December 16, 2023 • 36 mins
In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert chats with Roman Mars, host of the podcast "99% Invisible" about design, podcasting and life in the created world. Plus, they discuss the 2020 book “The 99% Invisible City” by Mars and his co-author Kurt Kohlstedt. (originally published 01/31/2023)
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time for an
episode from the Vault. This one originally aired January thirty first,
twenty twenty three. And Rob, this was your interview with
Roman Mars of the podcast ninety nine Percent Invisible.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah. Great chat, great podcast, great book. So I hope
everyone enjoys.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb, and I have an interview for
you this week that I conducted with none other than
Roman Mars, the podcast host and author, a host of
the ninety nine Percent Invisible podcast asked, and co author
of the book The ninety nine Percent Invisible City. So
(01:05):
it was it was a real treat to set down
virtually with Roman Mars here and discuss ninety nine percent Invisible,
both the podcast and the book The ninety nine Percent
Invisible City, discussing podcasting in general, design in general. It's
a fun chat and I hope you enjoy it as
much as I did. Hi, Roman, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Oh, thank you so much. For having me.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I appreciate it. I want to start by stating the
obvious that a lot of our listeners stuff to blrow
your mind, don't really need an introduction or even a
reintroduction to you and your show. But for anyone out
there who isn't aware, what is ninety nine percent invisible?
And what does the title mean?
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Nine percent invisible is about all the thought that goes
into things most people don't think about. The idea is
that you know, even these big things like buildings that
you know, they may be massive, but the story behind
them is still ninety nine percent of visible. And that's
where it comes from. I was when I first started,
it sort of started as a show about architecture and design,
(02:10):
and it still is. I think design is still its mandate,
but our vision of what is designed is quite broad,
sort of any human made thing is designed. And so
when I first started, I gathered this collection of different
types of designers, a product designer, an architect, a landscape designer,
and asked them, like, what is the unifying theme to
(02:32):
what you do? And I was going to try to
name the show at what that was, but I didn't
want to use the word design For some reason. I
just wanted to avoid it and make something more poetic
and evocative, and they came to the conclusion that if
they're doing their jobs right, their job is ninety nine
percent of visible, and so that's what the show became.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I think I heard the show for the first time
on Radio Lab and I had to look it up
and sort of been back in twenty eleven. YEA.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
They did this a real service by introducing this to
a lot of people. I mean, Jad and the folks
who are working on Radio Lab at the time. We
kind of came up together in the public radio trenches,
and so that was just about the time when we
started running the shows, and so I think there was
a little bit of a backslapping, a friendly you know,
(03:24):
helping out a brother in arms in that scenario. But
they did this a real good service of introducing us
to their audience.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Radio Lab always impressed me with its exceptional audio production,
its sound design. I did show that had a particular
vision for I think how sound design could be used
to help explain a topic, and I tend to think
of ninety nine percent invisible as existing, you know, within
on the same shelf. In the similar category of podcast
or radio shows. So I was wondering, like, what is
(03:53):
your philosophy on ninety nine percent invisible sound design?
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Well, you know, it varies. I mean what I like,
like I like things to be radiophonic, which to me
means if you were to read a transcript of the show,
you wouldn't fully get what the show is trying to convey,
you know, like there has to be the audio element,
(04:17):
the sound of someone's voice, the sound of someone's passion,
you know, and then the music and you know, like
in a little bit of the ambient and field tape,
you know, tell a different story than just the words
being said. You know, we just do it to serve
the story. You know that you can definitely overdo it.
You can sort of call a lot of attention to
sound design. I think we sort of pitch it the
(04:40):
way I personally like it, Like I like a good
amount of music. I like switching voices, you know, like
I like, you know, I talk, another person talks, another
person talks. It keeps the ear interested. I think there's
some sort of there's ways that when you're conveying information,
varying that so that the ear doesn't get bored. And
then you sort of your mind drifts off is really important,
(05:02):
but we also kind of play it by ear like
there isn't like a huge I don't know, just like
a standard operating procedure or a certain mandate that we
when it comes to sound design. We are really talented,
you know, composer in Swan Reale and engineer and Martin Gonzalez,
and you know, they just make it beautiful and it
(05:24):
just feels good to me. It was always the show
I always wanted in terms of the way it sounds.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
And have changes your trends in the podcasting industry affected
the way you approach things at all.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
I don't know about the changes in podcasting. I mean
you to say that, I mean I like the show
the way it is because I think it serves the
way the show is. That is not to say that
I don't love things that aren't produced to our extent,
Like my my favorite podcasts are two people talking, you know,
like and there's something really lovely about that. And so
(05:58):
to me, there's just always like there are these different
trends or you know, just like buckets of podcasts that
do different things and do them well, and I think
they all can co exist kind of nicely. I mean,
the main thing that happened with my show is that
it was really designed for radio, Like I made it
for public radio. The original episodes are four minutes long
(06:20):
because they fit into a slot that would go into
morning edition. And then I was just like, well, I
guess I'll put this out as a podcast. Is whatever
might as well, and so we did. And then, you know,
and I say we, there was no Wei. It was
just me at this point. For many, many, many years,
it was just me and so, and then when it
(06:42):
started to find a life as a podcast, it was like, well,
let's just keep in that, like, let's make that a
little bit longer because I don't have to make it
four minutes when it becomes a podcast, and then it
gets it just grows and grows and grows, and it eventually,
you know, a switch flipped where the primary audience was
the podcast audience, which didn't have to adhere to sometime
(07:06):
a radio clock, and I was cutting a version for
the radio, and then it sort of was off to
the races, and they sort of now every story is
what it is. And so in a way, podcasting liberated
me from what is the constraint of like every type
(07:28):
of broadcast journalist, which is like you're basically either cutting
to fit a time or feeling to make a time,
is like a huge part of your job as a producer,
and I don't really do that anymore based on some
sort of artificial constraint. I still do that based off
of my taste, Like I still like things to be
tight and you know, be purposeful in their length. So
(07:50):
in that sense, podcasting really really changed and made it so,
like now the average show is it's like thirty five
forty minutes long. It's like ten times longer, Like it's
really it's really something. But this show has kind of
had its own trajectory that I don't know if it
really follows the fissitudes of podcasting in general, but I'm
(08:13):
sure I'm influenced by it some way.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Anytime I listened to the show or and engage with
ninety nine percent of visible content, I felt like I
leave it with my eyes just a little more open
to the design around me. Do you ever feel like
or hope that you're initiating listeners into sort of the
different understanding of the world.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Oh, for sure, I mean that's the ultimate goal, and
I know that it's effective because it's been effective with me. Like,
you know, I study lots of things to get to
where I am. I've been a journalist now for twenty years,
but before that, I was working on PhD and genetics.
I studied a lot of things. I didn't have a
(08:52):
real specific knowledge of design or architecture. I was just
a person who would like go on the architecture door
if I was in a city, you know. And so
I've always approached it as a journalist and as a fan.
