Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I have an interview
Speaker 1: for you this week that I conducted with none other
Speaker 1: than Roman Mars, the podcast host and author, host of
Speaker 1: the percent Invisible podcast and co author of the book
Speaker 1: The Invisible City. So it was it was a real
Speaker 1: treat to set down virtually with Roman Mars here and
Speaker 1: discuss UH invisible, both the podcast and the book, UM
Speaker 1: The Invisible City, UH, discussing podcasting in general, UM design
Speaker 1: in general. It's a fun chat and I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy it as much as I did. Hi, Roman, welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Oh thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I wanna start by by stating the
Speaker 1: obvious that a lot of our listeners and stuffable in
Speaker 1: your Mind don't really need an introduction or even a
Speaker 1: reintroduction to you and your show. But for anyone out
Speaker 1: there who isn't aware what is invisible and what does
Speaker 1: the title mean? No apresent in Visible is about all
Speaker 1: the thought that goes into things most people don't think about.
Speaker 1: The idea is that you know, even these big things
Speaker 1: like buildings, um that you know, they may be massive,
Speaker 1: but the story behind them is still invisible. And that's
Speaker 1: where it comes from. I was when I first started.
Speaker 1: It sort of started as a show about architecture and design,
Speaker 1: and it still is. I think design is still its mandate,
Speaker 1: but our vision of what is designed is quite broad.
Speaker 1: It's sort of any human made thing is designed. And
Speaker 1: so when I first started, I gathered this collection of
Speaker 1: different types of designers, product designer, an architect, a landscape
Speaker 1: designer and asked them, like, what is the unifying theme
Speaker 1: to what you do? And I was going to try
Speaker 1: to name the show what that was, but I didn't
Speaker 1: want to use the word design for some reason. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to avoid it and make something more um,
Speaker 1: poetic and evocative and um. They came to the conclusion
Speaker 1: that if they're doing their jobs right, their job is
Speaker 1: not visible, and so that's what the show became. I
Speaker 1: think I heard the show for the first time on
Speaker 1: Radio Lab and I had to look at them. This
Speaker 1: would have been back in Yeah. Yeah, they did us
Speaker 1: a real service by introducing us to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I mean, um, Jad and the folks were working on
Speaker 1: Radio Lab at the time. Um, we we kind of
Speaker 1: came up together in the public radio trenches and so
Speaker 1: um that was just about the time when we started
Speaker 1: running the shows, and so um, I think there was
Speaker 1: a little bit of backslapping, a friendly you know, helping
Speaker 1: out a brother in arms, that scenario. But they did
Speaker 1: this a real good service. I've entered business to their audience.
Speaker 1: Radio Lab always impressed me with its exceptional audio production,
Speaker 1: its sound design, A show that had a particular vision
Speaker 1: for I think how sound design could be used to
Speaker 1: help explain a topic. And I tend to think of
Speaker 1: invisible as existing, you know, within on the same shelf
Speaker 1: and the similar category of podcast or radio show. So
Speaker 1: I was wondering, like, what what is your philosophy on
Speaker 1: invisible sound design? Well, you know, it varies. I mean
Speaker 1: what I like, like I like things to be radiophonic,
Speaker 1: which to me means if you were to read a
Speaker 1: transcript of the show, you wouldn't fully get what the
Speaker 1: show is trying to convey, you know, like there has
Speaker 1: to be the audio element, the sound of someone's voice,
Speaker 1: the sound of someone's passion, you know, and then the
Speaker 1: music and you know, like in a little bit of
Speaker 1: the ambient and field tape. You don't tell a different
Speaker 1: story than just the words being said it. You know,
Speaker 1: we we just do it to serve the story. You
Speaker 1: know that you can definitely overdo it. You can sort
Speaker 1: of call a lot of attention to sound design. I
Speaker 1: think we sort of pitch it the way I personally
Speaker 1: like it. Like I like a good amount of music.
Speaker 1: I like switching voices, you know, like I like, you know,
Speaker 1: I talk, another person talks to other person talks. It
Speaker 1: keeps the ear interested. I think there's some sort of
Speaker 1: there's ways that when you're conveying information, UM, varying that
Speaker 1: so that the ear doesn't get bored and then you
Speaker 1: sort of your mind drifts off is really important. But
Speaker 1: we also kind of play it by ear like there
Speaker 1: isn't like a huge, um, I don't know, just like
Speaker 1: a standard operating procedure or a certain mandate that we
Speaker 1: when it comes to sound design. We we are really talented,
Speaker 1: you know, um composer and Swan Real and engineer and
Speaker 1: Martin Gonzalez and you know, they just make it beautiful
Speaker 1: and uh and it just feels good to me. It
Speaker 1: was always the show I always wanted in terms of
Speaker 1: the way it's sound and have changes your trends in
Speaker 1: the podcasting industry affected the way you approach things at all.
