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Open City

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Architecture as public life.

The gist

Open City treats the built environment as something everyone has a stake in, not just architects and planners. Its mix of news roundups, building studies, live debates, and home stories links design decisions to everyday life in cities.

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About Open City

Open City is an architecture and built-environment podcast channel with a distinctly civic center of gravity. It treats buildings, streets, homes, and planning systems as shared conditions, not specialist scenery. The feed ranges widely. The Brief gives listeners a regular scan of architecture, planning, housing, and heritage news, with stories such as AI-assisted planning decisions, new towns, housebuilding pressures, pedestrianisation plans, and major redevelopment battles. It is brisk and current. The conversations still make room for judgment, especially when a policy headline opens onto questions of public trust, design quality, procurement, or community power. Deconstructed works differently. It slows the pace and studies individual places, using episodes on buildings such as Peckham Library to examine civic ambition, public commissions, architectural character, and the afterlife of landmark projects. The Home That Made Me shifts the scale again, asking how home functions as memory, identity, comfort, and constraint. In its episode with Nabil Al-Khanani, the discussion ties personal experience to the history of Chalk Hill in Wembley and the realities of large housing estates. The Accelerate Debates bring in a live educational format. Those episodes foreground access to architecture careers, consultation, design for young people, and strategies for changing systems from within. They are not staged as simple for-or-against arguments. They favor nuance, disagreement, and practical routes toward wider change. Across the channel, Open City sounds informed, public-spirited, and unusually attentive to who gets invited into architectural conversation. It can speak about RIBA competitions, procurement ethics, brutalist listings, and vernacular housing preferences, then turn toward youth centers, special needs schools, public realm, or the feeling of a place on a difficult February day. The result is a show for people who care about cities as lived environments. Its best moments make professional architecture feel accountable to residents, campaigners, young people, and the daily users of buildings.

Made for: For listeners interested in architecture, planning, housing, heritage, and the social life of cities. It suits both built-environment professionals and engaged citizens who want accessible context without losing technical substance.

What sets it apart: Open City combines industry news, civic education, close building analysis, and personal accounts of home under one public-interest banner. Its emphasis on access, community participation, and young people gives architectural discussion a broader social frame.

In their own words

Open City is a charity dedicated to making architecture and built heritage more open, accessible and equitable. Providing you with essential listening, inspiring voices and built environment insights – the Open City Podcast covers news and current events as well as in depth studies of landmark buildings, and cities around the UK and world. At the centre of our line-up is our flagship show The Brief – an award-winning review of the big stories in architecture, planning and housing news – hosted by Sahiba Chadha and Fran Williams on a fortnightly basis. Alongside this is Deconstructed – a monthly podcast hosted by Matthew Lloyd Roberts taking apart the architecture of individual buildings and…

As heard by us

Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026

Open City connects architecture's formal decisions to public space, policy, community power and the lived consequences of changing cities.

Open City treats architecture as a public argument, moving between news round-ups, live debates and close studies of individual buildings. The recurring concern is how design decisions reach everyday life: housing policy, pedestrianisation, heritage protection, procurement and…

Read our full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

London's buildings stop being scenery once you hear who gets to shape, save, or demolish them.

Press play if you want

  • the planning story behind headlines about new towns, pedestrianisation, and contested redevelopment
  • to judge architecture by everyday life, not a vigorous debate about cornices
Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
architecture newshousing and planningbuilt heritagecommunity participationpublic realm and civic buildingsarchitecture education accesshome and identityurban redevelopment

Talks about

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Podcasts like Open City

Episodes

  1. 1

    InterCities: Jerusalem with Yair Wallach

    ·34m
  2. 2

    Four more new towns announced and the future of the Museum of London

    ·30m
  3. 3

    The Home That Made Me: The place that raised me

    ·31m
  4. 4

    The UK government hires AI to help speed up planning decisions and the new architects of the BT Tower revamp

    ·30m
  5. 5

    Deconstructed: Peckham Library - Millenium Culture

    ·28m
  6. 6

    Retail giant John Lewis closes its housebuilding venture and what style of homes do Londoners want?

