151 - Space Architecture and the Protopian Future

Architecture and the Protopian Future

In this episode of the podcast, the hosts, Jamie and Kurt, engage in a wide-ranging discussion that kicks off with humorous banter about the challenges of referencing older movies like 'The Matrix' with students born after their release. The conversation then shifts to a somber note with mentions of 9/11 and transitions into insights from an acoustics in architecture class, highlighting a guest lecturer's work on a sound sculpture for the Pennsylvania Memorial. The hosts muse on the passage of time and the challenge of teaching historical events that occurred before their students were born. They also celebrate a friend's birthday, discuss their experiences with coffee from Rootless, and share personal anecdotes about food, cooking, and restaurants they've enjoyed. Additionally, they delve into science fiction, reflecting on 'The Three-Body Problem' TV show, and discuss the concept of 'Protopian' futures between utopian and dystopian visions. Jamie shares his passion for space architecture through a detailed description of his sketch, inspired by the Stanford Torus concept, exploring themes of human ingenuity, exploration, and the tangible process of creation. The episode emphasizes the importance of storytelling in envisioning optimistic futures and the role of design in imagining the realms of possibility.

00:00 Opening Banter and Matrix Nostalgia
00:41 Teaching Moments and Historical References
04:20 Coffee Talk and Birthday Wishes
10:54 Exploring Culinary Adventures
18:36 Sketching Space and Protopian Visions

Transcript

Kurt Neiswender: 0:32

Hey Jamie, how's it going? Good. What you just saw was a dry run practice, practice round for the intro. But this is the, this is the real intro.

Jamie: 0:46

That was like a glitch in the matrix, folks.

Kurt Neiswender: 0:48

It sure was. It sure was. You know, I tried to reference the matrix to my students yesterday. And I realized that you can't really reference movies. That are older than your students.

Jamie: 1:00

Cause 1999 was a really, really good year for movies.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:06

But it's way before the kids were poor, you know, you know, even on a more somber note, I brought up the, the. 9 11 as a subject and and I had a guest lecturer who Works at Arup and did an acoustic study for the the Pennsylvania Memorial cause it's a, a sound sculpture. And so she worked on that. Flight 93. Yeah. Yeah. The, the Storystown Pennsylvania Memorial. And, and so I, I'm teaching an acoustics in architecture class. And so I, I showed this guest, this recorded lecture from my friend. And you know, so then at that, in that case with this upperclassmen group. Also, it was also happened before they were born. So and even most of them, not all, not all anyway, it's just weird to think about the 20 years ago, 20, 25 years ago is, is already too, too long ago. Makes me feel old.

Jamie: 2:15

But I didn't know this is where we were going with this. I know it's a

Kurt Neiswender: 2:19

strange sort of pseudo tangent in the beginning.

Jamie: 2:23

You know, and in fairness to

Kurt Neiswender: 2:25

the pure tangent, this is a

Jamie: 2:26

pure tangent. This is just pure. This is pure Kurt. Like we had that glitch.

Kurt Neiswender: 2:33

I'm not ranting.

Jamie: 2:34

No, no, there's no ranting.

Kurt Neiswender: 2:36

I'm just stating observations,

Jamie: 2:38

no ranting, no bourbon. This is just, this is, this is just pure. These are facts. Statement of facts. Yeah. It is 25 years since The Matrix happened. You look sad now. You okay?

Kurt Neiswender: 2:55

Yeah. I mean, I'm a little sad. It's such a good movie. I think I feel like my students should know it.

Jamie: 3:01

What? Yeah. You know trans day of visibility. And so the Wachowskis, I mean, it's like, you know, there's a whole lot of there's a lot of cultural meanings of all these movies and films and people that that we're still experiencing today I'm, I feel glad to be alive and knowing those types of references and, Points. And if sharing those with other folks and making them do a little bit of a deep dive, sure. Why not?

Kurt Neiswender: 3:37

That's where I'm going to leave it for you. Yeah. And I hope this throw in one more thing based on age or not age, but era. I don't know. Cause when I was young and, and my dad, you know, those movies that you're like, Oh, it's on TV. Oh, I got to watch it. Right. Like, even if you've seen it a million times. Yes. For my dad, that movie was like Bridge over the River Kwai.

