Skip to main content

Program: Blueprint For Living

Source:ABC Radio National

All Episodes Contact Us

Brought to you by

ABC Radio National

ABC Radio National

Presented by

Your weekly expedition to the heart of modern life through buildings, design, gardens and food.

Airs Saturday 1pm Repeated: Sunday 4am, Tuesday midnight and 11pm and Friday at 10am.

Get the ABC listen app
Take your favourite podcasts and radio with you

Latest

full episode

Aesthetic uniformity, hipster cafes and Neutraface, the ubiquitous signifier of gentrification

Exposed brick, smashed avocado, hanging Edison bulbs, the patina of industry and reclaimed wood furniture – this is the algorithmic aesthetic writer and critic, Kyle Chayka investigates in his new book, Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture.

Published: FriFri 16 Feb 2024 at 8:00pmwith Jonathan Green

GettyImages-668768815

Duration: 54 minutes 4 seconds

segment 1 of 3

Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture

Exposed brick, smashed avocado, hanging Edison bulbs, the patina of industry and reclaimed wood furniture – this is the algorithmic aesthetic writer and critic, Kyle Chayka investigates in his new book, Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture.

Published: FriFri 16 Feb 2024 at 8:00pmwith Jonathan Green

GettyImages-668768815

Duration: 17 minutes 35 seconds

segment 2 of 3

Neutraface: the gentrification font?

Angela Riechers, writer, art director, educator, and author of The elements of visual grammar: A designer's guide for writers, scholars and professionals, discusses the history of Neutraface and explains how and why this typeface became so…

Published: FriFri 16 Feb 2024 at 8:00pmwith Jonathan Green

Neutraface

Duration: 17 minutes 51 seconds

segment 3 of 3

Grand designs: transforming the idea of home

For a long time, the so called Australian dream of home ownership, produced a uniformity in the kinds of homes that were built and reinforced limits on architectural possibility; Professor of architecture and host of Grand Designs: Transformations…

Published: FriFri 16 Feb 2024 at 8:00pmwith Jonathan Green

Avalon Pavilion House Pool

Duration: 16 minutes 41 seconds

More from Blueprint For Living

Kevin McCloud on good design, Yanis Varoufakis' sense of place and Annie Smithers' homage to Elizabeth David

Kevin McCloud on the definition of good design, why Grand Designs is such a compelling proposition; Yanis Varoufakis reflects on growing up in the shadow of the Parthenon, on his idyllic childhood and its contrast to the brutal political reality…

Grand Designs host Kevin McCloud on the beach.

Duration: 54 minutes 7 seconds

Published: 9 Feb 2024Fri 9 Feb 2024 at 8:00pmwith Jonathan Green

Kevin McCloud’s home truths

Kevin McCloud discusses the definition of good design, why Grand Designs is such a compelling proposition, and the sartorial exigencies of filming at a building site (featuring, ballerina leggings, long johns and two – sometimes three - pairs of…

Grand Designs host Kevin McCloud on the beach.

Duration: 19 minutes 55 seconds

Published: 9 Feb 2024Fri 9 Feb 2024 at 8:00pmwith Jonathan Green

Sense of Place: Yanis Varoufakis, a borderless earth

Former finance minister of Greece and bestselling author Yanis Varoufakis reflects on growing up in the shadow of the Parthenon, on his idyllic childhood and its contrast to the brutal political reality against which it was set, and the paradoxes of…

Parthenon, Acropolis of Athens, Greece at summer sunrise

Duration: 20 minutes 3 seconds

Published: 9 Feb 2024Fri 9 Feb 2024 at 8:00pmwith Jonathan Green

Annie Smithers' Kitchen Rudimental — Annie Smithers cooks Elizabeth David

In this series, Annie cooks her way through David’s seminal volume, French Provincial Cooking, starting with a simple mayonnaise. Find more of Annie's past Kitchen Rudimentals here.

Cook, Elizabeth David

Duration: 12 minutes 26 seconds

Published: 9 Feb 2024Fri 9 Feb 2024 at 8:00pmwith Jonathan Green

Features

More Australians are living alone — so why are recipes always 'serves four'?

Cooking might seem like a chore — but some argue creating space to make a time-intensive meal from scratch is an act of self-care and can even help you heal through hard times.

A middle-aged white woman with long curly red hair and wearing a denim jacket

Published: 15 Feb 2024Thu 15 Feb 2024 at 9:58pmby Nicola Heath

Why restaurant critic Jill Dupleix views burrata 'with suspicion' when she sees it on the menu

A top food critic says menus are failing to challenge diners. What's driving this creativity crisis — COVID, cost of living or something more worrying?

