Hey there, I'm Jason Gots and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.

Started in 2008, Big Think is a kind of online think tank of big ideas from some of the most creative thinkers on the planet.

On the podcast, we revisit these ideas in new ways.

Our producers surprise me and my guests with short interview clips from Big Things Archives,

ideas that we didn't necessarily come here expecting to discuss.

I'm very, very happy to be here today with Sarah W. Goldhagen.

She taught for 10 years at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and spent many years as the

architecture critic for the New Republic. She's written about buildings, cities, 10 years at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and spent many years as the architecture

critic for the New Republic.

She's written about buildings, cities, and landscapes for publications all over the world.

Sarah's new book, Welcome to Your World, How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives, is a thoroughly

entertaining, eye-opening manifesto, arguing that the buildings we live and work in deeply affect us,

and we can't afford the crummy design that we mostly subject ourselves to.

Welcome to think again, sir.

Thank you, Jason. It's a pleasure to be here.

It's so good to have you here.

Your book was interesting to me for all kinds of reasons, but one of them is that I generally consider

myself an aware and open-minded kind of person, but I think I'm pretty obtuse when it comes

to my lived environment. I'm not that aware of the physical spaces around me, but your book

argues that that's most of us absolutely I mean we're

wired not to be aware of the physical spaces around us most of the time because

we're busy living our lives and creating goals executing the goals I mean

...