in technology and building innovation. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss his work on housing in Los Angeles.

Neil Denari is an architect interested in the tension and interplay between innovation, preservation, technology, and tradition. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss his work in Los Angeles.

Mia Lehrer is an urbanist and landscape designer interested in urban revitalization and sustainability. She joins Charles Waldheim to discuss community advocacy and her work on the LA River and sports stadia.

Frances Anderton is an author and broadcaster who has long focused on covering design and architecture in Los Angeles. She joins Charles Waldheim to discuss what makes ‘home’ in Los Angeles.

Roger Sherman is an architect and urbanist interested in the visible and invisible logic of cities. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss new models for housing in Los Angeles and his work as Senior Director of Urban Strategy at Gensler.

Andres Sevtsuk is an architect, u rban designer , and educator whose work focuses on urban planning and spatial analysis. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss his work on city networks, transportation technology, and the future streets of Los Angeles. 

Andrew Zago is an architect and educator whose work focuses on art, architecture, and urbanism. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss architecture’s role, limitations, and autonomous contributions beyond power and economics.

Michael Maltzan is an architect and educator whose work focuses on affordable urban housing, infrastructure, and the public realm . His most recent projects in Los Angeles demonstrate the importance of architectural legibility and bridging communities within a city of many cultures. 

Dana Cuff is an author and educator whose research focuses on affordable housing and urban density. As director of cityLAB at UCLA, she has spearheaded efforts to make housing in Los Angeles more dense, equitable, and affordable.

Christopher Hawthorne is the first Chief Design Officer of the City of Los Angeles. Appointed in 2018, he has introduced new measures for shade and street lighting, brownfield redevelopment efforts, and a working group for rethinking Los Angeles’s history of design.

Thom Mayne is an architect and educator whose practice, Morphosis, engages in cross-disciplinary research and design. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss performance, idiosyncrasy, and irregularity in the context of his life and work in Los Angeles.

Eric Höweler is an architect and educator whose work deals with building technology and the public realm. He recently led a course in Miami on new strategies for urban housing, focusing on the issues of typology, density, transit, and climate adaptability.

Sean Canty is an architect and educator whose work focuses on building type and geometry. Among other things, he has recently engaged in teaching a course on reimagining housing and public space in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood.

Laurinda Spear and Margarita Blanco are architects and landscape architects whose work at ArquitectonicaGEO focuses on creating ecologically performative public spaces. Many of their projects in Miami deal with elevated landscapes and water management.

Rodolphe el-Khoury is an architect, historian, and educator whose recent work deals with smart cities and embedded technology. RAD-UM, his lab at the University of Miami, explores the potential of responsive architecture.

Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk is a pioneering urban planner, architect, and educator. She has been instrumental in developing the City of Miami’s form-based zoning code, Miami 21. Her recent work and teaching focuses on built environment adaptation to climate change.

Craig Robins is a Miami real estate developer whose projects focus on arts, culture, and historic preservation. Most recently, he has repositioned the city’s Design District as a cultural and commercial destination.

Rosetta S. Elkin is a landscape architect who uses design as a means to address risk, injustice, and instability brought on by climate change. Elkin’s recent work on “Imagining Retreat” looks to expand the definition of coastal retreat to increase long-term stability and lower vulnerability.

Lily Song is an urban planner whose work aims to center the experiences of marginalized groups in the policy and development process. Her research introduces “Race and Place” as a diagnostic mechanism, looking to open up new urban futures by incorporating minority perspectives.

Chris Reed is a landscape architect specializing in dynamic ecologies and generative processes. He joins Charles Waldheim to discuss his idea of “Work-Life,” an ongoing exploration of the lives and afterlives of public space. Since this recording, the name of Reed’s upcoming book project has changed to Mise-en-Scène .

Toni L. Griffin is an urban planner who employs a value-based approach to urbanism, examining the ways design and planning figure into to questions of equality and inclusion. Griffin’s pursuit of the “Just City” has led her across the country to push for urban design that promotes access, choice, and empowerment.

Jesse M. Keenan has spent his career looking at the relationship between urban development and climate adaptation. His concept of “Climate Gentrification,” based on research done in Miami, New York, Boston, and elsewhere, aims to describe the effects of climate change on property values.

Mohsen Mostafavi is an architect and urbanist whose work has long focused on cities and modes of urbanization. The “Future of the American City” initiative, recently launched under his leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, brings a multi-disciplinary perspective to problems facing cities across the U.S.