Speaker 1: I don't know about the changes in podcasting. I mean
Speaker 1: you to say that, I mean, I like the show
Speaker 1: the way it is because I think it serves the
Speaker 1: way the show is. Um. That is not to say
Speaker 1: that I don't love things that aren't produced to our extent.
Speaker 1: Like my my favorite podcasts are two people talking, you know,
Speaker 1: like and there's something really lovely about that. Um. And
Speaker 1: so to me, there's just always like there are these
Speaker 1: different trends or you know, just like buckets of a
Speaker 1: podcast that do different things and do them well and um,
Speaker 1: and I think they all can co exist kind of nicely.
Speaker 1: I mean. The main thing that happened with my show
Speaker 1: is that it was really designed for radio, Like I
Speaker 1: made it for public radio. Um. The original episodes are
Speaker 1: four minutes long because they fit into a slot that
Speaker 1: would go into morning edition. And and then I was
Speaker 1: just like, well, I guess I'll put this out as
Speaker 1: a podcast as whatever might as well. And so we did.
Speaker 1: And then you know, and I say we there was
Speaker 1: no weed it was doesn't mean at this point, for
Speaker 1: many many many years it was just me and so UM.
Speaker 1: And then when it started to find a life as
Speaker 1: a podcast, UM, it was like, well, let's just keep
Speaker 1: in that, like, let's make that a little bit longer
Speaker 1: because I don't have to make it for minutes when
Speaker 1: it becomes a podcast, and then it gets it just
Speaker 1: grows and grows and grows, and eventually, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a switch flipped where the primary audience was the podcast audience,
Speaker 1: which didn't have to adhere to some to sometime a
Speaker 1: radio clock, um, and I was cutting a version for
Speaker 1: the radio um, and and then it sort of was
Speaker 1: off to the races and the sort of now every
Speaker 1: story is what it is, um. And so in a way,
Speaker 1: podcasting liberated me from what is the constraint of like
Speaker 1: every type of broadcast journalists, which is like you're basically
Speaker 1: either cutting to fit a time or feeling to make
Speaker 1: a time. It's like a huge part of your job
Speaker 1: as a producer. And I don't really do that anymore
Speaker 1: based on some sort of artificial constraint. I still do
Speaker 1: that based off of h my taste, Like I still
Speaker 1: like things to be tight and you know, be purposeful
Speaker 1: in their length. So in that sense, podcasting really really
Speaker 1: changed and made it so like now the average show
Speaker 1: is it's like thirty minutes long. It's like ten times longer.
Speaker 1: Like it's really it's really something. Um, but this show
Speaker 1: has kind of had its own trajectory um that I
Speaker 1: don't know if it really follows the institutes of of
Speaker 1: podcasting in general, but but I'm sure I'm influenced by
Speaker 1: it some way. Anytime I listened to the show or
Speaker 1: and engage with invisible content, I felt like I leave
Speaker 1: it with my eyes just a little more open to
Speaker 1: the design around me. Do you ever feel like, or
Speaker 1: or hope that you're initiating listeners into sort of a
Speaker 1: different understanding of world. Oh for sure. I mean that's
Speaker 1: the ultimate goal. And and I know that it's effective
Speaker 1: because it's been effective with me. Like, you know, I
Speaker 1: studied lots of things to get to where I am.
Speaker 1: I've been a journalist now for for twenty years, but
Speaker 1: before that, I was working on in PhD and genetics.