And I've noticed that the show has changed me over
(09:13):
the years of making it, Like as I've told these
stories about all the thought that goes into things that
most people pass by without noticing, I've felt myself becoming
more sort of keenly aware of the world and how
it functions, and actually kind of keenly aware of how
well we're taken care of in the world in a
(09:35):
certain way, Like it's turned me into a more optimistic
person to do this show, because you know, a lot
of people put a lot of care into things so
you don't die, like pretty consistently, or so that you
can operate smoothly in this world. And we bump against
the things that are poorly designed, and we notice those
(09:57):
we don't notice the nine hund percent of visible things
that are so well designed that they pass our notice.
And so it has changed the way I view the world.
Making the show and what I've heard from people has
changed the way that they look at the world. And
it's super satisfying because I think it, like, it really
does improve your outlook of the world to think about
(10:17):
the design of things.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I mean, you've been doing the show long enough that
you have listeners out there who have grown up with
the show, right, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yeah, we have someone who who works on the show now,
Jacob Molton, Amandina and her stepfather, you know, had her
listen to the show as a kid, you know, like
I think it's like junior higher high school. So yeah,
it's absurd. Yeah, a lot of people have grown up
with it and it's it's it's pretty satisfying to have them.
(10:48):
But when they show up in there in their twenties,
I'm blown away by that.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
So now I guess on the other end of the spectrum,
you still have people coming to the podcast who are
new to it. Of course, covered so many designs topics
over the years. I wonder what your recommendation is for
people who are new to it, Like, I know, on
your website at ninety nine percent invisible dot orgue, you
have a nice explorer section that allows you to sort
(11:12):
of check out areas by topic, but in general, like,
do you tend to steer people towards the beginning, towards
the most recent or particular foundational episode.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Never in the beginning, Like I feel like when people
tell me that they've gone back and listened to all
of them, I'm like, oh, maybe I should take those
down because I don't know if it's worth it. But
I think that I mostly say to listen to the
most recent one. I mean, the thing about an ongoing
(11:43):
series is that no one episode can sort of encapsulate
what you do. What you do with an ongoing series
as you're telling this story over time, and it's like
this weird regression plot where it's like, here's an episode
kind of like this, and here's an episode kind of
like this, and then you draw a line that regression
plot and that is the thesis of your show. And
(12:03):
so no one point, you know, like really exemplifies that,
you know, especially you know, especially when you know as
makers you're like, well, that's like that's about an eighty
percent of what I wanted it to be, or you
know whatever. And so mostly I tell people to listen
to the latest one, and you know, we have a
few classics, like there's this one called Structural Integrity that
(12:25):
won a lot of awards that I think is a
is a good episode about you know, building almost falling down,
and you know, that's always exciting. And what I don't
want people who do is in the beginning, I think
it's fine to go search through things that you know
you're interested in and go listen to them. But almost
the point of the show is that we're daring you
(12:47):
with how boring the subject is. And what we're trying
to do is, you know, is the production is sort
of creating this delta between how boring an idea is
and how we're going to present it to make it
so that you really, really truly care about it. And
so don't read the description and go, nah, that's not
for me. Like try if you read description and go
(13:08):
that's not for me, try just one of those and
see if I can convince you that this is interesting
and applies to you in some way. That's that's the
main thing I want from people when they try the
show out.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Now I'm a little late to the party here, but
I recently picked up a copy of the book The
ninety nine Percent Invisible City that you co authored with
Kirk Colstead, and it's Yeah, it's a thoroughly enjoyable and
insightful read, you know, highlighting the details of the modern
world and get going and matching over with what you
just said, there were you know, there were certainly sections
(13:49):
of it that I knew that I was going to
be into, into anything dealing with say like underground infrastructure,
and like the whole section on infrastructure disguised his building
and so forth. But yeah, there's so much in it
where suddenly there'll be a section of the of the
book that is dealing with something that I completely take
for granted sometimes every day, and it's ultimately a fascinating
(14:12):
and eliminating topic, like like traffic circles for example.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Well, I mean that's the goal is that we sort
of like we could lure you in with some things
that you might be interested in, and and then we
sort of lull you into trying to pay attention to
other things. And the book was really interesting to make
because I've been making audio for so long, and you know,
I think I feel like I was approached about making
(14:38):
a book, like episode five of the podcast. There was
this sort of sense that books are the inevitable, like
I don't know, prize or something like that. I didn't
understand that. I just I really wanted to make a podcast,
and so but it took us for a long time
to do it. One of the reasons was, you know,
the partnership and making it with with Colestead required that,
(15:01):
you know, we work on it and be excited about it.
And then the other was like, I'm really into design,
like in a real sense, and to me, it's like
the show is designed to be a podcast, and trying
to you know, creating some kind of deprecated, you know,
transcription version of it was had no interest to me.
(15:22):
But there was a certain point where the volume of
the things that we covered audio is not really useful
for like scrubbing through and like it's experiential, but it's
not like, oh, I remember this thing about curb cuts.
What's the name of that episode and where do I
find it and what is it? And do I have
twenty minutes to listen to it? And stuff, and there
was just a point where all the stuff that we
(15:45):
had covered and the sort of territory we've staked out
of our view of the world wasn't being served by
linear audio anymore, and a book was kind of like
felt like it was natural and necessary and good.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
And so.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
That's what the book became. And so and it has
a lot of stuff that's from the show in it,
but also a lot of like new stuff that we
can't cover because you know, like as much as I
enjoy the perversity of covering a lot of visual stuff
in an audio medium to highlight the storiness of it
versus the esthetics of things, there's some things that are
(16:22):
just impossible to cover, and things like roundabouts where you
try to describe the magic roundabout, which is like circles
and circles and circles, and it's like you can kind
of get it, but I don't know if you can
really visualize it until you know, you get some pictures
of it.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah. Yeah, that was definitely a part of in the
book where I was very thankful for the illustration. And
there's plenty of other places where you're talking about something
and you can look at the illustration, Like, oh, yeah,
that one, that's what they're talking about. I've seen that thing,
that particular star shape or whatever the case may.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Be, exactly exactly. It does require a little bit of
a little bit of help.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah, So it's interesting that it sounded like it was
kind of, I don't want to say a daunting task,
but like a task it.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Was hugely daunting, horrible. Yeah, it's like it's really really hard.
There's like there's this the saying that I heard as
we were making the book that was that a takeoff
of the teach a man to fish kind of thing.
