How Architecture Can Solve Big Social Problems with Jeanne Gang

Jeanne Gang is a renowned architect and the founder of Studio Gang, an international architecture and urban design firm. She joins Kara to discuss her work and the design philosophy behind some of her most recognizable buildings, including the Aqua Tower in Chicago and the Gilder Center at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Jeanne explains her concept of “actionable idealism" and why she believes architecture has the power to connect people to each other and the environment. Jeanne and Kara also discuss sustainable building in an era of worsening climate change and why good public design starts with talking with locals to find out what they need. Plus: Jeanne shares her thoughts on arches and President Trump’s White House renovations. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  How would you describe your sensibility? Because it's not whimsical. There's a lot of architects who are whimsical.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Not whimsical. I don't even like that word at all.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  I don't either.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Good.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Box Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is architect Jeanne Gang. She leads Studio Gang, an international architecture and urban design firm. Some of her standout projects include the Gilder Center at the American Museum of Natural History and Solar Carve, which are both in Manhattan, the Arca Center for Social Justice Leadership in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the Populous Hotel in Denver. Gang's first skyscraper, the 82-story Aqua Tower in Chicago, was the tallest female-designed one in the world, that is, until she designed the 101-story St. Regis Chicago Tower.

• 1:05Speaker 00

  Gang's work has been praised for its boldness and common sense. Her designs are remarkably varied, no two buildings look alike. They're united by the desire to connect people to each other and to the environment. Gang has received many honors over the course of her career, including the MacArthur Fellowship and, most recently, the 2026 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture. She's also a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. I know it's unusual for me to interview an architect, but I actually wanted to be one a long time ago, and in fact, went to a summer school at the Harvard School of Design and found out that I wasn't very talented at architecture. And I decided to go into journalism instead, which I was, as it turns out, pretty good at.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  But architecture has always inspired me, and I renovate a lot of houses, I do a lot of things around architecture. And when I saw Gang's Aqua Tower in Chicago, without even knowing she had done it, I was so moved and thought it was such a beautiful building, I needed to know everything about the architect who made it. And of course, it was Jeanne Gang. Every time I look at one of her buildings, I'm inspired. They're all different, and as she'll talk about later, they are like poetry, but in architecture. And I really do admire her, and I think it's important to talk to people I admire, and I think you will, once you get to know her. Our expert question today comes from Justin Davidson, architecture critic for New York Magazine and Curbed. Even if you know nothing about architecture,

• 2:29Speaker 00

  you want to hear this because GAN is working to solve major social and environmental problems that affect us all. This is a great conversation, so stick around.

• 2:52Kara Swisher?

  Support for this show comes from The Guardian and their new show, Stateside, where journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman use the entire independent reporting resources of The Guardian to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what is actually happening in the world. Join Kai and Carter three times a week as they utilize all the reporting resources The Guardian has across news, international coverage, climate, culture, wellness, and more. And The Guardian's not owned by a billionaire. They fearlessly report the facts without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more and listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. That's theguardian.com/stateside.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  Ripple has been powering modern finance for a decade. We're leading the charge to bridge the gap between existing financial systems and the future of finance. You can have it all: legacy, stability, and digital innovation. Systems that work with your other systems. Because with the right partner, the question isn't crypto or traditional finance. The question is simply, why choose? A new standard of modern finance. It's happening with Ripple. For informational purposes only, availability of products can vary and may be provided by different Ripple entities.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot, designed to keep you connected. Powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month. Or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code HACK. Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  Jeannie, gracias por venir.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Gracias por invitarme.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  So you are my single favorite architect. I don't know if you know that, but you are indeed, and that's why I have you here.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Well, that's special. That's an honor.

• 4:51Speaker 00

  It's an honor. So you have a very expansive view of architecture and what it's capable of accomplishing. And you often use the phrase actionable idealism to describe what you do. I thought that was really interesting. Can you explain what that means and how the concept manifests itself in architecture and your work?

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Well, that came about, I was trying to communicate why, I guess, why we do architecture. And oftentimes, you receive a brief, and it has the parameters of what you're supposed to design. But I found that, like, sometimes there's a lot more opportunity to what the impact a project can have than just what's in that brief. So this comes from the idea that we are idealistic. We want to make the world a better place and to improve the condition. But we also have to be realistic and actionable means that, step by step, we can get there. But we need to think about the long view

• 5:51Speaker 01

  and work intentionally toward each day, toward making that a reality, to make the cities we want to have, to make the world we want to live in. And so that's what it means for us. And I think in the work, it's really about looking for that connection between the immediate project and the longer goal. So one example is, sometimes we do projects that are not a brief at all. It might be just something we want to do with our skills as architects, is being able to help people visualize things and imagine things. So one of the first examples, I guess, I could give is just that the Chicago River, which is a place, it's a resource, it's a river, it was reversed 100, more than 100 years ago.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  And as an environment, it has become polluted, it causes flooding, and all these things. So, and then that reversal actually had some negative impacts downstream as well.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  With pollutants, it was to save the drinking water of Chicago, but the pollutants ended up going all the way down into the Gulf of Mexico and causing other problems. So this idea of like, what could we do about this situation of the river was the subject of the thought. And then we worked with other not-for-profits and things to try to help envision what it could look like if we un-reversed the river. What could it be? What would the potential be? What would the benefits be? And so it's a little bit like working scientifically with researchers and people that understand the animal and wildlife that live in the river, people that understand engineering, infrastructure and so on, and bringing those things together to kind of try to imagine what a different

• 7:31Speaker 01

  way could be. So that was the kind of impetus of really churning on people to accessing the river. I guess the number one step for people was to appreciate that that is a resource. It's not just an industrial waterway. It's many things to people, animals, and so on.

