Podcast · Arts & Books

Bevel: Canadian Interiors Conversations

by Peter Sobchak · English · Arts & Books

Bevel is a place where we step away from the photographs and talk with industry leaders and thinkers about interesting ideas and issues facing the design world today. Bevel is the podcast extension of Canadian Interiors, the longest running interior design magazine in Canada, published since 1964.

New episodes: Now and then
Typical length: 1 hr
Latest: 18 Aug 2025
Language: English

Latest episode

18 Aug 2025 · 1 hr 17 min

Episode 27 - Examination Alternative Project: An Equity-Centered Solution w/ Sharon Portelli

In this episode of Bevel we dive into a major shift in the regulation of our profession here in Ontario, the kind that could reshape how one qualifies as a Registered Interior Designer. In 2023, ARIDO, the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario, initiated the Examination Alternative Project , or EAP. At its core, this project responds to an evolving regulatory landscape — one that demands a licensing process that is not only rigorous and accountable but also equitable, transparent, and reflective of Canadian practice. Traditionally, the NCIDQ exam has served as the standard…

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Earlier episodes 26 most recent

E26 · 19 Jun 2024 · 1 hr 31 min
Episode 26 - Rebuilding the Office Through Circularity w/ Andy Delisi
The data has been around for a long time and is not only undisputed but commonly accepted: that the built environment is responsible for approximately 42 per cent of annual global CO2 emissions. This is bad – really bad – and we are now seeing Western governments stumble over each other with promises to address the problem. The U.K. government, for example, has just announced a commitment to reducing carbon emissions by 78 per cent by 2035, and to become Net Zero Carbon by 2050, and will do so by leaning heavily on the construction industry to rapidly adopt more sustainable practices. The…
E25 · 9 May 2024 · 57 min
Episode 25 - Behind the Curtain with a Production Designer w/ Shayne Fox
Every scene you see when watching a movie or television show that isn’t a documentary was purposely thought out and designed by someone. And the vast majority of times, that someone is a Production Designer. Yet while the results of their efforts are visible right there on the screen for everyone to see, a fog shrouds the magnitude of the production designer’s role to weave together imagination and technique, seamlessly blending illusion with reality. With discipline, precision and fiscal mindfulness, their job is (put simply) to elevate the script and bring it to life, transforming ideas…
E24 · 20 Dec 2023 · 1 hr 21 min
Episode 24 - Radical Positivity Through Communication Design w/ Stefan Sagmeister
“The world is terrible. The world is fantastic. Both statements are true.” This is a line that opens one of the chapters of Stefan Sagmeister’s new book, and its pragmatic, no-nonsense tone is a perfect indicator of what readers will be presented with: a fact-driven exploration of human progress throughout the ages. Yet the book’s title, Now Is Better , reveals where Stefan’s heart lies and what his true intentions are: to in his words “foster radical positivity” and nudge audiences towards choosing “gratitude and positivity over pessimism and despair.” I am in the same camp as Stafan,…
E23 · 17 Oct 2023 · 1 hr
Episode 23 - Emerging Tech Meets Design
Chatter is exploding about advancements in AI. Every industry is sitting up and taking notice, including, of course, the A&D industry. These creatives are intrigued not only by how AI can help design teams by not only reducing overall project lead times, but also expanding creative discovery by memorizing insights from thousands, if not millions, of previous project data. Software such as DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion are seen as tools to speed up sketching and other ideation processes, producing a plethora of renderings for comparison and further development. Advocates praise…
E22 · 3 Apr 2023 · 56 min
Episode 22 - Digging into the Craft of Trend Spotting w/ Dr. Michael Berens
It is a well-known fact that the media loves trends reports. After all, they give us so much to report on: experts providing clairvoyant insights into what they think will happen in the near future; pointing out observable changes in people’s behaviour; identifying key drivers, challenges, threats and opportunities that are influencing industries; and so on. All professions and industries employ trends reports, and the interior design industry is no exception. For example, just recently the American Society of Interior Designers ( ASID ) released its 2023 Trends Outlook report, examining…
E21 · 30 Jan 2023 · 1 hr 6 min
Episode 21 - Robotics in Design w/ David Correa
