The Building Culture Podcast

#50: Alexandra Vondeling: The Neighborhood IS the amenity

Alex Vondeling has spent her career digging into the part of the problem most people skip past. Not whether we need more housing, we clearly do, but what kind, at what sc

#49 Alicia Pederson: How We Designed Families Out of the City

Alicia Pederson spent her twenties living in a 16th-century palazzo in Florence, and it changed everything about how she sees cities, density, and what American urbanism

#48 Mike Hathorne: The Great Housing Reversal - It's not a housing shortage, but a mismatch.

Mike Hathorne spent 30 years in real estate and development trying to understand why the industry keeps building the wrong thing. His answer is in his book, The Great Hou

#47 Apollo Workspace: There's a Better Way to Work

This episode is a personal one. I sat down with Sarah — my wife, my partner in all of this — to talk about Apollo Workspace: what it is, why we’re building it, and what i

#46 Jan Sramek: California Forever - Building the Next Great American City

In this episode, I sit down with Jan Sramek, Founder and CEO of California Forever, to talk about one of the most ambitious development efforts in the country: they're bu

#45 Aleksandr Gampel: Reinventing Homebuilding with Mobile Micro-Factories and Cuby Technologies

What if the future of affordable housing doesn’t come from prefab or 3D printing, but from building vertically integrated factories that travel to where homes are needed

#44 Ann Sussman and Kelsey Bradley: Cognitive Architecture – Stone Age Brains In A Modern World: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About Making Places People Love

What if the key to designing better cities wasn’t just in concrete, code, or cost, but in understanding how our brains actually work? In this episode, I talk with Ann Su

#43 Isaac French: You Can Just Do Things – How a First-Time Developer Built One Of The Most Beloved Retreat Brands In The Country

In this episode, I talk with Isaac French, founder of Live Oak Lake and one of the most thoughtful voices I’ve come across in the world of experiential real estate. Isaac

#42 Charles Duff: North Atlantic Cities - The Forgotten Blueprint for the Future

New episode out now with Charles Duff, author of The North Atlantic Cities. This is one I’ve wanted to record for years, ever since I read his book. Charles lays out a vi

#41 Joachim Tantau: Sacred Geometry, Beauty, and the Universal Language of Nature

In this episode, I sit down with Joachim Tantau–a cabinetmaker, artist, teacher, and occasional architect to explore the quiet power of sacred geometry. Joachim works at

#40 Inflation, Architecture, and the Death of Beautiful Buildings - a Yoeman Podcast Guest Episode

A hundred years ago, people in small towns were building things that still stop us in our tracks. Two-story brick shops on the corner of Main and Commerce. Sturdy. Modest

#39 Alli Thurmond Quinlan - The Field-Tested Guide to Terraforming Your City

You’re not supposed to be good at everything. But somehow, Alli is. Architect, landscape architect, developer, GC, policy reformer, zoning translator, builder of teams,

#38 Jeral Poskey: Urban Transportation of the Future? Retrofitting Suburbia with Swyft Cities.

In this episode, I talk with Jeral Poskey, former project executive at Google, and current Founder and CEO of Swyft Cities, about a radically different approach to urban

#37 Ryan Johnson: Culdesac - Building America’s First Car-Free Neighborhood From Scratch

In this episode, I talk with Ryan Johnson, co-founder and CEO of Culdesac, about building the United States’ first car-free neighborhood from scratch. We discuss everythi

#36 Stephen Smith: Safety vs. Sanity: The Surprising Cost of Over-Regulating Our Built World

In this episode, I sit down with Stephen Smith, founder of the Center for Building, to uncover the labyrinthine world of building codes—how they’re made, who really influ

#35 Moses Kagan: Building Generational Wealth with Generational Assets - "Indefinite Holds" in Real Estate

Moses Kagan has a unique take on real estate development and investing – and he’s influenced my thinking substantially over the past couple of years. He is a highly succ

#34 Coby Lefkowitz: Building Optimism - Rethinking Cities, Architecture, and the Future of Urban Design

What if our cities weren’t just places we lived, but places that made us feel alive? In this episode, we welcome back Coby, an urban planner, developer, and author of Bui

#33 Matthew Plechan: How to Paint Masonry. The Durable, Breathable Beauty of Mineral Stains.

Most Americans think painting brick is as simple as grabbing a bucket of latex or oil-based paint, but this common approach can wreak havoc on your home–and is uglier to

#32 Citymakers Collective: Empowering the Next Generation of Architects, Developers and Builders

I’m excited to share this conversation with Will McCollum and Matthew Marshall, the passionate minds behind Citymakers Collective. This summer, they’re hosting a transf

#31 Wrapping Up the Year: Building a Business, Management, Branding & Vision, Tech Stack, Resources, Updated Thinking, and a Merry Christmas from Building Culture

Hi everyone! I’m excited to share our final episode of the year, marking one full year of the Building Culture Podcast! This episode is a solo reflection—something new fo