A few weeks ago, in the dark ages before our true launch, as we muttered and puttered behind closed internet doors and attempted to un-atrophy those long-flaccid blogular muscles, we introduced what we promised—and promises do come true—would be a recurring feature: a rundown introduction of the critics and reporters and people writing about architecture and design. The writing about buildings and spaces and places and cities is not a solitary pursuit, much as the thinking might often feel or look like one. We see each other here and there, at condo breakfast launches and evening book receptions (and sometimes, er, the other way around), and mostly we are happy to do so, as these brief moments of togetherness are what punctuate the sometimes overly weighted practice of thinking really really hard about a bunch a crunch of concrete and glass. Last time, we introduced you to William Bostwick, whose original sentence constructions and even more original read on architecture we’ve coveted since he first asked us to figure out which rapper Ludwig Mies would be.

This time, we introduce you to Karrie Jacobs. Not—and we have to say it—the porn star. This Itinerant Urbanist Karrie is a music critic-turned-architecture critic, founder of Dwell, writer for New York and Travel + Leisure and contributing editor to Metropolis, where her monthly column America covers everything from trips to Dubai and Shanghai to thoughts about fast trains to a brilliant and warm and touching piece about walking through midtown Manhattan wearing noise-canceling headphones. What we like so much about Jacobs is the way she sees and thinks, and lets you in on that process. She’s not the kind of critic who assumes you assume she’s all-knowing and all-powerful because she’s a critic; instead, she’s the kind of critic who opens up into a moment of transparency, and shows you just how plausible it is for you to criticize as well, if only you remember to look and listen and pay attention and remember.

Also she wrote a book, The Perfect $100,000 House, and is therefore a baller.

And so! We asked her a few questions.

What are your favorite/least favorite words?
Favorite: Nutshell (as unit of measurement)

Least favorite: Carbon footprint (as unit of measurement)

What would you do if you weren’t an architecture writer?

I would either be Wong Kar Wai or Alice Waters, or, ideally, a combination of the two.

Which five architects, living or dead, would you have a bo ssam with? (Note: they would all be there concurrently.)
Gregory Ain, Adolf Loos, Thomas Heatherwick, Rocio Romero, Louis Sullivan

Is there a building or architecty experience that made you be like “oohhhhh right.” ? (Or equivalent reaction which feel free to invent/elaborate upon.)
Went to Vienna for the first time a few years ago and walked around gaping at all the palaces and museums and government buildings absolutely encrusted with statuary and decoration. And I thought: ” Right. ‘Ornament and Crime.’ Now, I totally get it.”

Make up your own question and answer it.

Q. Has a better song than “Atomic Dog” ever been written?

A. No.

Yeah, this is the story of a famous dog.