Robotic automation has changed virtually every industry. Their ubiquity has moved from the assembly line to the house, from multi-axis manipulator arms to cute little vacuums and many other examples in between. I say “virtually” every industry because there is a major one that still lags far behind in embracing the precision, reliability and endless potential of robotics and automation: the making of buildings. Given how this is an industry notorious for inefficiency and waste – problems put into stark relief thanks to the pandemic – one must wonder why are we not seeing robots on the…
E20 · 3 Jan 2023 · 56 min
Episode 20 - Web3's Potential for Designers w/ Digby
When you hear words like “blockchain” do you immediately conjure up images of Minecraft, that video game your 14-year-old son plays all day? Or when you encounter the phrase “metaverse” do you instantly hear Keanu Reeves utter his famous “Woah!” line from The Matrix ? Don’t feel bad, you’re not alone. To many, they feel like buzzwords that gamers and tech savants love to throw around on their discussion boards. But in fact, they are foundational pieces of a larger tech shift that we are in the midst of and may not even know it. The new frontier, being called web3, is ditching a previous…
E19 · 25 Oct 2022 · 1 hr 18 min
Episode 19 - Auto-Ethnography in Design w/ Michael Kaethler
Ask a designer what the role of a designer is, and you will get as diverse a spectrum of answers as you will designers. Is it one of creative expression or rigorously conducted research? Is it engineering over artistry, or vice versa? Can it be everything, all at once? Many designers will chafe even at that, saying not taking a position is part of the problem of our times. Designers taking a position, at times referred to as authorship, has always been fertile ground for debate between critics, theorists, educators, and practitioners. There are designers who shy away from authorship because…
E18 · 19 Sep 2022 · 1 hr 11 min
Episode 18 - Understand Your Design Firm’s Financials w/ Rick Linley
When small and midsized design firms try to strengthen their firms, they tend to fixate on the “Practice of Design”: doing better work. However, the work itself isn’t the problem. Getting stronger requires a shift of focus to the “Design of Practice.” This foundational philosophy is expressed early and often in Rick J. Linley’s new book, titled Scoreboard Your Practice: 7 Numbers to Understand Your Design Firm’s Financials. His focus on the “Design of Practice” is more than just a clever turn of phrase: it is a pillar around which Rick weaves and distills lessons learned from over 30 years…
E17 · 1 Aug 2022 · 1 hr 1 min
Episode 17 - Re-examining the Industrial Design Process w. Lee Fletcher
“As the nature of designing and making physical objects – particularly products for workplaces – continues to evolve, the way we approach that work needs to evolve with it,” said industrial designer Lee Fletcher this spring while announcing the launch of a new venture, called Fletcher Scott Studio, based in Toronto. Lee is a founding partner in Fig40, a product design studio also based in Toronto and in which he is still actively involved with partner Terence Woodside. But with Fletcher Scott Studio, he is, in his own words, “looking for a pause in process, and an expansion of the liminal…
E16 · 27 Jun 2022 · 1 hr 1 min
Episode 16 - Writing a Designers' Manifesto w/ Bulent Akman
Designers have been drafting design manifestos (DM) for over a hundred years with varying degrees of success and fidelity in their professional practices. According to author Alexandra Franzen, a DM is “A written statement where you publicly declare your intentions, opinions and vision,” yet despite such a succinct characterization there appear to be gaps in understanding when it comes to the features which distinguish an exemplary DM and the function it serves (if any) in contemporary professional design practices. These days, designers’ websites seemingly prefer short generic statements…
E15 · 13 May 2022 · 1 hr 11 min
Episode 15 - Interior Design in Public Transit w/ Greg Parsons
Anyone who has spent a considerable amount of time in Toronto has on some level developed a relationship with public transit. But then there are those who have spent a really significant amount of time in the city, someone like me, who has spent their whole life here – was born here, grew up here, has gone through the various stages of life here – those people have an intimate relationship with public transit, specifically the TTC: we develop associations with details such as going through turnstiles, sounds and smells of waiting on platforms, the feeling of subway seats, different tile…
E14 · 26 Apr 2022 · 1 hr 23 min
Episode 14: A Future for Architecture Criticism? w/ Ian Chodikoff
