Austin is a Architectural Designer and Adjunct Lecturer living and working in Washington DC. In both his professional and academic pursuits he is very interested in the concept of Narrative (Spoken, Scripted, Graphically Represented) and the role it plays within the field of design.
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The Game of Thrones is played on two continents: Westeros and Essos. Westeros is a tightly defined, familiar island ruled by families who tend to fight sometimes. Essos is a sprawling, elongated land mass with diverse city-states and partially undefined regions. This west-east perspective is part of a long-standing Western storytelling tradition: define everything possible in the places that feel like home, and keep the “other” a place of endless possibility for hope or terror to arise.
The laugh track is a simulation of genuine enjoyment. Now, we’d rather just enjoy TV how we want to, on our own terms - and now the content creators recognize this. So, what caused this major shift in the way our television is marketed to us? The rise of the internet, the evolution of the American family model and shifting societal taboos all come into play. Maybe, the loss of the laugh track is a symbol for innocence lost - mostly for the good - making us all Larry David.
Even in a city with strong communities, crime and vacancy permeate the urban landscape, creating inequity in areas such as public housing. This is the physical manifestation of structural racism that has always been present in Baltimore. We gathered a diverse group of designers, policy makers and Baltimoreans to strive for a deeper understanding of these root causes.
Everyone has a canon of movies, books and more that contribute to their cultural and social identity. We dive deep into the reasons why by making our own “Media Trees” inspired by the artist Ward Shelley. Was I really watching Braveheart and Finding Nemo at the same time?
Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke teamed up to produce the beloved screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, which explores the past, present and future of humanity. We explore the sequential art of storytelling as it varies in those two arenas: film and literature. Humanity, it seems, is the main character after all.
Donella Meadows’ leverage points for system intervention is a road-map for how to most efficiently solve a problem based on the variables at hand. In this discussion, we put on our designer hats and contemplate how this type of systems thinking can be simplified to three simple methodologies: changing the variables, changing the game & changing the rules.
Every neighborhood has three identities: one held by the locals, one experienced by the visitors, and one understood by a much larger audience - the brand. Sometimes these identities overlap and reinforce one another. But, other times they diverge considerably, putting strain on the identity of that place.
By aggregating available data we hope to establish trends in the years leading up to (and following) the World Cup in order to pose the simple question: is hosting or winning the World cup actually beneficial for a country?
If a storyteller breaks too many rules, a world becomes indecipherable. Even in an alien world with creatures of all shapes and sizes, there ideally is an underlying reason for their appearance, culture and rule of action that we can relate to.
Every decision we make has unintended consequences - even how we choose to get get to work everyday. We revisit a year old debate on walking vs. biking in Washington DC.
Some days you’ve got to just get out of the studio and see the world. We experiment with a few new forms of audio in this episode: recording on the go and public soundscapes.
Our conversation takes its inspiration from a months long study we implemented on the statues in Washington DC. In light of recent effects in places like Charlottesville, we were inspired to thrust ourselves into researching what is in our own backyard from a qualitative and quantitative angle.
Pan’s Labyrinth, the 2006 dark fantasy film by Guillermo del Toro, is tactfully positioned in the historical context of the Spanish Civil War. The line between fantasy and reality is tread by the characters in this film as they deal with the tyranny and oppression of reality’s current regime, and the fantastical unknown of the underworld.
One apartment scene can represent a decades long story in four minutes. This micro analysis of our favorite Brazilian drug den in City of God, and its kit of parts speaks to the macro context of the film.
Co-Creators & Hosts Austin Raimond & Ken Filler reflect on the past, present and future of The Table Sessions platform.
In Seven Samurai, the classic film by Kurosawa, our team took a particular interest in the defensible strategy of the small Japanese village in the context of defending one’s home. A feeling of “home” is precisely innate to the human endeavor, especially when that feeling in danger of being revoked by a looming, evil presence.