Blueprint for Living - ABC RN

For the dandy, looking swell is a way of life! He prides himself on wit and dress, but their influence reaches beyond fashion and intellect, as Dominic Janes discovers in his latest book British Dandies: Engendering Scandal and Fashioning a Nation. It tells a scandalous story of fashionable men and the role they played in the cultural and political life of Britain. Regular listeners might remember a conversation Jonathan had with Blueprint friend Annie Smithers on the controversial subject of his preference for cold toast. For him, it all goes back to the motels of the mid-sixties and little wax paper envelopes of white toast delivered through the breakfast hatch. If you're an Australian of a certain age or perhaps even a mid-century obsessed hipster, you'll love the country's motels. Author, broadcaster, and architecture nerd Tim Ross sure does. He's been working on a new exhibition at Canberra's National Archives Reception this way: Motels – a sentimental journey. In this instalment of Kitchen Rudimental, Annie Smithers gives Jonathan a puff pastry masterclass. Layers of dough and butter – butter and dough - form a gorgeous silky texture – if you can get it just right! It's a beautiful process that's perfect for a Saturday afternoon.  Then, The Great Bed of Ware was intended to wow. And who among us doesn't feel excited by the prospect of sleeping in any four-poster bed, even one that is half the width? Blueprint's resident design expert Colin Bisset explores their influence as symbols of romance and intimacy, majesty, and class.

Hotel designer Bill Bensley lives by the motto, if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. The California-born designer has studios in Bangkok and Bali, and his latest book More Escapism: Hotels, Resorts and Gardens features some of the region's most extravagant resorts. His inspiration comes from treasures around the globe, including a 1930s Vietnamese bamboo hat that provided the design spark for the Hotel de la Coupole in Vietnam. In this week's Garden Rudimental, award-winning landscape designer Paul Bangay takes Jonathan for a stroll through Stonefields, one of Victoria's most beautiful country gardens where exotics and native plants merge to create a definitive style of Australian garden. Cookbooks aren't just a bunch of recipes. They often contain insights into the political and cultural contexts of their time. Never was there a better example of this than Australia's oldest continuous community cookbook, The Barossa Cookery Book. Initially released in 1917 as a war fundraiser it's now in its 33rd edition. Sheralee Menz and Marieka Ashmore, also known as Those Barossa Girls, have begun a companion venture with The Barossa Cookery Book Project. Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier are considered titans of the modern movement but in this week's Iconic Designs, Colin Bisset examines the contribution that women made to their most famous designs. It's only been recently acknowledged that Lilly Reich was behind much of Mies's furniture, and Charlotte Perriand behind all of Le Corbusier's.  

Once regarded as a fringe movement, more designers and architects are looking to nature-based systems to build our lives while reducing carbon emissions. Claire Beale, Executive Manager at LCI Melbourne and a former Design Institute of Australia President, takes us through the Three Bs of organic design; biomorphic, biomimetic and biophilic. The National Archives of Australia records and stores key events and decisions that have shaped Australian history and after one heck of a move has opened the doors of its new facility. With enough shelving to stretch from Canberra to Cooma the purpose-built facility is environmentally controlled, environmentally friendly and energy-efficient. Jonathan Green takes a stroll through its corridors with Sean Debenham, Assistant Director Storage and Lending to check out what's in there. You sick of potatoes yet? We're not.  Annie Smithers continues Kitchen Rudimental this week by tempting us to have a crack at making potato cakes (that's a potato scallop for any Queenslanders and New South Welshfolk). And Colin Bisset takes a strike at the little magic fire stick with a red tip for this week's Iconic Design. If civilization started when we learned how to create fire then what a link to our beginnings the arrival of the humble match was.

Via their Instagram page Design.Emergency Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli have brought designers together to tackle some of the worlds intractable problems. Journalist Amy Odell discusses her biography of the fashion industry's most powerful influencer Anna Wintour. New Zealanders have kicked off a citizen historian fad thanks to a new book from Dr Christine Whybrew of Heritage NZ called How to Research Your House. It helps you discover the genealogy of your home and uncover secrets of its past. Toilet, loo, powder room, the toot; no matter what you call it you use it everyday. In this week's Iconic Designs Colin Bisset casts his eye over the design evolution of the public toilet.

