Our weekly podcast, ‘Massive Small Stories’, presents lessons from all over the world, amplifying how inspiring people have done amazing things throughout their lives and careers to bring about positive change to their cities, towns or neighbourhoods. It celebrates those who have overcome all odds by pursuing their purpose in life, challenging the status quo, seeing the solution through the other side of the lens and, relentlessly persevering to deliver the change we all want. These are the radical incrementalists - our Massive Small agents of change.
Kelvin Campbell and Liam Black talk to Jonathan Smales, executive chairman at Human Nature (Places), a unique development company that is crafting, prototyping, building and learning from work on urban blocks, mixed-use buildings, street types, landscape treatments, energy and mobility systems.
Jonathan was MD of Greenpeace (UK), a sustainability advisor to the government, and developed some of the UK’s first major sustainability projects, such as the Earth Centre and Greenpeace HQ. Hands-on with all aspects of the project from masterplanning to policy, engagement and structuring, Jonathan transfers his experience leading and advising on some of the UK’s largest development and regeneration projects to his leadership of Human Nature; he is a champion of deep collaboration and its role in shaping the social imagination – our purpose.
29 Feb 2024
#013. The Public Space Protagonist: Darshana Gothi Chauhan
Kelvin Campbell talks to Darshana Gothi Chauhan, founder and CEO of Co-Plug, - architect, urban designer and urban data analytics expert with 14 years of experience of working in the public, private and academic sector linked to the planning and designing of cities.
Darshana founded the DesTech Challenge, a unique design and tech competition that brings together creative thinking and digital advancements in the built environment sector. The competition has an outreach of over 200 colleges and universities in South Asia and has helped to upskill students from over 40+ colleges in spatial data analytics. The challenge, supported by the WorldLabs platform has helped to crowdsource geospatial data of open spaces of over 35 cities in South Asia to support the development of data driven design and technical solutions for the planning of healthy cities.
22 Feb 2024
#012. The Better Block Brewer: Jason Roberts
Kelvin Campbell and Isaac Barbosa talk to Jason Roberts, founder of the Better Block, artist, civic activist, and urban designer whose life’s work has been dedicated to the creation of healthy, vibrant, and sustainable neighbourhoods.
15 Feb 2024
#011. The Lone Voice in the Wilderness: Yolande Barnes
Kelvin Campbell and Richard Ingleton talk to Yolande Barnes - researcher, commentator and consultant - Professor at the new Bartlett Real Estate Institute (University College London) - looking at the social, environmental and economic value of the built environment.
8 Feb 2024
#010. The Civic Therapist: Jeff Siegler
Kelvin Campbell and Isaac Barbosa talk to Jeff Siegler - a writer, speaker, and consultant concerned with the powerful role place plays in our lives.
1 Feb 2024
#009. The Evolving Place Networker: Michael Mehaffy
Kelvin Campbell and Liam Black talk to Michael Mehaffy - an urbanist, architectural theorist, urban philosopher, researcher, educator, and executive director of Sustasis Foundation, based in Portland, Oregon, USA.
Mehaffy is the author of Cities Alive: Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander and the Roots of the New Urban Renaissance.[2] The book explores the ideas behind the United Nations’ “New Urban Agenda” to which Mehaffy contributed as a consultant to UN-Habitat.[3]
28 Jan 2024
#008. The Techno Urbanist: Euan Mills
Kelvin Campbell and Liam Black talk to Euan Mills - urban designer, digital planning advisor, and Co-founder of Blocktype, a tech startup focussing on generating urban neighbourhoods
16 Jan 2024
#007. The Northern Powerhouse: Ruth Ibegbuna
Kelvin Campbell and Liam Black talk to Ruth Ibegbuna, the Founder of RECLAIM, The Roots Programme and the Rekindle School.
Ruth is a bold and pioneering CEO, with a relentless focus on working side by side with young people to build a fairer future. She is an expert in encouraging young people to believe in their inherent abilities and to demand the best for themselves and their lives.
Ruth was listed in The Sunday Times as one of the 500 most influential people in the UK, in The Debrett’s 500 in 2016. She was also listed by Virgin and Ashoka as one of the top six female change-makers internationally.
9 Jan 2024
#006. The Neighbourhood Champ: Seth Kaplan
Kelvin Campbell and Liam Black talk to Seth Kaplan, author of ‘Fragile Neighbourhoods: Repairing American Society, One Zip Code at a Time’
2 Jan 2024
#005. The Radical Tea Drinker: Maff Potts
Kelvin Campbell and Liam Black talk to Maff Potts, the self-confessed nuisance, jazz musician and Director at Association of Camerados, the public living room people who get together and get each other through tough times. Not to be missed.
5 Dec 2023
#004. The Gloves-off Mentor: Liam Black
Driven by social purpose and the pursuit of fairness, Liam Black talks of his upbringing, influences and path to the cause of social enterprise.
5 Dec 2023
#003. The Seasoned Contrarian: Kelvin Campbell – Part 2
Case-hardened, but still a rational optimist and terminal idealist, Kelvin talks of his later experiences in developing Massive Small theory.
5 Dec 2023
#002. The Seasoned Contrarian: Kelvin CaMPBELL - PART 1
A terminal idealist driven by doing the right thing, Kelvin talks of his early experiences in housing, urbanism and informal settlements that shaped his thinking in later life.
4 Dec 2023
#001. Trailer: Massive Small Stories
In our increasingly complex world – the MASSIVE SMALL purpose is to reconcile the conflicts and release the potentials that exist between our top-down systems of government and the bottom-up needs of its citizens – to build a better urban society. So, our niche in this podcast lies in where we integrate people, places, and politics with social purpose and, how we can learn from these dynamics.
Our conversations will explore a different way to confront the challenges! We call this way ‘making Massive Small change’ (or sometimes, ‘radical incrementalism’). So, whenever people take control over the places they live in, adapting them to their needs they create conditions that are capable of adapting to future change. When many people do this, it adds up to a fundamental shift. This is what we call Massive Small change.
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