"Why is our architecture not as diverse as our culture is progressive?" That's the question Toronto-based architect Alexander Josephson keeps asking. On this episode, he doesn't pull punches.

Alex is the co-founder and creative director of PARTISANS, the studio behind the Grotto Sauna, the masterplan to resurrect Toronto's gargantuan Hearn power plant into a cultural district, and The Orbit, a radial reinvention of the Garden City for a transit-oriented future. He's also founder and CEO of Cumulus, an immersive digital memorialisation platform born from his father's brush with death during COVID. Across two decades, Alex has staked out a position that's part critique, part call to arms: that the condo towers crashing into Toronto's skyline are "spreadsheets in the sky", that greenwashed sustainability mandates have made architects pawns of capital, and that buildings should be "thousand-year worthy".

In this conversation we trace Alex's nonlinear journey into architecture (the University of Waterloo, Rome with Massimiliano Fuksas, the AA in London which he dropped out of), the founding of PARTISANS in a Toronto storage locker, his master's thesis redesigning Mecca around a singularity, the Grotto Sauna's pre-fabricated arrival by barge, the disco ball that helped ignite the Hearn's cultural revival, and what it takes to design a "complete community" amid Canada's worst real estate downturn in a century. We also wrestle with AI in design ("it's just a tool, like a pencil"), the case for interfaith architecture as a path to peace, and how personal grief gave rise to Cumulus, his "digital tomb" for the family memories trapped on our devices. A spirited, irreverent and sometimes uncomfortable episode for anyone who builds, designs, or simply lives among buildings.

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:59 Guest Intro, Toronto & Tim Hortons
3:59 "Spreadsheets in the Sky”
9:40 A radical redesign of Mecca
15:01 Interfaith architecture for peace
17:59 Origins of the "Rebel Archtiect”
31:49 PARTISANS - the "Apple" story of Architecture?
37:25 The Grotto Sauna
38:57 Urban Regeneration - The Hearn
50:37 Building on the Garden City - The Orbit
57:15 Receptivity to radical ideas from the client's side
1:01:41 Real issues with 'sustainability' in architecture
1:12:12 Reflecting back on the why of pursuing architecture
1:19:43 The impact of AI in Architecture
1:23:04 The story of Cumulus - digital memorialization
1:43:00 Q&A Start
1:43:22 What does innovation mean to you?
1:44:24 Key event, book, person
1:47:19 Time Management
1:49:55 Favourite childhood memory
1:50:47 Biggest challenge to date
1:53:33 Advice for young professionals
1:55:19 What would you most like to be remembered for?
1:57:03 Where can people find you?
1:58:32 Final message
1:58:45 Outro

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