Join Gary Crossey as he kicks off 2026 with a deep dive into Better World With Design's new direction. This episode explores the decision to center marginalized voices through the Voices from the Margins series, examining why representation matters, how design shapes justice, and what it means to build with intentionality. Discover the year's content strategy, thematic focus areas, and the personal journey that led to this shift in purpose.

In this episode of Better World with Design, host Gary Crossey explores Sara Ahmed's groundbreaking work Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. This dense but rewarding philosophical text challenges us to rethink how we orient ourselves in the world, and how people design spaces around normative assumptions.

Gary shares his honest experience wrestling with Ahmed's challenging ideas, from her insights into lesbian networks and queer women's experiences to her analysis of how heteronormativity functions as a spatial arrangement rather than just a sexual orientation.

Key Topics Covered:

• Understanding orientation as both spatial and sexual
• Designers make assumptions about whose bodies belong when designing spaces.
• The concept of "straightening devices" in design and systems
• Applications to disability studies, critical race theory, and trans studies
• Contemporary relevance to AI, algorithms, and digital spaces
• Climate crisis and ecological reorientation
• Design implications for creating more just and inclusive spaces

Whether you're a designer, architect, technologist, or anyone interested in creating more equitable systems and spaces, this episode offers essential frameworks for understanding how design choices become orientation devices that shape whose movements are easy and whose require constant navigation.

A deeply personal narrative about a domestic fire that becomes a metaphor for family dysfunction, addiction, and the hidden struggles of growing up in a home marked by tension. This story examines a moment when an ordinary kitchen accident—a grill pan left on too long—reveals the deeper fractures in a family held together by patterns of escape and avoidance. Through vivid details and honest reflection, it explores how crisis doesn't always bring people together, and how sometimes the most dangerous fires are the ones that never produce visible smoke.

Better World with Design is a narrative podcast exploring the intersection of faith, design, and human connection through fiction and cultural commentary. Hosted by Gary Crossey, the show features original short stories set in Northern Ireland alongside episodes on design thinking, creative philosophy, and the quiet ways we build meaningful lives.

The Northern Irish Short Story series presents fifteen interconnected character-driven tales set in Belfast—intimate portraits of ordinary people navigating duty, desire, and the weight of history. These stories explore the particular pressure of life in a place where obligation runs deep and small rebellions matter.

Each episode pairs audio narration with full transcripts for accessibility and sharing. New stories drop weekly, with no shock tricks—just human stakes, careful prose, and the occasional cup of tea.

Perfect for listeners who value slow-burn storytelling, psychological realism, and fiction that asks what it means to live honestly in a world that rewards performance.

The third story in the Better World with Design Northern Irish Short Story series. In 1980s Belfast, while bombs and checkpoints divided the city, a small American religious community tried to build their own version of wholesome recreation. "The Elect" follows two young men navigating a church disco in Bangor, exploring themes of faith, performance, and belonging. Inspired by James Joyce's "Two Gallants" and drawn from journal entries kept during the my early years in Northern Ireland, this fictional narrative examines what happens when spiritual structures reward the appearance of goodness more than its practice. Part of a 15-story collection paralleling Joyce's Dubliners, set against the backdrop of Belfast.

In "Working the Floor," a young man working in a Belfast shoe shop finds connection in the careful ritual of fitting shoes—and in the brief, electric touch that can change everything while changing nothing at all. This is the second story in a series drawn from journal entries kept during my early years in Northern Ireland, transformed into fictional narratives that explore the quiet negotiations we make with ourselves and others in spaces that don't always make room for us.

Set in a divided city where every street has two names, this story follows a day that begins with the good smell of leather and cardboard, moves through the professional intimacy of measuring feet and fitting boots, and ends with an encounter that reminds us that in this town, nothing is only what it is. When a rugby player with a busted boot becomes something more than just another customer, the protagonist discovers how ritual and work can hold us together when the world asks us to split ourselves in two.

Through precise physical detail and restrained emotional expression, "Working the Floor" examines how small gestures carry weight, how touch can be both professional and profound, and how we navigate the distances between who we are and who we're allowed to be. It's a story about shoe shops and bridges, about mothers and teammates, about the spaces between streetlamps where a town forgets its own rules, and about the temporary countries we find in each other.

In this episode, I will present "The Bowler Hat", a quietly powerful story set in Belfast during the Troubles. When a young man buys a bowler hat from a second-hand shop, he embarks on an unexpected journey through a divided city. Neither protest nor performance, his daily walks in the hat become something else entirely: a small, stubborn act of bridging.

Through precise, poetic prose, this story captures the careful grammar of a place where kerbs keep their colors and streets answer to two names. It's about the weight of symbols, the courage of small gestures, and what it means to wear history on your head while trying to write a different future.

A meditation on identity, belonging, and the quiet spaces between communities, "The Bowler Hat" asks: what happens when you refuse to stay on your side of the line?

Join us for a fascinating deep dive into the life and legacy of Willem de Kooning, the Dutch-American painter who redefined Abstract Expressionism and broke all the rules. This episode explores his contradictions as an artist, the infamous $160 million art heist of his painting "Woman-Ochre," and the philosophical questions raised by his work during the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Discover the untold story of how a stolen masterpiece ended up in a bathroom in rural New Mexico, and what it all means for our understanding of art, possession, and creative genius.

🎧 Listen now on the Better World with Design podcast!

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Welcome back to Better World with Design. I'm Gary Crossey, and this is perhaps the hardest story I've shared in this Northern Irish short story series.

"The Living Room Violence" recounts a brutal night in the 80s Belfast, marked by flying eggs, sleeplessness, and a child's realization that normalcy inflicted lasting harm.

I drew this story from journal entries I kept during my early years in Belfast. Every detail—the brown curtains, the eggs, the 1:45 AM phone call—happened exactly as described. These are fictional narratives in form, but rooted in the emotional truth of those recorded moments.

This episode includes a direct message for anyone currently living with domestic violence: no one deserves violence in their home. The show notes also include resources and support information.

Part of a 15-story collection exploring themes of family dysfunction, survival, and the weight of growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Thank you for listening and thank you for witnessing this story with me.

When a giant walls off his garden, winter settles in for good—until one small act of welcome changes everything. In this immersive reading of Oscar Wilde’s “The Selfish Giant,” you’ll hear gentle sound design, a faithful performance of the text, and a warm reflection on why this simple fairy tale still melts hearts today. We connect this story to our earlier Oscar Wilde episode, The Canterville Ghost, showing how Wilde pairs wit with compassion and why his work matters now more than ever.

Why Wilde? Born in Dublin and beloved for his dazzling language and humane insights, Wilde championed beauty, kindness, and the dignity of outsiders. That’s why I keep returning to him—and why I love this tale in particular: it’s a parable you can feel, where generosity opens the gate and spring follows.

If this story brings a bit of spring to your day, follow the show, share the episode with a friend, and queue up The Canterville Ghost next for Wilde’s humor and heart in full glow.