In To the Ends of the Earth: A Grand Tour for the 21st Century, Richard Weller, Professor Emeritus and Co-Founder of the Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism & Ecology at the University of Pennsylvania, has condensed a sprawling subject into a compact field guide to 120 of the most significant 21st century objects, from bulldozers to Biosphere II. Call it dystopian, call it optimistic. Just don’t call it “anthroporn.” -- Intro/Outro: “Until the End of the World,” by U2 -- Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World, by Timothy Morton Utopias (and Utopia’s Evil Twins)   ..read more

Jason Barr is a professor of economics at Rutgers University Newark and one of the world's foremost experts on the economics of skyscrapers. His new book, out May 14, 2024, is Cities in the Sky: The Quest to Build the World’s Tallest Skyscrapers. In it, Barr takes a global view of why the quest to build up is as fierce as ever, and why skyscrapers remain so controversial. Join the Unfrozen interview with Barr, in which some record-breaking myths get busted. -- Intro/Outro: “Altitude Blues,” by Ladytron -- Discussed: Mythbusting the Home Insurance Building First Skyscrapers | Skyscraper Firsts ..read more

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