    ·30m
  7. 7

    In the Room at Accelerate Debates: Designing With, Designing For

    ·44m
  8. 8

    Generational pedestrianisation plans for London's West End and a controversial overhaul of Liverpool Street station

    ·27m
  9. 9

    Deconstructed: Robin Hood Gardens - Brutalism and Demolition

    ·30m
  10. 10

    Government guidance on best practice design and why you should still become an architect in 2026

    ·26m
  11. 11

    The Home That Made Me: When home becomes a prison

    ·30m
  12. 12

    Government launches ‘biggest home upgrade plan in UK history’

    ·28m
  13. 13

    Deconstructed: Tate Modern - Art and Power

    ·31m
  14. 14

    Labour’s New Towns, rural regeneration and the Da Vinci code of English architectural heritage

    ·30m
  15. 15

    In the Room at Accelerate Debates: Rethinking Recruitment

    ·55m
  16. 16

    Deconstructed: Matilda House - Co-operative Council Housing

    ·27m
  17. 17

    Rough sleeping surges to post pandemic-high

    ·29m
  18. 18

    In the Room at Accelerate Debates: Constructive Criticism

    ·51m
  19. 19

    AI nimbyism threatens to upend UK planning

    ·30m
  20. 20

    Deconstructed: The Old Justice - Multiculturalism and the Public House

    ·29m
  21. 21

    A new House of Commons report on child-centred design, financial strain for UK architectural firms and bold changes to the London Plan

    ·30m
  22. 22

    In the Room at Accelerate Debates: Designing a Safer City

    ·52m
  23. 23

    Appleby Blue wins the 2025 Stirling Prize and set back for UK cooling towers

    ·30m
  24. 24

    Deconstructed: Plumstead Common – Policing and Leisure in a Municipal Park

    ·32m
  25. 25

    New Towns, High Streets, Terry Farrell and 'The House of Architecture'

    ·30m
  26. 26

    The future of new towns, record-breaking revenue at Foster + Partners and a new tax on SUVs?

    ·30m
  27. 27

    A new housing secretary, the RIBA prize shortlist and the UK's first "super-university"

    ·31m
  28. 28

    Deconstructed: Carlton Cinema — Islington at the Pictures

    ·33m
  29. 29

    UK House Prices Fall, Open House Festival 2025 & Trump's 'Make America Beautiful Again' Campaign

    ·31m
  30. 30

    Dangerously hot homes, the Oxford Street redesign and the UK's first Museum of Brutalist Architecture

    ·30m
  31. 31

    Deconstructed: London County Hall – A Palace for Municipal Government

    ·30m
  32. 32

    Kew's Carbon Garden, Selkirk's Brutalist Gem & Relief for Bexhill's De La Warr Pavillion

    ·30m
  33. 33

    InterCities: Taipei with Brian Hioe

    ·29m
  34. 34

    The Open House Festival catalogue is live, pedestrianising the West End and can office skyscrapers save nightlife?

    ·30m
  35. 35

    Deconstructed: Al Manaar Mosque & Cultural Centre - Faith, Space, and Community

    ·29m
  36. 36

    Norman Foster to design Queen Elizabeth II memorial, the rise of AI in architecture and saving Britain's buildings

    ·30m
  37. 37

    Criterion Capital under the spotlight and how safe are London's Lime bikes?

    ·30m
  38. 38

    InterCities: Greenwich with Ana Francisco Sutherland

    ·45m
  39. 39

    Dozens of new towns planned across England and the contentious dismantling of Grenfell Tower

    ·29m
  40. 40

    Deconstructed: St Anne's Limehouse - East End Baroque

    ·29m
  41. 41

    Barbican revamp revealed, Denys Lasdun’s ‘glass castle’, Archigram and the save Prince Charles cinema campaign

    ·31m
  42. 42

    The Elizabeth Line sparks jobs and housing growth and a transformative redesign of London's Regent Street

    ·28m
  43. 43

    Deconstructed: Finsbury Health Centre - Healthcare for a modern age

    ·26m
  44. 44

    Is the UK housing crisis threatening the economy and NHS recovery?

