99% INVISIBLE

Making its first appearance in San Francisco as a co-production between the KALW public radio station and the San Francisco branch of the AIA (American Institute of Architects), 99% Invisible has gone on to become one of the best and most listened to radio shows on design in the USA, broadcast on public radio right across the county as well as being available elsewhere as a downloadable podcast. (Visit 99percentinvisible.org for more information.)

In the own words of the programme’s award-winning creator and producer/presenter, Roman Mars, the show covers all aspects of “design, architecture and the 99 per cent invisible activity that shapes our world”. Now independently funded through public donations, most notably raised during a recent Kickstarter campaign, the show broadcast its 100th episode at the beginning of February 2014 and what has previously been a bi-weekly programme will from now on appear in weekly instalments.

In October 2013, co-producer Nick van der Kolk showed Roman Mars a photograph of the Walled City at the start of a programme all about the City, before going on to talk to the Hong Kong architect Aaron Tan, as well as to Brian Douglas – one of the co-designers behind the Kowloon Walled City section in the highly successful computer game Call of Duty: Black Ops – and to our very own Greg Girard. You can listen to the programme here.