Designing and Teaching With Freedom and Joy: Alex

Alex is an urban designer and architect from San Francisco. He’s a founding partner of Collective Operations (CO) and teaches urban design at Harvard GSD. In this conversation, Alex discusses how he fell in love with cities, how Steph Curry inspired his approach to his career, and his motivations as a teacher, urban designer, architect, and developer. Highlights 1:17 When and where Alex fell in love with cities 8:00 Perceptorship at DS+R 12:15 First days at OMA 15:10 The economics of towers 17:45 What motivated Alex to move into development 21:50 Taking a vacation after OMA 24:00 How Alex got into teaching 28:41 How Steph Curry inspired Alex to play with freedom and joy 39:00 The three questions for a successful project 40:00 Practice as a way to talk beyond the discipline 43:27 Alex’s ideas for the Most Podern Podcast 47:50 Introducing Season 2: Careers References and Links Troy Schaum Sarah Whiting Felipe Correa Stephen Curry DS+R Charles Renfro, Liz Diller, and Rick Scafidio Culture Shed High Line Columbia Medial tower OMA Milstein Hall