• 7:50Speaker 00

  So this is through architecture to do this?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Architecture is what brings people to that. It's the beauty of architecture. It's the ability of it to bring people together that can start to spark that action. So with the river, we and some other architects did projects along the river to give access to the public. And we did these boathouses, designed boathouses that were for youth and boating groups. And they start to engage with the river in new ways and realize it's like, even if it's dirty, it's still ours, you know? And that helps to activate people toward being stewards, toward caring about it.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  So let's talk about your larger career and design philosophy, because I mean, many people don't think about architecture in this way. But you started your firm Studio Gang in Chicago in 1997. And you realized early, I love this because I didn't want to work for men. I don't want to be bossed by them, end quote. I get this completely. That's how I designed my career. Not men. I didn't want to be bossed by anybody. But talk about how you sort of began the firm.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Well, at that time, there weren't too many women-run firms to work for. And also, and it wasn't just, it wasn't just because they're men. It's just like the model of it was, you know, very constraining. And I always thought of architecture as a medium, more like a medium that you can use to put projects into the world, you know, working together with other, with clients and collaborators, but also just your own thoughts, which is what I was talking about with the river. So I was thinking that architecture could be much more of a mode of expression, a way to be in the world, a way to act in the world. And that's just what I wanted to set up, and it just didn't exist, you know, so that's

• 9:41Speaker 01

  why I had to, and I looked forward to starting my own thing.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  Why didn't it exist?

• 9:46Speaker 01

  I think it was just, you know, with the constraints of each profession and architecture was set up in the way that it is, it has a certain, we do have to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public and people that use our buildings, and so there's rules like that. But there's other ways you can practice as well that are either scholarly research or activations or, you know, guerrilla architecture, I guess you could say. You can do many things that help express what you believe in, what you care about. It's just the profession itself had some constraints. I think that's what people were following. But now it's much more open. There's people doing a lot of really interesting things.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  I think maybe I was on the front end of that.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. Although, I mean, historically, you had Julia Morgan or Louise Blanterd-Bethune-Buffalo. I loved her architecture for sure.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, there's definitely hidden figures within the architecture realm of women that have been practicing for a long time, and it's great to bring their stories forward, too.

• 10:55Speaker 00

  So nearly half of the world's population live in cities where the relationship between people and nature is arguably under strain, and this is something you're just talking about. And you've talked about how you view yourself as a relationship builder between people, communities, and nature. Talk about some of your experiences. Some of the ways that has worked out and what are some of the ways you strengthen that relationship? And what's the problem?

• 11:16Speaker 01

  I'm a big observer of nature and I love, I learn a lot from it and I am inspired by it. So I've always been thinking about why isn't there more biodiversity within cities? Because I think a lot of people born in cities or kids born in cities might not be exposed to that amazing wealth of biodiversity. So I think when I think about relationships, I always think about ecosystems because we're part of a bigger web of life and we're just one part of it. And there's many other parts of it, including the water and the air and, but all the living things.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  So how can we make places that highlight that relationship, that let us have access to that? And so I've been really excited about working in cities where you can bring that to the fore. Or even in just an ordinary project, how can you bring more awareness about the environment and set up a place where people can have that relationship?

• 12:20Speaker 00

  What gets in the way of that? What, how do you strengthen it and what hinders that?

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Well, I think one thing is people have separated themselves from nature or not even considered ourselves animals who we are. And so there's just that construct of separation between humans and animals. And so we've done that with our environments. We've paved things. We, we put trees in cities. We put them in small containers in the ground and don't let them connect to each other. So there's just a lack of understanding of how it all works together. And we've designed out, for whatever reason, the relationships. So it's tried to bring them back together, like.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  You know, designing a place in the city, one of the places we designed was the nature boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo. So I don't really like zoos that much, but this is a zoo with no cages in it. And it's just an outdoor area that has a pond that we revamped so that it could so that it could sustain life in it. And added a boardwalk for people to use and a pavilion and just like, it's just a really rich area full of nature. People love going there and it's right in the middle of the city. These days, I'm worried more about what's not in the city, since cities are starting to be in a way more biodiverse than what's outside the city.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  You know, because of the way people's preferences for just monoculture lawns and things like that. And also just the way that the area around the outside of the city is has become more occupied by logistics and data centers and things like that. And it's starting to really change the balance there. So maybe cities are actually kind of like a very important safety place for.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's interesting. You're right. Data centers. I'll get to data centers. That that thing you're talking about is in Chicago. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful place. But obviously, your most famous building is the Aqua Tower in Chicago. It's an 82-story skyscraper that was completed in 2010. It's your first skyscraper, I think. Is that correct?

