Real World: Exploring The Built And Created Environment
Marisa Manley
The Real World podcast explores, celebrates, and seeks to help listeners understand and possibly improve the built and created environment which surrounds us. We look at everything from high-rise buildings to street signs, to leggings to rocking chairs. We examine what the world is made of, how it came to be this way, and how it functions – in sometimes surprising ways. We invite listeners to understand that the built and created environment is designed and can be re-designed and modified. When you know a bit more about the real world, you can understand it, use it, possibly challenge it, and maybe even e...
Episodes
Vertical Farming
We explore the history of urban farming and whether empty office buildings may be the next frontier. We examine cost, necessary resources, and output – in the form of produce – to assess whether urban farming can fill your dinner plate.
Density of Human Habitations
Are you on the urban bandwagon? Many of today’s urban advocates urge people to move to densely packed urban environments, urging it as a social good. We explore the link between density and creativity. We examine how ordinary people have voted with their feet to sort out the density conundrum – and leave you with ideas for doing the same.
Prison Design
We explore how the physical design of many American prisons may increase undesirable behavior and even cause illness. We learn that simple design choices like light, color, sound and the size of spaces all affect the way we behave in any physical environment.
Telephone Poles
We explore the history of telephone-like poles in the ancient world and discover how they came to be so prominent in the American landscape. We learn that these apparently tumbledown structures – more than 100 million – are highly engineered structures that showcase shared networks to keep us all connected, and are also creating new habitats for some non-human friends.
Lighting in Healthcare Settings
We explore how light in healthcare settings can retard or accelerate healing – from patients ranging from infants in ICUs to patients with psychiatric disorders. We consider what you can do to obtain maximum benefit for yourself or a loved one from any hospital stay.
Street Lights
We explore the controversy surrounding many of today’s street lights as it relates to our circadian rhythms, night-time light exposure, LEDs, and the safety of road conditions.
Wayfinding in Memory Care Facilities
Today, we explore wayfinding – our ability to navigate to chosen destinations in the physical world. We examine the challenges of a special population – those with Alzheimer’s dementia—and how the physical design of space using color, objects and layout can help these individuals stay active and engaged in our world. We see how we can all benefit from these design cues.
The Chair
This week we explore the geometry, meaning, and physical effects – including negative health consequences -- of the chairs we commonly sit upon.
Mattresses
We explore 200,000 year old mattresses, medieval finery, space-age constructions, the social import of bedding and new thinking about the best ways to sleep.
Traffic Fatalities and Vehicle Design
We begin a three-part series on American roads and pedestrian safety. We examine first how vehicle design choices after traffic fatalities and consider what you can do to increase safety for everyone – both as a pedestrian and as a driver.
Traffic Regulations
In this episode, we explore roadway regulations – the invisible infrastructure that shapes our roadways. We see how regulations come into being – not through an examined, competitive process – and how these regulations may increase danger on our roadways
Road Design
We explore how the physical design of America’s roads encourages speed and increases deaths. We next consider simple, cost-effective ways to modify the design of existing roadways to make people safer.