76 Small Rooms

76 Small Rooms is an architecture podcast from Aotearoa New Zealand. It plays like informed people at a table turning a problem over, not handing down a verdict. Four regulars share the microphone: Jeremy Hansen, Natasha Markham, Mat Brown and Richard Archbold, who goes by Arch on air. Some episodes are the panel alone, while others give most of the time to a guest. The panel episodes show most clearly how the show thinks. 'Episode 067 - Messy Cities' asks whether a messy city is a better city and works out an answer through Auckland's own public spaces. Aotea Square is called leaky and not well held, a larger space that cannot behave like a tighter, more contained square, and Albert Park comes up as a place that hosts events only now and then. One host argues that a public square should be designed with the care of a living room: circulation, containment, and where the artefacts go. The episode ends by asking listeners outside Auckland to send better examples from their own cities. Year-end episodes loosen the structure. 'Episode 043 - 2022 In Review' went ahead without a guest because listeners had asked the hosts to just talk among themselves. It covers women in architecture, diversity in the profession, and a modernist-rooted house on Otama Beach in the Coromandel. 'Episode 066 - End of Year Wrap', called a potluck of hot takes on air, reads the mood of the industry: more projects won, a falling OCR, Plan Change 120, the CRL opening, and hope for graduates after a hard couple of years. The guest episodes run differently. Rachel de Lambert, introduced as one of the country's most respected voices in landscape architecture and urban design, explains that she only joins complex projects that sit outside ordinary planning controls, where the aim is a better urban outcome than the plan would allow. The panel asks her how well architects understand landscape as a discipline. George Clarke, introduced as an architect, author, lecturer and TV presenter, recalls tracing newspaper cartoons as a child, knowing by twelve that he wanted to be an architect, and leaving school at sixteen for a job in a practice. He says he would radically change architectural education, and notes that students now work far more with engineers and other disciplines than his generation did. Craig Moller's episode starts with audio from the launch of his book of drawings, Building People, where a foreword admiring the faces he gives his buildings is read aloud. In both modes the tone stays warm and measured, with dry ribbing among the hosts and criticism that is direct but hedged. A newcomer could start with 'Episode 067 - Messy Cities' for the panel format, then try 'Episode 064 - George Clarke' for the interview side.