A chef's hands holding a pair of tweezers above a plate of food in a fine-dining restaurant

Published: 20 Dec 2023Wed 20 Dec 2023 at 4:45amby Nicola Heath

'Plant-based' is an increasingly popular label — but what does it really mean?

While some who don’t identify with the politics of veganism have embraced the term "plant-based", others say it has become a near-meaningless buzzword.

Two bowls of soup with noodles, mushrooms, tofu and carrots and sprinkled with coriander

Published: 12 Oct 2023Thu 12 Oct 2023 at 5:13amby Nicola Heath

'A marketing ploy': The murky origins of pizza and other national foods

Scratch beneath the surface of some of the origin stories of the world's most popular national dishes, and you'll find a big serve of controversy.

Margherita pizza on a marble bench top with yellow melted cheese, fresh green basil leaves and red tomato sauce.

Published: 12 Sep 2023Tue 12 Sep 2023 at 6:24am

Paul Bangay’s Garden Rudimental

Paul Bangay's Garden Rudimental — In search of a cold Christmas

Despite his penchant for a white Christmas, Paul Bangay reflects on the consolations of Christmas in the Australian garden, reinforced by an insistent marsupial. Find more of Paul's Garden Rudimentals on the ABC RN website.

Snow at Stonefields

Duration: 13 minutes 58 seconds

Published: 15 Dec 2023Fri 15 Dec 2023 at 2:02amwith Jonathan Green

Paul Bangay's Garden Rudimental — A life in garden design

Paul Bangay, garden designer, author of a new memoir, Paul Bangay – A Life In Garden Design, has almost four decades of experience and is renowned for his mastery of scale, balance, form and colour.

A drone shot of a formal garden belonging to a vineyard in the Barossa Valley reveals organic curves and fluid lines.

Duration: 10 minutes 11 seconds

Published: 23 Nov 2023Thu 23 Nov 2023 at 11:36pmwith Jonathan Green

Paul Bangay's Garden Rudimental — The garden in spring

Paul Bangay takes us on a tour of the garden in spring, featuring tulips, crab apples, apple blossoms, bay and the perennially neglected wallflowers. Find more of Paul's Garden Rudimentals on the ABC RN website.

Close up of pink magnolia flowers on tree

Duration: 13 minutes 18 seconds

Published: 27 Oct 2023Fri 27 Oct 2023 at 12:09amwith Jonathan Green

Paul Bangay's Garden Rudimental: A Buxus party

It's springtime at award-winning landscape designer Paul Bangay’s house… and that can only mean one thing — it’s a Buxus pruning party! Jonathan visits Paul just in time to nip, tuck, and trim the tens of thousands of box hedges dotted across his…

A formal, multi-tiered garden is shown against a pink and purple sky at sunset.

Duration: 13 minutes 43 seconds

Published: 17 Oct 2023Tue 17 Oct 2023 at 4:14amwith Jonathan Green

Annie Smithers’ Kitchen Rudimental

Annie Smithers' Kitchen Rudimental — Annie Smithers cooks Elizabeth David

In this series, Annie cooks her way through David’s seminal volume, French Provincial Cooking, starting with a simple mayonnaise. Find more of Annie's past Kitchen Rudimentals here.

Cook, Elizabeth David

Duration: 12 minutes 26 seconds

Published: 9 Feb 2024Fri 9 Feb 2024 at 12:55amwith Jonathan Green

Annie Smithers' Kitchen Rudimental — knives

Blueprint's resident chef Annie Smithers returns with another edition of Kitchen Rudimental, this time revealing her obsession with knives All that time spent cooking has meant that Annie is well attuned to the melodies of the kitchen, including…

In a darkly-lit scene, you view a woman finely slicing a broccoli on a wooden board with a sharp knife.

Duration: 12 minutes 13 seconds

Published: 20 Oct 2023Fri 20 Oct 2023 at 12:59amwith Jonathan Green

Annie Smithers' Kitchen Rudimental — strawberry sorbet

Feast on a strawberry sorbet you can pair with a raspberry beret.

A pile of strawberies is seen brightly-lit in a close-up crop.

Duration: 14 minutes 14 seconds

Published: 19 Oct 2023Thu 19 Oct 2023 at 7:11amwith Jonathan Green

Annie Smithers' Kitchen Rudimental — In search of a seasonally-appropriate Christmas menu

Chef Annie Smithers questions the wisdom of turkey, gravy, potatoes, Brussels sprouts on a 40 degree day and opts instead, for grilled prawns, nuoc cham, white nectarines, a summer fruit pavlova and a gooseberry fool.

A woman holds a prawn in front of Christmas decorations.

