178 - Exploring Urban Fabric, Adaptive Reuse, and Iconic Influences in Architecture

Exploring Urban Fabric, Adaptive Reuse, and Iconic Influences in Architecture

In this episode, Jamie and Kurt delve into the concept of adaptive reuse in architecture, discussing how existing buildings can be revitalized to meet modern needs. Influential books such as Jane Jacobs' 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities' and Carl Elefante's 'Going for Zero' are highlighted for their insights into urbanism and sustainability. The hosts share sketches depicting bustling downtown environments, emphasizing the importance of creativity in transforming existing structures. They also touch on the upcoming walkie-talkie event in Boston and compare favorite coffees. Join the conversation on how historical context and modern ambitions intersect in the field of architecture.

00:00 Welcome and Introduction
00:26 YouTube and Content Creation
03:01 Influences and Inspirations
03:58 Robocop and Prop Design
14:46 Coffee Talk
19:37 Nostalgic Toys and Childhood Memories
20:34 Podcast Dynamics and Listener Engagement
21:43 Upcoming Event: Boston Walkabout
25:54 Sketching and Architectural Discussions
31:20 Sustainable Architecture and Existing Buildings
41:05 Educational Insights and Future Plans

Transcript

Kurt Neiswender: 0:32

Oh, hey Jamie. Welcome to the show. Fancy meeting you here. Yeah, I know. Around the corner. There you are. I mean, there's no corners on the internet. No, but there might, well, no,

Jamie: 0:51

some dark corners. I was dark web. No, no, no, no, no, no. You stopped doing the true crime stuff. Come on, man. You, you, you, you pulled yourself away from all that. Now we just have the occasional YouTube rabbit hole for prop design. You know, maybe related to for that,

Kurt Neiswender: 1:13

if, if, if people were listening to the pre-show on, you know, the only live stream architecture podcast on Twitch and YouTube, so there is all, all kinds of, you never know what you're gonna get before this part. This is us reigning it in. Yes. Outside of this no holds barred, those that all that are off, for those that understand that reference. That's also very generational. Yeah. I mean, the term, not so much the movie very much.

Jamie: 1:50

There might've been some F-bombs.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:52

There was one.

Jamie: 1:53

Even. Even one. There was one. I think we're one we're allowed.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:56

One.

Jamie: 1:56

I think you're allowed one per episode.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:58

I've not gotten any nasty emails. So that's either because YouTube doesn't find us significant enough or you're allowed one,

Jamie: 2:08

I think one, and you're still PG 13. I think they changed the rules. So

Kurt Neiswender: 2:13

I think it depends on maybe how many subscribers you have.

Jamie: 2:16

Yeah, well that too,

Kurt Neiswender: 2:17

probably if you have negative subscribers. Yeah, it's irrelevant. Yeah.

Jamie: 2:21

No, it's, no, we're not doing, we're not doing that. We're not negative.

Kurt Neiswender: 2:24

We actually have positive, it's, yeah, it's in the positive

Jamie: 2:28

It, let's be honest, in the tens of

Kurt Neiswender: 2:30

tens of subscribers,

Jamie: 2:32

let, let's be honest, like it's

Kurt Neiswender: 2:34

okay. I get dig, I digress.

Jamie: 2:36

We're doing well. So.

Kurt Neiswender: 2:39

No, I mean, I'm not complaining. Look at this plush lifestyle. I live

Jamie: 2:42

Well, you keep, well, you keep moving houses. I'm moving. I

Kurt Neiswender: 2:46

mean, I keep moving rooms, moving houses you know, rabbit holes, you know, but, you know, you gotta, you gotta no stone unturned, Jamie. No,

Jamie: 2:57

I think, I think that time, a spring of, you know, that time in LA where what was it? Richard Molton?

Kurt Neiswender: 3:07

Michael Malson?

Jamie: 3:09

No. Oh. Richard

Kurt Neiswender: 3:10

Leonard.

Jamie: 3:11

Leonard. Leonard

Kurt Neiswender: 3:11

Molton. Leonard

Jamie: 3:12

Molton Richard.

Kurt Neiswender: 3:13

Those are nice mashup of names. Whew

Jamie: 3:16

boy. Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 3:17

The professor. Linda Di Yeah.

Jamie: 3:19

Don't ask Jamie to get the names right. Like, unless, well, actually never, don't ask me to get the names right.'cause I'm probably not gonna, I'm gonna get close.'cause the brain, you

Kurt Neiswender: 3:32

know,

Jamie: 3:33

like a steel trap. But yeah, so Leonard Molton did have an influence on Kurt in his USC days, you know, and maybe connected that architecture and film just a little bit more. And then you got to meet one of the masters of like,

Kurt Neiswender: 3:56

creature creation. Yeah. Is that where we're talking? Is that where we're going with this? Yeah,

Jamie: 3:59

yeah. We're, we're going down that road

Kurt Neiswender: 4:00

for a second. Yeah. You need the name Stan, Stan Winston.

