Hollywood has its message VERY wrong when portraying what architects and designers do in a day. starchitects:the podcast explores fact versus fiction with the professionals. How many interior designers (shoulder pads included) should work from the residential office of a sole proprietor? Would you pay for the services of an architect who signed off on a building where not only the electrical wiring is shot but the sprinklers won’t work unless you explode the water tanks on the roof (?!) using C4 (Paul Newman, I’m looking at you…)? Do you trust your developer moved the headstones AND the bodies?
A&D (architecture and design) professionals Jeff Wolinski, Vince Galea, and Roberta Pennington are joined each episode with a hand-selected “starchitect” in our amazing basement studio in Portland, Oregon and try to tear down what the entertainment industry has built up.
As James Bond once said—”I thought Christmas only came once a year.” We found a lost present inside the Starchives and we are unwrapping a magnum sized episode for you to ride all the way to work. Well, since most of us now work from home….take it to the bathroom, your bedroom, basement or even to your designated crying or snack room.
Enjoy the ins and outs of architecture using gingerbread and Tia or Tamera Mowry.
We watch A Gingerbread Romance!
wait… is this about my dwindling 401K? how on earth does this word relate to A&D. the starchitects suss it out.
Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion.
…and some other people were in this insipid rom-com/ sit-com that’s like “Friends” and “How I Met Your Mother” had a third cousin once removed living in Canada no one talks about.
Sorry, Canada. I didn’t mean that. I miss you.
once upon a time, joelle and nathan fillion were related thru marriage. o, canada!
What is Brandscaping? Whatever it is we have to make sure we don’t nick the balls.
The Tower is the story of a smart office building that’s mad about Paul Reiser. This high Reiser is the latest in smart technology (beside Paul’s hair plugs) that really hates musicians (especially keyboard players).
When Die Hard meets Seinfeld that meets Robin Concord from Cheers in a sauna you have a feature film…a tv movie…a TV show…oh god we don’t know what this is!
We watched The Tower!
This is a story of an interior designer whose BFF asks her to be maid of honor, but she must take on a few responsibilities—such as making sure the family cottage is perfect for the honeymoon. Legend has it that if newlyweds spend their first night there, everlasting love and happiness follow. Not to mention cold vanilla emotionless sex.
When you mix BFFs, old lovers, fake snow, lonliness and magic——you get a film called The Christmas Cottage starring Jared Padalecki…..wait that’s not the film….it’s the one WITHOUT Jared Padalecki. Sorry Supernatural fans.
sometimes when an outsider hears the words used by a design professional, their meaning gets muddied. is she really going to “massage” the plan? does he really get turned on by a glossy, white, metal detail by calling it “sexy?” why exactly are a&d professionals hijacking the tech darling “ux?” in our companion micro-cast, we explore some of the vocab words with past guests of the show to try to decipher: archi-speak.
thanks to matt carter for chatting about: DISRUPTION
sometimes when an outsider hears the words used by a design professional, their meaning gets muddied. is she really going to “massage” the plan? does he really get turned on by a glossy, white, metal detail by calling it “sexy?” why exactly are a&d professionals hijacking the tech darling “ux?” in our companion micro-cast, we explore some of the vocab words with past guests of the show to try to decipher: archi-speak.
thanks to kevin valk for kicking us off with: EXPERIENCE
Guys,
I feel an explanation is in order. You may have noticed we haven’t posted an episode in a while. Whelp, we are the victims of LIFE.
Jeff and Joelle welcomed a bouncing baby boy two weeks ago after a few false starts, aka false labor. We were on Baby Watch 2018 and didn’t want to disturb their home with recording nonsense.
Vince has been traveling. Lucky duck.
Me… everyone in the Pennington house caught the flu shortly after we recorded the upcoming “Jungle Fever” episode. I firmly believe it’s karma kicking me in the butt for being so ignorant to Spike Lee’s vision of what it was like to interracially date in the 1990’s.