Duration: 12 minutes 45 seconds

Published: 15 Dec 2023Fri 15 Dec 2023 at 2:02amwith Jonathan Green

Living With Country

Living With Country: urban planning with Timmah Ball

Living With Country brings together a range of Indigenous Australians to reflect on land management and our built environment.

Duration: 20 minutes 56 seconds

Published: 12 Oct 2022Wed 12 Oct 2022 at 6:29amwith Jonathan Green

Living with Country — fire with Den Barber

Den Barber, a Wiradjuri man, ex-fire-fighter and park ranger, says it's time we reframed our fears about fire.

A wildfire burns near Warburton, WA.

Duration: 18 minutes 42 seconds

Published: 13 Oct 2022Thu 13 Oct 2022 at 12:23amwith Jonathan Green

Living with Country – archaeology with Maddison Miller

The notion of 'heritage' in Australia is most often associated with buildings erected in the years following colonisation. But how should we think about heritage when it comes to Country, and sites whose histories go back thousands of years?

Burnt bushland with a tall slender white plant in the foreground.

Duration: 14 minutes 24 seconds

Published: 13 Oct 2022Thu 13 Oct 2022 at 12:25amwith Jonathan Green

Living with Country — placenames with Rachael McPhail

During one night online shopping in the thick of the pandemic, Rachael McPhail had a spur of the moment idea to write in the name of her Country in the address field — and it stuck.

An example of an Australia Post letter address with the traditional place name on the second line.

Duration: 14 minutes 9 seconds

Published: 21 Oct 2022Fri 21 Oct 2022 at 1:29amwith Jonathan Green

Colin Bisset's Iconic Designs

Colin Bisset's Iconic Designs — the history of the comfortable chair

Design critic and writer, Colin Bisset tells the story of civilisational decline through the design history of the comfy chair.

A "Barcelona" armchair (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe)

Duration: 13 minutes 42 seconds

Published: 2 Feb 2024Fri 2 Feb 2024 at 3:35amwith Colin Bisset

Colin Bisset's Iconic Designs: Corduroy

With its ridges of soft, tufted cotton woven onto a cheaper base cloth, it combined softness and warmth with strength, making it comfortable to wear and popular with farmers and factory workers alike.

Duration: 4 minutes 26 seconds

Published: 20 Oct 2023Fri 20 Oct 2023 at 12:59amwith Colin Bisset

Colin Bisset's Iconic Designs: the cruise ship

While some of today's cruise ships are as bulky and graceless as factories, many of the smaller vessels follow a similar blueprint to the ship that started it all, the SS Prinzessin Victoria Luise.

A black and white photo shows the SS Prinzessin Victoria Luise with its pointy wooden bow, and flags draped from its masts.

Duration: 4 minutes 14 seconds

Published: 19 Oct 2023Thu 19 Oct 2023 at 7:26amwith Colin Bisset

Colin Bisset's Iconic Designs — Norma Merrick Sklarek

Architecture is a man's profession. That's what a young African American girl in Harlem, New York, grew up thinking.

Duration: 5 minutes 23 seconds

Published: 19 Oct 2023Thu 19 Oct 2023 at 7:12amwith Colin Bisset

Sense Of Place

Sense of Place: Yanis Varoufakis, a borderless earth

Former finance minister of Greece and bestselling author Yanis Varoufakis reflects on growing up in the shadow of the Parthenon, on his idyllic childhood and its contrast to the brutal political reality against which it was set, and the paradoxes of…

Parthenon, Acropolis of Athens, Greece at summer sunrise

Duration: 20 minutes 3 seconds

Published: 9 Feb 2024Fri 9 Feb 2024 at 12:54amwith Jonathan Green

Sense of Place: Lucy Treloar, Terowie, South Australia

Author Lucy Treloar is a master of writing place.

Terowie, SA

Duration: 16 minutes 30 seconds

Published: 25 Jan 2024Thu 25 Jan 2024 at 6:45amwith Jonathan Green

Sense of Place: Kirsty Manning, Cote D'Azur

Author Kirsty Manning transports us to the Cote D'Azur in the 1940s via the music of Noel Coward.

Duration: 14 minutes 27 seconds

Published: 21 Oct 2022Fri 21 Oct 2022 at 1:28amwith Jonathan Green

Sense of Place: Heather McGinness, Australia's inland floodplains and wetlands

The senior research scientist at the CSIRO tells us about the migration patterns of waterbirds via the music of John Farnham.

Duration: 16 minutes 38 seconds

Published: 16 Dec 2021Thu 16 Dec 2021 at 3:30amwith Jonathan Green

QR code image for downloading the ABC listen app

Discover more podcasts

Download the ABC listen app to hear more of your favourite podcasts

Footer