Speaker 1: I studied a lot of things. Um, I didn't have
Speaker 1: a real specific knowledge of of design or architecture. I
Speaker 1: was just a person who would like go on the
Speaker 1: architecture door if I was in a city. You know,
Speaker 1: and so I've always approached it as a journalist and
Speaker 1: as a fan, and I've noticed that the show has
Speaker 1: changed me over the years of making it, Like, as
Speaker 1: I've told these stories about all the thought that goes
Speaker 1: into things that most people pass by without noticing, I've
Speaker 1: felt myself becoming more sort of keenly aware of the
Speaker 1: world and how it functions, and actually kind of keenly
Speaker 1: aware of how well we're taken care of in the
Speaker 1: world in a certain way, Like it's turned me into
Speaker 1: a more optimistic person to do this show, because you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people put a lot of care into
Speaker 1: things so you don't die, like pretty consistently, or so
Speaker 1: that you can operate smoothly in this world. And we
Speaker 1: bump against the things that are poorly designed, and we
Speaker 1: notice those we don't notice the visible things that are
Speaker 1: so well designed that they pass our notice. And so
Speaker 1: it has changed the way I view the world making
Speaker 1: the show, and what I've heard from people has changed
Speaker 1: the way that they look at the world. And that's
Speaker 1: super satisfying because I think it's like it really does
Speaker 1: improve your outlook of the world to think about the
Speaker 1: design of things and you've been doing the show long
Speaker 1: enough that you have listeners out there who have grown
Speaker 1: up with the show, right, Yeah, we have someone who,
Speaker 1: um who works the show now, Jacob Multa Medina and
Speaker 1: her stepfather, you know, had her listen to the show
Speaker 1: as a kid, you know, Like I think it's like
Speaker 1: junior higher high school. So yeah, it's absurd. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of people have grown up with it, and it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty satisfying to have them. But when they
Speaker 1: show up in there in their twenties, I'm blown away
Speaker 1: by that. So now I guess on the other end
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, you you still have people coming to
Speaker 1: the podcast who are new to it. You've covered so
Speaker 1: many design topics over the years. Um, I wonder what
Speaker 1: your recommendation is for people who are new to it. Like,
Speaker 1: I know, on your website, a visible dot Orgue, you
Speaker 1: have a nice explore section that allows you to sort
Speaker 1: of check out areas by topic, but in general, like,
Speaker 1: do you tend to steer people towards the beginning, towards
Speaker 1: the most recent or particular foundational episode, never the beginning?
Speaker 1: Like I feel like when people tell me that they've
Speaker 1: gone back and listen to all of them I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I should take those down because I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's worth it. UM, But I think that I
Speaker 1: mostly say to listen to the most recent one. I mean,
Speaker 1: the thing about an ongoing series is that no one
Speaker 1: episode can um sort of encapsulate what you do. What
Speaker 1: you do with an ongoing series is you're telling this
Speaker 1: story over time, and it's like this weird regression plot
Speaker 1: where it's like, here's a episode kind of like this,
Speaker 1: and here's an episode kind of like this, and then
Speaker 1: you draw a line through that regression plot and that
Speaker 1: is the thesis of your show. And so no one point,
Speaker 1: you know, like really exemplifies that, you know, especially you know,
Speaker 1: especially when you know as makers, you're like, wow, that's
Speaker 1: like it's about an eight percent of what I wanted
Speaker 1: to be or you know whatever. And so mostly I
Speaker 1: tell people to listen to the latest one. And you know,
Speaker 1: we have a few classics, like there's this one called
Speaker 1: Structural Integrity that want a lot of awards. That I
Speaker 1: think is a is a good episode about you know,
Speaker 1: a building almost falling down, and you know that's always exciting.
Speaker 1: And what I don't want people to do is UM
Speaker 1: in the beginning. I think it's fine to go search
Speaker 1: through things that you know you're interested in and go
Speaker 1: listen to them. But almost the point of the show
Speaker 1: is that we're daring you without boring the subject is.
