99% Invisible

youarelistening.to appeared online on March 6, 2011 and I was hooked instantly. The combination of the police scanner and ambient music is...

In 1989, a group called the Berkeley Art Project decided to hold a national public art competition to create a monument that would...

Most sound design in architecture is centered around designing for silence. Buildings are trying to block out that constant stream noise...

In 2001, Delfin Vigil was walking the streets of San Francisco and ran across the name “Nikko” carved into the concrete sidewalk. After...

This week, the radio audience heard episode #10, but for you web and podcast listeners, I have a story I did about a year and a half ago,...

In a recent piece from Urban Omnibus, Vishaan Chakrabarti (Professor at the Graduate School for Architecture, Planning and Preservation at...

A few years ago, journalist Douglas McGray learned that the largest chain of check cashing stores in Southern California, Nix Check...

The New City Hall, designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell, was the first modern, concrete, civic building in Toronto. When it opened in...

The idea is simple and quite beautiful: if we all shared a second, politically neutral language, people of all different nations and...

Without all the beeps and chimes, without sonic feedback, all of your modern conveniences would be very hard to use. If a device and its...

Everyone knows it when they see it. The classic “castle with turrets” periodic table is a beautiful and concise icon that contains a great...

99% Invisible Extra! The tape rolls as we witness the tearful end of a perfect online world. This is a piece I did for Snap Judgment, based...

I’m sorry, but if you don’t love maps, I don’t think we can be friends anymore. Maps are amazing. They are art and story. A representation...

“Sustainable Design is a design philosophy that seeks to maximize the quality of the built environment, while minimizing or eliminating the...

Almost everything in modern life is designed to waste energy. The whole system evolved on a false premise that petroleum is cheap and...

Chris Downey explains it like this, “Beethoven continued to write music, even some of his best music, after he lost his hearing…What’s more...

99% Invisible Extra! NASA is figuring out how to take the next great leap into space. The difficulty is, if we leap to Mars, we might not...

Privately Owned Public Open Spaces, or POPOS, are these little gardens, terraces, plazas, and seating areas that are private property, but...

It’s weird how much anxiety comes from parking in a city. Beyond the stress of looking for parking, you must contend with the frequently...

Humans need a few basic things to survive- air, water, food, heat, shelter- but just surviving isn’t really enough. We also need...