Teach a manufih and then yeah, give him anifesi he
eats for a day, Teach a man official, he'll eat
(17:28):
for a lifetime. It's uh, give a person a book,
they'll read for a week. Teach a person to write
a book, they'll never enjoy anything for the rest of
their lives. So it's really really hard. But I mean
like curvely brought it all together. I mean in terms
of like the writing and the kind of organizing and
project managing, Like he really threw himself into it in
(17:52):
a way that it never would happened because one of
the problems with a really long deadline that a book
gives you, you know, like a year long deadline. It
has its own problems, but when you have a weekly
deadline of a show at the same time, it's it's
always possible to occupy yourself with the immediate deadline and
put off the big deadline. And so anyway, it was
(18:12):
really hard.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Well, well, like I said, the finished product is excellent,
and you covered this already. But the I guess when
one initially hears about a podcast becoming a book, it's
easy to think, well, okay, this is, like you said, this,
it's just something that had to happen. This is like
the inevitable sort of cash in or the inevitable even
(18:34):
evolution of the thing. But yeah, this this doesn't feel
forced at all. It's very absorbable and also very just
visually stylish.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Thank you. I was really obviously interested in the in
the visuals of it, and and our publisher was too. They,
you know, because it was just like you do understand that,
like designing, people listen to our show and if the
book is ugly, they will never forgive you. And they
sort of connected us with Patrick Vale, who is the
illustrator who worked on, you know, hundreds of different illustrations,
(19:04):
both big and small, to demonstrate what was going on,
but also just to kind of set the tone of it.
You know, the feel of it is is both kind
of like precise, but also it has a little bit
of an abstraction to it in some instances. And I
think it's a beautiful object. And you're always trying to
figure out what to do when you create anything, or
are you creating something like a theemeral and immediate or
(19:27):
you're creating like a permanent and beautiful object. And there's
a balance of that when it comes to audio all
the time, because you you could fuss over it endlessly
to make it a beautiful object, and you know, it's
kind of fleeting and ephemeral no matter what you do.
But when you put all the effort into a book,
it is like it's incumbent. I think to make it,
(19:50):
I don't know, something somewhat precious because of all these
just resources going into it, you know. But I'm happy
with it, even though it had a little bit of
issue to figure out of being you know, kind of
fish nor foul, like it isn't really a coffee table book.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It is a book.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Of stories. They don't have to be read all together
in a row, but they build on each other when
they are read in a row, and you kind of
had to serve lots of different audiences simultaneously. And again,
this was something that like Kurt and I had just
endless meetings about just the structure of the thing, independent
of the writing, to make it all work. So anyway,
I'm glad you liked it. I'm sort of going on
(20:30):
about it.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Oh no, no, this is all fascinating. I have the
physical version here, and there's a digital version, but there
is also an audiobook obviously, Yeah, yeah, there is. What
was what was that like? Then? Turning it back into.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
It was horrible. It's like, I mean, like I've been
doing voiceover, you know, and narration for twenty some years
at this point reading an audiobook is the hardest version
of that, I think, even though and this is my
own you know, like style and in our own writing,
so it you know, I know the material better, but
(21:04):
even that was exhausting. I was realizing how little I
talk in a row, even when I record narration or
to do interviews. That like I was like, oh great,
I'll just knock out a couple of hours of reading
or whatever, you know, every few days. But I was
exhausted by it. It was so hard. And when any author,
and I know a fair number of authors now that
(21:25):
you know, ask me about, you know, narrating work, I'm
just like, unless you really want to, like, just avoid it.
It's really it's really hard. But you know the publishers
and I know the audience. They're used to the sound
of my voice. I think for some of them it
gives them a certain amount of comfort, and it seemed
(21:47):
important that it be me to read it. So I'm
glad with the product. I'm glad we did it. I'm
I'm also glad that we appended an episode of the
show at the end of the audio book, just because
part of me felt like, if you went away thinking
that me reading this book is the show, you don't
(22:10):
have a full concept what the show is, and so
I wanted to make sure that was present there. And
so I think it's a nice thing to happen. And
I think if somebody's like, oh, I really love nine
Names Invisible, I want to listen to eleven hours of
it in a row, it does serve that. But it
was it was extremely hard. I couldn't believe how hard
it was. I was so self conscious about it that,
(22:33):
you know, we had an independent you know company kind
of cut it together, like who worked for the publisher,
and I would pre edit it because I would mess
up so much that I would I would I would
send like an edited version for them to go edit again,
because I was just like, I'm not this bad at this,
Normally I should be. Anyway, I didn't want anyone to
(22:55):
hear it.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
So the title the ninety nine percent Invisible City to
just leave open the possibility for future volumes dealing with
different rays of topics.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Yeah, that was the idea in fact, when we went
out and pitched it. Originally, I pitched it as kind
of a set of books, like you know, maybe one
about cities, maybe one and about sort of roads and
you know, byways and highways type of thing, and then
about sort of vernacular architecture and specific to places. We
(23:38):
ended up sort of like making the city one, like
incorporate a lot of that stuff already. Like as soon
as we went out with that, people were like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
why don't you just get one book out instead of
like plan your trilogy and they were totally right. But
you know, this goes back to the you know, the
original name to begin with is like I was making
(24:00):
a show about design, I wanted it to have this
name nine a percent of Visible, but I thought it
was so evocative that I could do a season about science.
I could do a season about something else. There's so
many things that you know, in terms of explanatory journalism
that need to be explained better, and most of them
are pretty invisible to most of us. So it kind
(24:22):
of applies to a lot of things. And so I
could totally see you know, a series of books in
different ways, or a kid's book version or something like that.
I'm open to it, but it honestly hasn't the internal
drive is hasn't quite like rebuilt to like say like,
oh my god, I really want to go through that again.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Now. The book deals a lot with the space where
design exists between kind of I guess government and law
on one side and user desire and experience on the other.
You've alluded to one half of this earlier talking about
how Safe for the World feels with a lot of
the designs we have in place. I know, we can't
(25:03):
really place a value judgment on design itself. But does
design seem to largely have a trajectory toward user safety
and happiness?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Well, I would say so. I mean, design is about functionality,
and it sort of depends on what master it is
serving at a certain moment as to whether or not
it is serving one type of audience versus another type
of audience or user rather. And so you know, you
(25:38):
could say some of those things in the real world
they work at cross purposes. So, I mean, we just
did a little segment of an episode that Delaney hol
did on the show about this idea of strodes, which
is like a portmanteau between street and roads. And the
idea here is that a road is a conveyance to
get someone from one place to the other as quickly
(25:59):
as possible. A street is a place that you occupy
and live, and there are stores on it and park
benches and things like that. And when something is truly
a road, like a highway to get from one place
to the other, it works well. When something is truly
a street and it is for loitering and hanging out
and to being in places, it works well. When things
are strodes, when they're designed to go through quickly, but
(26:23):
they have all these people in the way and stores
that people are coming in and out of and stuff
like that. Then they work poorly and they tend to
be really dangerous. So you could say, well, it was
designed poorly, or you know, it's sort of a little
bit semantic, or like how you place the emphasis of it.
