In Episode 2, we catch up with architect Philip Engelbrecht, a friend from Berlin who played a pivotal role in helping me sort out my thoughts about a career shift. In one of our last chats before my move back, Philip mentioned an article in which the architects of Marzahn, a gigantic post-war public housing development in Berlin, were being interviewed. Their designs were very homogenous “block housing.” As a result, tens of thousands of the apartments are now vacant in such buildings. I’ve seen similar results in huge public housing developments here.

So in our chat, we talked about how one goes about designing something on such a large scale without drifting into the kind of homogenous design which leads to fiscal disaster (thousands of empty apartments…). Along the way, we discuss German construction techniques, which I have always found superior, and also some of the industry’s current dilemmas. Apologies for the occasional freezes and low resolution. We had a poor connection that day. Hope you enjoy it!