Jamie: 4:05

I thought you were going to say The Guns of Navarone.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:11

So, when I was a kid, I was like, oh, this war movie. And so anyway, so I guess, you know, I'm now getting paid forward or paid the payback from my students. I said, did you ever watch The Matrix? He's like, only parts of it. What part? Do you remember the part where he eats the red pill

Jamie: 4:42

Yeah, blank stare. And they were just like, I was trying to be polite. Yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 4:46

yeah, yeah, yeah,

Jamie: 4:47

exactly.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:48

Moving on swiftly moving forward is to the core. The essence of the coffee sketch podcast is coffee. So actually today, before you speak today, our friend Sean at rootless is his birthday. Oh, happy birthday, Sean. Happy birthday, Sean. We won't sing to spare you the trouble and, and the, the earache. Yeah, we don't want that, but we will at least celebrate. I wish I had like confetti video. They don't do that.

Jamie: 5:28

I've told you, I've told you we can work on the buttons for you. We can have like confetti cannons. We could have like, you know, like just air horn. Yeah. Or just

Kurt Neiswender: 5:41

Jamie going,

None: 5:41

I

Kurt Neiswender: 5:44

like that. Like that better. I like it. So anyway, to our, to our, our friends at rootless and our friend, Sean, happy birthday, which is is, is what I'm going to be drinking tomorrow. Cause it didn't. Didn't get it in time for today. It's going to be the roast encounters of bag of my own. I know Jamie just received some, so, so what do you think about it? Is that what you're drinking?

Jamie: 6:14

Yes, it is.

Kurt Neiswender: 6:16

Is this the first cup or today was the

Jamie: 6:19

first, today was

Kurt Neiswender: 6:20

the first pot.

Jamie: 6:22

So this is the third, third cup of it.

Kurt Neiswender: 6:26

I like it a lot.

Jamie: 6:26

I do. I am very pleased that I got, I got that care package folks. Yes.

Kurt Neiswender: 6:33

It was supposed to get to you sooner. It sat, it sat on unnamed family member was forgot to take it, take the prepaid package to the post office.

Jamie: 6:44

There's no shade.

Kurt Neiswender: 6:45

So while I was in vacation, it sat on my kitchen counter. And so it was there when I returned. So did you get. Jason,

Jamie: 6:54

I've not seen Jason. So you know, if he's listening to this when it airs in a few days yeah. He, he's gonna know that there's something coming. Spoiler. Yeah, spoiler. That's okay. It's okay. I mean, we still have to, we still have to schedule the interview, so Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 7:11

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Jamie: 7:13

So have

Kurt Neiswender: 7:14

you tried the other one too?

Jamie: 7:15

Oh, the Dr. Congo? No. Yeah. Yeah, I'm

Kurt Neiswender: 7:18

that one for next, next, that's next.

Jamie: 7:20

Yeah, I'm, I'm excited. I mean, I, I've got, I've got a good, I've got a good little bevy of options now. And I didn't even get

Kurt Neiswender: 7:27

you a, I didn't even get myself one of those so short supply. I mean,

Jamie: 7:32

the, the artwork alone is, is worth it folks. So I think tune in for episode one 52 and I will make sure to share that

Kurt Neiswender: 7:41

show and tell.

Jamie: 7:42

Yeah, I'll do the show and tell. So I figured because, because this episode is sponsored by the, the number three. Oh, yes. That the rootless encounters coffee was totally appropriate. For lots of lots and lots of reasons and, and it certainly inspired the sketch, not maybe the coffee did too, but

Kurt Neiswender: 8:09

is that, did I pull the, the fresh off the the pages today? So today's sketch,

Jamie: 8:16

Yesterday's sketch yesterday's sketch was not drank with that coffee. That could have happened, but

Kurt Neiswender: 8:25

it didn't well. That's right. Anyway, so there's gonna be a theme of three space and science fiction and so those folks forget the other, the three now. So we have the show. The show. The show. Coffee, coffee sketch. Well, the sketch. Yeah. But then we were in the green room. I had a That's three had a a story.