(26:43):
You know, I would say that that's the tyranny of
thoughtless design creates a strode versus somebody really tried to
make it this way on purpose, you know, And so
we do end up with things at the end which
are poorly designed, that are dangerous, that do not make
the world a better place. They are probably created from
(27:04):
a constraint from this type of constituency applying it in
this way and then another one to this way, and
it creates this sort of Frankenstein, which is a poorly
designed thing. And that is a you know, a version
of cultural and you know product evolution that is a
result of you know, people putting all their two cents
in to create something that is not very functional for
(27:25):
most people. But I do believe that when you do
think of safety and care of minds, that we do
a good job of creating those things in the end,
and actually anticipating things that you may not anticipate and
hopefully never have to anticipate when you encounter them in
the real world. You know, like that that they are
these safety things in place that hopefully just make the
(27:49):
world a better place, make you safer, but hopefully you
never have to consider whether or not a sign post
is a breakaway post, or whether or not trees alone
the side of the road, you know, like, you know,
they're there to make you feel crowded so that therefore
you do not go very fast. You know, they're meant
(28:09):
to add some agitation to you. Roundabouts, like you mentioned,
are perfect example. I mean, one of the reasons why
roundabouts are so safe is because they feel so awful.
You know, when you enter into one, you have to
be really aware and being aware and making the built
environment break you out of your you know, like maybe
(28:30):
your sort of road zemblification, you know, is a good
thing for your safety, but it might not feel like
a good thing when you go through it. But somebody
thought about that for you. And so for the most part,
I would say we endeavor to make things safer, but
there are definitely some gaps and mostly it's when a
bunch of people are not coming on the same page
(28:52):
of what the design brief really is.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Yeah, And of course in the in the book you
talk about some designs such as those intended to keep
unhomed people from laying on park benches that sort of.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Yeah, yeah, there's lots of hostile design. And again it's
serving somebody's purpose, like somebody's putting it there on purpose,
because they're trying to commit a kind of social change
and social pressure and influence through the built world. Now,
the thing is, as privileged people, they're kind of doing
(29:26):
that for you. You know, they're doing it for your benefit,
you know, to the detriment of people who have less.
And the important part about that influence is recognizing do
you really want that? You know, like somebody's making this
decision for you, And if if you don't know about it,
then obviously you can't sort of like you have any commentary.
So our first job is to make people aware of
(29:48):
what these spikes and these different sort of like hostile architecture,
you know, like interventions are, and then the second step
is to go like, well, is that the result you want?
And do you want to like interact with your setty
to change it. You know, it's the second part of
(30:09):
that discussion.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
You're a Strode example reminded me of of parklets, which
are also discussed in the book. Yeah, by the time
the book came out, and certainly by the time of
my reading it, like everyone, I think, especially in urban areas,
that heard of parklets to do to their role in
the pandemic. But this, yeah, this is also an area
that's between different ideas of what the street or the
road is used for.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Yeah, a parklet is a really interesting thing. There's a
sort of movement here called Parking Day I'm in the
Bay Area, which sort of pioneered this idea of like, well,
instead of you know, putting a coin in a meter
to you know, rent a space for a car, why
don't we put coins in the meter and like lay
down some sod and put on put some chairs down.
(30:55):
And this is something I've covered for I mean for
like twenty something here years at this point. And then
it really came to pass when all of a sudden,
we're in COVID. We wanted to be together, but we
needed space away from each other and space outside. And
you know, when it comes to roads, you know, for millennia,
they've been these loads of multimodal use cases like they
(31:18):
you know, the people walked on them, people rode bikes
on them, people rode horses on them, vendors set up
in the middle of them, and then over time we
just decided that, oh, they're for cars. You know, you know,
no one else belongs on them, and you can cross
here and here, and if you cross anywhere in between,
you're breaking the law. And and that was where our
values lied when it came to the design of cities.
(31:41):
You know, it's not where I would place my personal values,
but but that's you know, we collectively kind of thought
that that was a good case. And then COVID comes along,
and all of a sudden, the value of that space
changed and we wanted it back, like as pedestrians and
people and people drinking coffee, and so, you know, we
(32:03):
decided to bump out these spaces that were used for
cars so that we could be outside and enjoy things.
And it was kind of fascinating because you know, the
book came out right at the kind of beginning of
COVID in twenty twenty, and it was an interesting time
to think about the design of cities. When this, you know,
outside influence made us rethink, you know, how our cities
(32:28):
should be designed very rapidly, you know, and and thoroughly,
you know, like because one of the things that happens
when you're thinking about design or thinking about your city
is there's a there's kind of a solipsistic kind of
way we enter the world is the way things are
and should be, and we don't really think about the
continuum we are on when it comes to how cities
(32:51):
are designed and should be designed. And so when you
have a rapid kind of jolt to the system and
there's a reassise of space and the value of space
in different ways, it's a good time to think about, Hey,
you know what, maybe we do think about roads as
belonging to cars, but like if you look at this
book or look through history, you realize that roads weren't
(33:14):
about cars. They were it's a pretty recent phenomenon that
we thought that that's what they should be, and maybe
it's worth reassessing these things. And I think if there's
any sort of thesis to the book or to the show,
it's that the built world and the things we design
are a window into our values as humans, and they
(33:37):
always shift and change based on those values, and when
you have this moment of crisis when it comes to
the pandemic, it really did change our value of what
a city was for and who it was for, and
what was worth giving up and what wasn't worth giving up.
And you know, as horrible as the situation was, it
(34:01):
was fascinating to sort of figure out those reassessments and realignments.
And it's still like, I think some of the stuff
that we figured out during that period of time, we'll
still linger with us for a long time, and maybe
they'll be completely subsumed in different types of you know,
(34:21):
normal life quote unquote normal life will return different ways.
But I do think that there's like a sense that, yeah,
these spaces like we kind of want them back, and
we're never going to relent. We're going to give them
back again. And it's a it's a it was fascinating
to watch happened as we were talking about the book
so much, and also to see the results of it today.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
All right, Well, the podcast is of course ninety nine
percent invisible. The book is the ninety nine percent Invisible City.
Roman Mars, thanks for taking time out of your day
to chat with me.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Oh, it was my pleasure. Thank you so much. I
really enjoyed the show too, so it's real honor to
be on.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Thank you all right, Thanks again to Roman Mars for
taking time out of his busy day to chat with me.