• 14:36Speaker 01

  I didn't even think I was going to be doing one of those.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  Well, it's a remarkable building. For anyone who has not seen it, it's both technical and from an anesthetic point of view. Talk about the tower itself, because besides being beautiful and striking, it's also interacting with the environment in a way that people may not realize initially.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Every floor is a slightly different shape, which creates this visual of almost waves along the facade. But it's really made up of. Individual floor plates. And the reason why they are the way they are, which is irregular, I would say, like irregular, organics, curved. It allows people to see other people while they're on the facade, when they're out on their balcony, as opposed to, you know, like trying to separate them off. So it feels more like you're on the porch or something as opposed to in a little box. So another thing that the irregularity does is to break up

• 15:38Speaker 01

  the wind pressure, so it doesn't build up speed. So it confuses the wind. And that way, it makes it more comfortable for people to be on their balcony, even in a city like Chicago, which is windy and also pretty cold most of the time. But the idea was just like, at the time, how can we do a tall building that allows people to be out and be part of the city and part of their building at the same time, kind of in a community, see each other and be, just step outside, which when we did that, it really wasn't that, there weren't that many buildings.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  No, they're straight up and down. Most skyscrapers have, maybe if they have balconies, they're not accessible to other people.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Right, they're inside. And this is, you still want privacy if you live in a tall building, but you also want community. And that's what we were trying to bring to that project.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  And it looks like birds or the wind. It looks like the wind essentially moving. Was there a design idea there to make it look like that?

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Well, like I said, I really look a lot at nature and the processes of nature. And sometimes you find these, you find patterns that exist in one thing or a totally different thing. In this case, I was kind of inspired by those rocks along Lake Michigan that are eroded by the wind or water. But then that also looks like a pattern. Someone sent me a photo of a pattern of sand on a beach that looked exactly like it.

• 17:15Speaker 00

  Yes, where wind has hit, yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, yeah, you find these synergies between these different patterns that you find in nature. They're always for a reason and they exist at different scales.

• 17:27Speaker 00

  Why did you not want to build a skyscraper? You said you never thought you would build one.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  I didn't not want to, I just didn't think anyone would ever ask me to, to be honest. Because when I started my firm, I had worked in bigger firms and really at that time, it was really the corporate firms that were doing the high rises. So I got a lucky break, I ran with it. I hadn't pictured it before, but when I started, I like to start with like this beginner's mind with everything. And I did with that. It was like, what are people, why are people designing high rises the way they are? Which were really, and you still see this, like compositions of different patterns of grids and different curtain walls and colors and textures.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  And I was really thinking about like, how does it feel to live there? And it can be isolating. I mean, get in the elevator and you are, it feels awkward and you don't have an outlet for connecting to your neighbors very well. So that was, that was driving it. That was one problem I saw or opportunity. And then just the fact that you just can't be outside, outdoors and see other people. And that's one of the things that led to the design.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  Design of that.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. So like with my work and our work, I would say we always try to find like functional reasons, technical reasons. At the time with Aqua Tower, it was like...

• 19:01Speaker 01

  You can't make every floor different. Are you crazy?

• 19:04Speaker 00

  Right.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Because how are we going to build that? And luckily, working together with engineers and the developer of that building, Jim Loenberg, who happened to be an architect also, but he was a developer, he was like, I think we can do this. We talked about flexible formwork. We could use GPS to lay out the points. And all the technology was there. It just hadn't been used that way before.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  But, you know, in a lot of ways, designer Thomas Heatherwick says we've gotten used to buildings that are boring and says new buildings are, quote, "too monotonous, too anonymous, too serious." And obviously, that's not an issue with your buildings. Do you think many of your fellow architects are reluctant to depart from that norm that you're talking about and take these aesthetic risks?

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Well, I think modernism was a very strong influence on a lot of us. And there is, there's, and not that many people can do beautiful curves, to be honest. I mean, some people make curves and they just look ugly. So they know it and they just stay away from it. And I'm not saying I do all curves, but, you know, I know how to make it look good. And so there's maybe an avoidance of it because it's, there's difficulty, there's, there can be expense if you're not using the right materials. Very difficult to curve, let's say, wood, or not just wood, but any material. Concrete is pretty easy because it's fluid.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Anyway, that could be one reason. And then I think that it's not just the architects. It could be that the owners or the people commissioning the buildings want something more ordinary or that looks like whatever's next to it. Not every building should be extraordinary, maybe. Some buildings should be quieter and flexible and, you know. So those are all things that we have to take into account, all of us architects and budgets. There's many, many factors. That's one reason I love architecture. It's like, it's not just my art, you know, it's what I do with each client that makes, produces something totally different.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  Different every time.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Uh huh, like something that you do together with the client.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  And then speaking to other buildings nearby, presumably.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's part of a community of buildings that make a city. There's, you can have a dialogue between buildings of different eras, like an asynchronous collaboration, if you will.

• 21:37Speaker 00

  Which you can do in Chicago very well, actually, and in New York, too. When you're thinking about this sort of making it interesting, does that put you out on an edge? Because I think you're known for interesting buildings, right, presumably? I know when I see your buildings, for example. Even if they're not the same, they're similar. Does that make sense?

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Right. There's a sensibility to them.

• 22:00Speaker 00

  How would you describe your sensibility? Because it's not whimsical. There's a lot of architects who are whimsical.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Not whimsical. I don't even like that word at all.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  I don't either.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Good. No, it's, it's like trying to find the poetry in the everyday things that you have to make. And so we've never had really big budgets on our projects, ever. I mean, I started out with community centers and not-for-profits all over Chicago, building community centers. And there's never much excess budget. There never is. So then you have to try to find out, how can you make something special, customize it for them, and make a discovery? I love discovering things, like, it could be a discovery in form, or it could be a discovery in like what a material is capable of. And that's how I get adrenaline rush.

• 23:10Kara Swisher?