Jamie: 4:04

Yeah. I got a,

Kurt Neiswender: 4:05

I got a name drop.

Jamie: 4:06

No, no. So you're gonna, you're, I'm letting you do the name drop. So you did that. And then we have talked about Sid Mead, you know, the, sort of the artistic influence on many a many an artist, architect,

Kurt Neiswender: 4:21

you know,

Jamie: 4:21

and, and then Kurt drops on me tonight that he's gone down for his birthday. Happy birthday buddy. That he went and sort of went down his own little rabbit hole related to Robocop and prop design. So did you find what you were looking for?

Kurt Neiswender: 4:45

Oh. Oh, I, I just scratched the surface. Okay. But, you know, you know, being, being based here in Michigan, although Robocop is set in Detroit a future dystopian com capitalistic Detroit, which may not sound too strange these days, right. Yeah. You know, robo, so Robocop was designed, well, there's a couple of people attributed to it. Phil Tippett, some of the characters, and oh God, I'm gonna forget his name and now I shouldn't name. That's why you don't name drop'cause you forget names. And I, if, if Adam Savage, the you know, the, the MythBuster is watching shame, shame upon me. However you know, the, I don't know. I mean, don't you, I mean, well, having worked, worked for Stan, who designed, you know, Jurassic Park, dinosaurs, Terminator Predator Alien, all those beloved characters before CGI was a thing, you know, they were all animatronic and sculpted art artworks. You know, Robocop falls into that. You know, there's, there's actually, so the one thing I'll talk about is that there is a, not just a little bit, but a, a fair amount of stop motion animation in Robocop. When dealing with, you know, so the actor, you know, Peter Weller as Robocop has a costume

Jamie: 6:26

Doctor Doc. It's Doctor Peter Weller. Yeah. Fantastic professor. Yeah, probably that too.

Kurt Neiswender: 6:37

So, so Dr. Weller playing Robocop, Alex Murphy is a, is, you know, a human in a costume, but some of the you know, other robo robot bad guys are puppets and, you know, so there are scaled down versions. I mean, there's some full scale parts and then there's, so there's a lot of stop motion animation, you know, so for an action movie, and you know, again, without CG, I. As, as a fallback, you know, the, the stop motion, you know, probably people would probably think it's really hokey today to see'cause there's some jitter, you know, stop motion. But to have pulled off what they pulled off. I mean, that's the thing is that, that's why I went down the rabbit hole of all the stories Jamie is extracting from me is, you know, Adam Savage, you know, the myth, myth buster. And, you know, now he has a YouTube channel about all of his, it's basically his sort of version of brain, you know, sharing with the world everything that he's been experiencing in, in his career. The, the, the claim, the, so his claim is that, you know, the cane in Robocop two, the bad guy was cane the cane robot. Again, designed through Phil Tippet Studios was, was, and, and still remains one of the most complicated physically sculpted movie characters ever. Right. And there's so many moving parts. Right. And none of it was CGI, it was all modeled. It was all built. Right. So I guess for us architects, the whole point, this long diatribe, about 15 hours of me talking, is the whole point of the, the making of objects, handmade human scale elements

Jamie: 8:47

to create a suspension of disbelief.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:51

Exactly. The total suspension of disbelief.

Jamie: 8:55

Yeah. So you gotta have that, that craft and that creativity and. And imagination.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:03

The, the care for the detail

Jamie: 9:04

and the care for the detail

Kurt Neiswender: 9:06

exactly. To, to emulate or generate this world for people to, to sort of move into. Yeah, that's the, that's the whole point. Well mean, can can we stop the podcast now?'cause I think, I mean, I can't go any farther.

Jamie: 9:23

Well, I mean, it's funny because as you were sort of saying that, and it's I think it's interesting, like we use the term world building a lot now, and that's a relatively new term, right? I mean, in sort of a lexicon vocabulary, game design and stuff. Yeah. I think it, and I think it really does kind of come out of that. I think you're absolutely right. And so, you know, as you're describing this you know, makeup model building. Set design, character animation, stop motion animation, you know, special effects, you know, creature effects. It's, it's this opportunity for craft and design and care all coming into play to create that, you know, suspension of disbelief so that you can create that world. And, and I think that that's something that's you know, as a, as a creative, I think both of us sort of feel that kinship to those, to that kind of medium. And you've had a lot more experience sort of, you know, meeting and sort of interacting with that, you know, from, you know, your time in, in Los Angeles. But I think that both of us have this, you know. Distinct appreciation for it because of, I think the training that we've gone through as designers and architects and the time at which we did that, where we were looking for those expressions in other mediums. A lot of it being film to, to really kind of understand that higher level of creativity because either architecture hadn't quite caught up to it yet in terms of actual building or just because of the generation that we were kind of in, in terms of the, the, the innovation that was happening in film. That both of those things kind of coalescing for us. I think brings those two touch points together, you know, in a lot of the ways that we're viewing the world, viewing architecture, you know, viewing popular culture, trying to have those through lines. You know, this influences that, influences this and so forth. So yeah, to, to hear that you went on that sort of diatribe for yourself for your birthday, totally get it. Not surprised.

