The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.
A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.
This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design are joined by Architects Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, founding partners of Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, to discuss their upbringing, moving to the United States in their youth; meeting at Berkeley; studying and teaching Architecture; moving to China; starting their office together; running a multi-disciplinary office; their philosophy; and more.
Related Article
"We Have Abdicated as a Profession Our Responsibility Towards the Planet:" In Conversation with Yasmeen Lari
Highlights & Timestamps
(00:00) Rossana’s background
(09:41) Lyndon’s background
(15:42) Masters of Architecture
(31:32) Involvement in education as practitioners
When you’re teaching in an educational setting, you have the privilege to isolate different parts of the discipline for the purpose of educating people. The reality of a real working life never really enters into the school setting in its full spectrum. But that's also the beauty of it for a practice and that's why I think it’s so important for architecture school to have practicing architects teaching. (32:50)
(39:27) Running a multi-disciplinary office
If we have a project that we do architecture and interior, then we get the industrial design team in for the furniture aspect, then the discussion is really interesting because there are people from three different backgrounds talking about one design and you can see how each team support each other. (42:32)
(43:53) Working for Michael Graves
Michael and I really bonded because he loved sports and I did, too. So I used the time at night to actually have reviews… We’d watch a baseball or basketball game and that's how I would get my work done by kind of showing him the work and talking to him about sports. So that was really great environment for me. (46:14)
(48:57) Starting Neri&Hu
(58:21) Working in Asia
Our first three projects, Water House, Split House, and the Design Republic flagship store, were really about old and new, about reusing, recycling, taking on old buildings and taking a strong position with the government by saying it can work. We can take one old building and make it come alive again. (01:00:05)
(01:04:17) Their design philosophy and partnership
It was also a culmination of that time and place where we are and how we handled that situation, where the client wanted us to demolish an old building and we took a strong position to keep it, and that led to another project that allowed us to explore those issues. Oftentimes we are formed by the condition that we are formed by the condition that we are in and how we respond to it… But I think we're still developing, we're too young to understand our position. (01:05:40)
(01:17:47) Favorite buildings
