Talking Spaces: FX Magazine's new podcast
FX Magazine is thrilled to present its new podcast series, Talking Spaces, with the launch of the first episode!
Talking Spaces: A new podcast from FX Magazine
While it might be a little harder than usual to get your hands on a copy of FX Magazine at the moment, we are thrilled to be bringing you something new – with the release of our first ever podcast series, Talking Spaces.
FX is always interested in exploring the design of all the spaces in which we spend our lives, whether that be schools, offices, hotels, bars or hospitals – and this podcast will be no exception. Throughout the series we’ll be joined by guests inside and outside the industry to for provocative conversations on all that goes into designing these spaces.
Though our usual routines have been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the current restrictions and the ways individuals and businesses have adapted to them have raised all sorts of questions that challenge the ways we have been living and working, and of course, how we design for that.
For the first episode – made while we are all isolated from each other – we’re thinking more specifically about creating a space to talk. Our two guests are Laura Lee, CEO of the charity Maggie's, which provides cancer care centres adjacent to hospitals, and the poet and spoken word artist LionHeart, who has been working closely with a number of major architecture practices in recent years.
With Laura we talk about how Maggie’s has been transforming the way we design for healthcare since its first centre opened in 1996, while with LionHeart we discuss his work with architecture practices using poetry to explore how environment can promote mental wellbeing.
‘Why do architects need poets?’ LionHeart asks in the podcast. As he explains in our conversation, not everyone understood what he was doing when he first started approaching practices, but now the industry seems to be welcoming him in to work with them. We hope you’ll have a listen to find out how that changed.
The conversation with Laura Lee is full to the brim with insight from over 20 years creating Maggie’s centres across the UK and abroad. She has some fascinating and unexpected things to say about creating the environments necessary for cancer care, but also has a new call out to designers for some new elements that she thinks Maggie’s centres, as well as other healthcare environments, could benefit from enormously.
We’ll be releasing more episodes in the coming months, so please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you don’t miss any of them!
The host for this podcast is Sophie Tolhurst, assistant editor of FX Magazine. Music, editing and production is provided by Lee Endres. We hope you enjoy the series. Our first episode can be found here, or via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Soundcloud.
About the Speakers
Laura Lee, CEO Maggie’s
Laura Lee started her career as a Registered General Nurse in the NHS in Scotland. While working as a Clinical Nurse Specialist at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh she became Maggie Keswick Jencks’ nurse during her treatment for secondary breast cancer.
Maggie and her husband Charles Jencks shared their vision of a cancer support centre in an uplifting environment and in 1996 Laura oversaw the opening of Maggie’s Edinburgh, where she became Programme Director and Centre Head before being elected Maggie’s Chief Executive in 1998.
Now Laura is the Chief Executive of an international charity and the single biggest commissioner of modern architecture in the world, working with some of the planet’s biggest architects including Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Norman Foster and Richard Rogers. She has reformed the conversation about the importance of environment on wellbeing and was awarded RIBA’s ‘Client of the Year’ in 2009. In 2019, Laura was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honour List.
Laura has grown the support she pioneered in the very first Maggie’s centre to 26 centres across the UK and beyond and the charity supports over 285,000 people with cancer every year. This support makes a real difference to the lives of people with cancer and their friends and families.
maggies.org
LionHeart, poet and spoken word artist
LionHeart is a TEDx Speaker, BBC Radio London Presenter, award winning poet and international spoken word performer. He was the first poet in residence at the prestigious Saatchi Gallery, Grimshaw Architects, PLP architects and Squire & Partners. LionHeart uses poetry to explore an architect's approach to design, to see how both disciplines can be used to ameliorate mental health through collaborative design. This research is partly funded by Arts Council England's Developing Your Creative Practice initiative.
lionheartfeltonline.com
Listen to Talking Spaces on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Soundcloud. Don’t forget to subscribe to get new episodes as soon as they are released!