Kurt Neiswender: 11:55

So Craig Hayes, I had to look it up'cause you gotta give credit to, but the one aspect of Craig Hayes, so he is attributed to E 2 0 9 and then working on the Cane character two in the sequel. But when he was working E 2 0 9, he was 21 years old when he invented that character. Right. And then, and they were like, well, he needs to be a part of the project because you know, we can't just steal his design. So the cool part, you know, for, for students that are listening, you know, there's always an opportunity to contribute if you're. Creativity can find a little bit of just a little glimpse of light.'cause the thing, the way it worked is that, like the story goes, this is the fun part, this is the anecdotal, this is not the, they don't teach you this in books. Craig Hayes met Phil Tippet at, at Hollywood House Party, and then they created the opportunity to make the, the characters for robot, or robocop,

Jamie: 13:12

which is, it was a Hollywood house party, like, so, like in the eighties,

Kurt Neiswender: 13:18

like an act, some, some actors party.

Jamie: 13:20

So there was probably like cocaine.

Kurt Neiswender: 13:25

Nobody said anything about that.

Jamie: 13:27

Oh, okay. Okay. Different story,

Kurt Neiswender: 13:31

but you're probably right. Oh gosh. Anyway, so

Jamie: 13:34

speaking of, so there's that. So from a movie like,'cause you watch a whole lot of, like, we've, we've talked about your consumption of media and not that it's unhealthy, but I am amazed at sometimes how much you do consume. I I think that I, I do watch a lot of stuff. I do watch a lot of sports too, so I, there's a, like where it's a balancing of like, so question, there was a movie last, was it last year? Cocaine Bear? Like based on a true story, did you see that film?

Kurt Neiswender: 14:14

No,

Jamie: 14:15

no, no. Do we need to do like a, I I was kind

Kurt Neiswender: 14:17

of off put by the name and the premise.

Jamie: 14:21

Do we need to do like a mystery science three theater 3000, like watching? Did you watch it? Some of did Watch it. No, I didn't. No.

Kurt Neiswender: 14:30

I missed Mystery three K style. Of course. Yeah. That would be fun. Yeah. How do we, how does one pull it off these days without getting, you know, copyright strikes or, I,

Jamie: 14:41

I

Kurt Neiswender: 14:41

don't, I don't know, having, you know, massive budgets for this. Yeah. I mean, the, the idea is, is, was it interesting? I've heard that it was actually good from some people, but then yeah, I don't, yeah,

Jamie: 14:55

I don't know. I mean, not, not, I mean. It

14:58

just,

Kurt Neiswender: 14:59

that was, I think that's a little bit older though.'cause that's a kind of a pandemic movie, isn't it?

Jamie: 15:03

Wasn't it? Maybe. I don't know, just like stupid. It's like one of those that like, you know, dumb, there's

Kurt Neiswender: 15:07

nothing else to watch. Yeah, well because there was the actors strike and the pandemic. Right. And then that

Jamie: 15:12

happens too. Yeah. People lose, you know, lose touch. So. Alright. So back to the script. So what what's the coffee of the day

Kurt Neiswender: 15:20

there buddy? As you can see on this whiteboard over here, there's the script.

Jamie: 15:24

Mm-hmm. Right, right. Now

Kurt Neiswender: 15:27

note to everyone who's listening, Kurt's pointing at a blank whiteboard.

Jamie: 15:32

Well, yeah, because, because his, his yarn filled wall of how it's over, the conspiracy works. It's over, is just off camera to the other side.

Kurt Neiswender: 15:42

And oh, someone scanned a QR code. We might have sold some merch, please. Thank you. I, I, I think that's the reason they would scan. Okay. People can't see my screen, but I get to see the, the goings on. Oh, there's somebody in the chat too. Oh, hey, it's, it's, it's Brother Joe. Hey Joe. As you know, we

Jamie: 16:12

just lost Kurt folks. We just lost Kurt. Like too many things going on, so,

Kurt Neiswender: 16:18

yeah. Okay. So coffee. I'm back on track. So lately, so let's see our friends down at the coffee shop in the farmer's market have some new stuff to share. And so there's a company called Black Diesel and they're a Detroit based company. Diesel, I think you gotta pronounce it, diesel, right? They're Detroit based. And so their coffees are all kind of ma named after you know, automotive history.