Here again, the podcast is ninety nine percent Invisible, and
you can find ninety nine percent Invisible anywhere you get
your podcasts, obviously, and the book is The ninety nine
percent Invisible City, which is available in all formats. Like
(35:18):
I said in the interview, I've got the hard version here,
the physical copy, and it's just it's really nice, really
nice design in this so I highly recommend it. As always,
I want to remind you that Stuff to Blow Your
Mind is a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays
and Thursdays. On Mondays we do listener mail, on Wednesdays
we do a short form artifact or monster fact episode,
and on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. That's our
(35:39):
time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk
about a weird film. Thanks as always to JJ Possway
for producing the show, and if you want to get
in touch with us, you can email us at contact
at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time for an
episode from the Vault. This one originally aired January thirty first,
twenty twenty three. And Rob, this was your interview with
Roman Mars of the podcast ninety nine Percent Invisible.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah. Great chat, great podcast, great book. So I hope
everyone enjoys.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb, and I have an interview for
you this week that I conducted with none other than
Roman Mars, the podcast host and author, a host of
the ninety nine Percent Invisible podcast asked, and co author
of the book The ninety nine Percent Invisible City. So
(01:05):
it was it was a real treat to set down
virtually with Roman Mars here and discuss ninety nine percent Invisible,
both the podcast and the book The ninety nine Percent
Invisible City, discussing podcasting in general, design in general. It's
a fun chat and I hope you enjoy it as
much as I did. Hi, Roman, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Oh, thank you so much. For having me.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I appreciate it. I want to start by stating the
obvious that a lot of our listeners stuff to blrow
your mind, don't really need an introduction or even a
reintroduction to you and your show. But for anyone out
there who isn't aware, what is ninety nine percent invisible?
And what does the title mean?
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Nine percent invisible is about all the thought that goes
into things most people don't think about. The idea is
that you know, even these big things like buildings that
you know, they may be massive, but the story behind
them is still ninety nine percent of visible. And that's
where it comes from. I was when I first started,
it sort of started as a show about architecture and design,
(02:10):
and it still is. I think design is still its mandate,
but our vision of what is designed is quite broad,
sort of any human made thing is designed. And so
when I first started, I gathered this collection of different
types of designers, a product designer, an architect, a landscape designer,
and asked them, like, what is the unifying theme to
(02:32):
what you do? And I was going to try to
name the show at what that was, but I didn't
want to use the word design For some reason. I
just wanted to avoid it and make something more poetic
and evocative, and they came to the conclusion that if
they're doing their jobs right, their job is ninety nine
percent of visible, and so that's what the show became.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I think I heard the show for the first time
on Radio Lab and I had to look it up
and sort of been back in twenty eleven. YEA.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
They did this a real service by introducing this to
a lot of people. I mean, Jad and the folks
who are working on Radio Lab at the time. We
kind of came up together in the public radio trenches,
and so that was just about the time when we
started running the shows, and so I think there was
a little bit of a backslapping, a friendly you know,
(03:24):
helping out a brother in arms in that scenario. But
they did this a real good service of introducing us
to their audience.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Radio Lab always impressed me with its exceptional audio production,
its sound design. I did show that had a particular
vision for I think how sound design could be used
to help explain a topic, and I tend to think
of ninety nine percent invisible as existing, you know, within
on the same shelf. In the similar category of podcast
or radio shows. So I was wondering, like, what is
(03:53):
your philosophy on ninety nine percent invisible sound design?
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Well, you know, it varies. I mean what I like,
like I like things to be radiophonic, which to me
means if you were to read a transcript of the show,
you wouldn't fully get what the show is trying to convey,
you know, like there has to be the audio element,
(04:17):
the sound of someone's voice, the sound of someone's passion,
you know, and then the music and you know, like
in a little bit of the ambient and field tape,
you know, tell a different story than just the words
being said. You know, we just do it to serve
the story. You know that you can definitely overdo it.
You can sort of call a lot of attention to
sound design. I think we sort of pitch it the
(04:40):
way I personally like it, Like I like a good
amount of music. I like switching voices, you know, like
I like, you know, I talk, another person talks, another
person talks. It keeps the ear interested. I think there's
some sort of there's ways that when you're conveying information,
varying that so that the ear doesn't get bored. And
then you sort of your mind drifts off is really important,
(05:02):
but we also kind of play it by ear like
there isn't like a huge I don't know, just like
a standard operating procedure or a certain mandate that we
when it comes to sound design. We are really talented,
you know, composer in Swan Reale and engineer and Martin Gonzalez,
and you know, they just make it beautiful and it
(05:24):
just feels good to me. It was always the show
I always wanted in terms of the way it sounds.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
And have changes your trends in the podcasting industry affected
the way you approach things at all.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
I don't know about the changes in podcasting. I mean
you to say that, I mean I like the show
the way it is because I think it serves the
way the show is. That is not to say that
I don't love things that aren't produced to our extent,
Like my my favorite podcasts are two people talking, you know,
like and there's something really lovely about that. And so
(05:58):
to me, there's just always like there are these different
trends or you know, just like buckets of podcasts that
do different things and do them well, and I think
they all can co exist kind of nicely. I mean,
the main thing that happened with my show is that
it was really designed for radio, Like I made it
for public radio. The original episodes are four minutes long
(06:20):
because they fit into a slot that would go into
morning edition. And then I was just like, well, I
guess I'll put this out as a podcast. Is whatever
might as well, and so we did. And then, you know,
and I say we, there was no Wei. It was
just me at this point. For many, many, many years,
it was just me and so, and then when it
(06:42):
started to find a life as a podcast, it was like, well,
let's just keep in that, like, let's make that a
little bit longer because I don't have to make it
four minutes when it becomes a podcast, and then it
gets it just grows and grows and grows, and it eventually,
you know, a switch flipped where the primary audience was
the podcast audience, which didn't have to adhere to sometime
(07:06):
a radio clock, and I was cutting a version for
the radio, and then it sort of was off to
the races, and they sort of now every story is
what it is. And so in a way, podcasting liberated
me from what is the constraint of like every type
(07:28):
of broadcast journalist, which is like you're basically either cutting
to fit a time or feeling to make a time,
is like a huge part of your job as a producer,
and I don't really do that anymore based on some
sort of artificial constraint. I still do that based off
of my taste, Like I still like things to be
tight and you know, be purposeful in their length. So
(07:50):
in that sense, podcasting really really changed and made it so,
like now the average show is it's like thirty five
forty minutes long. It's like ten times longer, Like it's
really it's really something. But this show has kind of
had its own trajectory that I don't know if it
really follows the fissitudes of podcasting in general, but I'm
(08:13):
sure I'm influenced by it some way.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Anytime I listened to the show or and engage with
ninety nine percent of visible content, I felt like I
leave it with my eyes just a little more open
to the design around me. Do you ever feel like
or hope that you're initiating listeners into sort of the
different understanding of the world.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Oh, for sure, I mean that's the ultimate goal, and
I know that it's effective because it's been effective with me. Like,
you know, I study lots of things to get to
where I am. I've been a journalist now for twenty years,
but before that, I was working on PhD and genetics.
I studied a lot of things. I didn't have a
(08:52):
real specific knowledge of design or architecture. I was just
a person who would like go on the architecture door
if I was in a city, you know. And so
I've always approached it as a journalist and as a fan.
