Episode 017 - Phil Anzalone

Phil Anzalone, Principal at Atelier 64 and professor at GSAPP and CUNY's Citytech, drops by the studio. We talk about teaching, tensegrity, linear algebra, Greg Lynn, and Die Hard. We also have a special guest Tim Dumatrait who came into the office to try and do work, but ended up sitting in, and providing feedback.  

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Show notes:

1. Phil practices with his partner Stephanie Bayard at Atelier Architecture 64

2. French stand-up isn't funny

3. The French love Jerry Lewis

4. At GSAPP, Phil started the Department of Building Science and Technology as well as their Fab Lab

5. OSHA has a terrible website

6. Phil is now teaching at CUNY City Tech's Department of Architectural Technology

7. Graduate students are the worst

8. Mark Wigley stepped down from his position as dean at GSAPP at the end of the academic year in 2014

9. His tenure there followed Bernard Tschumi, who announced his stepping down in 2002

10. Amale Andraos is the current dean

11. Did you check your TCP/IP settings?

12. Phil has taught a lot of amazing students such as David Benjamin of The Living and Joe Vidich of Kin & Company

13. Special thanks to Sound Engineer Tim

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14. Special thanks to Censor Tim

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15. Special thanks to Free Intern Tim

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16. The Gowanus has Gonorrhea

17. No, really

18. At one point Robert Moses wanted to run the BQE over Union Street and wipe out the residences in the block between Penn and Rutledge Streets in Williamsburg, which would have meant significantly less hipsters for present-day NYC

19. Getting over that 1st hire hump

20. All of Phil's clients are Russian oligarchs

21. Thanks, Obama!

22. The Designalyze podcast is proud to be a part of the Fox News Podcast Network

23. Special thanks to Fox News Network Liaison Tim

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24. Phil worked on a competition for an incredible Tensegrity Bridge structure with the engineer Will Laufs who is known for his specialization in complex structures

25. Artist Kenneth Snelson is known for his tensegrity sculptures

26. Phil worked for Robert Heintges as a facade consultant.

27. Not to be confused with Robert Hegyes

28. Will somebody please write a white paper?!

29. Phil and Brian both presented at TxA Emerging Design + Technology 2014

30. Phil worked for Michael McInturf and Greg Lynn on the Korean Presbyterian Church and Cincinnati Country Day

31. MIT OpenCourseWare is a web-based source for almost all of MIT’s course content made free for anyone

32. An expert system is an AI system that emulates the decision-making abilities of a human expert

33. Steve Sanderson's Practice 2.0 article The Elephant in the Room examines architectural education’s inability to cope with the real challenges of the industry

34. Somebody should make a Designalyze Wiki

35. The Gowanus Whole Foods grows their produce on site using locally harvested sewage

36. Mark Twain’s real name was Samuel Clemens

37. Mark Twain was a riverboat cry for two fathoms deep, signifying safe waters

38. They should add IDP credits for use of the Maya Animation Snapshot

39. CA is never glamorous

40. Unlike the Dot Com Era

41. Samuel Morse is the inventor of Morse Code

42. Check out Primer on Netflix

43. The greatest sci-fi moment in media history is Steve Urkel's transformation into Stefan Urquelle

44. The dad from family matters, Carl Otis Winslow, and the cop from Die Hard, Sergeant Al Powell, are both played by Reginald VelJohnson

45. Die Hard is a Christmas movie

46. Phil used to watch Steamboat Willie at the penny theater where he had to hand crank the reels himself

47. Want to be an Architect? Don’t Learn Revit

48. Exquisite corpse is the collective assembly of words or images

49. Special thanks to Caricature Artist Tim

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50. Phil grew up in Vegas

Lightning round 51:14

1. What book(s) are you reading right now?

   • Being and Nothingness, by Jean-Paul Sartre (1943)

   • Smart Surfaces and their Application in Architecture and Design, by Thorsten Klooser (2009)

   • 2014 NYC Building Code (2014 - just a hunch)

2. What music are you listening to right now?

   • Phil is All About that Bass

3. What’s your favorite sci-fi film?

   • A Clockwork Orange (1971)

     • Zach likes to drink milk-plus at the Korova milkbar

   • City of Lost Children (1995)

4. What’s your favorite retro-game?

   • Tempest (1981)

5. What’s your favorite childhood cartoon?

   • Rocky and Bullwinkle (Rocky and His Friends ran from 1959-1964)

6. Describe your productivity ritual.

   • Clear anything weighing on you like emails

7. What’s something that you think is a critical issue in technology that’s currently being overlooked?

   • Technology has convoluted the design process - how can we make things simpler and have more immediacy from thought to product?

   • The physical drawing as a record of a design conversation

8. What’s something that recently blew your mind?

   • Yellowstone

9. WHAT IS ARCHITECTURE?

Architecture is All About that Bass

On Designalyze, we analyze what makes thought leaders in design technology tick through informative, insightful, and often humorous interviews. Designalyze is hosted by Zach Downey and Brian Ringley and recorded in DUMBO, Brooklyn. For design technology tutorials and content visit us at http://designalyze.com