There was a time in the mid- to late-20th century when arts critics held serious power in swaying the consumption habits of the general public. Film and music were two realms in the popular press where this was particularly notable, with critics such as Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert for film or Lester Bangs and Robert Christgau for music writing reviews and essays in publications that many believed could “make or break a career.” Then as the early 21st century saw the internet unleash a tidal wave of content, where value is measured by clicks, criticism morphed from an elite field of…
E13 · 21 Feb 2022 · 1 hr 10 min
Episode 13 - The Design Industry’s Representation Crisis w/ Ian Rolston
There is ‘saying,’ and there is ‘doing.’ Both are important, and in many cases one can’t happen without the other. But eventually the latter must happen, otherwise the former has been abandoned and rendered meaningless. We all saw the slow emergence of conversations about diversity in representation kicked into high gear during the summer of 2020, as companies and organizations queued up to give their official Statements on Diversity and Inclusion in the face of intense scrutiny coming from social upheavals. And deservedly so, for while Canadian workplaces may appear more diverse than ever…
S1 · E12 · 29 Dec 2021 · 1 hr 6 min
Episode 12 - The Designer & Product Rep Relationship w. George Foussias
Architects and interior designers specify thousands of architectural and interior products, building materials and related goods, representing billions of dollars in sales. But how these goods and products register on the radar of creative professionals and ultimately get specified is a major part of the industry that rarely gets discussed. Design firms have both formal and informal procedures when working with product industry representatives, and like everything else these days, things are changing due to a combination of both internal and external forces. In this episode of Bevel we sit…
S1 · E11 · 30 Nov 2021 · 45 min
Episode 11 - Canada's Evolving Architectural Identity w. Leslie Jen
“What is Canadian architecture? The question has often been posed, with no single satisfactory response. Understandably so, as Canada is not only vast but geographically and climatically diverse across its provinces and territories,” says author Leslie Jen in the introduction to her new book, titled Canadian Architecture: Evolving a Cultural Identity . In it, she explores several significant building projects in urban and rural environments that influence our interactions with each other and the communities in which we live, reflecting a multiplicity of architectural languages, regions, and…
E10 · 10 Aug 2021 · 1 hr 2 min
Episode 10 - Why Designers Must Pivot w. Johanna Hoffmann
Although we have been in the COVID trenches for what seems like an incessantly long period of time, there now appears to be light at the end of this tunnel. With vaccination rates on a speedy incline and phased re-openings across the provinces, things are slowly returning to normal. But we’re not out of the woods yet, and even when the pandemic is officially declared over its effects will be long-lasting. Which is why we are sitting down with Johanna Hoffmann, CEO of Oomph Group, to discuss why your space planning, project management and procurement skills are urgently needed now; and what…
E9 · 9 Jun 2021 · 48 min
Episode 9 - The Financialization of Architecture w. Matthew Soules
“Architecture is not the result of finance capitalism but rather is finance capitalism” / “Just as architecture has helped produce finance capitalism, finance capitalism has helped produce architecture.” Those two passages appear early in Matthew Soules’s new book, titled Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin , which serves as an indictment of how finance capitalism changes not only architectural forms, but the very nature of our cities and societies. The impetus for this book arose from the 2008 global financial crisis, which revealed, among other things, the damage done by unchecked…
E8 · 13 May 2021 · 52 min
Episode 8 - Cinema of Design w. Kyle Bergman
From their inception, both architecture and filmmaking have been forms of representational art. The closer one looks at these respective disciplines, the more their overlapping attributes become glaringly obvious. Both manipulate time, space, movement, light, colour and sound; in the case of cinema, to reinforce the narrative of a film; and in the case of architecture, to manifest the ideas behind a design. They both engage the viewer, one by projecting moving images while the viewer is still, the other by being still while the viewer moves. Both architecture and film play an important role…
E7 · 8 Mar 2021 · 41 min
Episode 7 - Material & Process Transparency w. Jane Abernethy