And I've noticed that the show has changed me over
(09:13):
the years of making it, Like as I've told these
stories about all the thought that goes into things that
most people pass by without noticing, I've felt myself becoming
more sort of keenly aware of the world and how
it functions, and actually kind of keenly aware of how
well we're taken care of in the world in a
(09:35):
certain way, Like it's turned me into a more optimistic
person to do this show, because you know, a lot
of people put a lot of care into things so
you don't die, like pretty consistently, or so that you
can operate smoothly in this world. And we bump against
the things that are poorly designed, and we notice those
(09:57):
we don't notice the nine hund percent of visible things
that are so well designed that they pass our notice.
And so it has changed the way I view the world.
Making the show and what I've heard from people has
changed the way that they look at the world. And
it's super satisfying because I think it, like, it really
does improve your outlook of the world to think about
(10:17):
the design of things.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I mean, you've been doing the show long enough that
you have listeners out there who have grown up with
the show, right, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yeah, we have someone who who works on the show now,
Jacob Molton, Amandina and her stepfather, you know, had her
listen to the show as a kid, you know, like
I think it's like junior higher high school. So yeah,
it's absurd. Yeah, a lot of people have grown up
with it and it's it's it's pretty satisfying to have them.
(10:48):
But when they show up in there in their twenties,
I'm blown away by that.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
So now I guess on the other end of the spectrum,
you still have people coming to the podcast who are
new to it. Of course, covered so many designs topics
over the years. I wonder what your recommendation is for
people who are new to it, Like, I know, on
your website at ninety nine percent invisible dot orgue, you
have a nice explorer section that allows you to sort
(11:12):
of check out areas by topic, but in general, like,
do you tend to steer people towards the beginning, towards
the most recent or particular foundational episode.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Never in the beginning, Like I feel like when people
tell me that they've gone back and listened to all
of them, I'm like, oh, maybe I should take those
down because I don't know if it's worth it. But
I think that I mostly say to listen to the
most recent one. I mean, the thing about an ongoing
(11:43):
series is that no one episode can sort of encapsulate
what you do. What you do with an ongoing series
as you're telling this story over time, and it's like
this weird regression plot where it's like, here's an episode
kind of like this, and here's an episode kind of
like this, and then you draw a line that regression
plot and that is the thesis of your show. And
(12:03):
so no one point, you know, like really exemplifies that,
you know, especially you know, especially when you know as
makers you're like, well, that's like that's about an eighty
percent of what I wanted it to be, or you
know whatever. And so mostly I tell people to listen
to the latest one, and you know, we have a
few classics, like there's this one called Structural Integrity that
(12:25):
won a lot of awards that I think is a
is a good episode about you know, building almost falling down,
and you know, that's always exciting. And what I don't
want people who do is in the beginning, I think
it's fine to go search through things that you know
you're interested in and go listen to them. But almost
the point of the show is that we're daring you
(12:47):
with how boring the subject is. And what we're trying
to do is, you know, is the production is sort
of creating this delta between how boring an idea is
and how we're going to present it to make it
so that you really, really truly care about it. And
so don't read the description and go, nah, that's not
for me. Like try if you read description and go
(13:08):
that's not for me, try just one of those and
see if I can convince you that this is interesting
and applies to you in some way. That's that's the
main thing I want from people when they try the
show out.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Now I'm a little late to the party here, but
I recently picked up a copy of the book The
ninety nine Percent Invisible City that you co authored with
Kirk Colstead, and it's Yeah, it's a thoroughly enjoyable and
insightful read, you know, highlighting the details of the modern
world and get going and matching over with what you
just said, there were you know, there were certainly sections
(13:49):
of it that I knew that I was going to
be into, into anything dealing with say like underground infrastructure,
and like the whole section on infrastructure disguised his building
and so forth. But yeah, there's so much in it
where suddenly there'll be a section of the of the
book that is dealing with something that I completely take
for granted sometimes every day, and it's ultimately a fascinating
(14:12):
and eliminating topic, like like traffic circles for example.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Well, I mean that's the goal is that we sort
of like we could lure you in with some things
that you might be interested in, and and then we
sort of lull you into trying to pay attention to
other things. And the book was really interesting to make
because I've been making audio for so long, and you know,
I think I feel like I was approached about making
(14:38):
a book, like episode five of the podcast. There was
this sort of sense that books are the inevitable, like
I don't know, prize or something like that. I didn't
understand that. I just I really wanted to make a podcast,
and so but it took us for a long time
to do it. One of the reasons was, you know,
the partnership and making it with with Colestead required that,
(15:01):
you know, we work on it and be excited about it.
And then the other was like, I'm really into design,
like in a real sense, and to me, it's like
the show is designed to be a podcast, and trying
to you know, creating some kind of deprecated, you know,
transcription version of it was had no interest to me.
(15:22):
But there was a certain point where the volume of
the things that we covered audio is not really useful
for like scrubbing through and like it's experiential, but it's
not like, oh, I remember this thing about curb cuts.
What's the name of that episode and where do I
find it and what is it? And do I have
twenty minutes to listen to it? And stuff, and there
was just a point where all the stuff that we
(15:45):
had covered and the sort of territory we've staked out
of our view of the world wasn't being served by
linear audio anymore, and a book was kind of like
felt like it was natural and necessary and good.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
And so.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
That's what the book became. And so and it has
a lot of stuff that's from the show in it,
but also a lot of like new stuff that we
can't cover because you know, like as much as I
enjoy the perversity of covering a lot of visual stuff
in an audio medium to highlight the storiness of it
versus the esthetics of things, there's some things that are
(16:22):
just impossible to cover, and things like roundabouts where you
try to describe the magic roundabout, which is like circles
and circles and circles, and it's like you can kind
of get it, but I don't know if you can
really visualize it until you know, you get some pictures
of it.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah. Yeah, that was definitely a part of in the
book where I was very thankful for the illustration. And
there's plenty of other places where you're talking about something
and you can look at the illustration, Like, oh, yeah,
that one, that's what they're talking about. I've seen that thing,
that particular star shape or whatever the case may.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Be, exactly exactly. It does require a little bit of
a little bit of help.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah, So it's interesting that it sounded like it was
kind of, I don't want to say a daunting task,
but like a task it.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Was hugely daunting, horrible. Yeah, it's like it's really really hard.
There's like there's this the saying that I heard as
we were making the book that was that a takeoff
of the teach a man to fish kind of thing.