  Support for this show comes from The Guardian. Trying to locate news sources that reliably separate fact from fiction can seem like looking for a needle in a haystack these days. Social media feeds, cable news, and subscription-based news outlets might be able to give you one version of the news, but not in the way that you need. You want news fast, but slow enough to actually absorb the information. Stateside with Kai Wright and Carter Sherman is here to do just that. The podcast tries to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions regarding the world at large at your own pace. Three times a week, hosts Kai Wright and Carter Sherman bring their expertise together to showcase different and engaging perspectives regarding the world today. They will use their collective knowledge to discuss the news, international affairs,

• 23:53Kara Swisher?

  climate, culture, sports, lifestyle, fashion, and wellness. Plus, The Guardian wants to emphasize they're not billionaire-owned, meaning they're free to report the whole picture without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more and listen wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube starting May 13. Support for this show comes from Delete Me. Have you ever Googled yourself and found your home address, phone number, or the name of a family member? It's unsettling. Here's what you do to clean up your online data footprint. Go to joindelete.me/kara and enter the code Kara. You get 20% off Delete Me. Delete Me removes your personal information that's being sold online.

• 24:35Kara Swisher?

  Delete Me was named the top pick for data removal services by Wirecutter, so you know you're in good hands. I really like Delete Me. I use it all the time. It's always surprising how much data people have about me. I am very privacy-forward, and I still find so much stuff of mine online, some of which is incorrect, some of which is compiled in a really disturbing way. And you have to sort of control it like weeds. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now, at a special discount for our listeners, get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindelete.me/kara and use the promo code Kara at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindelete.me/kara and enter the code Kara at checkout. That's joindelete.me/kara, code Kara.

• 25:27Kara Swisher?

  Support for this show comes from Hers. Losing weight on your own can often feel like a fight you never win. Luckily, weight loss by Hers offers access to the FDA-approved Wegovy pill and the Wegovy pen. Wegovy is the first-ever GLP-1 weight loss medication available in a pill, but also comes as a pen, so you've got options. With Wegovy, you can lose up to 20% of your body weight. People lost an average of 14% body weight at 64 weeks in a clinical trial of Wegovy alongside diet and exercise. To get started with Wegovy, just go to forhers.com and complete an online consultation with a licensed provider who will determine if your prescription is appropriate. And Hers doesn't stop there. Nutrition and lifestyle guidance are part of the plan, along with access to 24/7 messaging

• 26:12Kara Swisher?

  with your care team, so support is always in reach. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/ Cara to access personalized, affordable care for weight loss, hair, menopause, and more. That's forhers.com/ Cara. Individual results may vary, and stopping treatment may result in weight regain.

• 26:34Speaker 00

  Let's then focus on architecture, community, and relationships. The 2023 Surgeon General report found that even before the pandemic, about half of US adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness. There's a link between increased isolation and decline of so-called "third spaces" or informal public places to socialize. Now, you've designed community centers, museums, university buildings, and other places for people to gather, and Studio Gang has developed a set of design strategies for communities to use, reimagining their civic comments. Talk about these strategies and the idea of community. It's something I talk about a lot, especially because I cover technology and what it does to us, because technology is not a third space. It just isn't.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  No, I know. It's, there's nothing like getting together in a physical space with others. And so the architecture can set up like a way for people to connect with each other in a comfortable way, so that it's not awkward. And it's like about setting up spaces that encourage behaviors that are community-oriented. And There's two ways of thinking about community. One is like how you design it so that it encourages that, so like the physical space. But before that, it's like asking the community what they want. I think that's really important.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  And so engaging with people, that's not something you can do through technology, really. I mean, you need to talk to people, hear what they care about, and especially for public space, so that it can inform the response and to, and also to make it so that people are part of that process of a democracy.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  Which people don't. I just came out recently out of Moynihan Station, which is beautiful in its own way, but I keep thinking they hate people. Whoever designed this hates people.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Why?

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Because you can't gather anywhere. It's quite beautiful, but it's not, I don't know, it's not a public space. I'm not sure why it's not, even though it's a train station. It just might be.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  It feels quiet in there.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Almost too quiet.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  I don't know, it doesn't feel like, you can't sit and there's reasons for that and everything else. But what is the strategy for a good community space? Because this is one of the things that is affecting our health, is affecting our mental issues around people. And I think the comedy of people around our country, we don't have these public spaces as much as we used to.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think my favorite example of work that we've done recently is in Memphis, where we did a riverfront plan for them as being on the Mississippi, the Memphians, they were using it more like a loading zone, not a gathering space, and focused more on the streetscape. But they want to kind of reorient to the river. And we did a park called Tomlee Park. And to, like, how do you start, right? It's like, we want to talk to a lot of different groups. What do you want to see in Tomlee Park? We had this youth design leadership group that, that was high school students that worked with us for a while. Imagining what they would see.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  And what was really interesting is every, what we heard over and over is people wanted just everyday things in this park, like bathrooms and concession stands, something to keep out of the rain, shade was a big thing. And, and so what we tried to do there is just elevate those things, being in this very prominent riverfront and, but using very, like the programs people gave us and injecting them into this landscape and park. And it's amazing how well it works. It's just because, I think because they feel it's theirs, and it is, and it's just the beautiful design that brings people closer to the water. We did this one really interesting thing.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  We have this big canopy there and it's called the Sunset Canopy. And the structure is, it looks like cranes that they used to use along the river. So it's kind of inspired by the working waterfront. But, so the shade is created, it's very flexible underneath, you can play basketball, you have dance, you can yoga, all those things. And then there's these swings that are, are hanging from the structure and they're very wide and long. So they're big enough for people to sit on that do not know each other on the same swing. And it's amazing to see them start to talk to each other. Like, you know, and they're just doing something and they're looking at the river and they

• 31:15Speaker 01

  are inspired to communicate that experience with each other. And that, that is, there's something in that, there's a key to what we need, I think, as community to connect, that architecture is able to bring out and experience is able to bring out. Need something a little distracting, not so that you, you don't just look at your phone, you know?