Speaker 1: And what we're trying to do is, you know, is
Speaker 1: the production is sort of creating this delta between how
Speaker 1: boring an idea is and how we're going to present
Speaker 1: it to make it so that you really, really truly
Speaker 1: care about it. Um And so don't read the description
Speaker 1: and go NA, that's not for me. Like, try if
Speaker 1: you read the description and God ask not for me,
Speaker 1: try just one of those and see if I can
Speaker 1: convince you that this is interesting and applies to you
Speaker 1: in some way. That's that's the main thing I want
Speaker 1: from people when they try to show up. Thank thank
Speaker 1: Now I'm a little late to the party here, but
Speaker 1: I recently picked up a copy of the book Invisible
Speaker 1: City that you co authored with Kirk Colstead, and it's Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a thoroughly enjoyable and insightful read, you know, highlighting
Speaker 1: the details of the modern world and get going and
Speaker 1: matching over what with what you just said, there were
Speaker 1: you know, there were certainly sections of it that I
Speaker 1: knew that I was going to be into into anything
Speaker 1: dealing would say like underground infrastructure, and like the whole
Speaker 1: section on infrastructure disguised as buildings and so forth. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so much in it where suddenly there'll be a
Speaker 1: section of the of the book that is dealing with
Speaker 1: something that I completely take for granted sometimes every day,
Speaker 1: and it's ultimately a fascinating and eliminating topic, like like
Speaker 1: traffic circles for example. I mean that's the goal, is
Speaker 1: that we sort of like, um, we could lure you
Speaker 1: in with some things that you might be interested and
Speaker 1: and then uh, and then we sort of lure you
Speaker 1: into trying to pay attention to other things. And the
Speaker 1: book was really interest to make because I've been making
Speaker 1: audio for so long. Um, and you know, I think
Speaker 1: I feel like I was approached about making a book,
Speaker 1: like episode five of the podcast. There was this sort
Speaker 1: of sense that books are the inevitable, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: prize or something like, I didn't understand that. I just
Speaker 1: I really wanted to make a podcast, um, and so,
Speaker 1: but it took us for a long time to do it.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons was, you know, the partnership and
Speaker 1: making it with with Kirk coolest that it was required
Speaker 1: that you know, he worked on it and be excited
Speaker 1: about it. Um. And then the other was like, I'm
Speaker 1: really into design, like in a real sense. And and
Speaker 1: to me, it's like the show is designed to be
Speaker 1: a podcast, and trying to you know, creating some kind
Speaker 1: of deprecated, you know, transcription version of it was it
Speaker 1: had no interest to me. But there was a certain
Speaker 1: point where the volume of the things that we covered
Speaker 1: audio is not really useful for like scrubbing through and
Speaker 1: like it's cential, but it's not like, oh, I remember
Speaker 1: this thing about curb cuts. What's the name of that episode?
Speaker 1: And where do I find it? And what is it?
Speaker 1: And do I have twenty minutes to listen to it?
Speaker 1: And and stuff. And there was just a point where
Speaker 1: all the stuff that we had covered in this sort
Speaker 1: of territory we've staked out of our view of the
Speaker 1: world wasn't being served by linear audio anymore. And a
Speaker 1: book was kind of like felt like it was natural
Speaker 1: and necessary and good and so um. So that's that's
Speaker 1: what the book became. And so and it has a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that's from the show in it, but
Speaker 1: also a lot of like new stuff that we can't
Speaker 1: cover because you know, like as much as I enjoy
Speaker 1: the perversity of um covering a lot of visual stuff
Speaker 1: in an audio medium, UM to highlight the story nous
Speaker 1: of it versus the aesthetics of things, UM, there's some
Speaker 1: things that are just impossible to cover. And and things
Speaker 1: like roundabouts where you try to describe the magic roundabout
Speaker 1: which is like circles and circles and circles, and it's
Speaker 1: like you can kind of get it, but I don't
Speaker 1: know if you can really visualize it until um, you know,
Speaker 1: you get some some pictures of it. Yeah. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that was definitely a part of in the book where
Speaker 1: I was very thankful for the illustration, and I think
Speaker 1: plenty of other places where you know, you're talking about
Speaker 1: something and you can look at the illustration. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that one that that's what they're talking about. I've seen
Speaker 1: that thing, that particular star shape or or or whatever
Speaker 1: the case may be, exactly exactly. It does require a
Speaker 1: little bit of a little bit of help. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: it's interesting that it sounded like it was kind of,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say, a daunting task, but like
Speaker 1: a task it was usually daunting. Its horrible. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like it's really really hard. There's like, there's the scene
Speaker 1: that I heard as we were making um the book
Speaker 1: that was that the takeoff of the teach a man
Speaker 1: to fish kind of thing, Teach the men of fish
Speaker 1: and then yeah, give him an officially eats for a day,
Speaker 1: teach the man official for a lifetime. Um, it's uh,
Speaker 1: give a person a book they'll read for a week,
Speaker 1: Teach a person to write a book, they'll never enjoy
Speaker 1: anything for the rest of their last So it's really
Speaker 1: really hard. Um. Yeah, But I mean like Curbly brought
Speaker 1: it all together, I mean in terms of like the
Speaker 1: writing and the kind of um organizing and project managing.
Speaker 1: Like he really threw himself into it in a way
Speaker 1: that it never would happened because one of the problems
Speaker 1: with a really long deadline that a book gives you,
Speaker 1: you know, like a yearlong deadline. Um, it has its
Speaker 1: own problems. But when you have a weekly deadline of
Speaker 1: a show at the same time, it's it's always possible
Speaker 1: to occupy yourself with the immediate deadline and put off
Speaker 1: the big deadline. And uh so anyway, it was really hard.