Teach a manufih and then yeah, give him anifesi he
eats for a day, Teach a man official, he'll eat
(17:28):
for a lifetime. It's uh, give a person a book,
they'll read for a week. Teach a person to write
a book, they'll never enjoy anything for the rest of
their lives. So it's really really hard. But I mean
like curvely brought it all together. I mean in terms
of like the writing and the kind of organizing and
project managing, Like he really threw himself into it in
(17:52):
a way that it never would happened because one of
the problems with a really long deadline that a book
gives you, you know, like a year long deadline. It
has its own problems, but when you have a weekly
deadline of a show at the same time, it's it's
always possible to occupy yourself with the immediate deadline and
put off the big deadline. And so anyway, it was
(18:12):
really hard.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Well, well, like I said, the finished product is excellent,
and you covered this already. But the I guess when
one initially hears about a podcast becoming a book, it's
easy to think, well, okay, this is, like you said, this,
it's just something that had to happen. This is like
the inevitable sort of cash in or the inevitable even
(18:34):
evolution of the thing. But yeah, this this doesn't feel
forced at all. It's very absorbable and also very just
visually stylish.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Thank you. I was really obviously interested in the in
the visuals of it, and and our publisher was too. They,
you know, because it was just like you do understand that,
like designing, people listen to our show and if the
book is ugly, they will never forgive you. And they
sort of connected us with Patrick Vale, who is the
illustrator who worked on, you know, hundreds of different illustrations,
(19:04):
both big and small, to demonstrate what was going on,
but also just to kind of set the tone of it.
You know, the feel of it is is both kind
of like precise, but also it has a little bit
of an abstraction to it in some instances. And I
think it's a beautiful object. And you're always trying to
figure out what to do when you create anything, or
are you creating something like a theemeral and immediate or
(19:27):
you're creating like a permanent and beautiful object. And there's
a balance of that when it comes to audio all
the time, because you you could fuss over it endlessly
to make it a beautiful object, and you know, it's
kind of fleeting and ephemeral no matter what you do.
But when you put all the effort into a book,
it is like it's incumbent. I think to make it,
(19:50):
I don't know, something somewhat precious because of all these
just resources going into it, you know. But I'm happy
with it, even though it had a little bit of
issue to figure out of being you know, kind of
fish nor foul, like it isn't really a coffee table book.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It is a book.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Of stories. They don't have to be read all together
in a row, but they build on each other when
they are read in a row, and you kind of
had to serve lots of different audiences simultaneously. And again,
this was something that like Kurt and I had just
endless meetings about just the structure of the thing, independent
of the writing, to make it all work. So anyway,
I'm glad you liked it. I'm sort of going on
(20:30):
about it.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Oh no, no, this is all fascinating. I have the
physical version here, and there's a digital version, but there
is also an audiobook obviously, Yeah, yeah, there is. What
was what was that like? Then? Turning it back into.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
It was horrible. It's like, I mean, like I've been
doing voiceover, you know, and narration for twenty some years
at this point reading an audiobook is the hardest version
of that, I think, even though and this is my
own you know, like style and in our own writing,
so it you know, I know the material better, but
(21:04):
even that was exhausting. I was realizing how little I
talk in a row, even when I record narration or
to do interviews. That like I was like, oh great,
I'll just knock out a couple of hours of reading
or whatever, you know, every few days. But I was
exhausted by it. It was so hard. And when any author,
and I know a fair number of authors now that
(21:25):
you know, ask me about, you know, narrating work, I'm
just like, unless you really want to, like, just avoid it.
It's really it's really hard. But you know the publishers
and I know the audience. They're used to the sound
of my voice. I think for some of them it
gives them a certain amount of comfort, and it seemed
(21:47):
important that it be me to read it. So I'm
glad with the product. I'm glad we did it. I'm
I'm also glad that we appended an episode of the
show at the end of the audio book, just because
part of me felt like, if you went away thinking
that me reading this book is the show, you don't
(22:10):
have a full concept what the show is, and so
I wanted to make sure that was present there. And
so I think it's a nice thing to happen. And
I think if somebody's like, oh, I really love nine
Names Invisible, I want to listen to eleven hours of
it in a row, it does serve that. But it
was it was extremely hard. I couldn't believe how hard
it was. I was so self conscious about it that,
(22:33):
you know, we had an independent you know company kind
of cut it together, like who worked for the publisher,
and I would pre edit it because I would mess
up so much that I would I would I would
send like an edited version for them to go edit again,
because I was just like, I'm not this bad at this,
Normally I should be. Anyway, I didn't want anyone to
(22:55):
hear it.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
So the title the ninety nine percent Invisible City to
just leave open the possibility for future volumes dealing with
different rays of topics.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Yeah, that was the idea in fact, when we went
out and pitched it. Originally, I pitched it as kind
of a set of books, like you know, maybe one
about cities, maybe one and about sort of roads and
you know, byways and highways type of thing, and then
about sort of vernacular architecture and specific to places. We
(23:38):
ended up sort of like making the city one, like
incorporate a lot of that stuff already. Like as soon
as we went out with that, people were like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
why don't you just get one book out instead of
like plan your trilogy and they were totally right. But
you know, this goes back to the you know, the
original name to begin with is like I was making
(24:00):
a show about design, I wanted it to have this
name nine a percent of Visible, but I thought it
was so evocative that I could do a season about science.
I could do a season about something else. There's so
many things that you know, in terms of explanatory journalism
that need to be explained better, and most of them
are pretty invisible to most of us. So it kind
(24:22):
of applies to a lot of things. And so I
could totally see you know, a series of books in
different ways, or a kid's book version or something like that.
I'm open to it, but it honestly hasn't the internal
drive is hasn't quite like rebuilt to like say like,
oh my god, I really want to go through that again.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Now. The book deals a lot with the space where
design exists between kind of I guess government and law
on one side and user desire and experience on the other.
You've alluded to one half of this earlier talking about
how Safe for the World feels with a lot of
the designs we have in place. I know, we can't
(25:03):
really place a value judgment on design itself. But does
design seem to largely have a trajectory toward user safety
and happiness?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Well, I would say so. I mean, design is about functionality,
and it sort of depends on what master it is
serving at a certain moment as to whether or not
it is serving one type of audience versus another type
of audience or user rather. And so you know, you
(25:38):
could say some of those things in the real world
they work at cross purposes. So, I mean, we just
did a little segment of an episode that Delaney hol
did on the show about this idea of strodes, which
is like a portmanteau between street and roads. And the
idea here is that a road is a conveyance to
get someone from one place to the other as quickly
(25:59):
as possible. A street is a place that you occupy
and live, and there are stores on it and park
benches and things like that. And when something is truly
a road, like a highway to get from one place
to the other, it works well. When something is truly
a street and it is for loitering and hanging out
and to being in places, it works well. When things
are strodes, when they're designed to go through quickly, but
(26:23):
they have all these people in the way and stores
that people are coming in and out of and stuff
like that. Then they work poorly and they tend to
be really dangerous. So you could say, well, it was
designed poorly, or you know, it's sort of a little
bit semantic, or like how you place the emphasis of it.
