Episodes
| Title | First Broadcast | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| How To Ditch Boring And Humanise Our Cities | 20231017 | Should the buildings that surround us be more interesting and diverse? Givers, not just takers. Could cities be filled with curves and creativity? An adventurous urban landscape that makes everyone happier and healthier. In this final part of the series, designer Thomas Heatherwick puts forward his manifesto for a future where places are built around the idea of emotion as a function - full of character, built to last, and designed to serve the passers-by. This isn't romantic thinking. It's a practical vision for a better future that benefits everyone. A call to humanise our world. Producer: Tom Pooley A Tempo & Talker production for BBC Radio 4 Designer Thomas Heatherwick offers his practical vision for a better urban future. Thomas Heatherwick argues that an adventurous urban landscape would make us happier and healthier, but at what cost? |
| The Cult Of Modernist Architecture | 20231010 | Why and when did our buildings become so boring? Anyone exploring the streets of our oldest cities can see this wasn't always the case. In part 2 of this series, Thomas Heatherwick argues that a cult of Modernism took hold of the architectural establishment in the 20th century, with an obsessive focus on form follows function at the expense of visual complexity and delight. Is one man, known as Le Corbusier, really responsible for creating our age of boring buildings? Join Thomas as he challenges the architectural establishment to stop slavishly following Le Corbusier's vision long after it ran out of steam. Thomas also argues that the legacy of modernism conveniently suits developers whose primary concern is the maximisation of short-term profits, at a huge cost to the environment as well as to our civic identity and personal wellbeing. Producer: Tom Pooley A Tempo & Talker production for BBC Radio 4 Designer Thomas Heatherwick asks when and why our buildings became so boring. |
| Why Boring Buildings Are Bad For Us | 20231003 | The way cities get built is a quiet global catastrophe affecting all our lives. Buildings are too flat, too plain, too straight, too shiny, too soulless, too boring. This is the belief of designer Thomas Heatherwick. In this first part of a new series for Radio 4, Thomas is on a mission to explain why this is far from a trivial issue - that it's bad for our health, bad for society and bad for the planet. Backed by the latest cutting-edge scientific research, Thomas exposes the damage being done by the identikit modern urban environments scattered across the world. Producer: Tom Pooley A Tempo & Talker production for BBC Radio 4 Thomas Heatherwick argues for change in our building design. |