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Elegy for WTC
Episode 35
I want to be careful not to overstate what it means for a building to die. A building’s worth is an infinitesimal fraction of the worth a person’s li…
14 years, 6 months ago
The Speed of Light for Building Pyramids
Episode 34
Last year, Steve Burrows CBE (Principle at the engineering consulting firm Arup) spent several weeks in Egypt studying the pyramids through the eyes …
14 years, 6 months ago
A Cheer for Samuel Plimsoll
Episode 33
If you look at the outer hull of commercial ships, you might find a painted circle bisected with a long horizontal line. This marking is called the l…
14 years, 6 months ago
Design for Airports
Episode 32
When I spoke with Allison Arieff about the design of airports, she said to me, if all airports simply played Brian Eno’s album Ambient 1: Music for A…
14 years, 7 months ago
Feltron Annual Report
Episode 31
Nicholas Felton is an information designer. Since 2005, he has tabulated thousands upon thousands of tiny measurements in his life and designed stunn…
14 years, 7 months ago
The Blue Yarn
Episode 30
In 1998 Dr. Gary Kaplan, the CEO of Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle received some bad news about his hospital. It was losing money. So Dr. K…
14 years, 8 months ago
Cul de Sac
Episode 29
When people critique cul-de-sacs, a lot of the time, they’re actually critiquing the suburbs more generally. The cul-de-sac has become sort of like t…
14 years, 8 months ago
Movie Title Sequences
Episode 28
More and more I’m finding that the first 2-3 minutes of a movie are my favorite part of the film. My life is devoted to the beautiful expression of i…
14 years, 8 months ago
Bridge to the Sky
Episode 27
There are rules that dicate what you can build and how. Rules of physics and rules of men who sit on various bureaucratic boards and bodies. These ru…
14 years, 9 months ago
Chicago’s Jailhouse Skyscraper
Episode 26
The Metropolitan Correctional Center, or MCC, is a federal jail right in the middle of downtown Chicago. It’s a triangle-shaped skyscraper, 27 storie…
14 years, 9 months ago