Jamie: 8:50

Well, you were going to tell about, you were going to, well, you were going to tell about your cruise just in general to catch me up and that doesn't, that has no relationship unless Kirk can pull off like a Bermuda triangle thing.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:03

Well, there was there. Well, so we were supposed to go to four islands. We only round up at three. So anyway, we, we, we, yeah, we went on a cruise first cruise for me ever three degrees. That was what it was. I can't believe I forgot that quickly. I was still on, I was still on vacation, maybe vacation brain. So

Jamie: 9:28

if we could totally get some post production on this podcast, we might need a sponsor to do that. But if we had some post production, we could almost have those, those SES, like for those of us of a generation where Sesame street was sort of like the formative thing. Also the electric company. Do you remember the electric company? Okay. Anyhow, like this is about the time in the show when the count shows up and goes,

Kurt Neiswender: 9:59

can we, can we say that? Or will we get some sort of copyright strike if we,

Jamie: 10:04

I think, I think there was enough, there was enough words in there that it was,

Kurt Neiswender: 10:09

yeah, I'm sure it's fine. but it's also usually sponsored by a letter. So,

Jamie: 10:16

well, maybe at the end of the show, we'll have figured out what letter it's sponsored by.

Kurt Neiswender: 10:20

I'm sure we will. Yeah, that's for sure. So anyway, is that when the cooking

Jamie: 10:25

monster shows up?

Kurt Neiswender: 10:27

Know, Oscar the Grouch was, you know, kind of my favorite character. Oh, anyway, so Three Degrees on the Boat is at one point I used the level on my iPhone and put it on the counter in our In our state room, as one does cause the boat was tilted three degrees, three degrees may not sound like a lot, but when you're standing on a moving vessel and it's just tilted three degrees, it was it wasn't actually too disorienting, but it was weird. You know, you know, for about 10 minutes, it was just kind of cruising cause we were in a storm and that's why we only made it to three stops. We had to spend an extra day at sea instead of going to the Bahamas on our way back to Miami. So anyway, we ate it. So on the, before we even got on the boat though, Daniel and I went to this amazing restaurant in Miami called Morla. And if anyone ever gets to Miami, go to Morla. You won't regret it. It's fantastic. It's like they do a tasting menu, but they also will let you pick dishes and the chef brings it out to you and explains it all. I mean, it was just like, anyway, I'm, I'm going to, I, I don't want to turn this into the food podcast because

Jamie: 11:57

I'm, I'm just listening. This is good. This is, this is

Kurt Neiswender: 12:01

it was, it was we ate some other nice things and Danielle would still say it's not Morla. So the bar has been set.

Jamie: 12:09

So, okay, so, and this isn't, this is nothing against Morla or you, or you and Danielle doing that. So when Tyler took us and Claris to, like, the, that place in Chinatown.

Kurt Neiswender: 12:26

So you're asking my opinion of the community?

Jamie: 12:28

Well, yeah, no, so was it like that where you were just like, we're gonna, like, that much, was it, like, I'm just thinking quantities of, like, tasting menu and stuff like that, because that was, We couldn't get through all the food, like, like, because Tyler sort of knew this place and had a really good sense of, like, things he wanted us to, to try and experience. It was great, but it was like, it was clearly like, We were in over our heads in terms of the amount of food that we were trying to consume. Fortunately, we did the walking afterwards. So we went to the Golden Gate and all around Chinatown and, and it was fantastic.

Kurt Neiswender: 13:11

It wasn't quite the same because the menu was much shorter, actually.

None: 13:15

Well, what kind of food was it? Yeah, we mixed up, yeah, we mixed

Kurt Neiswender: 13:18

up. So the, the, the chef is Mexican and his wife is Peruvian. Okay. So, so it was a kind of a hybrid. You know, of, of those two cultures and two flavors, ingredients, things like that. And everything was very, it was definitely, it wasn't about quantity. It was about presentation and equality. So it's not like we overate. Cause I mean, you know, it was, it would be then a very expensive dinner, but it was it was, everything was very curated. So we've never really eaten in a. Situation like that. So well, that's fun. Yeah, it was fun. Cool. I think I posted I posted a picture on my instagram from inside the restaurant.

Jamie: 14:08

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was, I mean,

Kurt Neiswender: 14:10

it

Jamie: 14:10

was, it was very sort of teasing.

Kurt Neiswender: 14:13

Yeah, it's funny. Like it was, it's not near like, you know, district of restaurants. It was kind of off the beaten path, which was even cooler. And I don't even know how Danielle found it. She just kind of Google yelped or something like that, you know, to find the best way and we just walked stumble on the fun. Yeah, that's great. It was, it was now I really want to go. You made me talk about it enough. Now I want to go back, but we need an excuse to go to Miami rockets. Drone. Drone flight. Rocket. You know, so anyway, so what about you? Have you had any interesting meals in the past couple of weeks?