Speaker 1: So well, I can said the the finished product is excellent,
Speaker 1: and you you covered u this already. But the I
Speaker 1: guess when one initially hears about a podcast becoming a book,
Speaker 1: it's easy to think, well, okay, this is, like you said, this,
Speaker 1: it's just some thing that that had to happen. This
Speaker 1: is like the inevitable sort of cashier or the inevitable
Speaker 1: even evolution of the thing. But but yeah, this this
Speaker 1: doesn't feel forced at all. It's very absorbable and also
Speaker 1: very just visually stylish. Thank you. I was really obviously
Speaker 1: interested in the in the visuals of it, and and
Speaker 1: our publisher was to they, you know, because I was
Speaker 1: just like, you do understand that like designing, people listen
Speaker 1: to our show and if the book is ugly, they
Speaker 1: will never forgive you. And they sort of connected us
Speaker 1: with Patrick Vale, who is the illustrator who worked on
Speaker 1: you know, um hundreds of different illustrations both big and small,
Speaker 1: to demonstrate what was going on, but also just to
Speaker 1: kind of set the tone of it. You know. The
Speaker 1: feel of it is is both kind of like precise,
Speaker 1: but also it has a little bit of an abstraction
Speaker 1: to it in in some instances, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a beautiful object. And you're always trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what to do when you create anything, or are you
Speaker 1: creating something like a femoral and immediate or you're creating
Speaker 1: like a permanent and beautiful object. And there's a balance
Speaker 1: of that when it comes to audio all the time,
Speaker 1: because you you could fuss over it endlessly to make
Speaker 1: it a beautiful object, and you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: fleeting and ephemeral no matter what you do. Um, But
Speaker 1: when you put all the effort into a book, it
Speaker 1: is like it's incumbent. I think to make it. I
Speaker 1: don't know, something's somewhat precious because of all these just
Speaker 1: resources going into it, you know. Um. But I'm happy
Speaker 1: with it, even though it had a a little bit
Speaker 1: of an issue to figure out of of being you know,
Speaker 1: kind of fish more foul like. It isn't really a
Speaker 1: coffee table book. It is a book of stories. They
Speaker 1: don't have to be read altogether in a row, but
Speaker 1: they build on each other when they are read in
Speaker 1: a row, and you kind of have to serve lots
Speaker 1: of different audiences simultaneously. And again, this was something that
Speaker 1: like Kurt and I had just endless meetings about just
Speaker 1: the structure of the thing um, independent of the writing,
Speaker 1: um to make it all work. So anyway, I'm glad
Speaker 1: you liked it. I'm going on about it. Oh no, no,
Speaker 1: this is all fascinating. Yeah. I have the physical version here,
Speaker 1: and there's a digital version. But there is also an audiobook, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah there is? What was what was that like? Then?
Speaker 1: Turning it back into I was horrible. It's like, I mean,
Speaker 1: like I've been doing voice over you know, and narration
Speaker 1: for for twenty some years at this point, reading an
Speaker 1: audiobook is the hardest version of that, I think. And
Speaker 1: even though and this is my own you know, like
Speaker 1: style in our own writing, so you know, I know
Speaker 1: the material better, but even that was exhausting. I was
Speaker 1: realizing how little I talk in a row, even when
Speaker 1: I record narration or to do interviews that Like, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh great, I'll does knock out a couple
Speaker 1: of hours reading or whatever, you know, every few days.
Speaker 1: But I was exhausted by it. It was so hard.
Speaker 1: And when and when any author and I know a
Speaker 1: fair number of authors now that um you know, asked
Speaker 1: me about you know, narrating work, I'm just like unless
Speaker 1: you really want to like just avoid it. It's really
Speaker 1: it's really hard. But you know, the publishers and and
Speaker 1: and I know the audience. Um, they're used to the
Speaker 1: sound of my voice. I think if for some of
Speaker 1: them gives a certain amount of comfort. And UM, it
Speaker 1: seemed important that it. It bade me to read it.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad with the product. I'm glad we did it. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm also glad that we appended an episode of
Speaker 1: the show UM at the end of the audio book,
Speaker 1: just because part of me felt like, if you went
Speaker 1: away thinking that me reading this book is the show,
Speaker 1: you don't have a full concept with the show is.
Speaker 1: And so I wanted to make sure that was present there.
Speaker 1: And so, uh, I think it's a nice thing to have.