Did you notice the holidays also came upon us? Yoinks-s-doinks. So. Much. PAW Patrol…
Could we have recorded a few episodes in advance to fill the void? Sure… but that would be responsible and, dare i say, professional. But the very definition of professional means we are making a podcast for a living.
Ha! I cry the baby tears of laughter at this… oh, the baby tears… oh…..
Meanwhile, hang tight, favorite listener! “Jungle Fever” will fill your ears soon and you too can think to yourself, “What a bunch of fucking assholes. I’m going to go listen to ‘My Favorite Murder” or ‘Un-Happy Hour.’”
-RP
Forgotten about until just recently, when this “reality show” made a comeback in 2018. Roberta, Vince, Jeff and our guest Joelle Wolinski reminisce about the early 2000s and the design, style and trends it had to offer.
We get into three very different episodes—-One episode has the popular host Paige Davis, one doesn’t have a host at all and the other has a host that isn’t Paige Davis but one Alex McLeod who left the show to pursue…..well, we’re not sure. Anyways, these episodes take us on a journey from horrible South Carolina, to despicable Philadelphia all the way to the beautiful Pacific Northwest’s Seattle, WA….well, Everett, WA. Coffee!
Lets dig into some great interior design (decorating) and watch a show only the likes of what you would see on the Great White Way of Broadway!!!!!……Wait a second. Hold it. Paige Davis get out of here!
As Vern Yip says, “Architect’s get all the girls!”
starchitect: Joelle Wolinski
Our final episode for Season Two is 1982’s summer sleeper hit "Poltergeist." Many of the practical effects of this tale brought back terrifying childhood memories of boy-eating trees, self-opening closet doors, and a base fear of clowns.
starchitect, and “Poltergeist” virgin, Graham Taylor brings his real estate nerdery to the basement to dissect the possibility of re-developing land once housing hundreds, if not thousands, of consecrated, buried bodies… and deciphering how much money Steven was making off his real estate transactions. If the amount is as much as we projected, why does their home look like a room from a 1980's Grey Gardens?
Roberta was able to find the actual house where the movie was filmed and grab an aerial shot as well as a best guess of the basic floor plan used to create and customize the house in the late seventies.
Enjoy!
starchitect: Graham Taylor
Tract home floor plan. The "Poltergeist House" was probably customized off this inital plan but the basic element are there, though no indication where the portal to the other-side resides and if you can relocate it to a more user friendly area like the family room....
the house where the movie was filmed. the location is public record; the original owners still own the house as in it has never been sold.
In a $20 million dollar coup, the King of Dick and Fart movies, Jim Carrey, broke a salary record for his betrayal of “Chip Douglas,” cable installer and stalker. Matthew Broderick, the center of Chip's attention, lumbers along reacting (?) to Carrey's antics in what appears to be a narcotic haze.
Ben Stiller (aka Derrick Zoolander) directs this comedy, which between you, me, and the lamp post, isn’t that funny nor is it that exciting watch. Anna Winn joins the team in the basement as we try to figure out if Carrey is spooky or trying his damnedest to people please. The team is split; you decide.
starchitect: Anna Winn
“Two for the Road” saw Albert Finney as the protagonist and love interest to the setting sun of Audrey Hepburn as flirty ingenue. He mumbles his way through all dialogue about… life? art? architecture? We couldn’t make it out… then he eats an apple. Double that with Hepburn’s scarecrow thin body and you have the recipe for the most BORING ten-year journey of a pair’s relationship.
Think of this movie like a fender-bender on I-84…. I mean no one really dies, and it’s kind of interesting to see how the cars are wrecked but… meh.
starchitect(s): Jeff Wolinski, Vince Galea, Roberta Pennington
PT Barnum is noted as saying, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Could it be an entire generation of architects were swindled by noted starchitect, Louis Kahn? He sure fit the bill of a con artist: self-assured, self-serving all while supporting secret families, mistresses, and skyrocketing personal and business debt.
