Scratching the Surface

Carlo Ratti is an architect, engineer, author, and academic. He is the curator of the 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture, where he developed the theme Intelligens: Natural, Artificial, Collective. He runs the Senseable City Lab at MIT and is the author of multiple books including Atlas of the Senseable City, The City of Tomorrow, and Open Source Architecture. In this conversation, Jarrett and Carlo reflect on this year’s biennale, how architecture can act as a connector of multiple intelligences, and how the senseable city is different than the smart city. Links from this episode are available at www.scratchingthesurface.fm/278-carlo-ratti — Help support the show by joining our Substack: surfacepodcast.substack.com

Maggie Gram is a writer, cultural historian, and designer. She’s the author of the new book, The Invention of Design, and her writing as appeared in n+1 and The New York Times. She also leads an experience design team at Google in New York. In this conversation, Jarrett and Maggie talk about how she wrote her book, the evolution of how we talk about design, design’s relationship to power, and why we need new ways to think about what design can do today. Links from this episode are available at www.scratchingthesurface.fm/277-maggie-gram. — Help support the show by joining our Substack: surfacepodcast.substack.com

Amale Andraos and Dan Wood are the founders of WORKac, an architecture office working across a range of scales with an emphasis on public, cultural, or civic projects all around the world. Amale is also professor at Columbia GSAPP, where she also served as dean from 2014-2021, and Dan has taught most recently at Columbia and Yale. They’ve also published a series of books including 49 Cities, Above the Pavement, the Farm, We’ll Get There When We Cross That Bridge, and their new monograph, Buildings for People and Plants. In this conversation, Amale and Dan talk with Jarrett about the threads that connect their body of work, the role of publishing in the studio, and why they think of their work as “pop”. Links from this episode are available at www.scratchingthesurface.fm/276-amale-andraos-dan-wood. — Help support the show by joining our Substack: surfacepodcast.substack.com

David Godshall and Kasey Toomey are partners at Terremoto, a landscape architecture design studio based in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Founded by Godshall and Alain Peauroi, Terremoto creates gardens that blend material exploration and conceptual ideas that seek to do right by the land while also acknowledging the laborer, the wildlife, and Indigenous communities on whose land they now live and work. In this conversation, Jarrett talks with David and Kasey about the philosophy of garden design, garden as a verb, their work in labor activism, and why garden design might be a model for the future of design practice. Links from this episode are available at www.scratchingthesurface.fm/275-david-godshall-kasey-toomey. — Help support the show by joining our Substack: surfacepodcast.substack.com

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, esteemed designers and educators, dive into their latest book, Not Here, Not Now. They discuss how major events like Brexit and COVID reshaped their views on design and reality. The duo emphasizes the importance of using impossible designs to ignite imagination and challenge the limits of traditional futures thinking. They also explore how objects can tell stories and provoke thought while critiquing the constraints of design practice. With plans to return to hands-on work, they share insights on evolving design philosophies in a rapidly changing world.

Nick Foster, a former Head of Design at Google X and author of *Could, Should, Might, Don’t*, dives into the complexities of future thinking. He discusses the limitations of conventional futurism and introduces the 'futures designer' role, emphasizing the importance of diverse perspectives. Nick outlines his four corridors of futurism: could, should, might, and don't. He also highlights the concept of the 'future mundane' and the vital role design plays in shaping our visions for tomorrow, advocating for education that fosters critical thinking.

Joel Towers is the president of The New School in New York City. Trained as an architect, President Towers joined the school in 2004, first as a faculty member and director of Sustainable Design and Urban Ecology and most recently as executive dean of Parsons School of Design from 2009 to 2019. In this conversation, Jarrett and President Towers talk about the state of higher education, the shifting nature of design education, and how studying architecture in the late eighties shaped the work he does today. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/272-joel-towers — Join our Substack for more content each month and to help support the show! surfacepodcast.substack.com

Lydia Kallipoliti is an architect, engineer, and scholar. She is an assistant professor at the Cooper Union School of Architecture, the author of the book The Architecture of Closed Worlds and is the co-curator of the 2022 Tallinn Architecture Biennale. In this conversation, Jarrett and Lydia talk about being an architect who doesn’t build, Lydia’s concept of ‘immersive scholarship’, and alternative forms of disseminating research. This episode originally aired 3/30/22.

Zak Kyes is the creative director and founder of Zak Group where he leads projects for cultural and commercial clients across scales and mediums. From 2006 to 2016, he was the art director of the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and in 2007 he curated with Mark Owens Forms of Inquiry: The Architecture of Critical Graphic Design. In this episode, Jarrett and Zak talk about design as a type of cultural production, what he learned from working with architects, and rethinking our definitions of culture. This episode originally aired August 4, 2021.

Katherine McCoy is a graphic designer and educator. From 1971 to 1995, she was the co-artist-in-residence with Michael McCoy of the pioneering design department at the Cranbook Academy of Art. With Mike, she is the co-author of Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse and continued to teach at a variety of schools around the world. In this conversation, Katherine and Jarrett talk about the state of graphic design in the seventies, learning how to teach design, and the influence of Dutch design on Cranbrook's curriculum. This episode originally aired on February 1, 2023.