All the world's great cities have some things in common and fantastic food is one of them. But what happens if a city doesn't have a chief restaurant critic? Besha Rodell, the recently appointed Chief Restaurant Critic for The Age and Good Weekend discusses the role of a great food writer and why she prefers to remain anonymous. Then it's time to visit Sydney's newest herbarium at the Australian Botanic Garden in Mount Annan. Denise Ora, Chief Executive of the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, and Brett Summerell, Director Research and Chief Botanist, join Tim Entwisle for an amble through the new facility and discuss why they're critical to conserving plants and fighting climate change. Annie and Jonathan just can't get enough of the humble spud. In the latest edition of Kitchen Rudimental, Annie Smithers teaches Jonathan how to master a Potato Terrine with Gruyère. And finally, Colin Bisset explores the Tower House in London's Holland Park. It's the work of William Burges, an architect whose small but significant output represents a high point in the Gothic Revival. This is everything that minimalism is not.

We see Indigenous art and motifs used extensively in Australia's marketing campaigns. But do Indigenous communities and businesses benefit from this branding? Professor Anne Poelina — a Nyikina Warrwa woman from the Mardoowarra River in Western Australia's Kimberley region — is making sure they do. Then we turn to the grand old piles that dot the British Isles. Today, these buildings are more likely to host film and tv crews or tour groups. This is a marked turnaround given many were left in ruins, sold off, or simply demolished as aristocratic families fought over the scraps of empire by the end of the Second World War. Adrian Tinniswood has compiled this history in a new book, Noble Ambitions: The Fall and Rise of the Post-War Country House. Afterward, meet the team behind Growing Farmers — a new community organisation pairing trainee urban farmers with residents who want their empty yards to become flourishing, small-scale market gardens. Jonathan took a trip to meet farm host Sapphire McMulla-Fisher in Melbourne's outer-north, along with Growing Farmers' president Alice Crowe.   Finally, for Colin Bisset's latest edition of Iconic Designs we look at the mighty little box that revolutionised how we store food: the Tetra Pak.

Film and television shows have conjured up images of ancient cities many times, thanks largely to historical texts and archaeological finds. Now archaeologists are trying to recreate the odours of old civilisations. Barbara Huber from Germany's Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History is on a mission to advance the science of olfactory archaeology to understand how ancient people experienced and interpreted their worlds through smell. It's time to dig, mulch and prune with Australia's award-winning landscape designer Paul Bangay. In this edition, Paul throws formality to the wind as he takes Jonathan through The Woodland, where geometry and grids give way to the freedom of wilding. For those of us with smaller green spaces Paul and Jonathan muse on whether you can rewild an urban courtyard. Jams, pickles, and chutneys, oh my! Preserving is an art and Kylee Newton is a master at it. She's also the author of Modern Preserves and calls herself a saint of produce, giving fruit and vegetables another life through her time capsules in jars. She shares ideas on how to use up that glut of keeps, that won't involve toast or crumpets. As Australians make their way to the polls this Saturday, in-house design guru Colin Bisset leans into the election, democracy sausage in hand, as he takes us through the design history of the voting booth. Surprisingly, the idea of voting in private is an Australian one, first used in Victoria in 1856, and later adopted by the British and Americans. But how has it evolved since?

Rima Truchanas learned to swim in Tasmania's Lake Pedder and watched on with her family when 50 years ago it drowned to make way for the Hydro-Electric Scheme . Her early life was shaped by her parent's involvement in the campaign to save it. Now, there are plans to restore the Lake to its former glory.  Frances Green has produced a documentary for RN's History Listen about the campaign which spearheaded the Greens political movement in Australia. For Victoria's Kulin nation Autumn is wombat season. For Jonathan, the Fall is the perfect time take a stroll through Melbourne's Botanic Gardens with Tim Entwisle.  Together they ponder the philosophy of flowers, and Jonathan discovers a new pocket of the garden: the compost yard.  Whether it's mashed, fried, baked, or boiled the humble potato is an endless source of tasty treats. Chef Annie Smithers takes Jonathan into the kitchen for a meditation on spuds in this edition of Kitchen Rudimental. Is the potato the perfect vegetable? Colin Bisset's Iconic Design this week takes us to the ancient Confucius Mansion in Qufu, a village in China's Shandong province. Confucius (aka Master Kong), died over two and a half thousand years ago but the venerable sage's impact on Chinese life was immense and long-lasting and it's still possible to visit the home of his descendants.