Jamie: 16:55

Oh, I thought you were gonna say after Robocop

Kurt Neiswender: 16:59

automotive and let's say industrial revolution history.'cause one of the, one of the flavors is called Edison. And so that is not an automotive thing. That's a, a light bulb thing. Right. And so that's, that's what I've got is Edison flavored, well named. It's not flavored coffee. Let's not, you know, go down that road, road. But yeah, that's what, that's what we got. And it is quite good. And I'm gonna probably try out all the, all the flavors or roasts varieties that black diesel has'cause. Down at the farmer's market. They all, all are there. So it's good when, when in new friends, when in Flint, you, you try'em all when in the market. So what about you?

Jamie: 17:57

I've got a little, little city going on. It's one of their coffee roasters from Columbia. And the tasting notes are guava, strawberry and chocolate. And this is one that I've I have enjoyed earlier and have had some still left. And it's quite good. It's the l vergel. And

Kurt Neiswender: 18:19

I've, I am. Sounds good. Those flavors sound, sound good. Guava. Yeah. Chocolate.

Jamie: 18:27

It has just, it's, it's just, it's, it's a very, even it. And I don't mean that like in a, in like in a bad way. I mean that like, it's like, it's just, it's it's very clean kind of taste. And then has a little bit of that, you know, strawberry and chocolate fruitiness to it.

Kurt Neiswender: 18:45

Kind of reminds me of

Jamie: 18:46

I

Kurt Neiswender: 18:49

now, I can't remember the one I used to like at rootless, but yeah, the sort of berry, the berry kiss.

Jamie: 18:54

Yes. This subtle probably, which I didn't have that one, but yes, I never got that. Never got that one.

Kurt Neiswender: 19:00

I thought I was a able to ship one

Jamie: 19:03

nos

Kurt Neiswender: 19:04

wells. Okay. Still exists. Yeah. Can still make that happen.

Jamie: 19:12

Oh,

Kurt Neiswender: 19:13

there it goes. You know, so, yeah, I like the, I would, I would totally be down with that flavor. Maybe I should have some of that little city. Let's turn to tables.

Jamie: 19:25

Yeah. Austin Original. So yes, it's, it's quite good.

Kurt Neiswender: 19:30

So sorry I jumped, jumped right into some sketches. Although the, the listeners don't know, don't, don't notice, you know, but they do now. But we'll, we will have to circling, circling back, Jamie. We will have to fulfill those promises

Jamie: 19:47

of some care. Packages on coffee. Yes. Coffee care packages.

Kurt Neiswender: 19:51

Yes. And I will have to obtain some bear kiss. You did get light bright though too, though, right?

Jamie: 19:58

No.

Kurt Neiswender: 19:58

You got what? No. Yes you did. No, I think you're just lying now. I did not have light bright. You, you, you almost, was it called light bright? It wasn't called light bright, but it looked light bright.

Jamie: 20:10

It was

Kurt Neiswender: 20:10

called light bright, wasn't it? Well, you would know because you have a bag. That I probably sent you?

Jamie: 20:18

No, no, no. I mean, I thought you were gonna say, you would probably know'cause you had a light bright as a kid and Yes, I did have a light bright as a kid, so

Kurt Neiswender: 20:27

my little niece got a light bright for, for Christmas and it's LED powered these days. Yeah, I know the OG with the Oh gee. And how hot it got hot. Like

Jamie: 20:40

burn your fingertips. Yeah, it was ditch.

Kurt Neiswender: 20:45

Hers is, hers is like, like, you know, a little pancake. It's so thin,

Jamie: 20:50

right.

Kurt Neiswender: 20:50

It's almost and like

Jamie: 20:51

perfectly clean light. And the other one is like,

Kurt Neiswender: 20:54

yeah, it's a uniform. Yeah. You could like white light fry an egg on it. 4,000 kelvin. Yeah. Unlike the the old, old, old, old G the og. Yep. Anyway, this is where, this is the point of the podcast that the students probably. Drop off, but they're like, oh boy, there they go again. Or, or they zoom past, you know, two x speed.

Jamie: 21:20

Yep. That's my, that's my sound effect for that. I would love them. For them, there's a button. Just,

Kurt Neiswender: 21:26

just approach me in at school and ask me, just ask, you know, if you don't know about light bright, light bright bulb burns, just ask. Just ask. You know, we all have scars. Kurt's, Kurt's got the scars. Yep. So, Jamie. Alright. Okay. We can, we could, we, we've, we've danced around the serious business enough.