Speaker 1: And I think if if somebody's like, oh I really
Speaker 1: love it's not in visible, I want to listen to
Speaker 1: eleven hours of it in a row. UM. It does
Speaker 1: serve that. Um. But it was it was extremely hard.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe how hard it was. I was so
Speaker 1: self conscious about it that, um, you know, we had
Speaker 1: an independent um you know company kind of cut it together,
Speaker 1: like who worked for the publisher and I would pre
Speaker 1: edit it because I would mess up so much that
Speaker 1: I would I would. I would send like an edited
Speaker 1: version for them to go edit again, because I was
Speaker 1: just like, I'm not this bad at this Normally I
Speaker 1: should be. Anyway, I didn't want anyone to hear it.
Speaker 1: Thank thank so. The title The Invisible City, Uh just
Speaker 1: just leave open the possibility for future volumes dealing with
Speaker 1: different rays of topics. Yeah, that was the idea in fact,
Speaker 1: when we went out and pitched it. Originally, I pitched
Speaker 1: it as kind of a set of books like, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe one about cities, maybe one and about sort of
Speaker 1: um roads and you know, by ways and highways type
Speaker 1: of thing, and and then about sort of vernacular architecture
Speaker 1: and specific to places. Um. We ended up sort of
Speaker 1: like making the city one, like incorporate a lot of
Speaker 1: that stuff already. Like as soon as we went out
Speaker 1: with that, people were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, why don't
Speaker 1: you just get one book instead of like plan your trilogy,
Speaker 1: and um, they were totally right. But you know, this
Speaker 1: goes back to the you know, the original name to
Speaker 1: begin with is like I was making a show about design,
Speaker 1: I wanted it to have this name. Not amercent invisible,
Speaker 1: but I thought it was so evocative that I could
Speaker 1: do a season about science. I could do a season
Speaker 1: about something else. Um, there's so many things that you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of explainatory journalism, that need to be explained better,
Speaker 1: and most of them are pretty invisible to most of us.
Speaker 1: So it kind of applies to a lot of things.
Speaker 1: And so I could totally see, you know, a series
Speaker 1: of books in different ways, or a kid's book version
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, I'm I'm open to it, but it
Speaker 1: honestly hasn't the internal drive is hasn't quite like rebuilt
Speaker 1: to like I said, like, oh my god, I really
Speaker 1: want to go through that again. Now, the book deals
Speaker 1: a lot with the space where design exists between kind
Speaker 1: of I guess government and law on one side, and
Speaker 1: user desire and experience on the other. You've you've alluded
Speaker 1: to to one half of this earlier, talking about how
Speaker 1: how safer the world feels with a lot of the
Speaker 1: designs we have in place. UM, I know we can't
Speaker 1: really place a value judgment on design itself, but does
Speaker 1: design seemed to largely have a trajectory toward user safety
Speaker 1: and happiness? I would say so, I mean design, design
Speaker 1: is about functionality, and and it just sort of depends
Speaker 1: on what master it is serving at a certain moment
Speaker 1: as to whether or not it is serving uh, one
Speaker 1: type of audience versus another type of audience or user rather.
Speaker 1: And so you know, you could say some of those
Speaker 1: things in the real world they work at cross purposes. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, we just did a little segment of an
Speaker 1: episode that Delaney hal did on the show about this
Speaker 1: idea of strodes, which is like a portmanteau between streets
Speaker 1: and roads. And the idea here is that a road
Speaker 1: is a conveyance to get someone from one place together
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. A street is a place that
Speaker 1: you occupy and live and their stores on it and
Speaker 1: porkbenches and things like that. And when something is truly
Speaker 1: a road, like a highway to get from one place together,
Speaker 1: it works well. When something is truly a street and
Speaker 1: um it is for um loitering and hanging out and
Speaker 1: to being in places. Um it works well when things
Speaker 1: are strodes, when they're designed to go through quickly, but
Speaker 1: they have all these people in the way and um
Speaker 1: stores that people are coming in and out of and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Then they work poorly and they tend
Speaker 1: to be really dangerous. So you could say, well, it
Speaker 1: was designed poorly, or you know, it's it's sort of
Speaker 1: a little bit semantic, or like how you place the
Speaker 1: emphasis of it. You know, I would say that that's
Speaker 1: the the tyranny of thoughtless design creates a strode versus
Speaker 1: somebody really try to make it this way on purpose,
Speaker 1: you know, And so we do end up with things
Speaker 1: at the end which are poorly designed, that are dangerous,
Speaker 1: that that do not make the world a better place.