• 31:40Speaker 00

  Right, right, right. Which is what people do, right? When they're in these spaces. So you've said that public architecture is not as successful if it comes from the top down, but an architect is in the position of making these top-down decisions that shape the public's environment. Now, you teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. How do you get your students to approach their work with humility and get away from the top-down sort of architect-as-god approach? Because you're talking about actually asking people what they want.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  And sometimes that's good and sometimes the architect does have better ideas, for example.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Well, I don't think that asking people what they want precludes your design talents. It just engages with people and they're not telling you to draw the line here or there.

• 32:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  You know, they're just saying what they want. So it's a great question, though, because we learn, we have to learn our trade, our skills. And so when you're in school, it's really like you're doing it from, you don't have a real client. You don't have a real community. So what I've tried with the students this semester was, we use technology. We tried to find profiles of people who might be candidates for living in an affordable housing, which they're designing for New York City, for Queens. And the students found profiles of people who were very much oversharing online. But we're talking about their apartments, we're talking, we're focusing on artistic people.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  What do, how do they live now? What do they say they want? Because without the benefit of going out and interviewing people, they were able to find a lot of information about, at least what people put online, about what they are missing, what they want, what they wish they could have, how they live their life every day if they're an artist, where they put their materials, what they have to do. So that was how I was working with students to try to understand people that we're designing for.

• 33:39Speaker 00

  And does that still exist, this architect is God approach to much of architecture?

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. But I think there could be a model, there's an architect is God, but there's also the owner, it could be the God figure.

• 33:52Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it exists. And of course, there's occasions where you need something monumental and you need something that has symbolic meaning. I mean, that definitely exists in our society. And if you do a competition, sometimes we win work through our competition. That is also another way where it's not so much the influence of the people around you because... People running the competition just want to put this design against this design against this design.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  And so that's where you can, maybe you use more of your voice. I still try to find out more about the place that I'm working in if I'm doing a competition, but you still, you would be putting forward more of your artistic vision than you would if you were doing a community project where you're engaging with the community all the way through.

• 34:50Speaker 00

  With the community itself, which you have much experience in. So every episode, we get an expert to send us a question. Let's listen to yours.

• 34:57Speaker 05

  Hi, Jeannie. This is Justin Davidson. I'm the architecture critic at New York Magazine and Curbed, and I have a question for you. Yours is one of the very few firms that is based out of town, but does a lot of work in New York. You've covered a lot of bases. You've done an office building, a luxury high-rise, a fire station, a Parks Department Recreation Center. Now you're working on a medical building. There are a lot of firms who want to make their mark in New York, but they find it a really difficult place to do their best work. There are so many financial and political and legal restrictions.

• 35:39Speaker 05

  So my question is, has Studio Gang cracked the code of New York? And are we getting your best work?

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Wow. He's great.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, he is.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  A great journalist that I really respect. The question of the best work, I think it's, I always feel like I'm doing my best work and we're doing our best work. The constraints can narrow down what that means, but I don't feel like that is hurting the quality. I feel like it's, it's creating a city, New York, that has a special Character because of those constraints and because of the process. New York is one of the few cities where there's a community board and every single neighborhood, there's a review. So it's very democratic in that sense.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  People get to voice their concerns. Maybe that can, you know, slow you down, but it's a great process. I really enjoy that. I enjoy that New Yorkers are engaged with their, what's going on in their community.

• 36:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  So to Justin's point, I think if there's a code to be cracked, it's like working within the constraints and trying to find what that potential it brings out, I guess, that the code to be cracked.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  We'll be back in a minute.

• 37:17Speaker 00

  Support for this show comes from Indeed. When the pressure's on and you need to hire the right person for the job, Indeed Sponsored Jobs has got your back. Instead of forcing you to spend tons of time searching, Indeed Sponsored Jobs matches you with quality candidates fast. According to their data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is the job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners to this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit

• 38:01Speaker 00

  to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is the job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

• 38:27Speaker 04

  Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot designed to keep you connected. Powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month. Or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code "HACK". Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.

• 38:58Speaker 06

  Afternoon glare totally ruined my watch party for the big game. That's when my buddy recommended blinds.com.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  With custom window treatments made to fit your style, space, and budget. Customers who shop at blinds.com experienced overwhelming satisfaction. Side effects may include a fuller, deeper night's sleep and the sudden urge to host the watch party again. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home.

• 39:22Speaker 06

  Shop Black Friday all month long at blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  So let's pivot to another central part of your design philosophy. Environmental sustainability and climate change. According to the World Green Building Council, the buildings account for 39% of global energy-related carbon emissions and 11% comes from materials and construction. The American Institute of Architects has set a goal to reach net zero emissions by 2030, but realistically, that's probably not going to happen. Talk about the barriers to hitting these net zero goals or reducing carbon emissions in buildings more broadly. And how much you think about it as you're building?