    ·38m
  45. 45

    Deconstructed (coming soon)

    ·1m
  46. 46

    Angela Rayner approves M&S’s contentious Oxford Street redevelopment

    ·45m
  47. 47

    Smithfields closure, unrealistic housing targets and Brighton's white elephant

    ·46m
  48. 48

    Office for Place scrapped, empty High Streets and C20's 'Coming of Age' campaign

    ·38m
  49. 49

    21,000 Saudi worker deaths, The Duchy of Cornwall and the Pay 100 survey

    ·43m
  50. 50

    The budget, China's super embassy and the legacy of Britain's Empire Exhibition

    ·41m
  51. 51

    Rachel Reeves' billion pound boost for council housing, design codes and the vital role of retrofit

    ·34m
  52. 52

    The Elizabeth line wins the RIBA Stirling prize, councils declare new UK housing targets unrealistic and the battle for Bethnal Green Working Men's Club

    ·31m
  53. 53

    Leaking luxury flats, RIBA's big rebrand and London's new 'town architects' named

    ·35m
  54. 54

    Affordable homes being run for profit, the nimby-yimby debate and the trouble with Euston Station

    ·36m
  55. 55

    Sycamore gap one year on, 'brownfield passports' and the wood burner wars

    ·38m
  56. 56

    Could this be the end for Birmingham’s brutalist Ringway Centre?

    ·31m
  57. 57

    The Grenfell Report: Key Findings from the Inquiry

    ·29m
  58. 58

    ‘Retrofit-first’ council approves five demolitions in one scheme

    ·33m
  59. 59

    Far-right riots leave communities across the UK scarred

    ·33m
  60. 60

    RIBA Stirling Prize 2024 finalists revealed

    ·36m
  61. 61

    Six million people at risk from extreme heat in England

    ·36m
  62. 62

    Local authorities in urgent financial crisis

    ·41m
  63. 63

    Labour restores housing targets and resurrects onshore wind

    ·42m
  64. 64

    Labour promises a post-election housing surge

    ·35m
  65. 65

    Reimagining UK department stores as sustainable housing

    ·42m
  66. 66

    Campaign to save the Beatles’ birthplaces

    ·33m
  67. 67

    Labour moots community buy-outs of derelict land

    ·37m
  68. 68

    Architects call for a new ministry of housing

    ·38m
  69. 69

    The surprise snap election being celebrated by architects

    ·36m
  70. 70

    Museum of London’s contentious demolition cleared for approval

    ·37m
  71. 71

    Calls for new public ballots on all tall buildings above 60 metres

    ·34m
  72. 72

    Labour vows to build on the ‘grey-belt’ and deliver 1.5 million homes

    ·39m
  73. 73

    Gender pay gap widening among UK architectures biggest firms

    ·38m
  74. 74

    Rent rises set to outpace wage growth for next three years

    ·34m
  75. 75

    Brutalism and Biodiversity

    ·28m
  76. 76

    Norwich City Council 'disappointed' after sell flagship homes lost to right to buy

    ·48m
  77. 77

    Council housing ratcheting up the political agenda

    ·34m
  78. 78

    Spring budget criticised for failing to boost housing

    ·41m
  79. 79

    Tidal Pools and the Landscape of Swimming

    ·28m
  80. 80

    Competition Probe into the UK’s Biggest Housebuilders

    ·38m
  81. 81

    Government warned London house building is grinding to a halt

    ·45m
  82. 82

    RIBA president slams Labour’s £28bn green U-turn

    ·37m
  83. 83

    Landscape-Led Waste Water Infrastructure

    ·27m
  84. 84

    Housebuilders throw support behind Labour as Conservatives ‘bow to Nimbyism’

    ·31m
  85. 85

    Buzzwords: Care with Jasmina Cibic

    This episode explores the expanded concept of care in cultural institutions, from custodianship to political and social responsibilities.

    ·29m
  86. 86

    RIBA vs ARB, Nnena Kalu's Turner Prize win and data centre design

    A roundup of architecture news including RIBA president's ARB protest, Turner Prize win, and data centre design rebrand.