Speaker 1: Um they are probably created from a constraint from this
Speaker 1: type of constituency applying it in this way and then
Speaker 1: another one to this way, and it creates this sort
Speaker 1: of Frankenstein, which is a poorly designed thing. And that
Speaker 1: is a you know, a version of cultural and you
Speaker 1: know product evolution that is a result of you know,
Speaker 1: people putting all their two cents and to create something
Speaker 1: that is not very functional for most people. But I
Speaker 1: do believe that when you do think of safety and
Speaker 1: care in minds, that we do a good job of
Speaker 1: creating those things in the end and actually anticipating things
Speaker 1: that you may not anticipate and hopefully never have to
Speaker 1: anticipate when you encounter them in the real world. You know,
Speaker 1: like that that they're the safety things in place that
Speaker 1: hopefully just make the world a better place, make you safer,
Speaker 1: but hopefully you never have to consider whether or not
Speaker 1: a signpost it's a breakaway post, or whether or not
Speaker 1: trees along the side of the road, you know, like
Speaker 1: you know they're there to make you feel crowded so
Speaker 1: that therefore you do not go very fast. You know,
Speaker 1: they're meant to add some agitation to you. Roundabouts, um,
Speaker 1: like you mentioned our perfect example. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why roundabouts are so safe is because they
Speaker 1: feel so awful when you enter into one. You have
Speaker 1: to be really aware and being aware and making the
Speaker 1: built environment um break you out of your you know,
Speaker 1: like maybe your sort of road zomblification you know is
Speaker 1: a good thing for your safety, um, but it might
Speaker 1: not feel like a good thing when you go through it.
Speaker 1: But somebody thought about that for you. And so for
Speaker 1: the most part, I would say we endeavor to make
Speaker 1: things safer, but there are definitely some gaps, and mostly
Speaker 1: it's when a bunch of people are not coming on
Speaker 1: the same page of what the design brief really is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And of course in the in the book you you
Speaker 1: talked about some designs such as those intended to keep
Speaker 1: unhomed people from laying on park benches that sort of yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's lots of hostile design, and again it's serving somebody's purpose,
Speaker 1: Like somebody is putting it there on purpose because they're
Speaker 1: trying to um commit a kind of social change and
Speaker 1: social pressure UM and influence through the bill world. Now,
Speaker 1: the thing is that as privileged people, they're kind of
Speaker 1: doing that for you. You know, they're doing it for
Speaker 1: your benefit it you know, to the detriment of people
Speaker 1: who have less. And the important part about that influence
Speaker 1: is recognizing, um, do you really want that? You know,
Speaker 1: like if somebody's making this decision for you, and if
Speaker 1: if you don't know about it, then obviously you can't
Speaker 1: sort of like you have any commentary. So our first
Speaker 1: job is to make people aware of what these spikes
Speaker 1: and these different sort of like hostile architecture you know,
Speaker 1: like UM interventions are, And then the second step is
Speaker 1: to go like, well is that a result you want?
Speaker 1: And uh, do you want to like interact with your
Speaker 1: study to change it? You know, it's it's it's the
Speaker 1: second part of of that um discussion. You're a stroud
Speaker 1: example reminded me of of partlets, which are also discussed
Speaker 1: in the book. By the time the book came out,
Speaker 1: and and certainly by the time of my reading it,
Speaker 1: like everyone, I think, especially in urban areas, that heard
Speaker 1: of partlets due to their role in the pandemic. But this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's also an area that's between different ideas of what
Speaker 1: the street or the road is used for. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: parklet is a really interesting thing. There's a sort of
Speaker 1: movement here UM called parking Day I'm in the Bay Area,
Speaker 1: which sort of pioneered this idea of like, well, instead
Speaker 1: of um, you know, putting a coin in a meter
Speaker 1: to uh, you know, rent a space for a car,
Speaker 1: why don't we put coins in the meter and like
Speaker 1: lay down some sod and put on put some um
Speaker 1: chairs down. And and it's something I've covered for I mean,
Speaker 1: I've heart like twenty something here, twenty years at this point, um.
Speaker 1: And then it really came to pass when all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, we're in COVID. We wanted to be together,
Speaker 1: but we needed space away from each other and space outside.