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Oh, we think about it a lot and it's the most important challenge that we have as an industry, I would say, more than any other. So, but, okay, so we have to think about our carbon emissions. Earlier, it was all about how is the operational energy of a building, like how much heating, air conditioning. But now it's, you know, we need to cut it faster. So that means we have to cut it out of our materials. The embodied carbon of the buildings. So, how do you get the materials? What are they made of? How much energy does it take to get it to the site? So, there are just a lot of challenges and we need to address all of them.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  I mean, one of the easiest first things that everybody has to do is get into an electrical, get off fossil fuels 100% off, so that you can start to supplement the renewable energies in there. But for the carbon, a lot of things that we're looking at are the bio-based materials. So, wood and things that are naturally produced. And there's a lot of new products that are made with wood. If you look around Chicago, we have all these, you know, old loft buildings. Same in San Francisco, there may be some still left, where the columns are like the whole tree, basically.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Now, we can make a column like that out of smaller, thinner strips laminated together, you know, so they're engineered products that do the same and they take the advantage of the qualities of wood. And so, we're using a lot of, like in San Francisco, we designed the California College of the Arts in timber. And UC Santa Cruz, Kresge College, dorms, residential hall and academic buildings. Really great. Lots of different forms, beautiful buildings made with timber, you know, it's, it's great. So, bio-based materials, reuse of buildings and reinvention of buildings, because the

• 42:06Speaker 01

  most carbon you can save is if you kind of reuse them. Not just reuse, but even increase their capacity.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  It's essentially upcycling. So, your latest book, The Art of Architectural Grafting, shows how to build sustainably by reusing and upcycling existing buildings. Explain what you mean about architectural grafting, what it means in practice. And the house I'm sitting in here is from 1894, maybe? I kept all the redwood. It's built of original redwood framing.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Beautiful.

• 42:35Speaker 00

  Like ancient redwood framing. And I, what I did is I kept it as much as I could and then... The stuff we had to take out, I gave it to a furniture maker who then made it into pieces of furniture.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  That's upcycling.

• 42:47Speaker 00

  That's correct. I'm real aware of it. But what was interesting about it was, you know, it was virgin redwood forest, which they used to grab off in Marin and bring down here because it was considered junk wood, I suppose. And now, of course, it's highly valued. Talk a little bit about what you mean by architectural grafting.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Like graft in plants is like when you take a root stock, that's maybe a good old root stock of a fruit tree or vines, a lot of times in agriculture, and then add a new plant, scion of a new plant that you want the qualities of like tastier fruit or more beautiful flowers or whatever. So this is like an ancient craft in horticulture and agriculture that goes way, way back. And the reason I was attracted to that is that it could be a metaphor, but it's like a place where humans and nature, or humans are nature, but work together to get something.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  There's it's, I don't think there's really any just untouched, raw nature anymore. I mean, we are part of it and we've always been here for a long time. So I love this craft of crafting. So with architecture, maybe the same thing. We could take the root stock, an existing building, and give it new life. And that's the most important thing, life. Give it new life, let it, because if you only preserve something, it might not live. It might not have enough functionality in our day and in our current contemporary life to make it work. So it's really about bringing this new quality to it and but it, you can't just graft anything to anything.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Like in nature also, you can't just, you know.

• 44:36Speaker 00

  It doesn't work.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  No, there has to be some commonality, some way that it can be combined. So I was trying to, in the book, trying to come up with some basic rules, let's say, to be debated. But I was just tired of talking about. Reuse and adaptive reuse and all these words that are just lost their meaning or they're not inspiring and trying to open it up more for architects so that we could develop more precise language around what it is, what you do when you add two things together.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  Right. Where did it really work from your perspective? What graft have you done that you think has been particularly effective?

• 45:22Speaker 01

  I think all of them have worked that I've seen of ours. Because we're really being very careful attention to it. So making sure that the flow, that there's a redundancy in the connections, not just one little straw, you know, connecting that it really needs to have the flow and for the movement and the functionality to work robustly connected on the interior. And then architecturally stylized, like what is the thing that you have in common? Like, some people will look at the American Museum of National History and say, oh, it looks so different than what's next to it. But remember, this is a campus of 25 buildings.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Many of these buildings are very curvaceous with turrets and all kinds of things from so kind of like riffing on that and but also being true to the construction type that we're doing. And we were, we used a similar granite on the outside as on the opposite side of the building on the Central Park West side. So there's like a tie there. So it's about, you know, this asynchronous collaboration with the previous architects and the previous architecture to make sure that there's something that is tying them together.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  Bringing them together because you couldn't graft badly, that's for sure.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Yes, then it won't work.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  It doesn't work. In 2018, you taught a course at the Harvard Graduate School of Design called After the Storm: Restoring an Island Ecosystem Following the Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Talk about lessons from those disasters. Should architects and communities approach rebuilding after fires and floods in this era of worsening natural disasters?

• 47:01Speaker 01

  This is so important. That was one of the first studios I taught on that subject. And I took students down and we went and did some recovery work, which was less about building and more about just cleaning up.

• 47:17Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  But it was, the students told me later, like, this was one of the most important things they'd ever done. They'd never been asked to do that before and they saw the devastation of the power of these storms and what it can do to ruin, it ruins people's homes and their lives. And so that was really like to awaken the students about the, what these storms can do. But then the project was to propose something for the island that would help them be more self-sustaining. I don't know if you know, but some of these islands, they don't even have their own food source. Everything has to be shipped in.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, many of them, yeah.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. We worked with this group called We Grow Food and they, we designed for them. They had had a, like an indigenous market that they grew their own food and had their own market going. These are people that were living on the island and the west end of St. Thomas. So we actually met with them and found out what they needed to continue and to make their operation flourish and be more resilient in the future. So that was the project. But what I realized, I think, is that, and now we are getting into this because everyone is experiencing storms, fires, different disasters because of climate change.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  So architects might need to shift a bit and start working more with communities, like to help them rebuild in a more resilient way, to help them plan. We're working now with a community in North Carolina that was affected by Helen. And we're working with other architects and people who are donating time to to help them make a a plan and envision what they want in the future. And that will help them to go after some grants and help to get things back on track. So I think it's a skill that future architects are really going to need to lean into.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  Well, except right now, the Trump administration has repealed scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and environment. It's been called the most far reaching rollback of US climate policy to date. President Trump also called climate change a hoax. It has a policy shift or rhetorical impact on your work or American architecture more broadly. He's rolled back a lot of things. But has it really affected what you're talking about, the long term consequences on sustainability and the green building movement, which had a lot of forward momentum?

