Open City
Open City is a charity dedicated to making architecture and built heritage more open, accessible and equitable. Providing you with essential listening, inspiring voices and built environment insights – the Open City Podcast covers news and current events as well as in depth studies of landmark buildings, and cities around the UK and world. At the centre of our line-up is our flagship show The Brief – an award-winning review of the big stories in architecture, planning and housing news – hosted by Sahiba Chadha and Fran Williams on a fortnightly basis. Alongside this is Deconstructed – a monthly podcast hosted by Matthew Lloyd Roberts taking apart the architecture of individual buildings and InterCities – a monthly podcast hosted by Owen Hatherley exploring municipal transformation around the world. All three shows profile new, expert and diverse voices from across industry, journalism, academia and beyond. The Open City Podcast is produced by Hunter Charlton and Paige Reynolds. The commissioning editor is Merlin Fulcher. The Open City Podcast is supported by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture platform and produced in association with the Architects’ Journal, London Society, C20 Society and Save Britain's Heritage. The Open City Podcast is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau. To help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City Friend. Photo credit: Owen Hatherley portrait © Antonio Olmos Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Show episodes
Deconstructed. Matilda House - Co-operative Council Housing. In this episode, Matthew Lloyd Roberts is joined by Dr Holly Smith to discuss Matilda House, the home of a radical experiment in co-operative housing which was welcomed by politicians of all stripes as a solution to the crises of the late 1970s. Matilda House
This week on The Brief Fran Williams is joined by the writer and activist, Adam Peggs to discuss: Rough sleeping surges to post pandemic-high // Government housebuilding forecast downgraded // New measures to ease planning for homes near transport hubs // And an alternative vision to save Liverpool Street Station’s vau
In The Room at Accelerate Debates is a new podcast from Open City, broadcasting the live debates from Accelerate, Open City’s free educational programme. In this episode, you’ll hear our second debate of the year, “Constructive Criticism”, where we ask: where do we draw the line between constructive and destructive cri
This week on The Brief Sahiba Chadha is joined by the architect and co-founder of We Made That, Holly Lewis, to discuss: AI nimbyism threatens to upend UK planning // Highstreet developer goes into liquidation // VAT imbalances found to be incentivising demolition // And a furore over plans to install uPVC windows on P
In this episode of Deconstructed, Matthew Lloyd Roberts is joined by Alfred Yatlong Yeung to discuss British multiculturalism through the lens of The Old Justice in South Bermondsey, a South Korean styled public house that was built by Sidney C Clark in 1933. If you’ve enjoyed this series about the London County Counci
A new House of Commons report on child-centred design, financial strain for UK architectural firms and bold changes to the London Plan
In this episode, technical editor and deputy architecture editor of the Architects’ Journal Fran Williams is joined by Dinah Bornat, an architect and co-founder of ZCD Architects. She’s also the author of All to Play For: How to design child-friendly housing, published by the RIBA in February this year. Together they d