In this episode of Citizen One: Exploring Our Urban Future, an urbanNext original podcast series, host Douglas Stuart McDaniel sits down with Michael W. Bischoff, Design Partner at Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, to discuss the evolving civic responsibility of architecture. As a steward of a legacy shaped by giants like I.M. Pei and Harry Cobb, Bischoff brings a generational perspective to the question: What does it mean for a building—especially towers—to behave like citizens?

From adaptive reuse projects on Staten Island to the radical verticality of The Line at NEOM, the conversation explores the firm’s 70-year legacy, sustainable vertical urbanism, and how densification must be reframed as a necessity, not a burden. They discuss the importance of designing for the ground plane, and why AI in architecture should serve ideation, not just churn out endless renderings. With reflections on public space, climate resilience, and urban design as civic duty, Bischoff offers a compelling vision of architecture as memory, materiality, and meaning.

This is a wide-ranging, quietly radical meditation on architecture as civic infrastructure—challenging listeners to see buildings not just as structures, but as narrative agents of our urban future.