In Episode 21 of the Life-Sized City podcast, Mikael Colville-Andersen engages his friend Bianca Hermansen - Danish architect, urbanist and thinker - in the idea of The Erotic City from an urbanist perspective. Eroticism, sensuality and intimacy are incredibly human needs but how does urban design allow them to thrive and flourish? To what extent does our urban fabric allow the sensory lines to become blurred and encourage sharing intimate moments with strangers? What aspects of a sensual city go lost in car-centric societies?

Pinar Pinzuti is a cycling advocate based in Milan. A veritable powerhouse of spreading the word about the importance of reestablishing the bicycle as transport in our cities. Pinar started the Fancy Women Bike Ride in Izmir, Turkey in 2013 and, in 2021, there were 150 rides in thirty countries. In this conversation with Mikael, Pinar discusses the idea behind her Fancy Women Bike Ride and the importance of empowering women through positive advocacy. They discuss Mikael’s Cycle Chic movement, the male-dominated cycling world and the future of selling cycling positively to the 99%.

Check out https://www.fancywomenbikeride.com

Intro and outro music by Phil Creamer from www.hereonout.ca.

Episode 19: What is slow, life-sized travel? On a visit to an off-the-grid tiny house in the Helsinki archipelago, Mikael discusses the idea with his friend, Carl Honoré. Carl is an author, broadcaster and the man who started the global Slow Movement. While Mikael has been thinking about Life-sized Travel for years, Carl has also been playing around with his concept of Slow Travel. They started planning a tv series about their shared visions for the future of travel and, in this candid conversation, they explore what the concept of slow, life-sized travelling might be and how it could be the direction we’re heading in, a post-pandemic world with an increasing focus on sustainability.

http://carlhonore.com

http://colville-andersen.com

The tiny house: http://majamaja.com

Intro and outro music by Phil Creamer from http://hereonout.ca

Mikael interviews the Chief Design Officer for Helsinki, Hanna Harris. Not many cities have a Chief Design Officer. Helsinki was the first city in the world to create the position back in 2016. The question shouldn’t be “should we get a CDO in our city” but rather “why don’t we have one already?!”

In Ep 15, Mikael interviews Deputy Mayor of Helsinki, Anni Sinnemäki. Check it out.

Mikael talks to Hanna about what her visions are for the city, how she works with the municipality and what weight Helsinki places on design - urban design, design thinking, citizen engagement through design, temporary urbanism, how design has helped with the pandemic…. you name it.

Hanna is cool and clear - professional and passionate - about explaining her work and the state of the design nation in Helsinki. As ever, the city remains one of the few cities in the world to watch as they rush headlong into the urban future, knocking over the last-century status quo and leaping over the traditional hurdles and barriers.

And Design leads the way.

Music by Phil Creamer from http://hereonout.ca

Mikael meets up with his friend, Danish architect, urbanist and thinker, Bianca Hermansen again. This time to talk long and hard about the importance of urban greenery.

They cover... brace yourself…

- How urban greenery is patriarchal - and based on outdated policies dictated by men so walking around a city with pollen allergies is basically having non-consensual sperm in your face all day long

- How urban trees are stunted in their growth - basically maimed - like the Chinese jar babies in the fourteenth century.

- The Mycelium Network - basically the underground internet that trees and plants use to communicate.

- How soil is the next frontier for our carbon free future.

- Insect extinction.

- How bacteria pee makes you feel good.

- It’s time to reject the old-fashioned guidelines for what is aesthetic and historically correct in cities and focus instead on quality of life.

Mikael mentions this previous episode about Copenhagen’s Tree Musketeers - https://soundcloud.com/mikael-colville-andersen/copenhagens-tree-musketeers?in=mikael-colville-andersen/sets/the-life-sized-city-season-1

Intro and outro music by Phil Creamer from http://www.hereonout.ca

Mikael has a conversation with his friend and colleague Bianca Hermansen - Danish architect and urban planner - about the oft used phrase “Democratic Design”. What it is supposed to mean and whether or not we’re anywhere close to actually doing it properly. They’re not optimistic. Urban design and planning are falling even farther behind despite the intensifying need for designing cities for everyone in them - not just the cis, car-driving male demographic. Bianca’s research shows that 72% of people in London feel excluded from their own city and that is the case in most cities around the world. She highlights the need for curating our cities in order to get back to being life-sized spaces for all citizens.

Mikael interviews Deputy Mayor of Helsinki, Anni Sinnemäki. She is basically the politician you wish you could vote for in your city. They had an all-round conversation about her visions for where Helsinki is headed. Carbon neutrality, a zero carbon future, energy transition, the folly of biomass, the ridiculousness of e-scooters, cycling design, marketing, leadership, inspiration from other cities and a whole bunch more.

Mikael discusses the state of the urban cycling nation in Paris with urban designer and mobility consultant Romain Loubiére while sitting on the canal in the spring sunshine on Canal Saint-Martin. They talk about how to tackle the all-dominant traffic engineering culture, the necessity of human observation in traffic planning, Paris’ investment in sub-standard design, who all the new cyclists in Paris are, the new car-light streets around Canal Saint Martin and how Paris - luckily - didn’t build all the highways that were planned in the city centre back in the 1960s.

Music by Phil Creamer from http://hereonout.ca

We've spent outrageous amounts of time and money trying to engineer the weather out of our lives. We suffer from Climaphobia - not a phobia of extreme weather - just the regular stuff that happens outside your home wherever you may live.

Changing peoples' perception is the greatest challenge facing our work to modernise our cities. Understanding what we're up against is important. Showing before telling is key. Effective communication is vital.

Mikael Colville-Andersen's website: http://colville-andersen.com

Music by Phil Creamer from http://hereonout.ca

Mikael reads aloud from the 1973 essay, The Social Ideology of the Motorcar, by French-Austrian philosopher André Gorz. It is a seminal work that is just as relevant today as it was back then and it has been a big influence on Mikael's work in urbanism.