Jamie: 21:54

It's time to talk sketches folks

Kurt Neiswender: 21:56

and yeah. Otherwise we don't wanna talk about, you know, travel plans and, you know, no scheduling, well, headaches and. I'll just say, well, we do wanna talk about that. We

Jamie: 22:08

do wanna just kind of put that little nugget in here as we transition to the architecture and the sketching. Is that we will be in Boston in June. We will be joining many of our podcast colleagues and friends. And, you know, I think it's time for us all to get together on the mic and maybe do kind of a walkabout. Kurt has this idea of a a walkabout with the coffee sketch boys. And Kurt has Oh, you

Kurt Neiswender: 22:39

mean Archie speak?

Jamie: 22:41

No, no, no.

Kurt Neiswender: 22:43

Oh, you mean us us. Come join us. Okay.

Jamie: 22:47

Come join us.

Kurt Neiswender: 22:50

But hopefully the Archie speak. I

Jamie: 22:52

don't even know. Are they even stateside? I mean,

Kurt Neiswender: 22:56

gents, they're planning on being, they're, I believe they're, they're there.

Jamie: 23:01

At least,

Kurt Neiswender: 23:02

at least one half of.

Jamie: 23:03

Alright,

Kurt Neiswender: 23:04

so let's say, is it the AIE or the Speak?

Jamie: 23:07

I don't know. Which one do they even know?

Kurt Neiswender: 23:10

Well, hopefully the speak side so that it doesn't, yeah. But anyway, yes. We're we, well, I, I don't wanna take all the credit. I, I do think I think part of this brainstorm is due to cormick and the idea of a walkabout. We like a walkabout. And so, you know, Jamie, Jamie likes a walkabout, cormick thought up. We could do a walkie talkie event in Boston. And is that how, how'd they sell that one?

Jamie: 23:42

So kind

Kurt Neiswender: 23:43

of,

Jamie: 23:43

I don't know. I don't know. You know, we can, we can, we can workshop it. But yeah, I mean it's yeah, we're gonna do a walkie-talkie event. We've, we've tried this with us many, many years ago. When the tech wasn't kind of at the level that we're playing at now, folks. So I have an idea. Oh gosh. This is,

Kurt Neiswender: 24:03

this is, yeah. So, okay.'cause I won't give away what we already planned. Did some brainstorming on Yeah. But let's do, so part of the walkie and talkie, right? Mm-hmm. We're gonna walk and talk and then when we get to the final destination,

Jamie: 24:23

a place,

Kurt Neiswender: 24:25

it's gonna be napkin sketchy. Time to conclude. Said event.

Jamie: 24:33

Okay. Everyone loves a good napkin sketch

Kurt Neiswender: 24:36

and everybody can do a napkin sketch.

Jamie: 24:40

Yeah. Everyone should be able to do one. I mean, come on. You

Kurt Neiswender: 24:43

know. Well,

Jamie: 24:44

even if they don't wanna get, I mean, the point being, we've invited lots of podcasters to join us, so. And admittedly, a lot of people might not wanna just all hop on the mic, and that's okay. But to include

Kurt Neiswender: 24:59

every, like in, in a, a sort of impromptu live fashion in an

Jamie: 25:02

Exactly, exactly. So, you know, but in impromptu sketching, you know, is super fun. We love those kinds of events ourselves, you know, when we do kind of urban sketch tours or, or just, just a Tuesday night. So yeah, I mean, we're gonna, you know, I think we throw in a sketch and at the end of it and and then have a, a tasty beverage with our friends.

Kurt Neiswender: 25:31

I think that's it. Plan. Done, done, done. Planned, done. Yeah. Good. So we figured it out. Yeah. Only took five minutes.

Jamie: 25:40

We might have argued about this before this episode. Yeah. We,

Kurt Neiswender: 25:43

we yeah, we, we worked it out. Yeah. On air it's a lot more what's the word? Diplomatic. This way.

Jamie: 25:50

Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. Because we know we're being recorded.

Kurt Neiswender: 25:55

Yes. We're live.

Jamie: 25:56

We're live. And so

Kurt Neiswender: 25:57

yeah. So that is our, that's our pitch. Friends, that's the long-winded pitch of Yeah, come join us in Boston. Let's walk, talk sketch, sip on a beer, and enjoy summertime in, in the northeast. And so segwaying from that to speaking of sketches, but, but yeah, speaking of it was, I, I'm glad you reminded me though,'cause we didn't wanna leave that out'cause we're, we're getting close. But these sketches anyway, so now move on to the sketches. Kurt, these sketches are, if you're watching very similar looking. I purposely curated the pairing to, to Jamie's chagrin'cause I wanna see what's going on with a repeat sketch. Also, relatively, I think there's a relatively short timeframe between them, which is a little bit rare. So on the left and on the right we have a sort of cross-sectional sketch cutaway sketch of a, a sort of downtown main street condition kind of bustling lifestyle, you know, developing this, the, you know, aspects of what, what he does on a, on a daily basis as his, in his role as a main street architect. Right? Sort of paint the picture you know. Exemplify, you know, what a, a downtown condition can, can, can be like either historically and or, you know, moving back into the future, or not back into the future, but carrying those traditions, you know, farther to the next generation. But so you, so you've, so the kind of fun part that I'm gonna pick up on is obviously the similar nature of two sketches. The presence of two different books. So an oldie but a goodie, the Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. And then a new one from a friend of the podcast, Carl Afte, former president of a i a national big sustainability. Champion his, his new book going For Zero, which is, I mean, it's gotta be like hot off the presses as they say, right?