Jamie: 15:03

You're like, how do I transition to jamie? Have you eaten in like a few days?

Kurt Neiswender: 15:08

Yes Have you have you taken the time taking the moment to treat yourself?

Jamie: 15:14

No, i've not taken the time to treat myself to any fabulous meals as you've described but you know, I will I will consider that I do like to cook, so maybe it's time to pull out something in the recipe book that I haven't done in a while. I will tell you, though, that a few weeks ago I did pull off, like, a very great sort of cooking thing for me, where I was trying to, like, I was cooking to take food to a party. And Just the short of this is everything was sort of themed around like soccer balls. So so everything is sort of like, you know, how do you, you know anyways. So for me, I was like, and it was like, you know, it was a potluck. So it was like, everybody's trying to bring in stuff and, you know, and the people who were hosting their fabulous chefs. So like they had a bunch of stuff that they were already doing. So anything I was going to bring. Just it's extra, but I was just like, I wanted to try, I was like, well, I'm like, what, what would be sort of small and like, you know, round like a ball and it'd be fun, blah, blah, blah. And, and so like meatballs, obviously that's easy. Anybody can do meatballs. My dad has a really great meatball recipe. Like him and M have like perfected this. It's sort of their thing. I like to do it now. So, you know, have that that's, that's, that's in the hip pocket if I need to. Right. But I'm like, like, so I got ambitious and I was like, I'm going to do Russell sprouts. Like garlic Brussels sprouts, like, you know, the whole grilled and like all crispy Brussels sprout kind of, you know, very, but I'm also going to do the meatball, so I'm going to like do two things and I'm going to try and time it right so that they're both warm. When I get to where I need to go, even though I'm cooking at home and I pulled it off. It was so good. Yeah, definitely the best Brussels sprouts using the cast iron, you know, skillet, you know, an underrated utensil. Yeah. On, on, you know,

Kurt Neiswender: 17:42

under misunderstood.

Jamie: 17:43

Yeah. Like, you know, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta do the mix of like, you're cooking it on the stovetop and then you, and then you get it in it and you get it in the oven at the right time. And then you switch gears to the other and you've got the other thing going and you time everything right. Good stuff.

Kurt Neiswender: 18:01

This is this is turning into the Food Network podcast. Yeah,

None: 18:04

what the hell?

Kurt Neiswender: 18:06

We don't often talk about food,

Jamie: 18:07

but that's now we yeah, I mean usually usually it's just coffee and sports pairings with a sketch or two For those who are diligent about listening to the multiple episodes

Kurt Neiswender: 18:19

if you've made it this far You can know that we will we will Turn on the screen, talk about our sketch

Jamie: 18:27

and we're going to tie it right back to the number three,

Kurt Neiswender: 18:31

the three body problem, semi inspired by the, this new TV show, three body problem and the coffee rootless and roast encounters. Yeah, I love the name and I love their. Have you seen their ads on social media? Oh yeah.

Jamie: 18:49

Oh yeah. They like, they, they are so leaning into like having watched an X Files episode or two.

Kurt Neiswender: 19:01

They're having a lot of fun. I think it's anyway, it's really exciting to, to, to know those, those quirky guys. With their creativity. So the sketch, Jamie's creativity you know, kind of fits in with the day. I mean, it's, it's one of, well, to me, from what I see, because you, I'm sure you'll explain a little more of what you were trying to render, it's got like this, there's all this crosshatch being used and it's very loose. It sort of renders kind of like. You know, inside of like the Millennium Falcon or something like that, or, you know, a sort of quilt work of steel that is sort of patched together to create this hull of something, and then you've got a couple of spheres that are also like, you know, Metal hunks of, you know, objects in there, in the space, they kind of look like, you know, one of those R2 robots or BB, what is it called? The BB 8, something, 8, the BB 8 from a, because it's like two, two, two spheres, two balls, unless there's a hidden third for the three bodies. So anyway, it's, it's kind of a neat, a neat sketch. I mean, you're, you're, you tagged this in your Instagram with the Stanford Taurus and a couple other space related hashtags, which are,, alluding to the great, the great. Out there, the unknown but what, which I didn't know what a Stanford tourist was to tell me. And then I looked it up and you know, if you imagine like a, a ring of a space station, you know, that sort of shows this elliptical or circular form that implies a sense of gravity. I imagine, right. You know, if it spins, then it sort of generates a bit of gravity that kind of like space odyssey 2001 where they're. Jogging around the periphery of this thing. And so, I mean, if, if that was your idea and then in the sketch,, the curvature that you have sort of implied in the, in some of the background could, I'm assuming it sort of renders as like the interior of this environment. I don't really understand what these little spheres are doing in there, which maybe you'll explain that part, but anyway, so Stanford Taurus away.

