Attics & Basements

This week on Flightless Bird, David Farrier realizes that New Zealand doesn’t have attics or basements, so sets out to discover why so many of America’s 333 million homes do. David talks to Stephen Fox, an architectural historian and a lecturer at the Rice School of Architecture in Houston, who explains the practical reasons for these spaces, as well as why they’ve turned into habitable spaces. David then talks to filmmaker and architect Giorgio Angelini about what these spaces mean culturally to Americans, as paradoxically a place of safety and warmth but also of mystery and horror. The two of them discuss various formative experiences to be found in the attic, before David turns back to the egg episode, attempting to get closure with his best friend Rosabel following an incident where he cracked an egg over her head.