Jonathan makes the trip to Mallacoota in far-eastern Victoria, land of the Gunai Kurnai people, to visit writer, historian, and Dark Emu author Bruce Pascoe. During a wander around the farm, they discuss native crops and grasses, food sustainability and farming and ducks. Then you'll meet humanitarian architect Esther Charlesworth. The co-founder of Architects Without Frontiers joins Jonathan to understand what role design can play in response to disaster. From the floods in NSW and Queensland to the war and destruction in Ukraine, there's a lot for the built environment profession to do now… and well into the future. And finally, resident design expert Colin Bisset gives you the lowdown on the origins of the white picket fence. The plain wooden fence has been around for a very long time, but he asks: who decided to make something prettier?

Is there a certain dish, a certain food that triggers your sense memory and takes you right back to a time in your childhood? For British-Japanese writer Katherine Tamiko Arguile, both these things connect her to her heritage, her sense of family and the world around her. The arts journalist and author has released a new book — part memoir, part recipe collection — called MESHI: A personal history of Japanese food. And for the next edition of Garden Rudimental, award-winning Australian landscape designer Paul Bangay reveals his adoration for Vita Sackville-West. While she's best known for her writing, her Bloomsbury Group membership, and her enduring partnership with Virginia Woolf, Sackville-West was also a passionate green thumb. Afterward, it's time to hear from freelance journalist Evan Rail. He recently detailed the breadth of destruction of Ukraine's built environment and cultural heritage — and the efforts to protect it — in an article for the New York Times. Then let Blueprint's resident design expert Colin Bisset drive you away… specifically in a regal three-wheeler.

The fact of the matter is we live in co-existence with our environment: our cities, our neighbourhood, animals, trees and plants… as well as our ex-lovers, however many billion corpses and the world's garbage and excrement. In the age of the Anthropocene, ecological collapse — and a pandemic — what does it mean to be 'all in this together', especially when there's no getting out of it? Timothy Morton, a Texan-based philosopher and Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English at Rice University, joins Blueprint For Living to help us with these questions and introduce us to the idea of the 'hyper-object'. With ecology in mind, we'll turn to ecologist Francisco Sanchez-Bayo, whose work traces the impact of pesticides on our environment and the world's insect populations. Then it's time to think about type. Letters have no gender, but that hasn't stopped our species ascribing them masculine and feminine qualities. It's a phenomenon type designer and scholar Marie Boulanger examines in her debut book, XX XY: Sex, letters and stereotypes. Afterward, Colin Bisset introduces us to the curious story behind the inventor of the dishwasher, Josephine Cochrane.

UX, or user experience, design has given us an era of near-frictionless design, where incredibly complex pieces of technology — like the smartphone — rarely require an instruction manual. Cliff Kuang is someone who's spent a lot of time thinking about the history and ethics of this field. He's the author of User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design are Changing the Way We Live, Work & Play, and he tells Blueprint about why we should all be a lot more critical about what makes design 'friendly'. Then it's time to meet Eyal Weizman, founder of research agency Forensic Architecture. He helms a research collective using architectural analysis, open-source investigations, digital modelling — alongside traditional investigative methods — to investigate and expose state violence, human rights violations, and urban conflicts. Afterward, delve into an investigation of a different kind. Journalist and illustrator Emma Do and Kim Lam spent several months documenting the lives of Australia's Vietnamese garment outworkers. If you wore the likes of Country Road or Bonds in the '90s, chances are these women made your clothing in the garages and spare rooms of Australia. From Vietnam, we're heading to Brazil, via the work of the renowned Italian-Brazilian architect, Lina Bo Bardi. Colin Bisset has the inside story of the woman who cut through the boy's club of mid-century modernism.

It's time to turn a new leaf, because Tim Entwisle, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens of Victoria, is taking you on a tour of the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show after it returned from a two-year pandemic pause. This includes a stroll through a garden co-designed by tennis champion and current Australian of the Year, Dylan Alcott. Then Blueprint's resident chef Annie Smithers takes Jonathan through the battle of the hot cross buns: Hot or cold? Crunchy or mushy? Chocolate or fruity? Time to rid yourself of this cross to bear. Afterward, Shannon Mattern — a social anthropologist from New York's New School for Social Research — tells us why the metaphor of the city-as-computer doesn't quite fit, and instead, we should embrace a messy city. Plus, Colin Bisset delves into the austere design language of Cesar Pelli, an architect whose skyscrapers have been likened to "the sober aesthetic of a German luxury car or a well cut suit".

