Designer Thomas Heatherwick thinks that the way towns and cities get built is a quiet global catastrophe affecting all our lives. Far too many buildings are too flat, too plain, too straight, too shiny, too soulless, too boring. Thomas calls this a "blandemic".
In the first part of Thomas' series for BBC Radio 4, he is on a mission to explain why this is far from a trivial issue - that it's bad for our health, bad for society and bad for the planet.
Backed by the latest cutting-edge scientific research, Thomas exposes the damage being done by the identikit modern urban environments scattered across the world.
And that same research says that successful buildings, ones that make us joyful when we look at them, have three core attributes. They should:
be easy to comprehend
contain interesting details
make you feel like you belong in and around them
We at Planix thoroughly back this approach and we aim to follow it in the buildings we help to design and get planning permission for.
You can listen to the whole of Thomas' fascinating programme yourself here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001r1b2