Jamie: 21:45

I just, I mean, like sometimes just listening to you trying to try and interpret and describe these sketches. I just miss that. And, and I love it. But no, it, it, it, it absolutely. Yeah, no. So the yeah, the Stanford tour is so I, you know, I'm, I'm just sort of that product of You know, art and architecture where Jamie's brain and formative years were spent at the library sitting on the floor as a kid in elementary school, like trying to devour every book about space. That I could. And and so, you know, probably when I, when I was in elementary school, I knew what a Stanford Taurus was and I thought everybody else did too. yeah, I might've been that kid, but it, it, it absolutely is. You know, like a product of, you know, NASA studies and trying to figure out how to create habitation modules and colonization strategies and you know, You know, what kind of equipment and space architecture before space, space architecture was a term you know, could people, you know, start to employ and this in 1975, there was this concept called that basically got coined the Stanford Taurus. And it is what Kurt was describing, sort of that ringed object that would spin and sort of generate kind of a low. You know a low gravity kind of field for the inhabitants on the inside of this Taurus ring or doughnut, if you kind of, you know, kind of think about as a doughnut or elongated kind of you know, path around a, you know, a spoked Center and so this is sort of that view of that interior space kind of my vision of that the Arthur C. Clarke, 2001 kind of reference is totally appropriate here. If you, if you've seen that movie, Stanley Kubrick excellent film. You know, and those sort of touchstones for me kind of visually create a vocabulary that I think is employed in the sketch. So you see these spheres that if you remember the pods, the astronauts used to kind of move around outside their, their space habitat and station. You know, and then there's Hal and all that other good stuff, but you know, those were spheres. And so this is sort of a play on some of those objects. Within this curved environment all happening, you know, in a very small sketchbook. And so, I think the challenge was, can I, can I render a space sort of challenge myself rendering a space that is recognizable at a certain scale but at the same time is suggestive of this larger object. That you're not totally sure, you completely understand, but is suggestive of the form and that it's this curved space that this, that these spheres are housed within. And so a lot of it is a lot of crosshatch, a lot of figurative form, figure field kind of study. Playing with, you know, the perspective of the view that you're sort of trying to create, creating a subtle vanishing point that that still exists, even though the space is curved and, and then rendering the object very, very clearly and distinctly in the foreground or the semi foreground of the space. To to anchor you and to kind of anchor that anchor the image.

Kurt Neiswender: 25:23

The patchwork for this quilting, the texture that it generates, right? The, and it provides sense of scale is sort of, and so the, you know, it sort of emulates like these little pieces of metal cobbled together, which is a lot of like the spacecraft that we see in say, star Wars and maybe not even, not so much in Star Trek. And then, so the interesting point that I, it's a tie in that, you know, recently I was driving to campus and I heard on NPR they were talking about storytelling and availability of. Of types of futuristic storylines and, and especially for like young adult reading and television, things like that. And the, the interview E was talking about, there's a lot of dystopian development, right? A lot of things that we associate in this sort of dystopian future, which sort of connotes a negativity, like a something gone wrong. In the future. So the, the interviewee was trying to develop what she called the protopian story storytelling to where, you know, the future could exist or, or will exist and potentially it exists in a optimistic feature. And so what are the visuals like and what. How do you tell that story? And, you know, how does the narration, you know, if it was a written, you know, if it was a book or something like that novel, and it kind of got me thinking about the idea of the things we've talked about so much on the podcast in relation to the sketches of a variety of things. different subjects and sketches, you know, the, the, the visual rendering and reference of, of like, you know, this, this interior environment full of patchwork of steel bits and metal and, and bolt nuts and bolts and things like that is, is still kind of tied to a pseudo sort of dystopian concept based on a lot of the reference imagery, right? Star Wars Space Odyssey, you know, things like that. So this person on NPR, the interviewee, was talking about the one show that she could put in the category that was not dystopian was Star Trek, actually, because Star Trek was more about the exploration of outer space and not so much, not all about the, the Evacuation from earth or something like that, but more about, you know, what, what is out there. And I wonder too, you know, so, so then tying back to like the, the crafts or the, the space crafts start, the enterprise had some still had like the, the sort of metal construction, metal looking construct, but it seemed a little more streamlined, a little smoother, like clean, like it wasn't you know, whacked together by you know Han Solo and, and and Chewy, Chewbacca, the Wookiee.