With a new United States president in the White House already signalling a recommitment to the Paris Climate Agreement, environmental issues are encouragingly back to the top of many design and manufacturing agendas. For some companies, it always had been, as evidenced by the recently released Corporate Social Responsibility Report from Humanscale, one of the leading designers and manufacturers of high-performance workplace products with an aim of making a net-positive impact on the earth, and who signed a pledge back in 2017 to uphold the Paris Agreement. In this episode of Bevel, we chat…
E6 · 8 Mar 2021 · 54 min
Episode 6 - Social Design w. Michael Kaethler
“When you start to deconstruct or question design, all sorts of questions emerge: How does design affect our behaviour, our use of resources, our choices and freedoms to participate in social, political or economic decision-making, and the extent to which we feel we have agency over our lives?” That is a point raised by Jan Boelen, a curator, educator and researcher in art and design who has been the head of the Master’s department of Social Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven since 2010. Jan is one of the co-editors of a provocative new book titled Social Matter, Social Design, a…
S1 · E5 · 19 Nov 2020 · 59 min
Episode 5 - Architecture Theses on Film
What role does film play in shaping experimentation in architecture? How can film be used to document and archive different projects in the context of architecture school? Can film be used to make an architectural argument? From experimental thesis projects that use film as a means for discourse to shorts documenting the processes and dynamics of collaborative design studios, in this episode of Bevel we partnered with the Toronto Society of Architects to chat with student filmmakers, recent graduates, and faculty about the role of filmmaking in architectural education. About the Panelists:…
S1 · E4 · 12 Nov 2020 · 56 min
Episode 4 - Design Education w. Anna Stranks
Design is interdisciplinary by nature, therefore it is no surprise that design education is similar and provides a variety of platforms for students to learn different knowledge and skills from, and then apply those skills to solve design problems. That said, anyone watching the state of education can see that it is evolving at a rapid pace. Today’s parameters are much less defined and what is expected from both students and teachers is being re-evaluated. While today’s classrooms are undoubtedly molding the design workforce of the future, the question exists: is that workforce evolving…
S1 · E3 · 28 Oct 2020 · 49 min
Episode 3 - Office Re-entry w. Dyonne Fashina
The COVID-19 crisis has forced corporate culture to radically adjust ways of working. The question facing us now is what will happen when the pandemic winds down and we emerge from quarantines? What’s likely is that awareness about workplace health and safety will be strong, and this awareness will have a direct impact on the design of physical environments, most notably, the surfaces we touch and how we interact with people after this prolonged period of social distancing. In the wake of the pandemic, the connection between the physical environment and wellness will be under more scrutiny…
S1 · E2 · 28 Oct 2020 · 31 min
Episode 2 - Design Trade Shows w. Jeff Forrest
Because of wide-ranging governmental policies created to enforce social distancing measures in efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19, some of the swiftest casualties have been the regular stops on the trade show circuit. Many show organizers either cancelled or postponed their events, but some of them were re-imagined as online or virtual entities. While a virtual trade show is seldom a desirable substitute for the real, in-person experience, it does offer several benefits for attendees including streaming and archived keynotes, panels and technical sessions. And from the exhibitor side,…
S1 · E1 · 28 Oct 2020 · 46 min
Episode 1 - Cross Pollination: Embracing Inspiration from Alternative Disciplines
Interior design is a profession based on ideas meant to eliminate barriers between ourselves and our built environment, so it is wonderfully positioned to benefit from a mining of design inspirations that come from other industries, thereby breaking down conceptual barriers to create new forms, introduce emerging typologies, weave in themes, and more.

About Bevel: Canadian Interiors Conversations

Bevel: Canadian Interiors Conversations is a English arts & books podcast from Peter Sobchak. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Peter Sobchak
Language: English
Category: Arts & Books
New episodes: Now and then
Typical length: 1 hr
Latest episode: 18 Aug 2025
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1542303870
Rights: Peter Sobchak

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