grand designs

Watching shows about the homes of the rich and famous, or browsing luxe listings outside our budgets has been a modern obsession for some time. So how does an obsession with housing excess reflect our circumstances, and is a backlash on the horizon?

This week we delved into the virtual reality world of Channel 4's Project Home, an interior design show with a twist - there's a big green screen wall involved! 

A very normal couple are joined by Nick Grimshaw & Kunle Barker to help decide the age old question: how the heck should they decorate their home? With the use of a big projection screen and some virtual reality trickery, we can see their ideas come to life so they can make their minds up and fix their marriage.

Sam has also been watching Lord-of-the-Flies-meets-Lost survival series Yellowjackets, whilst Lewis has watched Denzel Washington solve a big crime using sci-fi tech in 2006's Deja Vu.

00:00 Intro & Catchup (The Blair Witch Apology)

03:37 Project News (TNT Pick Up Lazarus Season 2 & Witcher Spinoff)

10:55 Project Home (2023)

01:16:10 Personal Projects (Yellowjackets & Deja Vu)

Thanks to Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio for the synths.

Contact us:
https://linktr.ee/theprojectprojectpod

Oscar and Carl kick off the month of love with Nicholas Spark’s classic… 'The Last Song. The Last Song follows Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth’s budding relationship when she visits her father, Greg Kinnear, will this story just be about that? No! Oscar and Carl watch this classic to try and figure out 'Who would watch this?' 

Contact us with film recommendations and questions through our email: askwwwtpodcast@gmail.com

Find us through:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@whowouldwatchthis

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whowouldwatchthis/

TikTok: @podcastwhowouldwatchthis

More links: https://linktr.ee/whowouldwatchthis

Find us through:

Email: askwwwtpodcast@gmail.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@whowouldwatchthis

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whowouldwatchthis/

TikTok: @podcastwhowouldwatchthis

More links: https://linktr.ee/whowouldwatchthis

Home means something to everyone. More than just bricks and mortar, it’s about security and belonging, citizenship and exclusion. Michaela Benson has researched it all: from the UK’s self-build communities, to people seeking a new lifestyle abroad. She tells Alexis and Rosie about this and her own experience of home, including her mother’s relationship to her place of birth: Hong Kong.

Plus, Kwame Lowe and Alice Grahame introduce us to the Rural Urban Synthesis Society in London. What does it take to build your own “Grand Design” and why would anyone want to do that? What happens when areas become known as “problem places” and what’s gentrification got to do with it? And who is to blame for the housing crisis?

Guests: Michaela Benson, Kwame Lowe, Alice Grahame
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong

Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Special thanks to: Kirsteen Paton, Lisa Dikomitis, RUSS

Uncommon Sense sees our world afresh, through the eyes of sociologists. Brought to you by The Sociological Review, it’s a space for questioning taken-for-granted ideas about society – for imagining better ways of living together and confronting our shared crises. Hosted by Rosie Hancock in Sydney and Alexis Hieu Truong in Ottawa, featuring a different guest each month, Uncommon Sense insists that sociology is for everyone.

Episode Resources

Michaela, Rosie and Alexis recommend:

• “Fragile Monsters” (2021) by Catherine Menon
• “Unsheltered” (2018) by Barbara Kingsolver
• “Foundation” (1942) by Isaac Asimov

From The Sociological Review:

• “Unhomely Homes: A visual study of Airbnb” (2020) by Kenneth Kajoranta and Anna Pechurina
• On older New Zealanders and the role of home for feeling secure in an uncertain world (1998) by Ann Dupuis and David Thorns
• A critical review of the existing literature on “home” (2004) by Shelley Mallett

Further readings:

• On being middle-class in contemporary London (2017) by Michaela Benson and Emma Jackson
• On Brexit’s hidden costs for Britons living in the EU (2021) by Michaela Benson
• The Rural Urban Synthesis Society (RUSS) Lewisham, London
• “Gentrification: A Working-Class Perspective” (2014) by Kirsteen Paton
• “Your Life Chances Affect Where You Live: A Critique of the ‘Cottage Industry’ of Neighbourhood Effects Research” (2013) by Tom Slater
• “Cyprus and Its Places of Desire: Cultures of Displacement Among Greek and Turkish Cypriot Refugees” (2012) edited by Lisa Dikomitis
• “Walters Way and Segal Close: The Architect Walter Segal and London's Self-Build Community” (2017) by Alice Grahame
• The film “Minari” (2020) directed by Lee Isaac Chung
• Chris Leslie’s work on demolition and regeneration in Glasgow

Read our acknowledgement of the indigenous lands that both Rosie and Alexis work upon.

Find more at The Sociological Review.

British director Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia, The Iron Lady) on her new film Herself, a Dublin set drama about a mother escaping a toxic marriage. Phyllida also speak about working with Meryl Streep. Plus, an informative chat about the behind the scenes workings at the Cannes Film Festival.

The third 'lockdown special' of Material Matters features the radical knitter Freddie Robins. 

The common perception of knitting is that it’s a gentle, mindful activity. A thing you can do quietly in front of the television to relax after a hard day. Well Robins’ work is the antithesis of all that. It’s frequently dark, and always provocative. Her subject matter encompasses death, loss, religion, depression and challenges the perceived hierarchy of the art and craft worlds. It is work meant for the gallery rather than to be worn at home and comes with titles such as ‘Bad Mother’ and ‘I’m so Bloody Sad’. Kaffe Fassett she ain’t.

In this episode we discuss: the pivotal role her Godmother played in her childhood fascination with textiles; her loathing of conformity and the ‘danger of being ridden over by mediocrity’; her spell working in the fashion world; exploring the dark side through her work; having her pieces vandalised; and why knitting shouldn’t always be good for you. Not only that but we also chat about her appearance on Grand Designs with Kevin McCloud. So something for everybody I think. 

You can find out more about Freddie’s here: freddierobins.com

NB: Like all our lockdown episodes this has been recorded over the internet rather than in our guest’s studio. As a result the sound quality isn’t quite where we’d like it to be all the time. 

Alan says "creativity is intelligence having fun”. He balances some very rigid and carefully designed routines with architectural anarchy.  He joined us in The Walrus pub where he shared his thoughts on life including:

• Why everything will be fine
• On vision as an ability to visualise and create order when others can only see chaos
• Why he’s looking for £100 per week from each of his kids
• A rock ‘n’ roll year working with Bono and The Edge 
• Why Architects make very good lovers but very bad husbands
• Becoming a committed Mod in 1965
• What it’s like to have two mothers and two fathers
• Late diagnosis of Adult Attachment Disorder (AAD) 
• Travel anxiety and why two hours early is preferable to one minute late 
• His knack of destroying his relationships
• How Architecture has provided security and stability in his life
• How setting light to his canvasses in a telephone box led to a career in Architecture
• The importance of third-party endorsement 
• The importance of doing something modest and doing it very very well
• The joy of both teaching and designing houses
• Exchanging architectural fees for backgammon and skiing lessons
• His second Grand Designs project

 Links:

Alan Phillips Architects

U2 Beautiful Day @ Eze-Sur-Mer

Gaudis Sagrada Familia