Jamie: 28:40

Well, no, I mean, it, it, it's, I, but I think that that's sort of the thing though, right, is didn't hear the NPR thing that you're referencing, but it makes me think of when they're talking about. Star Trek as a touch point for sort of a of an optimistic view of a few, you know, for lack of a better term, an optimistic view of the future where it's, you know, moving past certain kind of problems. And now we're talking about exploration and it's sort of this bigger universe and that the, the architecture or the design of that space feels. More pulled together for, you know, using a really mundane term. But I think that the thing about Star Trek, though, is that, you know, there's a, there's a term that's used that sort of underlies that whole kind of world is it's IDIC, infinite diversity, infinite combinations. Yeah, infinite diversity and infinite combinations, and it's, and it's, it is sort of seeing that optimism of the, the variety of things that we that exist in the world. And it's. You know, it's a show, that sort of talks and it has, you know, since its inception sort of talked about all these different variety of things, who people are, how people are who they love, you know, how they love you know, what they do, you know you know, how they do it, all those types of things you know, where they are, how they're seen. And, and it always has sort of found ways to explore that, and I think that that's the thing that's present in a show like that, that doesn't be, doesn't dip into dystopian because it's, it's talking about, it's challenging the reader or the viewer to think about these broader themes. You know, these broader concepts, but thinking about it kind of in a universal that it's like, okay, if we're going to go expand, you know, you know, our sphere of things that we're going to look at, we're going to go and explore the universe when we explore it, we're going to find. Even more, you know you know, to our lives and to, you know, to the things that we're seeing, we, we probably have a lot of those things at home. If we take the time to look at it. So there, you know, there's that kind of reflection point that science fiction always kind of gives us. And I think that's what Star Trek kind of speaks to, but I think in the sketch in terms of the texture that you're, you're reading and, and my sketches do tend to go that direction. I, I fully admit that. Especially when I'm kind of drawing in that sort of space architecture or futurist world. But to me, it's about construction. It's about sort of the challenge of pulling the thing together and and that it's not a, it's not a pristine object. There's some grit and there's some grime to it. That doesn't necessarily indicate dystopian to me. And it doesn't equate to that. I think that there's certainly plenty of dystopian themes and things like that, that I've explored, and I'm very interested in, yes, not going to deny that, but I think that to me, it's I, I look at something like this and say, look at the work of, I don't know if you, if you watched apples for all mankind I don't know if they're going to do another one for all mankind, you know, really sort of takes this alternate view of the space program and, you know, sort of, it's sort of a, what if space program kind of, you know, did things a little differently, just sort of veered slightly off course. And so there is this kind of grit and grime to it. There's this DIY of, you know, we have decided we're going to go and do these things. And these, these are made by human hands. They're not fabricated by. You know, something, you know, AI isn't making this thing for us. And, and I think even if you look at and look at the spacecraft that we use today, the space shuttle, you know, that's decommissioned now you know, the starship, you know, that, you know, Elon Musk is, is promoting, you know with SpaceX or blue origins stuff. You know, even Virgin Galactic's spaceship. You know, you can still see that even though those things are marvelous and amazing machines, they're faceted, they're created by human hands, there's, there's something to that, and then when you think about those objects and then extrapolating that to a immense scale, this is the kind of vision of that world that I see and I think it's one that's attainable. I mean, to me that this is, this is not. Unattainable. I think this is something that through human ingenuity and all those wonderful things I think this is stuff that we can, we can do. And I think that humanity sort of born to do in terms of exploration and, you know, asking the question, what if and to do that, I don't, I think it's messy. You know, I think, I think the, the, even the practice that we find ourselves in as architects and designers. Is messy. Especially in the work that you and I do where we're dealing with existing buildings sometimes and trying to find a really, you know, beautiful vision for that space that when you walk into it that first day, you're like, why am I here? Does to my friends and my family know where I am right now? Because the space is sort of sketchy. You know, that's I think that that's a real thing. I mean, you know, those before and after shots that folks often stage for sort of DIY influencer moments, you know, for an architect who is practicing adaptive reuse on a day to day basis, that's your reality, you know, walking into those spaces that are really, really super sketchy and going, how do I imagine a possibility for this space? And then if you, you know, bump that out to someone who is trying to vision themselves as a space architect, you know, this is, this is the kind of realm and reality that, you know, my mind kind of goes to. I mean, that's not my work, but it's certainly. My imagination.