(26:43):
You know, I would say that that's the tyranny of
thoughtless design creates a strode versus somebody really tried to
make it this way on purpose, you know, And so
we do end up with things at the end which
are poorly designed, that are dangerous, that do not make
the world a better place. They are probably created from
(27:04):
a constraint from this type of constituency applying it in
this way and then another one to this way, and
it creates this sort of Frankenstein, which is a poorly
designed thing. And that is a you know, a version
of cultural and you know product evolution that is a
result of you know, people putting all their two cents
in to create something that is not very functional for
(27:25):
most people. But I do believe that when you do
think of safety and care of minds, that we do
a good job of creating those things in the end,
and actually anticipating things that you may not anticipate and
hopefully never have to anticipate when you encounter them in
the real world. You know, like that that they are
these safety things in place that hopefully just make the
(27:49):
world a better place, make you safer, but hopefully you
never have to consider whether or not a sign post
is a breakaway post, or whether or not trees alone
the side of the road, you know, like, you know,
they're there to make you feel crowded so that therefore
you do not go very fast. You know, they're meant
(28:09):
to add some agitation to you. Roundabouts, like you mentioned,
are perfect example. I mean, one of the reasons why
roundabouts are so safe is because they feel so awful.
You know, when you enter into one, you have to
be really aware and being aware and making the built
environment break you out of your you know, like maybe
(28:30):
your sort of road zemblification, you know, is a good
thing for your safety, but it might not feel like
a good thing when you go through it. But somebody
thought about that for you. And so for the most part,
I would say we endeavor to make things safer, but
there are definitely some gaps and mostly it's when a
bunch of people are not coming on the same page
(28:52):
of what the design brief really is.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Yeah, And of course in the in the book you
talk about some designs such as those intended to keep
unhomed people from laying on park benches that sort of.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Yeah, yeah, there's lots of hostile design. And again it's
serving somebody's purpose, like somebody's putting it there on purpose,
because they're trying to commit a kind of social change
and social pressure and influence through the built world. Now,
the thing is, as privileged people, they're kind of doing
(29:26):
that for you. You know, they're doing it for your benefit,
you know, to the detriment of people who have less.
And the important part about that influence is recognizing do
you really want that? You know, like somebody's making this
decision for you, And if if you don't know about it,
then obviously you can't sort of like you have any commentary.
So our first job is to make people aware of
(29:48):
what these spikes and these different sort of like hostile architecture,
you know, like interventions are, and then the second step
is to go like, well, is that the result you want?
And do you want to like interact with your setty
to change it. You know, it's the second part of
(30:09):
that discussion.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
You're a Strode example reminded me of of parklets, which
are also discussed in the book. Yeah, by the time
the book came out, and certainly by the time of
my reading it, like everyone, I think, especially in urban areas,
that heard of parklets to do to their role in
the pandemic. But this, yeah, this is also an area
that's between different ideas of what the street or the
road is used for.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Yeah, a parklet is a really interesting thing. There's a
sort of movement here called Parking Day I'm in the
Bay Area, which sort of pioneered this idea of like, well,
instead of you know, putting a coin in a meter
to you know, rent a space for a car, why
don't we put coins in the meter and like lay
down some sod and put on put some chairs down.
(30:55):
And this is something I've covered for I mean for
like twenty something here years at this point. And then
it really came to pass when all of a sudden,
we're in COVID. We wanted to be together, but we
needed space away from each other and space outside. And
you know, when it comes to roads, you know, for millennia,
they've been these loads of multimodal use cases like they
(31:18):
you know, the people walked on them, people rode bikes
on them, people rode horses on them, vendors set up
in the middle of them, and then over time we
just decided that, oh, they're for cars. You know, you know,
no one else belongs on them, and you can cross
here and here, and if you cross anywhere in between,
you're breaking the law. And and that was where our
values lied when it came to the design of cities.
(31:41):
You know, it's not where I would place my personal values,
but but that's you know, we collectively kind of thought
that that was a good case. And then COVID comes along,
and all of a sudden, the value of that space
changed and we wanted it back, like as pedestrians and
people and people drinking coffee, and so, you know, we
(32:03):
decided to bump out these spaces that were used for
cars so that we could be outside and enjoy things.
And it was kind of fascinating because you know, the
book came out right at the kind of beginning of
COVID in twenty twenty, and it was an interesting time
to think about the design of cities. When this, you know,
outside influence made us rethink, you know, how our cities
(32:28):
should be designed very rapidly, you know, and and thoroughly,
you know, like because one of the things that happens
when you're thinking about design or thinking about your city
is there's a there's kind of a solipsistic kind of
way we enter the world is the way things are
and should be, and we don't really think about the
continuum we are on when it comes to how cities
(32:51):
are designed and should be designed. And so when you
have a rapid kind of jolt to the system and
there's a reassise of space and the value of space
in different ways, it's a good time to think about, Hey,
you know what, maybe we do think about roads as
belonging to cars, but like if you look at this
book or look through history, you realize that roads weren't
(33:14):
about cars. They were it's a pretty recent phenomenon that
we thought that that's what they should be, and maybe
it's worth reassessing these things. And I think if there's
any sort of thesis to the book or to the show,
it's that the built world and the things we design
are a window into our values as humans, and they
(33:37):
always shift and change based on those values, and when
you have this moment of crisis when it comes to
the pandemic, it really did change our value of what
a city was for and who it was for, and
what was worth giving up and what wasn't worth giving up.
And you know, as horrible as the situation was, it
(34:01):
was fascinating to sort of figure out those reassessments and realignments.
And it's still like, I think some of the stuff
that we figured out during that period of time, we'll
still linger with us for a long time, and maybe
they'll be completely subsumed in different types of you know,
(34:21):
normal life quote unquote normal life will return different ways.
But I do think that there's like a sense that, yeah,
these spaces like we kind of want them back, and
we're never going to relent. We're going to give them
back again. And it's a it's a it was fascinating
to watch happened as we were talking about the book
so much, and also to see the results of it today.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
All right, Well, the podcast is of course ninety nine
percent invisible. The book is the ninety nine percent Invisible City.
Roman Mars, thanks for taking time out of your day
to chat with me.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Oh, it was my pleasure. Thank you so much. I
really enjoyed the show too, so it's real honor to
be on.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Thank you all right, Thanks again to Roman Mars for
taking time out of his busy day to chat with me.
Here again, the podcast is ninety nine percent Invisible, and
you can find ninety nine percent Invisible anywhere you get
your podcasts, obviously, and the book is The ninety nine
percent Invisible City, which is available in all formats. Like
(35:18):
I said in the interview, I've got the hard version here,
the physical copy, and it's just it's really nice, really
nice design in this so I highly recommend it. As always,
I want to remind you that Stuff to Blow Your
Mind is a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays
and Thursdays. On Mondays we do listener mail, on Wednesdays
we do a short form artifact or monster fact episode,
and on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. That's our
(35:39):
time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk
about a weird film. Thanks as always to JJ Possway
for producing the show, and if you want to get
in touch with us, you can email us at contact
at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
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