HAIGH Architects | BBC Radio 4 | The Listening Project Pod

BBC Radio 4 : The Listening Project Pod : RIBA Competitions: England 2013

The design of BBC Radio 4's Listening Project Pod was an international architectural competition administered by the Royal Institute of British Architects. Over 80 designs were received from 13 countries worldwide.

The Listening Project is a BBC Radio 4 initiative in partnership with BBC Local Radio in which people across the UK volunteer to record a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices, capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. The project has had an impact on many people's lives already, as well as producing some truly memorable radio moments.

Concept and Design Challenge

The Listening Project is about creating important conversational opportunities between two people; siblings, parents, couples etc. The design challenge is to create a special Listening Pod to travel around the UK, to extend the geographical reach of this unique and important oral history project.

Design Concept

The proposed Listening Project Pod design conceptually responds to the brief by invoking the architectural idea of the 'container' versus the 'contained'. The juxtaposition of the physical 'container object' (pod) and the invisible 'contained recorded' conversation (seed).

Juror Comment

Tony Phillips, Commissioning Editor, BBC Radio 4 commented: "My fellow panelists and I were hugely impressed by the range, the effort, and the overall standard of the designs submitted, combining creative flair and technical precision as they did."