• 49:53Speaker 01

  These are serious rollbacks.

• 49:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  But I think what I've found is that most people, I think it's obvious that there's climate change going on.

• 50:04Speaker 00

  Right.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  And then including, you know,

• 50:07Speaker 00

  Your clients.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  People from all my clients, but all reaches of the American public, I would say. And they need some assistance to help envision. It comes from them, but they need like the skill I'm talking about for the architects is like being able to assemble people, gather, draw, you know, charrette is what we call it, which is like getting together in a room and getting people to participate and to help them create a vision and what does it look like? And that's what I think we will need to do more and more for this type of disaster. But you're right that these rollbacks are not helping at all. And then we need to states

• 50:51Speaker 01

  are taking action on their own, of course. Individuals are taking action. But, you know, it really should be something that we should be out in front of.

• 51:02Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  And we should be leading like renewables, energy.

• 51:07Speaker 00

  Has that pushed back? I mean, for example, DEI stuff has been gone. They're gone, all these policies. Has that happened in the architecture profession around these sustainable buildings or green buildings? Have you noticed that?

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Any incentives that were that were federal are gone. And so that is impacting because not everyone can afford it to start out. So, yeah, it's devastating in that sense.

• 51:34Speaker 00

  So what do you do then if you want to continue to keep? Because this is a, you know, a bearing wall of the stuff you're doing, for example.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Well, the, I feel very grateful and privileged to be able to now work with people who are like minded and also like pushing the boundaries of this. So, for example, with Harvard University, we designed the first mass timber building on their campus. It's called the Treehouse and it's a gathering place. It's a David Rubenstein treehouse.

• 52:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  And.

• 52:06Speaker 00

  David, I know David and he shows pictures of it all the time. But go ahead.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's very exciting because it's like a glimpse into the future of what campus architecture can be. And so these things are still happening. And it's just the ones that are hurt the most are the ones that aren't getting the help to get to those resilient technologies and sustainable technologies because they don't have the funding.

• 52:34Speaker 00

  Right. Do you imagine it's going to shift back?

• 52:38Speaker 01

  It has to. It has to. Because we're not going to just keep investing in buildings that then are outdated and we need to get, plus if we want to regenerate our economy, we need to be producing things, yes, like solar panels and other inventions that Americans can come up with in this space, also within the material space for what we use to build architecture. We would love to use more timber products. And, you know, I have a dream that, you know, the Midwest, which has a lot of industrial

• 53:18Speaker 01

  pollution from previous era, could regenerate and create timber lands that help to also clean the, phyto remediate the lands, but also start to become a new industry for timber, for construction, for, yeah, for building in a place where we need to make buildings, so near cities. We have two big forest areas in the US, southeast and the northwest.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  And the whole Midwest is, there's a lot of vacant land that is, that needs remediation. So it could be like new timber industries and.

• 53:58Speaker 00

  They're going to put a data center there, just so you know. And then they're going to use us to be the fuel for the data center. I don't know if you saw those movies. This past fall, Trump issued an executive order called Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again. He demolished the East Wing without permission to make room for a ballroom that he wants to build in a 250 foot arch in Virginia. How are architects looking at what's happening here? And obviously it got more energy this week around the shooting in the, at the Hilton. If you were on a panel evaluating designs for the building in the arch, what questions would you be asking? And the people suing to stop it are not stopping their suit, even though they've been pressed by Trump and others to do so.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, in some sense, like in one sense, the adding on to the White House is kind of a distraction because it's not like the most important thing going on right now. But we do have a democracy and we have public buildings that are supposed to last a long time. And that's why there are, we have created, we the people have created ways to get input, public input and urban planning input and, you know, to preserve the beauty of and the symbolic nature of Washington DC. There's certain sightlines that were created initially.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  So I think to respect that is respect the country and to respect the city and to keep it beautiful, yes, that's why we have the rules.

• 55:33Speaker 00

  Right.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  And that's why we have a lot of input. It's not only architecture input, you know, there's urban planning, there's public input that goes into the process of making public buildings. And that, I think that's, we talked about New York and how it can slow things down. Yes, it does slow it down a bit because you need to be able to take all these, and that's how you get better buildings. You get better buildings when you have. You get the shades that you wouldn't think of as one person. You can't think of all the negative things that could happen or

• 56:08Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  or even all the positive things. So that's why it's important to have.

• 56:14Speaker 00

  What would you, what would the questions you'd be asking for what's happening in both places there? It's taking up enormous amount of attention.

• 56:24Speaker 00

  At least he's making it a big deal for sure.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  Well, I think there was, there is this, the fine arts commission that was, would be asking these questions.

• 56:35Speaker 00

  He fired them all.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  Yes, but I'm not that up on what it would be, but some of the things I know about are just sightlines and, you know, scale and with respect to the grounds and I think it's admirable in a certain way that there's initiative taken to build onto the White House because it's, it's not like it's some, you know, perfect thing that was

• 57:01Speaker 00

  No.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  preserved from day one. So I kind of appreciate that and I think it could use a ballroom. So I'm not totally against it. I, I just, I think the process is important to get the best results.

