Archispeak Podcast
What’s it really like to work in architecture? The hosts of Archispeak know, and they’re here to share real-life experiences.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 4
- Latest publication
- Aug 17, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 14, 2026
Latest episodes
#395 - Thermal Reactive Umbrella (opens the original)
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Some weeks the conversation just goes where it goes. Evan and Cormac spend this one reading Wikipedia and AI overviews at each other in real time — the AIA convention ping-ponging from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, SoFi Stadium sunk 100 feet into the ground for the LAX flight path, its cable-net roof that expands and contracts like a tennis racket until Cormac christens it a "thermal reactive umbrella." Along the way: stadiums built as war memorials, U2 tours, and Public Enemy's opening statement
#394 - Your Architecture Degree Isn't A Dead End (opens the original)
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What do you do when you finish six years of architecture school, land in the profession, and realize none of it speaks to you? Evan and Cormac start with a former student on a Detroit construction tour who says the buildings around her are falling on deaf ears, and they take the question seriously instead of waving it off. They dig into the difference between dreading the work and feeling nothing for it, why the degree opens far more doors than the traditional path, and how meaning has to be fou
#393 - We Ceded This to the Contractors (opens the original)
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Evan and Cormac dig into why architects deliberately stop detailing at "design intent" instead of shop-drawing level, and how that decision has handed constructability over to contractors and manufacturers. They explore the level of detail (LOD) gap between US and overseas practice, a real design-assist story about pushing a terracotta fin cantilever further with a manufacturer, and why competitive bidding punishes architects who over-detail their own work. That leads into a wider conversation a
#392 - Your Favorite Building Looks Like a Parking Garage (opens the original)
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Evan and Cormac catch up on Cormac's 6,800-mile road trip from Detroit to the AIA National Convention in San Diego with his daughter, built around a bucket list of architectural pilgrimage stops. They explore what happens when a non-architect finally sees a building that lands emotionally (Thorncrown Chapel), what happens when a canonical masterpiece doesn't (the Salk Institute reads as "a parking garage"), and what the 2026 AIA National Convention got right and wrong. This episode is especially
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