Plus Colin Bisset gives the lowdown on manhole covers in Japan.

Plus, Colin Bisset on the duo who created a better alternative for those serving ice-cream.

Plus, Colin Bisset introduces the woman responsible for the Georgian period's stone of choice… and it was completely artificial.

What does the term 'plant-based' do that ‘vegetarian' and ‘vegan' cannot?

As late summer plays out, you might be contending with an abundance of tomatoes. Chef Annie Smithers has answers for you.

Stringy bark, coral gum, Silver top ash, lemon-scented gum… with over 900 specifies, it's hard to pick a favourite.

If you're a regular listener, you'll have heard conversations with Indigenous experts on the intersection of Country and archaeology, heritage, artefacts and architecture. Now it's time to understand how it's parcelled up, packaged and sold.

Plus a salon concert featuring a replica of Marie Antoinette's harpsichord.

Plus, resident design expert Colin Bisset walks us through the cool, concrete convent of La Tourette, and chef Annie Smithers answers the ultimate question: what makes a salad, a salad?

Plus, Colin Bisset delves into the design history of the top hat… an item that adorned both King George IV and Madonna.

RN Summer brings you the best of Blueprint and Lost and Found.

RN Summer brings you the best of Blueprint and Lost and Found.

RN Summer brings you the best of Blueprint and Lost and Found.

RN Summer brings you the best of Blueprint and Lost and Found.

RN Summer brings you the best of Blueprint and Lost and Found.

Plus, Colin Bisset explains why the sleigh has been inseparable from Christmas iconography for centuries… and take a Lost and Found trip through Melbourne in full festive regalia.

Plus, Colin Bisset on the post-modern American department stores that could, and a Lost and Found trip to Kefalonia, a Greek paradise.

Plus Colin Bisset on the Butler Sink and a Lost and Found journey to Lisbon.

Plus, Colin Bisset on the links between the court of Versailles and one of the most popular chair designs of the 21st-century… and a trip to the city that's taken a bit of Versailles with it… Las Vegas.

Melbourne's Deputy Lord Mayor has introduced two new design review panels. Does this form of advisory city-making actually work? Two experts join Blueprint to discuss the history and merits of this process. Plus, Annie Smithers whips up a meringue, and Colin Bisset takes you on a tour of the Korakuen Garden. And for Lost and Found, eminent Irish-Australian psychiatrist Patrick McGorry takes you to his childhood in Wales.

Plus Colin Bisset on the monocle.

Plus, let us send you on your way to the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius with a takeaway pack of Annie Smithers' frittatas.

Plus, discover the strange but fascinating world of industrialised food production, and the origins of the rubber band.

What has gender got to do with type? Well, nothing actually. But that doesn't stop us from ascribing gender to it. Hear from type designer Marie Boulanger, whose new book tries to understand why we keep doing it. Plus, architectural scholar Soon-Tzu Speechley on Malaysia and Singapore's 'creole' classical architecture; Annie Smithers on fruit mince and pudding; and a look at how one person's empathy revolutionised agricultural design… then we're off to Bath.

Plus, pay a visit to the Albi Cathedral with Colin Bisset before riding the Hallyu wave to Seoul on this week's Lost and Found.

Plus, hear Colin Bisset on iconic garden designer Lawrence Johnston.

Join chef and former librarian Stephanie Alexander in a wide-ranging discussion about the joys of home cooking. Plus, urban scholar Kim Dovey tells us what the study of informal urbanism can say about the crowd in a time of crisis; a dispatch from South Australia's Nature Festival; and Colin Bisset gets chintzy. Then, a trip to one of America's beguiling states, Florida.

What design interventions do we need to improve our indoor air quality? Plus, Annie Smithers on kitchen gadgets and tools, Sean Dooley gives us the word about the birds, and Colin Bisset traces the origins of white goods. Then escape to the world's most enchanting bookshops.

How can speculative design help us see our cities beyond the colonial gaze? Plus, hear about the fate of New York's much-loved street vendors, head a trip around the world via bookshops, and discover the UK's profanity-laden geography.