Kurt Neiswender: 35:00

Well, I think that was really interesting navigating through architecture, materiality, and, and even preservation. And I, yeah, I think too, so we should, we should support and, and, and use the term protopia more often and, and, and sort of allude to Jamie sketches as a Protopian vision. And the one thing that I wanted to squeeze in there was the their protopian kind of lives in between utopian and dystopian. Right? So it's not utopian, which is the super ideal or not dystopian. So it's kind of kind of like what you're saying. It's like the grime and grit of the hand, the man made, you know, kind of lives in there. Right.,

Jamie: 35:50

and think about like the design of this space, right? It's, it's a, it's a wheel, right? A donut wheel and this Stanford tourist kind of idea of creating the gravity that you were referencing at the outset. That's all about centrifugal force, right? It's understanding the physics of it. And then taking that kind of abstract concept and going, okay, abstract concept, you know, and designing it. Like taking it from this abstract, abstract concept and then turning it into a space, you And a thing. And a sketch that is recognizable to somebody so they can kind of go. Okay. I can imagine how this space would work. I can understand the concept that you're telling me exists from physics and math. And then I'm understanding this space as a designer. Of of what, you know, how one might inhabit it. And and I think that that's the thing that movies and film and novels, you know, really sort of suggest to us is and science fiction. It's how do you take these abstract ideas like you're talking to this prototype in. You know, kind of idea, you know, on a spectrum, you know, of utopia and sort of dystopia. And you know, what does it look like? You know, you use that word and you throw that word out there or you put that word on the page and then what does it look like? That's where my mind always goes as an artist and an architect is what does that look like? You know, and not where I have the answer to it, but it's like, I'm excited to hear that concept and go, let me try and sketch it. Let me, let me try and grapple with it. You know, on the page in the sketchbook you know, just like, you know, you and I've been sort of teasing it with this episode is the number three is. We've been watching this show, folks, sometimes we do that, we figure out a show that both of us can watch and it's not like Mystery Science Theater 3000 but maybe, maybe it is but there's this new show, Three Body Problem, that is all this sort of unique, sort of mysterious, Cheers. You know, science related, you know, terms and conditions that you're trying to grapple with, and then the characters are grappling with it, and then you're seeing it presented itself on the screen as a narrative. And for someone like me or, or Kurt, I think that that kind of stuff inspires us to, to think a little different, you know, you know, get the creative juices going. What do you think about the show? Are you surprised to see a sketch like that after knowing that both of us are watching that show? Maybe it's a better question.

Kurt Neiswender: 38:34

Oh, I see. Isn't that the rhetorical to the audience? I hope no, I, I think this is a really interesting conversation where we, from where we started to where, to where we are going to wrap up. But the yeah, it actually has. Oh, I agree. It has inspired me to think and noodle. A little bit of my own. And I've been actually I've been doodling a little stuff in my sketchbook, not quite to you know, like your Instagram ready sketches, but just kind of tinkering myself with using just, just drawing, right. And having, having a little fun sort of not, not on the computer. And not at the moment, not really anything as a subject per se. I mean, it kind of starts with a seed and then it kind of evolves. When we'll talk about, we'll, we'll have to, I'll have to post some pictures and we can talk about it in the, in the near future, it has kind of it does, it does make me think, you know, that that show three body problems shows like that, I suppose. Did you ever watch, did you ever wind up watching the OA? Did you, you gotta go back and watch that? Has a lot of similarity. Well, let's say similarity, but you would also like that show too, based off this show. Yeah. So I, I think we should I don't know, anyway, I think I already said that, but we should probably think more Protopian and see what that looks like. I might start adding some sketches. This is the third time that Kurt has offered sketches. So all right.

Jamie: 40:07

I mean, it's year, it's year six, I mean, right? Season six. So, you know, more sketches from Kurt.

Kurt Neiswender: 40:14

Yeah. Six, six is Two times, three, two times three. All right, Jamie. Thanks a lot.