Jamie: 28:38

Yeah. It, it, it dropped this month. So like, so

Kurt Neiswender: 28:42

how does Jane Jacobs and Carl share the same screen, at least for our podcast with a Jamie sketch? The same Jamie Sketch done twice.

Jamie: 28:55

Yeah. Done twice at that. Exactly. No. So I think, you know, for, it's a, I I, I'm, I mean, I always appreciate, you know, this sort of, you know, banter that we have where you do try and pick up on the, the clues that are left, you know, in the, in the coffee sketches and in the postings you know, some people do pick up on them. And I think that you're, you're very astute to pick up on at this time, both by the sketch being sort of duplicated or iterated on. But also that I have talked about this sort of, you know, theme ish starting this year where I'm trying to, I'm calling it my architect's library kind of theme where I'm kind of pulling books off the, off the shelf and, and you know, and finding inspiration from them or, or recalling inspiration from them. So I think that what's interesting is I just had seen Carl he had, he had spoken in College Station at a, at a preservation symposium you know, focused on kind of,

Kurt Neiswender: 30:07

you know,

Jamie: 30:08

kind of the future, you know, the future condition of rehabilitation and sort of adaptive reuse. And, you know, very inspiring speech. And in the lead up to that, I learned that he had a new book coming out so quickly ordered it. Got to talk to him about that. And so, you know, for those who don't know who, who Carl is, you know, Kurt gave the introduction, but I think some people might, maybe won't recognize the name, but they'll recognize the quote. And, you know, the quote is that that's attributed to him is that the greenest building is the one that's already there. And, and there's kind of, you know, that phraseology at the end sort of sometimes changes the one that's already built, you know, whatever. But, you know, you get the idea and you know, now Carl is principal emeritus of Quinn Evans another AI firm of the year. But, and he's, you know, he's, he's taught extensively, but you know, this is the book that sort of has come after all of that. And I think it's in a lot of ways, sort of an aggressive stance of like, you know, there is no waiting anymore. You know, we are in this sort of existential moment where we have to think about carbon neutrality, you know, and going for zero in, in a very aggressive way as a profession, as as architects, as designers. Because the climate has changed already drastically, it's gonna continue to change. And the built environment is, is contributing to that in ways that you know, we recognize, but you know, we have to also recognize sort of both our part in it, but also sort of our response to it. And equally so, Kurt and I have talked about this before too, is this idea that as a profession we can't build our way out of this. With all new construction. That's just not, that's, that's not feasible. You know? And from a housing perspective, the population growth, you know, development, growth, development pressures, you know, globally you know, there's, there's so many things at play and what, in the work that I do and the, and sort of the perspective that I have and others Kurt has, is that we have to look at our existing buildings and start to think about how we're, we need to think more critically about them and, and critically as, as their part of the solution. Because they're already built, they are the greenest building. They do need to be adapted. They do need to be energy efficient. They do need to perform at a much higher level so that we can achieve a zero and sort of achieve that neutrality. But it begins with the fact that the building's already there. We can't send it to the landfill and build something in its place that's just, that's not, that's not feasible. So I think that sort of aggressive stance is one that's taken in this book and in a very kind of action item oriented kind of approach. I've enjoyed it highly recommend it. And in reading it, it made me think of the work that I'm doing the work that I'm passionate about. And a lot of it is helping people illustrate the idea of these possibilities for these buildings. Whether it's a small scale downtown building a historic, you know, and landmarked or, or just old and existing. And so as Kurt described it with the sketch is, you know, it's a slice through this building to illustrate the activity that's possible when you start to really think about these buildings in section. Mm-hmm. And, and that they can have multiple uses, even if they were originally designed for one use. And that use can change. And that's okay. That's the design challenge. That's, that's, that's when, that's when we get up in the morning and, and we, we, you know, we get excited about the work that we're doing.