• 57:14Speaker 00

  What would you put there? What would your ballroom look like?

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, oh, I don't, I would never be picked for that project.

• 57:22Speaker 00

  I know.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  I think it, it probably needs to be, you know, something that, again, like grafting, it can.

• 57:30Speaker 00

  That's a real grafting project, isn't it?

• 57:32Speaker 01

  It is a grafting, but that one is where the graft is like so heavy that it breaks off of the root stock.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, the graft is heavy. That's a nice way of putting it. Graft is very heavy. It's like very large and very gold graft.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it might break off.

• 57:50Speaker 00

  What happens then if they build something like that? What can be done? Nothing, I guess.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  I don't think so. I mean, I don't think it would be, from the environment standpoint, it wouldn't be worth tearing it back down or, you know, so. I think it's gonna be there, so maybe it has to be balanced by something else. Maybe you just have to make the whole thing bigger.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh, no, oh, no, no, no, no. Do you like the arch? Are you an arch person?

• 58:17Speaker 01

  One of my offices is in Paris. So I really like the arch that is there.

• 58:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  And I like that Paris has a very strong urban plan that gives you axes to landmarks. But the landmarks are not just about, like, you know, individuals. There's things of different eras. But, no, I mean, I still haven't quite gotten my head around what this arch is.

• 58:53Speaker 00

  It's just big.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  I don't think there's any reason for it.

• 58:55Speaker 00

  No.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  There's not, there's no victory.

• 58:58Speaker 00

  No.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  And most of the time, arches were made for victories.

• 59:03Speaker 00

  Does Trump have an effect on architects or not? Or just, I mean, what he's doing with gold and everything else? He made a patio, seems like a Mar-a-Lago patio at the White House. Does he have an impact on architecture in general?

• 59:17Speaker 01

  No. I mean, in that he was a developer. He also built large buildings that do impact our cities. And so, in that sense, yes. But I think, like, in terms of influencing trends, no.

• 59:34Speaker 00

  No, yeah. I still can't stand the one in Chicago. It makes me upset every time I see it, largely because of the font. I don't like the font on that building, on the Trump building there.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  I think the kerning is wrong, too.

• 59:45Speaker 00

  It's all wrong. I'm a big font person.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, there's too wide of space between two of the letters.

• 59:52Speaker 00

  That's correct. It's really irritating. So my very last question. If you had to push someone to look at a piece of design you think has been inspirational to you or right now in the world, is there one thing that you just love to look at? The way I like to look at your Aqua Tower, I don't know why, I just do. I just like to look at it.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Oh, you mean, like, a contemporary thing?

• 1:00:14Speaker 00

  Anything.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  I mean, I see things every day that I think are interesting.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  I guess I'm most interested right now in reinventing vernacular ways of building somehow. So looking to old ways of building and trying to update them into the 21st century. Because a lot of times, some older ways of building that were vernacular, in other words, people did it on their own without architects, there's knowledge in those things. Like building with earth, or rammed earth, or building with cordwood masonry. Or these are the kind of things that I am really fascinated by. And so I'm always trying to, whenever I go somewhere, look at like what was built there originally, just with what was around.

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  What can you build with what's nearby and what's available? Of course, you can't build tall buildings with those means. But I always learn just from, I really am interested in those, I guess it's low-tech stuff. But of course, those low-tech things can be upgraded too. And we can reuse what's smart about them.

• 1:01:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a great idea, actually. Anyway, Jeanne, thank you so much. You're a wonderful inspiration to me and many others, more than you realize, I think.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:01:41Speaker 00

  I know you're not supposed to know who the architects are. Sometimes you do. But your buildings are just beautiful. I don't know, there's something about you.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Thank you so much, it's been a pleasure.

• 1:01:54Speaker 00

  One thing before we go. Want career advice from Kara Swisher? Now's your chance. We're doing a special episode all about it, and I want your questions. Send us a selfie video with your question to [email protected] and you might be featured. Can't wait to see what you've got. Today's show was produced by Christian Castor-Vassal, Michelle Eloy, Catherine Millsop, Megan Burney, and Kalen Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Bradley Sylvester, Sam Lee, and Ruella Roof. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're getting the Aqua Tower penthouse. No, that would be me.

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

  If not, there was a sale on gold paint and you're getting a Mar-a-Lago-inspired home makeover. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podia Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.

• 1:03:03Speaker 06

  Afternoon glare totally ruined my watch party for the big game. That's when my buddy recommended Blinds.com.

• 1:03:10Kara Swisher?

  With custom window treatments made to fit your style, space, and budget, customers who shop at Blinds.com experienced overwhelming satisfaction. Side effects may include a fuller, deeper night's sleep and a sudden urge to host the watch party again. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Shop Black Friday all month long at Blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  Ready to transform your career in real time from where you are? Brown University's flexible online master's programs will help expand your business influence and your network in just 16 months. Choose from management, business analytics, or organizational leadership programs that will prepare you for today's most pressing business challenges without putting your life on hold. Scholarships available. Tap to learn more.

• 1:03:59Speaker 07

  Your couch doesn't have 10 for $10 wings. Your Dave and Buster's does. Every Sunday, Monday, and Thursday. Plus, 40-foot screens to catch all the action and more than 100 games from between the plays. Grab your crew and experience football at its best, only at Dave and Buster's. Now this is football. Other restrictions may apply. Visit davenbusters.com for full terms and conditions.