Nathaniel Kahn, Louis’s youngest of his illegitimate brood, explores his father’s life through the lens of the architect’s work. But is it all it’s cracked up to be? Are we all just a bunch of suckers trying to hear what that mother f***ing brick is saying?!
starchitect: Joelle Wolinski
Post “Batman,” Michael Keaton tested his menacing chops as the mysterious Carter Hayes, who turns out to be a misfit, well-to-do psychopath hell bent on making his landlords’ (Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine) lives a living nightmare.
Vince laments: I’d totally follow Melanie into the desert to get my sex robot back any day.
The starchitects team and guest Diony Lopez talk about the realities of being a landlord in San Francisco, something Diony, Jeff, and Vince have in common. Strangely, this movie isn’t too far off in its depiction of horrific tenants who will do anything to NOT pay rent and treat apartments like absolute garbage. Even the premise of having a monkey brother isn’t beyond fiction, as Vince shared the below picture with us….
starchitect: Diony Lopez
photographic evidence vince has monkey brothers....
Project management. It’s a job definition most people, even those in the profession, can’t quite put their finger on. In her recent shift to project management, Roberta was able to offer some insight as to what Matthew Perry’s character was doing on the job site in “Fools Rush In.” Still, no one in the room could grasp the whole picture of scope of service… well, maybe Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing as Alex Whitman could. Could his job responsibilities BE any more vague?
Synopsis: An episode of “Friends” minus the other five. Selma Hayek is hot.
For the record: Project Managers plan, budget, oversee and document all aspects of a project. Project managers work closely with clients to make sure the scope and direction of each project is on schedule, within the planned budget and executed properly per outlined scope.
starchitect(s): Jeff Wolinski, Vince Galea, Roberta Pennington
It's a snapshot into a time when women in their late-twenties wanted to look like women in the mid-forties. A time when shoulder pads were worn to intimidate men and weaker women alike. When Delta Burke's weight was as hotly debated as perestroika. While "Designing Women's" pretense was to show women in control, the end result was five twittering morons who were one step away from uttering "fabulous" with the stereotyped hiss of most TV designers.
starchitect Mark Miller joins the team in the basement to talk curtains, pillows, and tassels. No: it is not what any of us went to school for, but your mom thinks so.
starchitect: Mark Miller
Hotly debated amongst the starchitects team, "Road House" has been on Roberta's mind for months after strong arming this film into Season Two. Roberta contends it's a movie about urban design as a small town bar owner wants to better his establishment, make a safer place for the townspeople to gather and unwind after a hard day of fighting off organized crime and shopping at the JC Penny's; the rest of the group considers it a ploy to get a Patrick Swayze movie into our rotation.
You decide.
starchitect: Russell Holzinger
2016 saw the 30th anniversary of “Pretty in Pink” where James Spader plays a rich teenager who seems kind of rape-y. In “Dream Lover,” Spade takes an acting leap in a tour-de-force performance playing a rich architect who seems kind of rape-y.
The starchitects team and guest Jessie Lenhardt recommends paying the $2.99 to watch the 1-hour 43-minute full version versus the edited option available for free on YouTube. From what I’m told, the nudity makes up for the clown scenes. Yep; there’s clowns. Read it again: clowns.
starchitect: Jessie Lenhardt
The starchitects team kicks off its second season after a holiday hiatus to talk about all that is wrong in the world of pre- and post-earthquake Los Angeles in the celebrity cluster f***k, “Earthquake.” All-star guest Eric Li returns to remind us no one will ever be calmed by hot coffee and sandwiches in an underground shelter/ mall, especially if that shelter/ mall is constructed of cardboard columns painted to look like brick.
Personally, I cannot get enough George Kennedy.
(Did you notice the new starchitects logo? It’s like we got a hair cut over winter break hoping you’d notice and finally ask us out to the Valentine’s Day dance. Well, suck it. We’re going to get drunk in the parking lot then throw rocks in the quarry until dawn.)
starchitect: Eric Li