99 Percent Invisible
📖SYNOPSIS
Stories about the design and architecture nobody notices: kerbs, doors, flags, sound, the thinking behind ordinary things. Weekly since 2010. The real title has a percent sign in it.
⭐RATING
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⚡QUICK JOTS
The title is 99% Invisible; the file name spells it out because a percent sign and a file system do not get on.
The one Jonas Reuter and I both like, which is a shorter list than you would hope after seven years. A show about the designed world: why a thing is the shape it is and who decided. He likes it because it is about buildings. I like it because it is about decisions. The host has a voice like a warm radiator.
It is the Sunday cooking podcast. Jonas cooks on Sundays, I sit on the counter stool being no help, and an episode is about as long as an onion takes to go properly soft. First logged on 2025-01-11-Saturday, when I finally subscribed on my own phone instead of hearing it through his.
- Half an hour, one story, properly reported, with the sources named.
- It never tells me what to do with my morning.
- Jonas pauses it to disagree about details of construction. This is part of the format in our kitchen.
It is the only thing I listen to that makes me look up afterwards. After the kerb episode I counted dropped kerbs all the way down Lindgate Street. Eleven, and one that should be there and is not.
What It Prompted: 💎 Reality has more detail than any plan can hold · 📰 Reality has a surprising amount of detail · 🏛️ Vellan Architecture Centre · 🔍 A hand-drawn map of the morning walk · 🧭 Craft · Theo Lindqvist
💡TAKEAWAYS
⏱️TIMESTAMPS
Kitchen marks. Rough.
- 06:00 the student's question arrives. Jonas puts the knife down
- 19:00 welding at night while the offices work by day
- 24:00 why nobody outside knew for nearly twenty years
- 11:00 (doors) a handle says pull, a plate says push, and most doors say both