Urban Design
194 episodes
#6488: Why Australian Suburbs Resemble American Ones
In 1907, an ad for Malthoid roofing kicked off Australia's obsession with American Craftsman bungalows, transforming inner-ring suburbs.
#6414: Scaling an Architecture Practice Without Adding Staff
Seventy percent of a construction specification is reusable across projects, offering small practices a clear opening to automate and productize.
#6413: Why Pedestrian Fatalities Keep Rising on City Streets
Vehicles with front hoods over forty inches tall are forty-five percent more likely to kill a pedestrian than lower, sloping models.
#6411: Why Two Kitchens Keep Multigenerational Homes Peaceful
Japan has spent fifty years engineering multigenerational homes, finding two separate kitchens matter far more than separate bathrooms.
#6404: Why Urban Villages Rely on Selection Over Design
In Vauban, parking spaces cost 17,500 euros in peripheral lots to ensure residential streets remain free of stationary cars.
#6400: Where Pedestrian Zones End and Car-Free Cities Begin
While historic cities like Venice cover over seven square kilometers without cars, retrofitted city centers like Brussels peak around fifty hectares.
#6358: Why Cross-Age Friendships Depend on Shared Places
Across 25 European nations, only 18% of young adults report a cross-age friendship, while fewer than 10% of older adults count one as a confidant.
#6262: Do Free Buses Actually Pay for Themselves?
When Swansea offered free weekend bus travel, ridership surged over 50% and footfall jumped, but local spending did not rise at all.
#6019: Who Should Decide What Gets Built?
A listener asks what developers' role in a city should really be — and two very different cities show what happens when you get the answer right or...
#5934: Why Modiin Is Ugly Despite Its Form-Based Code
Modiin had a form-based code and still came out ugly. The reason sits in what the code refused to regulate: facades, windows, materials.
#5933: Form-Based Codes and the City That Feels Dead
Can a zoning document create a walkable Levantine city with real character — or does over-planning kill the spontaneity that makes cities alive?
#5931: What the Council on Vertical Urbanism Actually Decides
The body that rules on the world's tallest buildings just dropped "tall buildings" from its name. What does that mean for Jerusalem's Marom Tower?
#5924: Living Among the Dead: Cemetery Housing, Cairo to Manila
Cairo's City of the Dead holds roughly a million residents. Manila North, six thousand. Nobody has ever counted the global total.
#5923: Plus Codes: Free Addressing Nobody Uses
A free, offline, 14-metre addressing system exists — so why do ambulances still can't find the house?
#5896: Modiin, Safdie, and the Suburb That Was Meant to Be a City
Moshe Safdie designed Modiin to be a real city. Thirty-seven years later, residents say there's nowhere to go at night.
#5895: Can Cities Be Quiet? Designing Density for Families
Families leave cities for space, quiet, and schools. What if cities could deliver all of that without losing walkability?
#5890: Fifteen Miles an Hour Through a Metal Pipe
Paris ran 427 km of pneumatic tube under its streets and moved 30 million messages a year. Then the fax machine replaced it.
#5880: Why Suburbs May Be a Bad Deal
Suburbs promise the best place to raise kids — but the research on childhood independence, municipal finance, and carbon says otherwise.
#5677: When 80,000 Pilgrims Fill Your Neighborhood
Sukkot turns central Jerusalem into a pilgrimage site. What can locals borrow from New Yorkers who live beside Times Square?
#5670: Circadian Policy: Light, Schedules, and Public Health
What if a task force treated light and time as public infrastructure? The science of circadian alignment — and the policies that follow.
#5633: Is Construction Noise Actually Inevitable?
What if the jackhammer isn't the problem? A look at how deep garages, tall towers, and concrete make cities loud.
#5632: Why Cities Keep Digging Expensive Parking Holes
Parking minimums bury money underground — and shape the towers above. What Jerusalem's luxury towers reveal about rules nobody chose.
#5616: What Your Window View Does to Your Brain
A 1984 Science study, cortisol in cord blood, and why trees beat sky and grass — the research on what your window view actually does to you.
#5613: Seven Stories Down, Building Stays Up
A historic Jerusalem house is staying put while a seven-story car park is carved out beneath it. Here's how top-down excavation actually works.