    ·31m
  87. 87

    The Davidson Prize, Working hours and Oxford Street's pedestrianisation

    ·30m
  88. 88

    Deconstructed: Crystal Palace Park – Sculpture, Sport and the London County Council

    ·29m
  89. 89

    A major report casts doubt over Labour’s housebuilding targets

    ·28m
  90. 90

    InterCities: Kharkiv with Ievgeniia Gubkina

    ·30m
  91. 91

    The Mayor of London concedes to green belt housing

    ·29m
  92. 92

    Deconstructed: Marlborough Road, Romford - Planning and People

    ·29m
  93. 93

    Geology of Britannic Repair: the British Pavillion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale

    ·30m
  94. 94

    InterCities: Belgrade with Dubravka Sekulić

    ·30m
  95. 95

    C20 reveals its annual 'Risk List'

    ·41m
  96. 96

    Deconstructed: Euston Station - Developing the Railway

    ·29m
  97. 97

    The UK government announces a £2bn boost for affordable and social homes

    ·29m
  98. 98

    InterCities: Sheffield with Johny Pitts

    ·35m
  99. 99

    Plans for Manchester United's new stadium revealed

    ·29m
  100. 100

    Deconstructed: Crossness Pumping Station - The Birth of Modern Sanitation

    ·29m
  101. 101

    In the Room at Accelerate Debates: Healthy Competition

    Hidden gem

    This episode explores whether architectural competitions can be restructured to be healthier and more worthwhile for emerging practices, featuring a debate on the risks and benefits.

    Apr 14, 2026·55m·2 clips
  102. 102

    Four more new towns announced and the future of the Museum of London

    Hidden gem

    The Brief from Open City examines four government-backed new-town locations expected to produce almost 200,000 homes, alongside Historic England’s estimate that 670,000 homes could come from empty buildings.

    Apr 1, 2026·30m·2 clips
  103. 103

    The Home That Made Me: The place that raised me

    Fiona Chiltern interviews Nabil Al-Khanani about growing up in the Chalk Hill housing estate in Wembley and how it shaped his identity.

    Mar 26, 2026·31m
  104. 104

    The UK government hires AI to help speed up planning decisions and the new architects of the BT Tower revamp

    A roundup of architecture and planning news, including the UK government hiring Google to use AI for planning decisions and the revamp of BT Tower.

    Mar 19, 2026·30m
  105. 105

    Deconstructed: Peckham Library - Millenium Culture

    Architectural historian Matthew Lloyd Roberts and architect John Puttick discuss Peckham Library, a Sterling Prize-winning building from the year 2000, as part of a series on millennium-era civic projects.

    Mar 11, 2026·28m
  106. 106

    Retail giant John Lewis closes its housebuilding venture and what style of homes do Londoners want?

    Hidden gem

    John Lewis Partnership closed its build-to-rent venture after announcing 10,000 rental homes in 2020.

    Mar 5, 2026·30m·2 clips
  107. 107

    In the Room at Accelerate Debates: Designing With, Designing For

    Hidden gem

    This episode introduces a debate series exploring whether communities truly shape their built environments or if professionals should retain control.

    Feb 26, 2026·44m·2 clips
  108. 108

    Generational pedestrianisation plans for London's West End and a controversial overhaul of Liverpool Street station

    Hidden gem

    Westminster's Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus plan would create "more than 35,000 square metres" of new public space.

    Feb 19, 2026·27m·1 clip
  109. 109

    Deconstructed: Robin Hood Gardens - Brutalism and Demolition

    Hidden gem

    Open City’s Deconstructed focuses on Robin Hood Gardens, the Poplar estate designed by Alison and Peter Smithson and completed in 1972.

    Feb 12, 2026·30m·2 clips
  110. 110

    Government guidance on best practice design and why you should still become an architect in 2026

    Hidden gem

    Sahiba Chadha and Caroline Harper examine England's draft National Design and Placemaking Guidance, which promotes walkable neighbourhoods, climate-adaptable homes and improved public space while giving limited attention to viability, supply chains and construction inflation.

    Feb 5, 2026·26m·1 clip
  111. 111

    The Home That Made Me: When home becomes a prison

    Jan 28, 2026·30m
  112. 112

    Government launches ‘biggest home upgrade plan in UK history’

    Jan 22, 2026·28m
  113. 113

    Deconstructed: Tate Modern - Art and Power

    Jan 15, 2026·31m
  114. 114

    Labour’s New Towns, rural regeneration and the Da Vinci code of English architectural heritage

    Jan 8, 2026·30m
  115. 115

    In the Room at Accelerate Debates: Rethinking Recruitment

    Jan 1, 2026·55m
  116. 116

    RIBA vs ARB, Nnena Kalu's Turner Prize win and data centre design

    A roundup of architecture news including RIBA president's ARB protest, Nnena Kalu's Turner Prize win, and data centre design rebrand.