Speaker 1: And you know when it comes to roads. You know,
Speaker 1: for millennia, they have been these little multimodal use cases
Speaker 1: like they you know, the people walked on them, people
Speaker 1: rode bikes on them, people rode horses on them, vendors
Speaker 1: set up in the middle of them. And then over
Speaker 1: time we just decided that oh there for cars. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, no one us blogs on them, and you
Speaker 1: you can cross here and here, and if you crossed
Speaker 1: anywhere in between, you're breaking the law. And and that
Speaker 1: was where our values lied when it came to the
Speaker 1: design of cities. You know, it's not where I would
Speaker 1: place my personal values, but but that's you know, we
Speaker 1: collectively kind of thought that that was a good case.
Speaker 1: And then COVID comes along, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the value of that space changed and we wanted it back,
Speaker 1: like as pedestrians and people and people um drinking coffee
Speaker 1: and so, you know, we decided to bump out these
Speaker 1: spaces that were used for cars so that we could
Speaker 1: be outside and enjoy things. And it was kind of
Speaker 1: fascinating because you know, the book came out right at
Speaker 1: the kind of beginning of COVID, and it was an
Speaker 1: interesting time to think about the design of cities. When
Speaker 1: this um you know, outside influence made us rethink, you know,
Speaker 1: how our cities should be designed very rapidly, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and and thoroughly. You know, Like because one
Speaker 1: of the things that happens when you're thinking about design
Speaker 1: or thinking about your city is there's a there's kind
Speaker 1: of a solipsistic kind of the way we enter the
Speaker 1: world is the way things are and should be, and
Speaker 1: we don't really think about the continuum we are on
Speaker 1: when it comes to how cities are designed and should
Speaker 1: be designed. Um. And so when you have a rapid
Speaker 1: kind of jolt to the system and there's a reassessment
Speaker 1: of space and the value of space in different ways, um,
Speaker 1: it's a good time to think about, Hey, you know,
Speaker 1: what maybe we do think about roads is belonging to cars.
Speaker 1: But like if you look at this book or look
Speaker 1: through history, you will realize that roads weren't about cars.
Speaker 1: They were it's a pretty recent phenomenon that we thought
Speaker 1: that that's what they should be. And maybe it's worth
Speaker 1: reassessing these things. And I think if there's any sort
Speaker 1: of thesis of the to the book or to the show,
Speaker 1: it's that the built world and the things we design
Speaker 1: are a window into our values as as humans, and
Speaker 1: they always shift and change based on those values. And
Speaker 1: when you have this moment of crisis when it comes
Speaker 1: to the pandemic, it really did change our value of
Speaker 1: what a city was for and who it was for,
Speaker 1: and what was worth giving up and what wasn't worth
Speaker 1: giving up. And um, you know, as horrible as the
Speaker 1: situation was, it was fascinating to sort of figure out
Speaker 1: those reassessments and realignments. And it it's still like, I
Speaker 1: think some of the stuff that we figured out during
Speaker 1: that period of time, Um, we'll still linger with us
Speaker 1: for for a long time. And maybe that we completely
Speaker 1: subsumed in different types of you know, normal life quote
Speaker 1: unquote normal life will return different ways. But I do
Speaker 1: think that there's like a sense that, yeah, these spaces
Speaker 1: like we kind of want them back and we're never
Speaker 1: going to relent and we're gonna give him back again. Um,
Speaker 1: And and it's a it's a it was fascinating to
Speaker 1: watch happened as we were talking about the books so much,
Speaker 1: and also to see the results of it today. Al Right, Well,
Speaker 1: the podcast is of course Invisible. The book is The
Speaker 1: Invisible City. Roman Mars, Thanks for taking time out of
Speaker 1: your day to chat with me. Oh, it was my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the show too,
Speaker 1: so it's a real honor to be on. Thank you
Speaker 1: all right, Thanks again to Roman Mars taking time out
Speaker 1: of his busy day to chat with me. Here again,
Speaker 1: the podcast is Invisible, and you can find Invisible anywhere
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, obviously, and the book is The
Speaker 1: Invisible City, which is available in all formats. Like I
Speaker 1: said in the interview, I've got the hard version here,
Speaker 1: the physical copy, and it's just it's it's really nice,
Speaker 1: really nice design in this so I highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: As always, I want to remind you that Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is a science podcast with core episodes
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday's we do listener mail,
Speaker 1: on Wednesday's we do a short form artifact or monster
Speaker 1: fact episode, and on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: That's our time to set aside most serious concerns and
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film. Thanks as always to J. J.
Speaker 1: Pass Way for producing the show, and if you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, you can email us
Speaker 1: at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
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