Open City podcast: ‘a fast-paced and essential briefing’

Since mid-2020 the Open City team have been producing their flagship podcast, The Brief. Previously named The Londown, the show has now widened its focus to cover all of the UK, with weekly episodes exploring the big stories across British architecture, heritage, housing and planning.

In-depth discussion comes in the form of special longer-form episodes, which break down complex, intersecting issues across politics and urbanism. Comment and insight are offered by a roster of architectural critics and practitioners, as well as artists, academics, policymakers and journalists.

The Brief is produced in association with the AJ and regularly hosted by AJ competitions editor Merlin Fulcher, and deputy architecture editor Fran Williams.

The AJ caught up with Open City chief executive Phineas Harper to learn more about how The Brief is made and what listeners can expect from the podcast in future.

Source:Kamil Kożuch

Phineas Harper

As I believe your host Merlin is fond of asking, what’s it all about?
The Brief is a fast-paced and essential briefing for anyone who wants to keep up to speed on British architecture news. In a typical show, we'll get under the skin of four or five big stories that have recently made headlines in the AJ or elsewhere and ask what’s really going on.

What topics do you most often focus on?
Architecture and urbanism are central to almost all the big political and economic issues in Britain at the moment. It's impossible to engage seriously with climate breakdown, solving the housing crisis or UK local politics without talking about urban issues. Housing – in particular social housing – is a key theme we continuously come back to, but The Brief will also tackle much broader stories like national infrastructure funding right through to specific local campaigns.

What do you hope The Brief can achieve?
Ultimately Open City’s remit as a charity is public education. We exist to help people of all backgrounds learn about architecture and urbanism in creative ways. So we want The Brief to be essential listening for busy built environment practitioners helping them follow and form views on unfolding stories in the sector. But we also want it to be accessible to students and non-professionals.

Is there a story you’ve covered so far that particularly stands out to you?
Merlin, the series editor, and Poppy, the producer, are absolutely committed to ensuring the environment is central to our editorial process but are always finding new angles to interrogate so the show never feels like a broken record. Our Christmas quiz specials are a hoot! Think Have I Got News For You but architecture-related and better. But I’m most proud of our coverage on climate change.

What about a special guest whose appearance stayed with you?
There are so many incredible guests we’ve had the privilege to tear apart each week’s big stories with: Owen Hatherley, Cath Slessor, Gareth Dennis and Ewa Effiom to name just a few. George Kafka from the Design Museum and Nabil Al-Kinani were recent favourites of mine, and I genuinely think Matthew Lloyd Roberts is one of the rising star commentators of his generation so it’s always worth listening out for a show he's on.

Source:The Brief

Sahiba Chadha (left), partner at Cullinan Studio, with Charlie Edmonds, founder of Future Architects Front

Who benefits most from listening to the podcast and what do you hope they take away?
I know some folks at national newspapers listen every week to get ideas for how to weave urban issues into their own editorial commissioning. I also know first-year architecture tutors who have put listening to the show on the reading list for their students.

Many architecture friends listen over coffee or on their commute on Thursday mornings when each new show drops. For every listener, I hope the show helps them think more deeply about the stories they might have seen in the AJ or elsewhere and have their views challenged or expanded.

How does The Brief contribute to or intersect with Open City’s other work?
The podcast is a core part of Open City’s educational programme. Obviously, we stage the hugely popular Open House Festivals in September and deliver educational programmes for thousands of young people from under-represented communities throughout the year. But The Brief is our only free public programme continuously delivering on our charitable mission.

We often use the show to platform people and practitioners who are connected to our other programmes. For example, we recently had the director of the Museum of London, Sharon Ament, on the show. We work with the museum all the time as part of our wider work so it was great to strengthen that connection by giving Sharon a platform on the podcast.

How does the podcast come together?
It’s a team effort but the real stars of the show are the AJ's very own Merlin Fulcher and rising star of independent radio Poppy Waring. Together they select the stories we'll cover each week on Monday evening, then write and polish an outline script on Tuesday.

We typically record on a Wednesday morning and the entire show is edited and published by 6am on Thursday morning. It’s a well-oiled machine, which means we can generally be teasing apart big stories in the recording studio within 48 hours of them hitting the headlines.

What are your hopes for the future of The Brief?
Mostly we want to make a great show that throws more light on important architectural journalism. If there's a hidden agenda, perhaps it is to persuade TV and radio producers elsewhere that covering architecture and urban issues more ambitiously on their own shows can be engaging and impactful. When we start to see architects and architectural journalists regularly invited on to BBC Question Time we’ll know we’ve pushed some of the right buttons.

Where and when can people tune in?
The show can be found in the Open City Podcast feed whenever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop on Thursday mornings at around 6am so whatever time you brew your coffee, there should be a new show waiting for you.