    Dec 18, 2025·31m
  117. 117

    Deconstructed: Matilda House - Co-operative Council Housing

    Dec 11, 2025·27m
  118. 118

    Rough sleeping surges to post pandemic-high

    Dec 4, 2025·29m
  119. 119

    In the Room at Accelerate Debates: Constructive Criticism

    Nov 27, 2025·51m
  120. 120

    AI nimbyism threatens to upend UK planning

    Nov 20, 2025·30m
  121. 121

    Deconstructed: The Old Justice - Multiculturalism and the Public House

    Nov 13, 2025·29m
  122. 122

    A new House of Commons report on child-centred design, financial strain for UK architectural firms and bold changes to the London Plan

    Nov 6, 2025·30m
  123. 123

    In the Room at Accelerate Debates: Designing a Safer City

    Oct 30, 2025·52m
  124. 124

    Appleby Blue wins the 2025 Stirling Prize and set back for UK cooling towers

    Oct 23, 2025·30m
  125. 125

    Deconstructed: Plumstead Common – Policing and Leisure in a Municipal Park

    Oct 9, 2025·32m
  126. 126

    New Towns, High Streets, Terry Farrell and 'The House of Architecture'

    Oct 2, 2025·30m
  127. 127

    The future of new towns, record-breaking revenue at Foster + Partners and a new tax on SUVs?

    Sep 24, 2025·30m
  128. 128

    A new housing secretary, the RIBA prize shortlist and the UK's first "super-university"

    Sep 17, 2025·31m
  129. 129

    Deconstructed: Carlton Cinema — Islington at the Pictures

    Sep 11, 2025·33m
  130. 130

    UK House Prices Fall, Open House Festival 2025 & Trump's 'Make America Beautiful Again' Campaign

    Sep 4, 2025·31m
  131. 131

    Buzzwords: Care with Jasmina Cibic

    Aug 27, 2025·29m
  132. 132

    Dangerously hot homes, the Oxford Street redesign and the UK's first Museum of Brutalist Architecture

    Aug 13, 2025·30m
  133. 133

    Deconstructed: London County Hall – A Palace for Municipal Government

    Aug 7, 2025·30m
  134. 134

    Kew's Carbon Garden, Selkirk's Brutalist Gem & Relief for Bexhill's De La Warr Pavillion

    Jul 30, 2025·30m
  135. 135

    InterCities: Taipei with Brian Hioe

    Jul 23, 2025·29m
  136. 136

    The Open House Festival catalogue is live, pedestrianising the West End and can office skyscrapers save nightlife?

    Jul 16, 2025·30m
  137. 137

    Deconstructed: Al Manaar Mosque & Cultural Centre - Faith, Space, and Community

    Jul 10, 2025·29m
  138. 138

    Norman Foster to design Queen Elizabeth II memorial, the rise of AI in architecture and saving Britain's buildings

    Jul 2, 2025·30m
  139. 139

    InterCities: Jerusalem with Yair Wallach

    Owen Hatherley interviews Yair Wallach about his book on Jerusalem's history in the 1920s and 1930s, using ephemera and street signs to explore the city's transformations.

    Jun 25, 2025·34m
  140. 140

    The Davidson Prize, Working hours and Oxford Street's pedestrianisation

    Jun 19, 2025·30m
  141. 141

    Deconstructed: Crystal Palace Park – Sculpture, Sport and the London County Council

    Jun 12, 2025·29m
  142. 142

    A major report casts doubt over Labour’s housebuilding targets

    Jun 5, 2025·28m
  143. 143

    InterCities: Kharkiv with Ievgeniia Gubkina

    May 28, 2025·30m
  144. 144

    The Mayor of London concedes to green belt housing

    May 22, 2025·29m
  145. 145

    Deconstructed: Marlborough Road, Romford - Planning and People

    May 15, 2025·29m
  146. 146

    Geology of Britannic Repair: the British Pavillion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale

    May 7, 2025·30m
  147. 147

    InterCities: Belgrade with Dubravka Sekulić

    Apr 23, 2025·30m
  148. 148

    C20 reveals its annual 'Risk List'

    Apr 17, 2025·41m
  149. 149

    Deconstructed: Euston Station - Developing the Railway

    Apr 10, 2025·29m
  150. 150

    The UK government announces a £2bn boost for affordable and social homes

    Apr 2, 2025·29m