Kevin Kelley, a self-described “attention architect,” is a co-founding partner of design firm Shook Kelley and author of Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together. In our digitized world of ghost commerce, he believes there is still a place for real places, and that it is incumbent on architects to stop looking down their noses at retail, the essential lubricant of urban life, and start designing places that matter. -- Intro/Outro: “Friction,” by Television -- Discussed: Bass Pro Shops at the Memphis Pyramid Against 15-Minute Delivery “The Bonfire Effect,” co ..read more

Craig Hutson has worked in research and development in academia and industry and is fascinated with the history of Chicago’s lakefront. When seeking a definitive book about the history of Illinois Center and Lakeshore East, the air-rights developments above former docklands and railyards east of the Loop, he realized there wasn’t one, and he decided to write it himself. -- -- Intro/Outro: “Nighttime in the Switching Yard,” by Warren Zevon -- Discussed: Illinois Central Railroad Illinois Center Lakeshore East Millennium Park Maggie Daley Park Aqua St. Regis Chicago Outer Drive East (400 East Ra ..read more

Blobs. Doppelgangers. Giants. Puppets. Incontinent objects. Mullets. Army of Darkness. All and much more are covered in Horror in Architecture: The Reanimated Edition by Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing. The book examines how horror genre tropes familiar from books and cinema also appear in architecture, and in so doing, how we can find another way to understand and criticize our built environment, using the language of mass culture in place of “weaponized jargon.” Comaroff is the guest of honor on episode 76 of Unfrozen. -- -- Intro/Outro: “Scare Me,” by Deadbolt -- Discussed:   Immanue ..read more

Never mind the weather, don’t you feel it has been a cold and eerily quiet winter? Could it be because Unfrozen was offline due to unanticipated legal issues with our podcasting platform? Never fear, we are back in black / in the saddle again, we missed you, and we are ready to infiltrate your ears with our musings once again. Intro/Outro: “Miss You,” by the Rolling Stones -- Discussed: -              Spotify throws a sprocket in our jam-bulance wheels -              ..read more

In every office, there is someone with so much accumulated knowledge the boss wants to “clone” them. At structural engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti (TT), they’ve basically done that. The firm has taken the concept of a “digital twin” to a newly literal level – engineers can now quiz a synthetic clone of the firm’s in-house welding and metallurgy expert, constructed from 30 years of his files and emails. Chief Technology Officer Robert Otani tells Unfrozen where TT is taking generative artificial intelligence (GAI) next. -- Intro/Outro: “Mr. Roboto,” by Styx -- Discussed: ·    ..read more

Mankind’s quest for verticality has an underexplored dimension: the queasy feeling of vertigo many experience when close to the edge of a sheer drop. Davide Deriu, Reader in Architectural History and Theory at the University of Westminster, London, has taken on the relative lack of research into the subject with an interdisciplinary approach, captured in his book On Balance: Architecture and Vertigo. Come, stand on the edge with us. -- Intro/Outro: “Vertigo” by U2 -- Discussed:            Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock, 1958      ..read more

On the dawn of our fourth season, your hosts recap their favorite ‘casts of 2023, a live dramatic reading of Unfrozen’s 2023 Spotify Wrapped stats, and get on and off the soapbox as we stare down the barrel of 2024. -- Intro/Outro: “Trying Not to Think About Time,” by The Futureheads -- Discussed: -       Unfrozen’s 2023 Spotify Wrapped Stats: o  Most Popular Episode: “Show Me the Bodies” with Peter Apps o  Most Shared Episode: “Untimely Meditations, Virtual Repatriations,” with Era Merkuri and Martin Gjoleka + Chidi Nwaubani -    ..read more

James Sanders edited Renewing the Dream: The Mobility Revolution and the Future of Los Angeles, out now from Rizzoli. With contributions from Nik Karalis, Frances Anderton, Mark Valliantos and Unfrozen’s own Greg Lindsay, the book explores the forces behind the change in the mobility landscape of the most famously car-centric city on Earth. Through design provocations and disciplined research, Sanders and the authors see the city on the edge of a mobility revolution, already manifesting in the largest rail-transit-building campaign in America since World War II, that could soon see its dozens ..read more

Andi Schmied is an artist and architect based in Budapest. On a fellowship with the Triangle Arts Association, she traveled to New York, impersonating a “Hungarian billionaire’s wife” and prospective apartment buyer to gain access to some of the highest and most expensive real-estate in the world. The result is “Private Views,” a book documenting through photography and research the rarified atmosphere of the so-called “pencil towers” now dotting the Manhattan skyline. -- Intro/Outro: “Something for the Girl with Everything” by Sparks -- Discussed:      Calacatta Tucci marb ..read more

Zachary Balber is a photo artist who has been a frequent presence in the Miami contemporary art circuit exhibition since he got his BFA in Creative Photography at the University of Florida, New World School of the Arts, in 2009. His work has also been included in several American private and institutional collections. Intimate Stranger is a photographic series produced in Miami by Zachary Balber between 2013 and 2020. Zachary has created 150 photos in which he has taken, very rapidly and without authorization, self-portraits during photo sessions of high-end real estate, in various poses ..read more