Kurt Neiswender: 34:17

Yes, I agree with that. But sometimes trying to explain that to, to students sometimes is it's it, it doesn't always sink in quite, quite as quickly, but I think over time, you know, it, it, it, it will and it does and, and the sort of understanding, you know, can grow. Which is why I like the, the section sketch right. Is. You know, sort of cut away, peel away and, and you can sort of, sort of envision, you know, the, you know, this, this sort of diversity of occupancy and, and function on the inside of the building. And, and then, and, and being like sort of a slice of like a, a fully built out existing main street. And, and, you know, here in Flint there's a, a, a strange condition of, of how to go about this with existing buildings. You, you know, we are not lacking for a lot of existing fabric in the city of Flint. However, you know, by abandonment and blight, you know, the values of property are quite depressed. And in a lot of cases, some of them can be. Purchased for very low prices. And I've probably talked about this, you know, a few times in the past. However, the cost to upgrade and renovate to, you know, more modern standards is sort of outweighs the original or, or originating cost of the building, you know, by a lot, by a magnitude of say, 10 or 20, you know times what a client particular, you know, might be expecting. But at the bo at the end of the day though, if we did more restoration of these existing buildings adjacent, you know, next to each other, either if they're sharing a wall or if they're just along the same street you're still gonna save, save energy and money over the lifespan. Right, because you, you will get to repurpose what you're getting at, you know, repurpose a good portion of the shell or the, the structure of the building, maybe even some of the thermal conditions, you know, mass material like brick or masonry. I mean, some, you know, if you were to replace these things with modern construction methods, you won't get anywhere near the level of mass, physical mass that you could, or that was built originally.

Jamie: 36:57

Well, and, and you're, and it's all new material. I mean, and, and the old material has to go somewhere. The old material has to go to the landfill, you know, and then, and the new material, you know, isn't just coming out of thin air. I mean, it's coming outta natural resources that, you know, that we,

Kurt Neiswender: 37:14

and shipped

Jamie: 37:15

and all that Yeah. You know, shipped and, you know, and energy costs and the embodied energy of all that, you know, when the building's already there is. You know, yes, there is, there's a financial component that hasn't been completely solved yet. Agreed. Yeah. But the, the other existential aspects of this as a, as a built condition, you know, have to figure into our thinking. They just have to, I mean, that's, you know, that's the reality of this. And, and not just, not just to say just from a, from a built condition, but I think also from a community condition is that the, the density that a lot of these existing buildings already have created in terms of fabric is important in a forward thinking view of the way we need to actually, you know, look at design. It's, you know, if we're going to stitch,

Kurt Neiswender: 38:23

you know,

Jamie: 38:23

cities and communities back together and create the density that's really, really needed for both housing, affordability, you know, all of the things, then, you know, these existing buildings are critical to that path, you know, and yes, there might be some garbage buildings amidst that. I'm not, I'm not gonna argue that there aren't buildings that, that really just, you know, they're, they're too far gone. You know, I, I, I mean, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna die on that hill, but it's, but there are plenty of buildings that just because it's quote unquote hard from a design point of view or a development point of view, I, I'm not buying it. You know? And just because somebody doesn't under, just because that building doesn't do exactly what they have envisioned in their brain. Yeah. You know, they say, oh, well that's gonna cost me so much more money. It's gonna cost you so much money because you wanna do something that the building can't do. Yeah. And right. But there's these other things that still meet your project objectives and that are completely appropriate for that building and still work within your budget, scale, schedule, all those things. Mm-hmm. Let's talk about that.

Kurt Neiswender: 39:42

Yeah.

Jamie: 39:43

And, and I think that that's, that's where I just, I, I tend to get a little bit aggressive about it because I think we're sort of at that stage, you know, and it's, it's a different level of problem solving. And I, I think that there are a lot of pieces and parts that could be at play that, that quite frankly aren't. And sure if somebody wants a a five story, you know, mixed use building, and there's a building in the way, that's only two stories. That you can't, can't take on an extra story or two because of the current condition. Well then you bought the wrong building.

Kurt Neiswender: 40:25

Yeah.

Jamie: 40:25

You know, swap, do a land swap, do something else. You know, I mean there's, there's, there's plenty of other avenues, you know, to to, to think through this problem. I mean, I'm oversimplifying, but at the same time I think that, you know, clearing that land and building a whole new level of foundation so that you can do your five story building, you know, that sticks and bricks that's only gonna be a 20 year, you know, max lifespan when that building you just demoed has been there for a hundred years. Yeah. That, those numbers don't, those don't, numbers don't add up.

Kurt Neiswender: 41:04

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and our, you know, I think we walked through are. This ID five studio work from last semester. Right. At least a couple of projects. Right. Yeah. I showed you some of the outcomes.'cause it was very much a very infill project, like this sketch and, you know, the students definitely got a got to leverage a little more latitude in preservation and than, than maybe say I would in, in the real world, but that's fine. But I'm hoping that they're seeing if they're watching this and or listening to us kind recap through this sketch, you know, just thinking, you know, sort of, even though that's a whole semester away in the timeline of things, but, but where we are is, is sort of. Continually talking about the, the, the, the same subjects or the same conditions in a, in a few, you know, with some variation through the sketch, but pointing out the characteristics of, of a condition in an urban environment that could exist in any part of the country. That that will become a question from a client at some point in any of our students' careers, right? If they stick with architecture long enough, they will cross this path.

