In Los Angeles, the ground floor is often where the identity of a neighborhood is established. In this episode, I sit down with Giancarlo Pagani, founder of Pagani Hospitality and Managing Partner of Mother Wolf Group, to discuss the mechanics of hospitality and the effort required to create local institutions that build community.

Few architects ever achieve name recognition among the general public; fewer still become local heroes in northern English cities. Dan Meis, Managing/Design Partner at MEIS+ and SVP,  Director of Global Sports Design at AECOM, is the exception. In this episode, I sit down with him to discuss the vision behind the new Everton football stadium and the unique challenge of designing venues that define entire cities.

Jake Heller, founder of the AI for CRE Collective, argues that the true utility of these tools lies in their ability to make us significantly more agile so we can focus on the relationships and judgment calls that actually get deals to the finish line

Nella McOsker, President & CEO of Central City Association (CCA), details CCA's "Revive DTLA" plan.

Can LA still build things that serve everyday people? Chris Torres and Eli Lipmen think so, and their Festival Trail project is putting that belief to the test with a 28-mile mobility and culture corridor connecting neighborhoods from Downtown through Inglewood.

Architect and urban planner Vishaan Chakrabarti draws on lessons from international cities and his time in Bloomberg's administration to explain how LA can rebuild after the fires with smart, gentle density. 

Governor Newsom recently signed a significant rollback to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), creating a new statutory exemption for urban infill housing projects, effective immediately. Land use attorney Spencer Kallick breaks down what this actually means for CA developers.

What's holding LA back from reaching its potential? Jessica Lall, Managing Director of CBRE's DTLA office, and Carl Muhlstein, a veteran LA commercial real estate advisor, have a few ideas. 

In the Building LA Season 1 finale, Michael White and Sarah Koos discuss Gensler’s post-COVID workplace strategy, highlighting their data-driven LA office redesign. They explore AI, sustainability, and urban transformation, emphasizing architecture’s role in shaping LA’s future amid upcoming global events.

Frances Anderton and David Kersh discuss their new initiative, Awesome and Affordable: Great Housing Now. This is a yearlong, new media project aimed at advancing understanding and appreciation for affordable housing: how it’s funded, produced and designed.

Robert Hale FAIA, Partner at RIOS, talks about two of his latest production studio projects - Echelon Studios and the Sony Scenic Arts Building. During our conversation, we discuss Robert's career before joining RIOS and his perspective on the future of production studio development.

Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich, the co-founders of Patterns, discuss their latest project – The Victory Wellness Center in North Hollywood. The project involves the conversion of a former supermarket building originally built in the 1940s, into a contemporary medical office building.

John K Chan, AIA, LEED AP is the Co-Founder and Design Director at Formation Association. We discuss how to create a great retail experience, as exemplified by his firm’s design of the Atwater Canyon retail complex. Atwater Canyon is an adaptive reuse project located in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Babak Ziai is the Founder and Managing Principal at BrandView, Inc. His commercial real estate investment management firm focuses on acquiring underutilized properties in exceptional locations and transforming them into high-performing mixed-use developments. We discuss his investment on Windward Avenue in Venice.

Oliver Evans is the CEO and co-founder of The Kinn – a membership club and workspace in LA that caters to socially conscious entrepreneurs.

In this episode we get out of town for the weekend and go to Mammoth to discuss the Limelight Hotel Mammoth with the Managing Director of WATG's LA office, Monica Cuervo.

Commune Capital, a private equity real estate investment firm which invests primarily in multifamily in California, including a co-living development in Mar Vista which is currently under construction.

The Healthy Haus is a case study for how to prioritize true sustainability in Southern California, rewilding the land, utilizing passive heating and cooling, specifying environmentally friendly construction materials, and promoting the well-being of not only the user, but also every construction worker.

We discuss the creation of Fatty Mart, a vibrant neighborhood deli/grocery in Mar Vista with David Kuo, Owner of Fatty Mart and his architect, Catherine Johnson, AIA, ACLA, Founding Partner at Design, Bitches.

A home for Nobel Prize winners and the center for research that is helping push humanity forward, the Chen Neuroscience building is an academic and research hub in Pasadena. Mark Zajdzinski describes how his team at SmithGroup designed and delivered this building for Caltech.