While some of today's cruise ships are as bulky and graceless as factories, many of the smaller vessels follow a similar blueprint to the ship that started it all, the SS Prinzessin Victoria Luise.

Urban planning has become the latest target of conspiracy theorists. In recent weeks, the 15-minute city concept — where neighbourhoods provide life's essentials in 15 minutes by foot or bike — has become a harbinger of big brother in conspiracy-land. Misinformation has triggered fierce protests against 15-minute city plans in the UK and Canada, with the City of Oxford even having to clarify they wouldn't be erecting physical barriers to separate citizens. Brent Toderian, a keen urbanist and Vancouver's former chief planner, is here to help us understand how the polite world of urban planning crashed into conspiracies.

In anticipation of the arrival of the American 'family' restaurant chain, Guy Rundle - Crikey columnist, chronicler of urban decline and its ever-diminishing pockets of resistance - reflects on the American ‘restaurant experience’ and the corrosive effect of franchise-chain capitalism on living culture.

Architecture is a man's profession. That's what a young African American girl in Harlem, New York, grew up thinking. But Norma Merrick Sklarek would soon prove she could be a top-tier architect and in doing so, would become a pioneering figure in the history of American architecture. -- This episode was first broadcast on August 6, 2022.

Feast on a strawberry sorbet you can pair with a raspberry beret. In part two of Annie's mini-workshop on sugar syrup, Annie shows Jonathan how to whip together a sweet summertime treat with a splash of Campari in the latest edition of Kitchen Rudimental. 

It's hard to imagine how revolutionary the arrival of the match was. Now we can't imagine life would without them. In this week's Iconic Designs Colin Bisset looks at the invention of the match.

What do the instagrammable ruins of today – the aesthetic of exposed brick, subway tiles, filament bulbs, rough woodwork and welded pipe – suggest about our cultural moment? Tom Wilkinson, author of Life in Ruins: The fetishization of decay in contemporary architecture, reflects on the meaning of the aesthetic of decay in today's urban landscape.

Tamar Adler on what to do with leftover pizza, how to use the Marcella Hazan tomato sauce onion and how to take the moralising out of no-waste cooking.

Despite his penchant for a white Christmas, Paul Bangay reflects on the consolations of Christmas in the Australian garden, reinforced by an insistent marsupial. Find more of Paul's Garden Rudimentals on the ABC RN website.

Chef Annie Smithers questions the wisdom of turkey, gravy, potatoes, Brussels sprouts on a 40 degree day and opts instead, for grilled prawns, nuoc cham, white nectarines, a summer fruit pavlova and a gooseberry fool. Find more of Annie's past Kitchen Rudimentals here.

An assembly of twelve festive icons and Colin Bisset's reflections on how the world's great designers might re-imagine them.

Former director of the Royal Botanic Garden Victoria, Tim Entwisle and Jonathan Green take a tour of Maranoa Botanic Garden and Australian plant garden and reflect on the definitional dilemma of the Christmas tree: Is it spruce? Pine? An en-baubled mountain ash?

Penury is often the mother of invention. Just look at the inventor of the dishwasher, Josephine Cochrane.

Rachel Roddy, is an iconic food writer whose scholarly approach to the subject of Italian food is shaped by her identity as an English woman living in Rome. She talks pasta, literary influence, Roman food culture, and writing about Italian food as an outsider.

Former planning manager of the Canadian city of Vancouver and now advisor to City of Reykjavik, Iceland, Brent Toderian, discusses Reykjavik’s urban development plan competition, the problem of car dependency, and the populist backlash to even the most modest attempts at sustainable city design.

A discussion about fashion in the era of AIDS - from the way in which it was used as a tool for political action, its role in shaping, concealing and articulating the masculine body, and the impact of AIDS on the fashion industry and a generation of international designers. 

Chef Annie Smithers finds inspiration in broad bean leaves and, ever the proponent of simplicity, sautees them in garlic for a delicate taste of spring. Find more of Annie's past Kitchen Rudimentals here.

As higher education evolves – with a growing reliance on remote learning, diminished student life and political engagement on campus, and universities increasingly playing the role of property developers – we reflect on the history and legacy of Australia’s built campuses.

Kenzo Tange is often seen as the father of Japanese modernism and the Yoyogi sports halls stand as perhaps his finest moment.

Gary Emery's always functional, often witty, sometimes bold designs have, for decades, shaped Australian urban landscapes. We take a tour of his designs through the city of Melbourne and survey the long and rich career of one of Australia’s most renowned designers.