Jamie: 42:35

Well, I mean, and again, and you know, and, and I think that, you know, that sort of revisiting it again is the reason why the other book is there, you know, is that

Kurt Neiswender: 42:44

Oh, that's what, yeah, that's my other point.

Jamie: 42:47

Yeah. I mean is, you know, I know that people don't read as much anymore and I know that people don't, I. You know, do the research. You know, it's all, it's all very superficial to a certain degree. And that, and that, that's a gross generalization and, and I apologize, but it's true. And I think that in an art history or architectural theory or architectural history kind of knowing that, you know, decades prior folks were postulating some of these kind of concepts and critiquing them. And even if they didn't have answers to all these questions there was a fair amount that had influence on the work that ended up being built. And then it gets us to the point that we're at now where we can still go back and look at those texts and say, wow, you know, in 1961, you know. Jane Jacobs is telling us that, you know, there's, you know, an urban critique that we need to really be figuring out what our next steps are. And here we are in 2025 and we're only now realizing the impacts of all these things. And, and as a profession, I think really starting to take, you know, faster strides. It's not to say that nothing has happened in the past. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, you know, being flippant in that. But I think that the acceleration of self-critique as a profession and trying to move that needle I. You know, has accelerated, you know, in the, in the last 10 years you know, to a degree where I think the profession as a whole, you know, small, you know, small firm practitioner like yourself, you know, medium sized firm, large firm, you know, our, you know, architecture school are all pivoting. To realize we have to have this level of critique and analysis and thought to a larger question about what, you know, how are we gonna deal with all these existing buildings that are underutilized? And we have to, we have to, we have to deal with them. We also have to build new things. We have to do both things.

Kurt Neiswender: 45:26

Mm-hmm.

Jamie: 45:26

And you know, before it was all new, like, we're only just thinking new. Like we're just sort of jettisoning the old, there's only specialists who deal with that stuff. But now we're realizing that all of us collectively have to deal with all of it, all the thanks everywhere, all at once. If we're, if we're go, if we're going to really, you know, find a solution. And I think some of these books that are from the past have, you know, they were, you know, they were, you know, pointing out some of those things even if they couldn't even see, you know, you know, that far into the feature themselves. So I just, you know, sometimes I pull them out and kind of read and like, oh, wow, you know, this person's talking about this 60 years ago. You know, before I'm, you know, I mean, you know, I'm reading it, you know, as a student and then now reading it as a, you know, a seasoned practitioner or whatever, mature designer. And, and some of it's still really present in our conversations, even if, you know, some of it's, you know, not exactly accurate, but. I, I think that there's, there's something to be gained from some of that knowledge.

Kurt Neiswender: 46:36

Yeah. And I look forward to grabbing my own copy of Carl's book too, and, and sort of connecting those dots too back to say Jane Jacobs or other other urbanist thinkers and architectural critics, you know, over time. And, and so yeah, I, I definitely see a stronger correlation now, right. You know, with the, it's kind of fun by sort of composing these two sketches together, which is odd. Odd that they're the same sketch, but not odd at the end of the day, but with the two books. Yeah. So thanks for for, for leaving those Easter eggs for me to find, you know, I guess maybe that's kind of our, our re relevancy to the season that we're in, near, near, near. My birthday is always Easter around the corner.

Jamie: 47:26

You know, it's Easter eggs, it's architecture week. There's, you know, things to find.

Kurt Neiswender: 47:33

I prefer the Cadbury egg. Oh, yes. You know? Yeah. But yeah, we, as do I, we, I mean, you know I know our sketches do vary from time to time or, or episode, episode, but you know, some of these topics I, I definitely wanna keep unpacking because you know, as we sort of revamp or reboot for say, next fall's ID five studio, which is our sort of community engaged and, and oftentimes sort of adaptive reuse, focused, you know, site selection. It, it, it would be interesting to see how we can inform, you know, the next, I mean, the next iteration of it.

Jamie: 48:18

I mean, you might even know a guy who might even want to come and chat.

Kurt Neiswender: 48:22

So. Yep. I, I, I, I, I picked up what you're putting down there. No, that would be great.'cause that, that, you know, we'll see if we can kinda ship you up to to Southfield.

Jamie: 48:38

I read some books, talk about that. I like to talk the architecture. It's all good.

Kurt Neiswender: 48:44

Sounds good. Well, thanks Jamie. Until next time.

Jamie: 48:51

Yeah. Thank you. This was fun.