In line with this month's "Furniture" theme, I speak with Galen Cranz, an architecture professor at UC Berkeley specializing in body-conscious design. Cranz is trained in the "Alexander Technique" – a method for "correcting" the body's poor habits of movement, that can limit self-awareness in a space.
Before coming to Cal to teach architecture, Cranz received her PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago, influencing her pedagogy of architecture and furniture to primarily be about how humans occupy designs, and how social hierarchies emerge from those conventions.
Listen to One-to-One #10 with Galen Cranz:
Shownotes:
Peter Opsvik's Gravity chair ↓
Oscar Newman's Defensible Space (1972)
Le Corbusier's lounge chair ↓
Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities, where the "eyes on the street" concept originates
Environmental Design Research Association
Peter Opsvik's Garden Chair ↓
Locus Leaning Seat, part of Martin Keen's Focal Upright line ↓
Veli-Jussi Jalkanen's Salli chair ↓
1 Comment
For the first part I was thinking, "What a prickly, difficult, and exhausting person." By the end I had completely bought in. It takes time to absorb that she knows her stuff, isn't interested in small talk/entertainment, and she will explain what she's learned seriously and with care. Great talk.
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