This week on Burning Down the House host Curtis B. Wayne is joined by returning guest and author Duo Dickinson and Jacob Alspector of Alspector Architecture. The trio carry on a lively conversation on the state of architecture education today from the prospects of current graduates to the necessity of licensure. Learn what lies in store in the real world practice of architecture and how trends in the the current academic environs have resulted in only about 1 in 3 architecture school graduates deciding to pursue getting their license. Is it worth it? Is getting a PhD enough to call yourself an architect? Tune in to find out from this group of widely experienced and opinionated architects. This episode is sponsored by Fairway Market.

"Abstraction in school is the only way to learn."

--Duo Dickinson on Burning Down the House

Andy doesn’t think he’s a farmer in the sense that most people would recognize, but he cares about compost as much as most people care about their pets. He has been working the earth in the low country from Savannah,GA to Cumberland Island for about 5 years. He did not receive a formal education in agriculture, but grew up in the middle of rural Indiana surrounded by massive fields of corn and soybeans and studied tourism development in college. These days he spends most of his time working in urban garden plots, his back yard, local schools, and restaurants. Andy hopes to start his own business in Savannah in the near future that will allow him to provide healthy food to the local market as well as provide a substantial income. He digs what the Greenhorns are doing across the country and is proud to be a young farmer. This episode is sponsored by S. Wallace Edwards & Sons.

"There's definitely a huge demand for small farmers, and young farmers, in Savannah . . . Georgia's ripe and ready, the people are here and ready to do the work"

--Andy Schwartz on Greenhorn Radio

Vinnie has been farming in the Washington, DC beltway, in Prince George’s County, for five years. He started designing and building school gardens for a number of elementary and middle schools, and co-wrote Growing Healthy Habits, a gardening and nutrition curriculum that is aligned with the Maryland State Standards for elementary education. He has been involved in designing and building a number of educational farm projects and organizations, such as the Master Peace Community Farm in 2007, a 1/2 acre farm with community plots and entrepreneurial vegetable production where hundreds of middle school students use the farm to learn nutrition, science, math, and writing. Vinnie’s most recent project, Seed and Cycle, is an effort to push urban agriculture and composting further along to areas explored only by the most innovative or adventurous urban agriculturalists. He wants to help urban farmers to get more yield out of their land using low-cost hoop houses and is building a business assisting other farmers in quickly and cheaply constructing them on their farm.